Missouri Breaks

Need A Place To Go?

Where can you go to hunt in Montana that provides you with opportunities for huns, sharptails, pheasants, geese, ducks, turkeys, antelope, deer and elk? (Of course, you need to draw tags for antelope and elk.) The answer is the Missouri River Breaks. What makes this area even better is that you don’t have to wonder if you are trespassing.

This area, commonly referred to as “the Breaks” encompasses the upper Missouri River Breaks, which begin at US Highway 87 near Fort Benton, includes the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, and concludes at Fort Peck Dam. All told, this area is approximately 274 air miles in length and provides 1,475,000 acres (including Fort Peck Reservoir) of recreation opportunities for the outdoorsman.



Stories of Success
On this trip, a friend scored a bull elk tag and shot one that we rough-scored at 330 B&C. My friend saw 11 bulls one morning and took the biggest one. In addition, he shot a 24 inch mule deer. Not bad for 10 days of hunting. I joined him later on his trip and was able to shoot the buck pictured above whose rack measured 22 inches wide and 20 inches tall.

As luck would have it the next day we saw 3 bucks that were all bigger than the buck I took. We were able to get 83 yards from them (I had my rangefinder). The biggest buck was a brusier. We guessed him at 26 inches wide. He had deep forks and a very heavy frame. With only a few weeks left in the season and where he's at I think he has a good chance at making till next year.

Sharptails

In addition to a successful hunt for mule deer. I also packed my shotgun and hit some of the public ground around the breaks. We hit some of the local BLM and Block Management lands and found great sharptail hunting. These birds didn’t seem to have received too much pressure and were flushing well inside gun range. This was great considering we weren’t hunting over dogs. We got into groups of birds numbering in the 40’s and 50’s, some of the best sharptail hunting I’ve experienced. Other members in our group saw even larger numbers of birds. Needless to say, it didn’t take long to get our limits.

If this story motivates you to make a combo hunt, don’t forget your decoys. We saw so many geese and ducks we wish we had packed them. The geese were piling into stubble fields and winter wheat, and we didn’t see anyone else hunting.

Just one more thing. We visited a local rancher who provides access to hunters, and we saw over 30 turkeys just on his place. When we asked if we could hunt, he told us, “Have at it.” Unfortunately, we ran out of time. The good news is turkey season closes on January 1.

Suburban Elk

Here's a video of some elk near Bozeman about a 1/2 mile from my house. These elk have been causing problems on this end of town for over 4 years. They lead to altercations between hunters, people who like watching the elk, landowners, and unethical slobs who would do anything to shoot an easy elk.

Pheasants, Pheasants, Pheasants

After traveling around central Montana looking for some pheasants I was able to locate some on a ranch near Winnett. The cold, wet weather we had in May and June along with a late season hail storm really took the toll on birds. Although the ranch owner described this as a down year I was able to get a 3 bird limit in about 1.5 hours. I saw an abundant amount of birds and had ample shot opportunity. This ranch has ideal habitat with 3 miles of creek bottom and closely controlled access. The ranch owners also manage the coyotes very closely to limit predation. If you want to hunt this place look up TRIP ID 2211, only members get hunt this ranch! Click here to join today!

Central Montana Bird Hunting

I've spent the last few days chasing birds with some mixed results. It seems like some areas experienced huge problems with a hail storm that swept through Montana. This effected nesting birds and seemed to really take a toll on pheasant numbers.

However, yesterday I shot 2 pheasants and did see over 20 birds. Here's why I think I saw as many birds as I did.

• I was hunting on private land with limited pressure (You can too with a membership to SportsmensAccess.com)


• I had access to dogs


• I was willing to walk


• I took my time and talked to the land owner for over an hour before I started

All of these things can make the difference to being successful in the field or not. So sieze the day and get out there and hunt!

I'm hunting a different ranch today and will keep you posted. It seems like some areas were not as hard it with the hail storm as others.

Shoot Straight! (I know I could've used this advice yesterday! A few too many missed shots)