By Rich Landers

Rut Reporter Rich Landers, a native Montanan and life-long hunter, is the outdoors editor for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane. He has written several books about the western outdoors and has hunted whitetails all his life. States covered: WA, OR, ID, MT, WY, CO.

The fat lady has sung in Montana and Idaho, but late seasons are still giving hunters a few shots at whitetails in designated areas from eastern Colorado to eastern Washington.
And the rut's still on to some degree throughout the region.

Remember, the Nov. 20-21 peak of whitetail conceptions pegged by research in the northwestern states is only the top of the bell curve. As we move into the holidays, the season's breedings are on the downhill slope, but there's still action out there for bucks--and hunters.

By Rich Landers

Rut Reporter Rich Landers, a native Montanan and life-long hunter, is the outdoors editor for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane. He has written several books about the western outdoors and has hunted whitetails all his life. States covered: WA, OR, ID, MT, WY, CO.

Montana's deer season ended a half-hour after sunset Sunday with a gleam still in the eyes of a few big whitetail bucks. But mostly they seem to be ready for a break. The photograph of the buck (above), snapped in Western Montana by wildlife photographer Jaime Johnson, seems to tell the story.

In northern Idaho, rifle hunters have a few more days in the season and bucks are still on the prowl. Tom Anderson, in Sandpoint sent a photo, shown below, of a Big R Store customer who bagged a nice buck on Saturday as it was making a scrape.

By Rich Landers

Rut Reporter Rich Landers, a native Montanan and life-long hunter, is the outdoors editor for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane. He has written several books about the western outdoors and has hunted whitetails all his life. States covered: WA, OR, ID, MT, WY, CO.

Nov. 21: Big bucks have given whitetail hunters a lot to talk about across the West the past few days, as the rut kicked into high gear.

"If you have the late rifle tag, go now," Hal Meenach emailed Saturday, the last day of northeastern Washington's late whitetail buck season. "Things are about as active as it gets. I saw a buck with a doe this morning with his head on the ground, tuckered out.”

Archers and muzzleloaders who have seasons starting Thanksgiving day should expect just-past-peak conditions, said the Eastern Washington farmer and wildlife habitat consultant.

By Rich Landers

Rut Reporter Rich Landers, a native Montanan and life-long hunter, is the outdoors editor for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane. He has written several books about the western outdoors and has hunted whitetails all his life. States covered: WA, OR, ID, MT, WY, CO.

Full disclosure: I didn't even SEE a buck during legal hunting hours over the weekend around my hunting niches in Northeastern Washington, but rut reporters elsewhere in the West were filling their tags, as though the world was about to end.

As usual, the whitetail rut in much of the West is a tad bit behind the breeding season in states farther east and south. I saw does with fawns and no bucks following. But it's just as clear that bucks are turning on virtually everywhere. Rattling and calling were getting results. "Even though the deer numbers are down, the bucks that are out there are beginning to cruise around," said Ron Nail, the fulfilled northwestern Montana bowhunter pictured above. He rattled in the buck Sunday at 4:15 p.m.