2016 elk & deer hunt Montana public lands
*Apologies for the long read and lack there of my story writing skills.
After an unsuccessful 3wk Montana archery hunt back in Sept. I received an open invitation from Theat & Gerald to come back out for general rifle to try to fill a tag.
Rewind this all back to 2010, my first western hunt, archery elk, as many of you have all experienced the absolute addiction and love for chasing these animals, it really took ahold of me, I said after that first hunt " I'll hunt elk every year, as long as I'm upright ". 7yrs of archery elk hunts since has resulted in great memories, beautiful country, close encounters, absolute heartbreaks, aches & pains, ups and downs, new friendships, etc., etc. In this time I've gone from as green as an elk hunter you could be, never camped before, to now being able to do solo trips and spike camp in grizzly country. In the middle of all that you throw in finding HuntTalk, I can't begin to explain the valuable knowledge I've gained and most importantly some great, great friends and relationships I've developed all because of HT....but still no elk.
Time to cut to the chase.... I decided to fly out to do a quick 5 day hunt. I arrived in Missoula late Fri night 18th, got up early Sat. and headed to NW Mt to meet Gerald. I got a call from Gerald at 8am, about 20mins from arriving at his house, he had overslept, just got up and was hungry, we elected to meet at a local cafe for breakfast. After breakfast we drove to the trail head, Gerald had a cow tag to fill in this district and he'd been seeing some cows in the area and it was new country to him, having never hiked up this TH before. Roughly a little over a mile Gerald had something in his boot, so we climbed a few feet up to a flat, in the middle of shedding layers, lacing up boots Gerald is excitingly pointing across the drainage saying there's a bull. Scrambling for rifle, pack for a rest, not seeing what Gerald was seeing for what seemed eternity and beginning to test his patience I finally found the bull, Gerald had already been yelling out yardage....268, 264. First crack, miss, at least the elk but not my forehead on the scope, second crack, miss, again busted my nose this time (I should stick to archery). This is where Gerald stepped in started throwing packs and shooting sticks around getting me a better rest. The bull was still there, breathe, take your time, steady Gerald says....make it count, we waited about 3mins the bull cleared some brush, I crack another round and Gerald thinks he heard impact, the bull starts to climb some not acting hurt, I take another crack, which I know was a clean miss. The bull is now behind some brush, we waited a few mins watching that spot, then heard a crash. Gerald says " I think you just got your first elk". I crossed the drainage and climbed up above the location we thought he was while Gerald stayed to glass and shoot if he wasn't expired. Well, first day, 1130am and we got a bull to pack out. He's no monster, barely over a mile in, might seem like I didn't earn it, but put 7 hard years of archery hunting in the mix and I'll take it to break the curse. This guy was in a super steep spot and the trip down was not fun, we each took half the elk, our gear and drug a rear hind quarter with hide on to the bottom of the drainage. We returned to pack out the rears and were in the truck on pavement at 7pm. I finally have elk meat in my freezer!
Sunday: morning I hunted w Theat, Paul & Durkin, nothing like 2000ft straight the heck up after packing a bull the night before. Durkin & I bumped some cows towards Theat and Paul, Paul had a cow tag but missed as the cows were on the move, heavy fog ended the hunt early.
Sunday: evening I hooked back up with Gerald, hopefully I'm not stealing his thunder here. We were out to fill his cow tag, glassed up 4 cows at 430pm, We had to jump in the truck drive up a FS road, jumped out climbed the opposite ridge to locate the elk, we finally did, Gerald being Gerald says he's going after them, I ask if he thinks he can get their before dark? One thing I've learned from Gerald "to kill elk, you go where the elk are", off we go down and start climbing up, of course Gerald is not waiting on me as I advised him not to. Gerald got to 360yds of the elk but low light, heavy breathing and on the verge of puking resulted in not ideal conditions, so he elected to let them be. Later meeting at the truck we started devising our morning hunt plan to get his cow tag filled.
Monday: Up early and up the mountain we go, cows found, cow down! Less than 48hrs and we're packing out elk #2. We're in the truck headed down the mnt with a cow in the truck bed at 11am. We dumped the cow at Gerald's, grabbed my bull meat and took it to the processor then headed out for an evening deer hunt, as we both have deer tags. Well, by 5pm we're putting Gerald's WT buck in the bed of the truck, not a bad day, the guy kills an elk and deer the same day, man we're having fun now!
Tues: Did a morning hunt with Theat and company again, trying to fill a couple of his buddy's bull tags, it was not eventful but some beautiful country, and had a great time talking with Travis, Bernie & Jordan on the mnt that morning.
