Adamhuntingstuff
Member
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2023
- Messages
- 38
With hunting season a few months away still and application season basically behind us I figured this would be as good a time as ever to post a recap of my western hunting trip from this past fall.
As a new guy to hunt talk, I feel obligated to post a recap because I received help from a few other members throughout the course of planning and executing this trip and it likely wouldn’t have been as successful without their help.
As a guy from Indiana with two young daughters, I am lucky to get one week out of the fall where my wife can hold it down and let me travel out west to chase critters around. That being all I can pull off in a year, I really wanted to get as much as I could out of my trip west.
I was lucky enough to pick up a Montana pronghorn tag as well as a general deer tag, and a buddy of mine was also able to snag a general deer tag. With tags in hand, I started planning our trip west.
I was fortunate to get some input from fellow hunt talk member @WNC2500 about the specific unit where my pronghorn tag was valid. He was super helpful in giving me some information on his past experiences in this unit and answered some questions I had about the lay of the land and where/when to start.
From those conversations, the plan started to come together. The idea was to hunt later in the pronghorn season, a couple days before general deer opened. I was going to focus on the pronghorn first and then switch our focus to deer once that season opened a few days later.
The Pronghorn Hunt:
Our plan was to tag team drive non-stop through the night from Indiana. We were able to execute this plan with little issue and arrived in the pronghorn hunt area mid-morning. We confirmed zeros on our rifles and started to work the plan. Being my first pronghorn hunt ever, my goal was just to find an adult buck pronghorn that looked good enough to me.
I had done a significant amount of E-Scouting before the trip and probably had about 30 different areas pre-scouted. We headed to spot number one and hiked up to the first glassing spot that I had marked on my map.
As fate would have it, we crested the hill of the glassing knob and immediately I could see a group of pronghorn across the valley. We both crouched down and backed off of the ridge. I dropped my pack and got my rifle ready. As I crawled back up to get a look I was able to identify the group was 4 does and one buck.
I immediately knew the buck met my criteria. Fortunately, I was able to use the landscape to get a little closer and had a good spot to set up and shoot from. The shot was perfect and he took about 5 bounds and fell over dead. First morning, first spot…. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than to be good.
I gutted the buck and we carried him out whole back to the truck. From there, per the recommendations of @WNC2500 , we took him to a local processor who did a phenomenal job both processing the meat, and euro mounting the skull for me.
Scouting for Deer:
With the pronghorn tag filled on the first morning, we now had a few days ahead of us to scout for deer before that season opened. This turned out to be a lot of fun. No pressure, just driving all over central and eastern Montana for a few days seeing different areas and looking over a bunch of animals. One evening while glassing a river bottom we observed 5 different moose that came out from a thicket into the river around dusk. This was a really cool experience and my first time seeing a Shiras moose.
We hunted all kinds of small game, saw a lot of country and just had a great time. We did find a couple bucks along the way, but nothing crazy enough to make us want to stay put in any specific area.
One night we found ourselves in a bar in Zortman, Montana. I don’t mind mentioning the town, because we didn’t have any hunting success there. Anyways we were having some beers and ended up talking to a fella at the bar that turned out to be none other than hunt talk regular, @Hilljackoutlaw.
He was a fun guy to shoot the bull with, and was nice enough to let us bounce some ideas off of him about different areas to go to look for deer. We stayed in touch after that night and he even was nice enough to give us scouting reports from his travels over the next couple days.
The Deer hunt:
We hunted that area the next morning for opening day and didn’t see much besides other hunters. With that being the case, we decided to pack up camp and hit the road to a completely different area, hours away, that we had e-scouted a bunch prior to the trip.
We made the trek midday after our morning hunt, and made it into our area in time to push a little creek bottom area that we had marked on our map for the evening. We pushed a bunch of does out of that bottom, but no bucks were with them.
Even with that being the case, we were super optimistic about how many deer we had seen both on that evening hunt and while driving in.
The next day was exactly what we had hoped it would be. We were able to locate a good amount of deer. We were glassing from one spot and found a group with a few small bucks in it. My friend had never killed a mule deer before, so he decided that he wanted to go after them. An hour later the deer dropped down into a coulee and we were able to get ahead of them and above the coulee rim. As one of the bucks came through my buddy made a great shot and harvested his first mule deer.
The next day we located a big group of deer that were moving up a valley and I thought I could get ahead of them. After making a big loop around I hiked quickly up and over a ridge to get a vantage. As I crested the ridge I saw the group of deer down below crossing the valley. I ran down a ways to cut the distance and dropped down prone to set up for a shot. With the direction they were going they would have to cross a clearing that was ahead of them.
Sure enough, the group started to pass through right as I got set up. The biggest buck in the group gave me a perfect broadside shot, and I touched one off. I walked up to the area where I thought he was hit and didn’t see any blood at all. I walked 50 yards in the direction they went and saw the group of deer running up and over the next ridgeline. I threw up my binoculars and could see that the buck was not with the group. I was nervous at this point but kept walking in the direction that the herd went. Low and behold not 60 yards away behind a small rise, there was the dead buck. The shot hit its mark.
We quartered that deer up and got him back to the truck and onto ice in the coolers. From there we started the trek east back to Indiana. I am sure someone on here will tell me how small the deer is, but I don’t care. I am proud as heck of him.
Conclusion:
We had such a great time and made so many great memories that we will talk about for years to come. This is my third trip hunting in Montana and my 5th trip hunting out west in general. I still consider myself a beginner in the western hunting game, but I absolutely love it and cherish every moment I get to spend out there roaming around.
I have gotten a lot out of the hunttalk forum and it was surprising to me how many people on here were willing to give me information along the way to help me have a successful trip. This was really inspiring and made me proud to be part of this community. I hope I can pass that same sentiment and support along to another hunter in the future.
