Antelope up, pheasants down at Havre game-check station

Opening weekend for antelope and pheasant hunting was relatively slow across northeastern Montana, according to data collected at FWP’s game-check station on U.S. Highway 2 east of Havre.

Biologists and technicians contacted 258 antelope hunters in the first weekend of the season and another 104 hunters during the second weekend of the season. That’s well above last year’s pace and on par with the long-term activity. This year about 75 percent of antelope hunters who stopped at the station had game. FWP checked 155 bucks on the opening weekend and another 40 last weekend. So far this season 57 doe and 20 fawn antelope have been checked at the station.

FWP checked 511 pheasants on the first weekend of the pheasant season and 163 roosters last weekend. That’s substantially below last year’s pace and confirms biologists’ assessments that pheasant production in northeastern Montana was lower than earlier predicted. Check station crews also recorded 54 sharp-tailed grouse, 6 sage grouse and 28 Hungarian partridge. Those numbers are significantly lower than last year’s tallies.

Hunters are required to stop at all game-check station, whether they have game or not. The Havre check station is used to collect a wide variety of biological information, including the sex and age of animals and where it was harvested. The check station is also a collection depot for deer and elk heads that will be used to monitor for the presence of chronic wasting disease in northeastern and north-central Montana.

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