Tues: evening I joined Gerald and his oldest daughter Olivia, the plan was to get her to fill her deer tag. We got into some WTs but they kept giving Olivia the slip, we then got split up with Gerald and Olivia chasing after some more deer they spotted. The night ended without a harvest, but we had fun!
This brings us to Tues night after hunting trying to devise a plan for a Wed deer hunt, Wed. is my last day to hunt as I'm leaving early on Thanksgiving to visit other friends down in Darby Mt.
Gerald mentions a forbidden drainage, the drainage where I shot my bear in 2014, during the inaugural HT spring bear hunt, it's where Julie, Ethan and Ty were brave enough to enter this past spring and were successful harvesting a bear. We kick the idea around, but man my legs are done and I didn't want to commit and not be able to make it up in there, so we look at maps and Google earth for other options. Finally, I decide it's the last day, let's do it, go for broke.
Wed: We're up early and at I guess what you could call a TH (not really) with the plan to have 1hr of the climb in the dark, then be into some WT country as light approached while continuing to climb into Muley country. 3mi and 3000ft elevation gain we have mule deer spotted. It's snowing pretty good and visibility is low but we have a couple doe and 3 diff bucks spotted at 750yds. Gerald recommends we take a seat, watch them a little while and get some food in us before we take off after them. The goal was to take 300-400yds off between us. We start to work our way around the drainage and get some elevation to our advantage, the snow is getting heavier now and the change in landscape we lost sight of the deer, but had a general idea of their vicinity. We knew one doe and buck moved down in some thick cover while the buck we were after moved up towards some timber with a doe, not knowing where the 3rd buck was. We continued to pick our way around to their location finally spotting the doe bedded with the buck closely guarding her, we were at 200yds now, but no clear shots would present due to timber and brush, we had to move in on these deer close. Continuing to stalk in slowly Gerald says "Pssst", we have a 3x3 walking above and by us at 20yds, we froze and let him move in the direction we were heading, then continued pressing on, looking for movement. Gerald spots the doe on her feet with the buck close by, the next 20mins proved frustrating trying to get a shot, to much brush and timber, Bucks running each other off, the 3rd buck and doe now joined the party too. The snow is hammering hard now, the deer are mingling around, our heads are spinning, Gerald is spotty deer, throwing up the shooting sticks, I can't get any clean shots, they won't stand still, visibility sucked. They move away from us into more timber and less brush, again Gerald is throwing the sicks up, again I just can't get a shot and with the feeling of eyeballs all around us and the wind started to not be in our favor we were getting desperate. The deer continued to move away over a small ridge, Gerald said we need to gain elevation, let's go! We climbed a little ways then hit a game trail, Gerald turns and says 40yds right over the rise, I start to step up the trail while watching a buck above and to the left of us, but trying to get far enough to take the 4x4 we've been targeting the whole chase. The buck above us gets to 40yds and looks down at me, I raised my rifle, got a look at his horns and said, he looks good for my first mule deer, Bam! He dropped and slid 30yds down to a log. My decision was based on the feeling we've pushed this long enough, had a deer looking right at us, with the feeling it was about to be game over, and I'm happy as heck with this deer, we had tough elements, and it tested our mental toughness.
It was 2pm when we were standing over my buck, we get to work, caped and boned out, each taking half, Gerald adds the cape and the skull to his load, being 8 yrs his elder I think he knew we might not get off the mnt that night if he let me take it, he refused my pleads for me to take more. We get warmed up by a fire, devoured all the food we had and started the hike out at 5:15pm. There's not much to describe about the hike out other than it sucks, bad, real bad. We did run into some fresh lion tracks we followed for about 1/4mi that at least made for good conversation, then some bobcat tracks as well. 5in of snow gradually diminished to nice slick rain after what seemed like a thousand blow downs, then you hit the last mile of thick, no game trails, rock slides, slick as snot moss under every step, steeper grade, more blow downs and just pure nastiness. Finally, the headlamps hit the truck, it's midnight, and I'm not sure I could have done another 1/4mi. That may be Gerald's last trip in that drainage for a long while, and was my last trip, so I say.....
Thank you to the wonderful Martin family for putting me up for 5 nights, warm bed, hot shower, use of washing machine & the kids having dinner on the table the nights we made it back in time. Thank you HuntTalk for all the knowledge I have gained and most importantly for the friendships I've developed. Lastly, Thank you Gerald Martin, I couldn't have done it without you.
