Local Hunter Check Stations Show Most Elk Coming Through Darby, Deer Through Bonner
Hunters in West Central Montana didn’t do quite as well this past weekend compared to the first week of general rifle season, but Montana FWP Public Information Officer Vivica Crowser says the results were still better than in other recent years.
"The hunters coming through the check stations and the harvests coming through slowed down a little in the second week of the season compared to the first," Crowser said. "The cumulative season totals still look pretty good, they're up from where we've seen the past three years as totals: the white tail harvest is above anything we've seen since 2008 and the elk harvest is up above anything we've seen since 2013.
There are three different hunter check stations in west-central Montana and the results from each were quite different.
"The Blackfoot harvest is mostly accounted for through the Bonner station and we're seeing most of the region's white tail deer that way," Crowser said. "Most of the elk harvest in the region is coming through the Darby check station and then Anaconda is pretty slow all in all, kind of a mixed bag coming through there."
So far this year, FWP checked 4,112 hunters, 157 elk, 21 mule deer, 162 white-tailed deer, seven black bears, one bighorn sheep and one wolf.