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Deermeister,
As Petey has said, the terrain varies a great deal, the rocky mountains divides the state roughly in half with the continental divide following along north to south. East of the continental divide is wide open terrain with rolling prarie, with smaller mountain ranges found south of the missouri river. You will find the whitetails along the water sheds, with the milk and missouri rivers to the north, and yellowstone to the south. You can find whitey's up in the wheat and prarie country off the river drainages with nary a tree in sight, not quite like michigan whitetails. It's a spot and stalk game. Muleys are also in the coulees and brushy draws, and tall grass crp fields, sometimes right along with the whitetails. You can see many deer in a single day, it's more of a spot and stalk hunt, sometimes alot like antelope hunting. Now the West side of the divide is steeper, more mountainous with more timber and lusher growth. Whitetails are still in the river drainages, all the way up to the upper slopes. Muleys are generally found on the upper slopes too. I'm not sure of this years regs, but the past few years you had to choose to hunt muleys on the west side by applying for tags. In general, i think you will find larger whitetails on the West side, but you will not see near as many deer in a day. Seeing 18 to 20 deer is a good day of hunting on the West side. If you are hunting eastern montana, bring good optics, and a rangefinder sure wouldn't hurt, you will probably be shooting alot farther than your typical michigan hunt. Sight in your rifle for maximum point range(for my 270, about 2" high at 100) that way, you can hold dead on out to 300 yards or more. I find easterners tend to think game is farther than it actually is, and tend to shoot over an animal, I think not having trees to judge by kind of throws people who are used to seeing deer no more than 50 yards away. That's where the range finder comes in handy. The other tendendency i have seen is when you are used to shooting deer so close, you shoot offhand with no problem. Out west, you want a good rest, so a bipod, or shooting sticks helps steady your shooting. That's about as good advice as i can give ya, other than enjoy yourself, it's different country, with not as many people hunting around you, so my guess is, you're going to enjoy yourself a bunch, good luck.
John
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