*Apologies for the long read and lack there of my story writing skills.
After an unsuccessful 3wk Montana archery hunt back in Sept. I received an open invitation from Theat & Gerald to come back out for general rifle to try to fill a tag.
Rewind this all back to 2010, my first western hunt, archery elk, as many of you have all experienced the absolute addiction and love for chasing these animals, it really took ahold of me, I said after that first hunt " I'll hunt elk every year, as long as I'm upright ". 7yrs of archery elk hunts since has resulted in great memories, beautiful country, close encounters, absolute heartbreaks, aches & pains, ups and downs, new friendships, etc., etc. In this time I've gone from as green as an elk hunter you could be, never camped before, to now being able to do solo trips and spike camp in grizzly country. In the middle of all that you throw in finding HuntTalk, I can't begin to explain the valuable knowledge I've gained and most importantly some great, great friends and relationships I've developed all because of HT....but still no elk.
Time to cut to the chase.... I decided to fly out to do a quick 5 day hunt. I arrived in Missoula late Fri night 18th, got up early Sat. and headed to NW Mt to meet Gerald. I got a call from Gerald at 8am, about 20mins from arriving at his house, he had overslept, just got up and was hungry, we elected to meet at a local cafe for breakfast. After breakfast we drove to the trail head, Gerald had a cow tag to fill in this district and he'd been seeing some cows in the area and it was new country to him, having never hiked up this TH before. Roughly a little over a mile Gerald had something in his boot, so we climbed a few feet up to a flat, in the middle of shedding layers, lacing up boots Gerald is excitingly pointing across the drainage saying there's a bull. Scrambling for rifle, pack for a rest, not seeing what Gerald was seeing for what seemed eternity and beginning to test his patience I finally found the bull, Gerald had already been yelling out yardage....268, 264. First crack, miss, at least the elk but not my forehead on the scope, second crack, miss, again busted my nose this time (I should stick to archery). This is where Gerald stepped in started throwing packs and shooting sticks around getting me a better rest. The bull was still there, breathe, take your time, steady Gerald says....make it count, we waited about 3mins the bull cleared some brush, I crack another round and Gerald thinks he heard impact, the bull starts to climb some not acting hurt, I take another crack, which I know was a clean miss. The bull is now behind some brush, we waited a few mins watching that spot, then heard a crash. Gerald says " I think you just got your first elk". I crossed the drainage and climbed up above the location we thought he was while Gerald stayed to glass and shoot if he wasn't expired. Well, first day, 1130am and we got a bull to pack out. He's no monster, barely over a mile in, might seem like I didn't earn it, but put 7 hard years of archery hunting in the mix and I'll take it to break the curse. This guy was in a super steep spot and the trip down was not fun, we each took half the elk, our gear and drug a rear hind quarter with hide on to the bottom of the drainage. We returned to pack out the rears and were in the truck on pavement at 7pm. I finally have elk meat in my freezer!
Sunday: morning I hunted w Theat, Paul & Durkin, nothing like 2000ft straight the heck up after packing a bull the night before. Durkin & I bumped some cows towards Theat and Paul, Paul had a cow tag but missed as the cows were on the move, heavy fog ended the hunt early.
Sunday: evening I hooked back up with Gerald, hopefully I'm not stealing his thunder here. We were out to fill his cow tag, glassed up 4 cows at 430pm, We had to jump in the truck drive up a FS road, jumped out climbed the opposite ridge to locate the elk, we finally did, Gerald being Gerald says he's going after them, I ask if he thinks he can get their before dark? One thing I've learned from Gerald "to kill elk, you go where the elk are", off we go down and start climbing up, of course Gerald is not waiting on me as I advised him not to. Gerald got to 360yds of the elk but low light, heavy breathing and on the verge of puking resulted in not ideal conditions, so he elected to let them be. Later meeting at the truck we started devising our morning hunt plan to get his cow tag filled.
Monday: Up early and up the mountain we go, cows found, cow down! Less than 48hrs and we're packing out elk #2. We're in the truck headed down the mnt with a cow in the truck bed at 11am. We dumped the cow at Gerald's, grabbed my bull meat and took it to the processor then headed out for an evening deer hunt, as we both have deer tags. Well, by 5pm we're putting Gerald's WT buck in the bed of the truck, not a bad day, the guy kills an elk and deer the same day, man we're having fun now!
Tues: Did a morning hunt with Theat and company again, trying to fill a couple of his buddy's bull tags, it was not eventful but some beautiful country, and had a great time talking with Travis, Bernie & Jordan on the mnt that morning.
