It’s no secret that areas that maintain a very high deer density such as the Milk River in Montana are occasionally hit with EHD or “blue tongue” disease. But this year an incredibly “perfect storm” has left the region with very, very few deer. And it’s very sad.

First, the toughest winter in many, many years killed about 40-50% of the deer herd. THEN, “blue tongue” hit late summer and has killed roughly another 60-70% of the deer herd. The net result means no hunting for 2-3 years so the deer herd can build back up.
Recently, Michael Waddell went over to the Milk River after an elk hunt nearby to see firsthand just how bad the situation was.  The “wild” can be extremely harsh.  Here is his report:

DAY 1---Stephen and I arrived to the Milk River on Friday the 9th.. We rolled in and immediately head to the look out above the Carrollfield. As we looked over the top it was around 5:30 pm, it was warm out but typically this time of year and at this time of day there would be at least 20 to 30 deer in the field.. We saw not one! After a quick Gander we drove down to the field and parked up above the Novachek stand in the field and went into the wind to the thick stuff in the river bottom. We could smell dead deer instantly, we zig zagged throughout the river bottom and doing so jump only 2 to 3 deer that we know of. We found several dead deer but didn't look hard.
We then hurried back to the Tahoe and head toward the Rock to look at the west property. Getting to the rock we started looking. We saw a total of around 20 or so deer as far as we could see just before dark. Patches of 3 or 4 scattered across the acres of Alfalfa.

DAY 2— We went to the rock at daylight, and by far this is the most deer we saw.. A total of 30 to 40 from the west property to over across the river on Bowmans. We spotted what we figured 3 to 4 shooters, the biggest being a 140 class ten point. It was hard to tell age on these deer, but I would call them shooters. 3 and 1/2 to 4 and 1/2.
MID Day, we went to the Buffalo drop field and walked from where Nick had killed his deer several years ago with a bow. We went to the rivers brush and started slowing walking down the river toward Carroll field. During what we figured was a 3 mile walk, we jumped only 4 deer and found 22 dead, and could smell more. Very disturbing adventure.
That afternoon we went and sat in stands over on west property where I had killed my last deer with a bow. That evening from the stand we had 3 does come by us just out of range. Way down by Winke's stand we could see a couple more deer and they look like does as well. We did see one small buck back toward the slough.very slow evening. At dark we slipped out of the stand with not one deer in the field and eased over toward the slough field and found 2 deer feeding there… In the slough just meandering around we saw what looked to be 2 nice bucks… it was  2 of the shooters we had seen that morning. This concluded our evening hunt.

DAY 3— Again went to the rock, there were not near as many deer out this morning. Only 7 to 10 deer moving around. Not a single deer could be found over across the river on north property! We saw one 10 point that was a shooter going into the slough early that morning.
That afternoon we decided to split up and cover a s much ground as we could, I went back to the rock and Stephen went to Carroll field. Stephen saw a total of 7 deer in the field and I saw 14 deer from the rock however 4 of the deer I saw were shooters. All of these deer we had seen before.

Overall, It was very sad! Based on what we saw I figured at least 90 percent of the deer were missing? Keep in mind that the winter prior had been really bad with record breaking snow. Lots of deer and antelope didn't make it through this. To make things even worse the weather forecast was still predicting hot weather with no forecast of a frost which is what we need to stop EHD. The deer we saw still have the chance of dying based on this!
Very overwhelming trip, never seen anything like it!
I do feel like if no more of the deer die, a hunter or maybe two could have luck down on the west property, because the deer numbers are so low it would make it easier to pattern what shooters can be seen. Basically not a lot of deer to trick.
Hope this shed a little light on how to handle the rest of the year..

Michael Waddell