Howdy from Montana

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Stonebroke

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I just found this site. I'm in Northcentral Montana along the Milk River... about 30 miles south of the Saskatchewan Border. I've lived here for the past 37 years. I've bred Field Bred Springers for the past 29 years and currently have 7 as well as a Llewellin Setter. I hunt pretty much anything and everything and we do a lot of fishing. That's why we live here!!!
 
Welcome to bird hunting group therapy! I love MT and have a FBESS! Been to region 6 the past few years. See you at the next meeting!
 
Welcome to the forum! We are planning to move to Helena,MT in a year or so depending when our cabin and house sell.
 
Welcome to the site Stonebroke! I had some friends that lived out that way years ago and they said that the fishing along the Milk River was amazing. I never had the opportunity to try it for myself, but I did visit them and that country is unbelievable.

I have been reading on this site for quite some time, but recently started partaking in the forums. There are some very informative and interesting discussions that take place! Welcome again! :cheers:
 
Thanks all.... Our pheasant numbers have been below average around here for the past couple of years, but hopefully we'll have a good hatch and numbers will recover.
 
That's the tough thing about it. There are so many double-edged swords when it comes to the land. The more CRP, the more hunters come because of the increased habitat, which means more income for local businesses....but the government needs to provide the farmers the proper benefits to make it worth their while.
 
RoyalFlush said:
That's the tough thing about it. There are so many double-edged swords when it comes to the land. The more CRP, the more hunters come because of the increased habitat, which means more income for local businesses....but the government needs to provide the farmers the proper benefits to make it worth their while.
Click to expand...

CRP started out as a program for taking submarginal farm land out of production...land that probably shouldn't have been farmed in the first place, but it ended up far different from that. Grain prices were low, so farmers found ways to put prime farm land into CRP, or at least that's what was happening around here. Grain prices shot up, CRP contracts were ending, and suddenly farmers were farming every thing they could and now grain prices are back down so low farmers are struggling again.

I don't believe the CRP around here brought in larger number of hunters. It's all private land and in Montana hunters have to have landowner permission to hunt and it's not easy for a non-resident to get permission to hunt private land (or residents too for that matter).

When CRP first started up, it couldn't be touched. Farmers couldn't graze it, they couldn't hay it, etc., but then we had some drought years and the government started allowing some grazing and haying. I'm not sure what the details were, but I believe farmers had to forfeit some of their CRP payments. Once the gate was open, the end in CRP was just a matter of time...

At any rate, CRP is pretty much history around here and pheasants numbers are a fraction of what they were 10 or 15 years ago. Such is life.....
 
That is unfortunate about the CRP lands! Guess you will have to put up with the amazing big-game hunting and the beautiful landscapes along with the endless scenery!! :cheers:
 
I always find a couple of days to hunt the block management in your area. Just enough scent to keep the dogs interested and usually not too many hunters.
 
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