National Auction was ready for about 200 to come out to the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks trophy sale in Billings Saturday.
Some estimated the crowd as double that, and it was an opportunity for people, including non hunters to get some wildlife.
"We are doing a live auction for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks," said Case Seal, National Auction auctioneer. "It's a four-year accumulation of their seized and confiscated roadkill animals. The Big Horn Sheep definitely are one of the hardest tags to draw in Montana. And not only that, they're hard to be successful even if you do have a tag. And we have some very large ram heads."
The auction included 404 lots of items.
Many of the bidders were not hunters.
"I have a vision for a client's home with a long hall, where we have a bunch of them facing one another and that's where they're gonna go," Kibler & Kirch interior designer Jeremiah Young said about his purchase of antlers.
"I'm an artist and I paint skulls," said Jennifer French. "So I came to see what this was all about and hopefully get, I got an elk and hopefully I get a big horn or two if the prices are okay."
"The quantity of antlers and the pelts," said Norm Johnson from Eureka. "But the pelts were going for too high, too expensive, so we did get these antlers to decorate our two cabins that we have up in Eureka. I'm not a hunter. I just fish."
"If you're an outdoorsy person or a hunter yourself you just like to be around this kind of stuff because you spent a lot of time in the field," said Seal.
"Very exciting," Johnson said about the auction. "Great to see the things. It's unfortunate it's only every four years or so. But I will come to the next one."
