Northwest Montana Check Stations Log 4,832 Hunters and 269 Whitetails Through Week Three

Hunters made 4,832 stops at the four northwest Montana check stations through the third weekend of the general big game season on November 8, down from 5,162 at the same point last year, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks said in a release from Kalispell on November 9. The stations checked 269 white-tailed deer, 48 mule deer bucks and 32 elk, and the share of hunters with game stood at 7.2 percent against 8.3 percent a year earlier.

The department’s station table puts the mule deer buck count at 48 against 42 last year and elk at 32 against 37, the two lines it describes as encouraging movement and steady harvest. Whitetails fell from 349 to 269, with whitetail bucks at 180 against 204. The Highway 2 station west of Kalispell logged 2,489 hunters (2,602 last year), 125 whitetails, 24 mule deer bucks and 16 elk at 6.6 percent success. Olney on Highway 93 logged 1,264 hunters (1,341), 91 whitetails, 10 mule deer bucks and 5 elk at 8.4 percent. Swan Lake on Montana Highway 83 logged 560 hunters (628), 28 whitetails, one mule deer buck and two elk at 5.5 percent, and Thompson Falls on Highway 200 logged 519 hunters (591), 25 whitetails, 13 mule deer bucks and 9 elk at 9.1 percent, the only station to match its 2025 rate.

FWP attributes the slower pace to warm weather that keeps deer less active and moving at night, and it expects harvest to rise as the weather cools and the rut approaches. Two weekends in, the same stations had logged 3,235 hunters, 183 whitetails, 24 mule deer bucks and 23 elk at 7.1 percent, so the third weekend added about 1,600 hunters, 86 whitetails and 24 mule deer bucks.

Hunters must stop at any check station they pass whether or not they took an animal, and the stations are open on weekends from 10 a.m. to about an hour and a half past sunset. The counts are a sample of the harvest, not the full number of animals taken. In Region 1 the antlerless elk B licenses are valid only on private property this season, hunters bound for SPP lands or the Flathead Ridge Ranch Block Management Area must follow the new permission rules for the three separate block management areas that replaced the single access system, and carcasses should hang at least 10 feet off the ground and 4 feet from any upright support in bear country.

Testing for chronic wasting disease (CWD) remains mandatory for animals taken on the White-tailed Deer B License 199-20 in hunting districts 100, 103 and 104, the Mule Deer Permit 103-50 in district 103 and the White-tailed Deer B License HD170-20 in district 170. Samples are taken at the FWP Kalispell office at 490 North Meridian Road weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the Libby station at 35838 U.S. Highway 2 from Saturday through Monday from 10 a.m. to sunset, and at the Thompson Falls office at 5427 MT-200 on Mondays, or hunters can mail their own samples to the Wildlife Health Lab in Bozeman.

The stations stay open on weekends for the rest of the general season, which runs through November 29, 2026.