Yes I carry pistol every time when I go for hunting I take some extra bullets and some safety weapons like throwing knives it is important for everyone.
Throwing knives while on a hunt, LOL!
Several of my pistols have accumulated a lot of miles walking through the woods, most without firing a shot. Occasionaly a grouse would fall to one, and a couple of black bears did, but mostly my pistol was just a heavy "peace of mind" on my hip.
Much of my Montana hunting is in grizzly country, but I have only seen a couple of grizzlies while hunting. I once had one "snapping" his teeth about 10 yds from me. I fired one .44 magnum shot over his head, then another into the pine tree next to him without phasing him. It wasn't until I picked up a rock, threw it and hit him that he turned and ran away.
I'll also often carry a pistol while bird hunting, especially during concurrent bird and big game seasons. One year we were pheasant and deer hunting some river bottoms and breaks in north central Montana.
One morning, I had packed my Ruger .44 mag for several hours walking the brush for pheasants. I had taken it off for the ride back to camp, when we spotted a "birdy" looking draw with brush and a few trees. We stopped to make a quick walk through it.
Halfway into the draw, a deer snorted at me, and there standing broadside less than 20 yds away was one of the largest antlered whitetail bucks that I have ever seen. I had plenty of time to draw my pistol, and it would have been been an easy shot, but I had left that heavy .44 back in my truck.
You had a deer tag, and you were hunting birds?
In some areas the deer hunt runs several months.
I remember when I first started hunting in the 60's in Utah. You could start deer hunting in August and it ended in December, it all depended on what unit you were in.
There were quite a few times that we would go deer hunting in the morning, pheasant hunting in the mid day and then back to deer hunting in the evening.
You had a deer tag, and you were hunting birds?
Like Critter wrote, many of our seasons overlap. Our rifle deer and elk season runs about 5 weeks, from about the third saturday in October to the last Sunday in November.
The area we were deer hunting also had some pretty good pheasant hunting, so we were doing both.
Heck, one time I was on a DIY, solo, backpack bighorn sheep hunt in one of the unlimited tag sheep areas north of Yellowstone Park. About the third day I hadn't seen any rams, but this beautiful, ivory tipped, dark antlered 6x6 bull elk walked out in front of me, and a 117 gr Sierra from my .257 Ackley ended my sheep hunt. 
In that area, deer and elk are also open to rifle hunting in early September.
Not so long ago I could hunt the whole state with a muzzleloader tag. Now it's hard to get a tag in the draw for one unit.
Good old days were much better for me. Never knew what a draw was back then.
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