As a new guy to hunt talk, I feel obligated to post a recap because I received help from a few other members throughout the course of planning and executing this trip and it likely wouldn’t have been as successful without their help.
As a guy from Indiana with two young daughters, I am lucky to get one week out of the fall where my wife can hold it down and let me travel out west to chase critters around. That being all I can pull off in a year, I really wanted to get as much as I could out of my trip west.
I was lucky enough to pick up a Montana pronghorn tag as well as a general deer tag, and a buddy of mine was also able to snag a general deer tag. With tags in hand, I started planning our trip west.
I was fortunate to get some input from fellow hunt talk member @WNC2500 about the specific unit where my pronghorn tag was valid. He was super helpful in giving me some information on his past experiences in this unit and answered some questions I had about the lay of the land and where/when to start.
From those conversations, the plan started to come together. The idea was to hunt later in the pronghorn season, a couple days before general deer opened. I was going to focus on the pronghorn first and then switch our focus to deer once that season opened a few days later.
The Pronghorn Hunt:
Our plan was to tag team drive non-stop through the night from Indiana. We were able to execute this plan with little issue and arrived in the pronghorn hunt area mid-morning. We confirmed zeros on our rifles and started to work the plan. Being my first pronghorn hunt ever, my goal was just to find an adult buck pronghorn that looked good enough to me.
I had done a significant amount of E-Scouting before the trip and probably had about 30 different areas pre-scouted. We headed to spot number one and hiked up to the first glassing spot that I had marked on my map.
As fate would have it, we crested the hill of the glassing knob and immediately I could see a group of pronghorn across the valley. We both crouched down and backed off of the ridge. I dropped my pack and got my rifle ready. As I crawled back up to get a look I was able to identify the group was 4 does and one buck.
I immediately knew the buck met my criteria. Fortunately, I was able to use the landscape to get a little closer and had a good spot to set up and shoot from. The shot was perfect and he took about 5 bounds and fell over dead. First morning, first spot…. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than to be good.
I gutted the buck and we carried him out whole back to the truck. From there, per the recommendations of @WNC2500 , we took him to a local processor who did a phenomenal job both processing the meat, and euro mounting the skull for me.
Scouting for Deer:
With the pronghorn tag filled on the first morning, we now had a few days ahead of us to scout for deer before that season opened. This turned out to be a lot of fun. No pressure, just driving all over central and eastern Montana for a few days seeing different areas and looking over a bunch of animals. One evening while glassing a river bottom we observed 5 different moose that came out from a thicket into the river around dusk. This was a really cool experience and my first time seeing a Shiras moose.
We hunted all kinds of small game, saw a lot of country and just had a great time. We did find a couple bucks along the way, but nothing crazy enough to make us want to stay put in any specific area.
One night we found ourselves in a bar in Zortman, Montana. I don’t mind mentioning the town, because we didn’t have any hunting success there. Anyways we were having some beers and ended up talking to a fella at the bar that turned out to be none other than hunt talk regular, @Hilljackoutlaw.
He was a fun guy to shoot the bull with, and was nice enough to let us bounce some ideas off of him about different areas to go to look for deer. We stayed in touch after that night and he even was nice enough to give us scouting reports from his travels over the next couple days.
The Deer hunt:
We hunted that area the next morning for opening day and didn’t see much besides other hunters. With that being the case, we decided to pack up camp and hit the road to a completely different area, hours away, that we had e-scouted a bunch prior to the trip.
We made the trek midday after our morning hunt, and made it into our area in time to push a little creek bottom area that we had marked on our map for the evening. We pushed a bunch of does out of that bottom, but no bucks were with them.
Even with that being the case, we were super optimistic about how many deer we had seen both on that evening hunt and while driving in.
The next day was exactly what we had hoped it would be. We were able to locate a good amount of deer. We were glassing from one spot and found a group with a few small bucks in it. My friend had never killed a mule deer before, so he decided that he wanted to go after them. An hour later the deer dropped down into a coulee and we were able to get ahead of them and above the coulee rim. As one of the bucks came through my buddy made a great shot and harvested his first mule deer.
The next day we located a big group of deer that were moving up a valley and I thought I could get ahead of them. After making a big loop around I hiked quickly up and over a ridge to get a vantage. As I crested the ridge I saw the group of deer down below crossing the valley. I ran down a ways to cut the distance and dropped down prone to set up for a shot. With the direction they were going they would have to cross a clearing that was ahead of them.
Sure enough, the group started to pass through right as I got set up. The biggest buck in the group gave me a perfect broadside shot, and I touched one off. I walked up to the area where I thought he was hit and didn’t see any blood at all. I walked 50 yards in the direction they went and saw the group of deer running up and over the next ridgeline. I threw up my binoculars and could see that the buck was not with the group. I was nervous at this point but kept walking in the direction that the herd went. Low and behold not 60 yards away behind a small rise, there was the dead buck. The shot hit its mark.
We quartered that deer up and got him back to the truck and onto ice in the coolers. From there we started the trek east back to Indiana. I am sure someone on here will tell me how small the deer is, but I don’t care. I am proud as heck of him.
Conclusion:
We had such a great time and made so many great memories that we will talk about for years to come. This is my third trip hunting in Montana and my 5th trip hunting out west in general. I still consider myself a beginner in the western hunting game, but I absolutely love it and cherish every moment I get to spend out there roaming around.
I have gotten a lot out of the hunttalk forum and it was surprising to me how many people on here were willing to give me information along the way to help me have a successful trip. This was really inspiring and made me proud to be part of this community. I hope I can pass that same sentiment and support along to another hunter in the future.
