Montana Blue Tongue

[wmm]

Anyone hunt eastern Montana this year and find all the dead goats? It was nuts. Wanting to know if anyone has done research on next years forecast?

[northern]

Yea there was alot of goats. Rumor has it that FWP will be dropping quotas this year. The herds were alot smaller last year than before. Time will Tell thou

[wmm]

Maybe this will finally make me choose 900 series as my first choice.

[NONYA]

There will be no OTC archery antelope hunts in the two effected areas,there my be no tags at all in the one hardest hit,thats what the local warden says any\who.

[MontanaMonkey]

I hunted the east last year, and I think that is the worst blue tongue outbreak I have ever seen. It also knocked down almost all of the Whitetail and a whole bunch of Mulies in the Yellowstone river valley from Billings to Miles City, so I expect to see them quotas dropping for Mulies and Whiteys too. I came across a whole lot of dead WT on the river in about a mile and a half walk in November, so I didnt hunt them anymore. It was pretty bad out there. I guess that is Mother Natures way of saying that there is way to many speed goats in EM, cause they sure took a beating. But, they will be back in three or four years.

[wmm]

I agree, it's natures way. I heard about the deer in the river bottoms too. I personally didn't hunt that terrain so didn't see any. But lots of goats..... The other amazing thing, is still how many goats there were. There wasn't an hour in the day that we weren't putting something together to try and get on some.

[Hiker]

Always sad to see when these diseases do this, do you think the Muleys in Ashland & Broadus areas were effected?

[MontanaMonkey]

do you think the Muleys in Ashland & Broadus areas were effected?

I didnt know that there were deer in that area any more! Just kidding. From what I understand, it mostly affected whiteys and Antelope. I have been waiting for the antelope to get Blue tongue for the past three or four years, cause there is just so many of them out there, I guess it finally caught up. I talked to a buddy of mine who has a ranch down on the Powder, and he said that quite a few of his Muleys got it, but not as viscious as it hit the Antelope. He also said that almost all of the WT that he had, are gone. Like I said before though, thats just mother natures way of thinning the herd. I remember blue tounge killing off thousands of Muleys when I was a kid in the same area, you didnt see hardly any for about three years, but as the saying goes, the strong survive, and years later, we had awesome herds. I guess it was just time to cut down again, trying now to decide if I want to get tags for a different area next year, probably a good idea.

[NONYA]

A friend has a horse ranch south of Ashland they found a bunch of dead deer and turkeys,can turkeys get it too?

[wmm]

So what about eating even the healthy animals? I ended up getting a goat and just couldn't bring myself around to taking a bite. And don't say "you eat those things???????", I know easterners consider them prarie maggots But I typically do like them. Anyways.... Anyone have thoughts on that? FWP says it's fine.