Brian Mastenbrook Quotations

If we see animals, we circle around and count them, and also try to determine how many bulls, cows and calves there are.

That was less than the number of animals (40) we had hoped to take from the herd. It was pretty tough hunting. There was full foliage, and the warm weather made the animals not move around too much during the day.

Most of the harvest, 18 of the 30, came from the west side of the range. We would have preferred a few more taken on the east side, but that's the way it worked out.

We know there are not big groups of wolves here. We would have detected that. But we do know we have some independent animals.

We warn hunters about that during the orientation. It was the last day of the hunt and he apparently shot one, but didn't think he hit it so he shot another one. As soon as he realized what had happened he turned himself in. He called the RAP line and told them he made a mistake.

We're worried about elk getting TB from the deer. We've found four elk with TB to date, but none in the last two years. We have some infected animals, but we don't think the whole herd is infected.

To weigh them, you need at least three people at the weigh station, but without weighing them we can get by with just one person. We weighed them in the past, but that was really more of a service to the hunters. It's not part of the data we really need. It doesn't help us much as far as management decisions.

They did get some really nice ones, including one guy who took a beautiful 6-by-7 or 7-by-7.