New guy planning first mt hunt any advise?

[Kevin Root]

fatkid we had one of the huntingGPSmaps.com cards in our GPS that shows us the private and BLM. Those cards are very, very helpful. Some of our party had bought additional whitetail doe tags and it really helps having that card in the GPS. We used it primarily to know if we were on private or BLM land at a glance. A few of the guys got their whitetail does in transition from the private to the public. We did not see any whitetail up higher from where the mule deer were. We checked over some small areas of BLM just to check out something new but mostly hit the timbered draws in Custer. Like larrylur mentions above glassing can find animals too and save you a lot of walking in Custer. There are areas wide open from past burns up in there and deer are in thru there as well. When we had killed all our animals we drove them into Broadus Meats to get processed and flash frozen.

We were hearing the deer numbers were down this year and it's perhaps not the hay day it used to be 15-20 years ago but we had overall pretty good success this year in Custer and saw bucks and does every day.

[larrylur]

I hunted both. Custer is one big piece of national forrest so you can camp, hike, drive all inside miles and miles of public land. It is beautifull country. Conveinent to say in if you have a larger party so guys can go different directions.

The BLM areas are more fragmented and harder to be positive you are not on private property. The hunting GPS card that Kevin is talking about would be fantastic but I've always been very good with folding maps and using my old Garmin GPS to measure landmarks to confirm my positions. There usually are small signs posted on fences for state and BLM land but not always. And remember you can not cross private property to access BLM / State land. If the area on the map is landlocked you would need permission to cross not matter how short of a distance it is. You can only acess BLM/State lane if they cross or boarder a public road. Some of the Block Management areas access landlocked BLM land so you can get permission that way, to get into some of those areas.


Deer numbers are way down according to the regular hunters in that area I talked to, while I was there. The winter kill was to blame and that area is getting more pressure than it did 5 - 10 years ago. Depending on who you talked to some would say go north, some would say stay south so who knows. Hopefully we get a much milder winter the next few years and the numbers bounce back.

[fatkid]

well guys we are all but ready . we filled out our packets about a month ago so all we can do is wait. once agian we are planning on the south east area . does anyone have any good or bad thoughts on were to stay our were to stay away from. also should we book a place now then back out if we dont get drawn?