December 24, Good morning GBO

[Double D]

Good morning everyone.  We had a howler last night.  Wind was rattling windows and door.  It's 27 degrees right now and I need to go shovel snow now before it melts on the walks and makes ice.

It's Chrismas Eve, I hope you have your Christmas shopping done becasue it's almost to late.

Merry Christmas every one!

[Double D]

Well the snow is shovelled and now I can talk.

Went out yesterday and dropped off boxes of candy to the landowners who let us hunt their property.  Put up some pictures on the Montana pictures post of the scenery.

While driving around we saw deer everywhere. We counted 107 deer. Mostly Mulies.  Saw a realy big bodied Whitetail with smaller rack. From his configuration he probably will never be a trophy deer, but he will make a good meat buck. My wife was excited about this deer becasue he was feeding on a pile of spilled grain that she had hunted over.

We saw several good Mulie Bucks, 4 pts. of the usual size for Prairie Mulies.  On the way home as we drove across the Kevin Flat we saw deer.  We weren''t surprised to see deer on the flat, we were surprised at the number of deer we saw.  Half the deer we saw were on that flat.  One section of the flat has a bunch of ranches that do not allow hunting.  No big deal as it gives the deer a sanctuary.  I don't think I have seen more than one or two deer on those ranches anyway. We saw a small herd of Mulie does along the road. Just before we left the flat to start up on the rim I saw a lone buck standing out in the field. Nice looking 4 pt.  I stopped to look at him. When I stopped a second buck stood up.  This buck was huge. Huge body, huge antlers. It's been a while since I have seen a Mulie this big down on the prairie.

He had great long eyeguards and his rack was big tall and moderately wide, perhaps 22-24 inches and very very heavy. He started looking at me straight at me and his spread was visably wider the his ears and butt, a lot wider. His rack was taller than it was wide.  He had the blunt broken nose look of an older deer.  When he turned his head I could see that he had 5 points in each side in very uniform long points.  The rear fork had a second fork on the rear time.  Never seen one like that before.   Wow what a thrill.  Being it's been over a month since deer season ended and the rut is over, you know his genes got passed on.  I just hope this old boy survives the winter.

[dpe.ahoy]

He sounds like a beauty.  I'm sure FWP sends an "All Clear" to the deer and elk when season is done.   Sounds like the extended season went well, I heard over 1400 were harvested.  Still didn't get out for Elk this year, AGAIN.  Next year will have to do.   Merry Christmas, hope Santa gets ya what you wished for.  DP

[james]

Glad to hear a good buck is still running around.  My brother said the mulies had moved off his ranch near Lewistown before the season opened but he is high in elevation and they had an early snow.   He was talking with his neighbors and they didn't have mulies either and were afraid there had been some type of die off.   Maybe they just migrated out on the prairie. 

[Double D]

As warm as it was for deer season this year the Mulies were probably still scattered out.

[dpe.ahoy]

I hunted on land north of Winnett, East of Lewistown, and had lots of mulies running around.  I got 7 and one of my sons got 1, still lots of deer there.  DP