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The antelope were in the peak of their rut, and as is common with hormonal imbalances amongst all species, appeared to have completely lost their minds! The adjacent photo reminds me of nothing so much as a group of inebriated young males, fighting and making utter fools of themselves over an aloof and apparently disinterested female. In this case, five bucks (including some pretty big ones) were fighting and tearing around like complete lunatics in an area about 75 yards in diameter. They’d race at top speed, which for an antelope is pretty darn fast, in one direction for a few moments, turn and race in the opposite direction, spin in circles, engage in pushing contests, and generally demonstrate that they had taken complete leave of their senses. Testosterone is truly a terrible and wonderful thing!

We were attempting to lure a buck into arrow range by using a decoy consisting of a plastic antelope silhouette. It worked, after a fashion, and my son and his buddy both got shots at speed goats, but didn’t connect. Probably something to do with extremely excited and rattled youth shooting at equally agitated targets. My son did have two decent bucks pass within about 50 feet of the decoy and himself. Unfortunately, they were travelling at about 50 mph at the time, and afforded no shot opportunity. Dealing with rut-crazed critters of any species is unpredictable, but I think our timing was a bit off. Lone bucks that had been driven away from the does were leery of coming in. I think they’d had their butts kicked, and weren’t anxious for a repeat. The bucks that had does were occupied (we observed several bucks mounting does), and while they took notice of our decoy, wouldn’t come in. I’d say we hit the absolute peak of the rut, and might have had better luck decoying them in a few days earlier. Anyway, it was tremendously fun and entertaining, and we filed away several promising locations to return to in a couple of weeks when rifle season opens for antelope.

Once again, we had no difficulty finding any number of places to hunt, and it further eroded any sympathy for people who complain that "there’s just no place to hunt anymore". There were numerous Block Management properties, which is a program administered by Fish, Wildlife, and Parks that compensates private landowners for allowing public access to their property. It’s a common complain that Block Management properties don’t offer good hunting, and depending on which one you choose; you could certainly arrive at that conclusion. One property we hunted had no antelope whatsoever on it, but others were crawling with them. So, if you plan to utilize the Block Management Program, which I heartily recommend, you should do some homework ahead of time. There’s also a fair bit of public land scattered throughout the Big Open. With the exception of the Missouri Breaks, it tends to be in relatively small, scattered parcels, but a little bit of map study will reveal an abundance of places you can go. Also, numerous landowners in the area will allow hunting in exchange for a trespass fee. Just like most native Montanans, we miss the days when you could get on most ranches just for the asking, but that is becoming increasingly rare. If a ranch offers good hunting, I certainly don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to ask a fee. The agricultural economy could hardly be worse, and if a landowner can turn a buck from hunting or fishing, they will see it is in their best interest to manage to optimize habitat.

Of course, outfitters lease some of the best private property. To some degree, this is less of a factor with antelope than it is with deer, though. The problem outfitters have in eastern Montana, primarily in FWP Region 7, is that due to non-residents being restricted to 10% of the tags in any given hunting district, their clients can’t draw tags on any sort of consistent basis. If this is a dilemma you’re facing, check out the relevant articles in our Hunting Article section. There are districts in Region 5, adjacent to the west, where non-residents can be virtually assured of drawing a tag, and where there are also antelope in abundance.

Historically, due to winterkill, Montana hasn’t produced the trophy caliber of antelope more common to states like Arizona and New Mexico. We’ve had a number of very mild winters consecutively now, though, and it appears that trophy quality is very high, not only for antelope, but also deer and elk this year. We expected the drought conditions we suffered this past spring and summer to have an adverse effect on antler and horn growth, but that does not appear to be the case, and I’ll bet a lot of trophies go on the wall this coming fall. Not to mention, of course, a lot of tasty meat into the freezer. If you’re planning to hunt Montana this fall, perhaps we’ll see you around, and if not; think about it for next year!