Tues: evening I joined Gerald and his oldest daughter Olivia, the plan was to get her to fill her deer tag. We got into some WTs but they kept giving Olivia the slip, we then got split up with Gerald and Olivia chasing after some more deer they spotted. The night ended without a harvest, but we had fun!
This brings us to Tues night after hunting trying to devise a plan for a Wed deer hunt, Wed. is my last day to hunt as I'm leaving early on Thanksgiving to visit other friends down in Darby Mt.
Gerald mentions a forbidden drainage, the drainage where I shot my bear in 2014, during the inaugural HT spring bear hunt, it's where Julie, Ethan and Ty were brave enough to enter this past spring and were successful harvesting a bear. We kick the idea around, but man my legs are done and I didn't want to commit and not be able to make it up in there, so we look at maps and Google earth for other options. Finally, I decide it's the last day, let's do it, go for broke.
Wed: We're up early and at I guess what you could call a TH (not really) with the plan to have 1hr of the climb in the dark, then be into some WT country as light approached while continuing to climb into Muley country. 3mi and 3000ft elevation gain we have mule deer spotted. It's snowing pretty good and visibility is low but we have a couple doe and 3 diff bucks spotted at 750yds. Gerald recommends we take a seat, watch them a little while and get some food in us before we take off after them. The goal was to take 300-400yds off between us. We start to work our way around the drainage and get some elevation to our advantage, the snow is getting heavier now and the change in landscape we lost sight of the deer, but had a general idea of their vicinity. We knew one doe and buck moved down in some thick cover while the buck we were after moved up towards some timber with a doe, not knowing where the 3rd buck was. We continued to pick our way around to their location finally spotting the doe bedded with the buck closely guarding her, we were at 200yds now, but no clear shots would present due to timber and brush, we had to move in on these deer close. Continuing to stalk in slowly Gerald says "Pssst", we have a 3x3 walking above and by us at 20yds, we froze and let him move in the direction we were heading, then continued pressing on, looking for movement. Gerald spots the doe on her feet with the buck close by, the next 20mins proved frustrating trying to get a shot, to much brush and timber, Bucks running each other off, the 3rd buck and doe now joined the party too. The snow is hammering hard now, the deer are mingling around, our heads are spinning, Gerald is spotty deer, throwing up the shooting sticks, I can't get any clean shots, they won't stand still, visibility sucked. They move away from us into more timber and less brush, again Gerald is throwing the sicks up, again I just can't get a shot and with the feeling of eyeballs all around us and the wind started to not be in our favor we were getting desperate. The deer continued to move away over a small ridge, Gerald said we need to gain elevation, let's go! We climbed a little ways then hit a game trail, Gerald turns and says 40yds right over the rise, I start to step up the trail while watching a buck above and to the left of us, but trying to get far enough to take the 4x4 we've been targeting the whole chase. The buck above us gets to 40yds and looks down at me, I raised my rifle, got a look at his horns and said, he looks good for my first mule deer, Bam! He dropped and slid 30yds down to a log. My decision was based on the feeling we've pushed this long enough, had a deer looking right at us, with the feeling it was about to be game over, and I'm happy as heck with this deer, we had tough elements, and it tested our mental toughness.
It was 2pm when we were standing over my buck, we get to work, caped and boned out, each taking half, Gerald adds the cape and the skull to his load, being 8 yrs his elder I think he knew we might not get off the mnt that night if he let me take it, he refused my pleads for me to take more. We get warmed up by a fire, devoured all the food we had and started the hike out at 5:15pm. There's not much to describe about the hike out other than it sucks, bad, real bad. We did run into some fresh lion tracks we followed for about 1/4mi that at least made for good conversation, then some bobcat tracks as well. 5in of snow gradually diminished to nice slick rain after what seemed like a thousand blow downs, then you hit the last mile of thick, no game trails, rock slides, slick as snot moss under every step, steeper grade, more blow downs and just pure nastiness. Finally, the headlamps hit the truck, it's midnight, and I'm not sure I could have done another 1/4mi. That may be Gerald's last trip in that drainage for a long while, and was my last trip, so I say.....
Thank you to the wonderful Martin family for putting me up for 5 nights, warm bed, hot shower, use of washing machine & the kids having dinner on the table the nights we made it back in time. Thank you HuntTalk for all the knowledge I have gained and most importantly for the friendships I've developed. Lastly, Thank you Gerald Martin, I couldn't have done it without you.
You guys are hard core!
