zachthebowhunter
Member
Well after 4 trips for my friend Ben, who is working in San Fran, we finally filled his Montana elk tag by partaking in a shoulder season hunt. Every trip up we got extremely close to filling his tag but were just one step behind the whole time. He called me up two Wednesdays ago and said he got on a ranch and he would be up to Montana on Friday. We got up early Saturday morning and headed to get our permission and start hunting.
Right off the bat the first morning I spotted a group of 6 bulls up on the mountain from the bottom. We made a plan to hike into the hills and see if we could locate the cows. After 8 miles and all day we just couldn't sniff out any cows within decent walking distance of where we were.
After a wonderful steak from the Montana Roadhouse the first night we got up just before light the next day and headed back to where we saw the bulls the previous morning. We couldn't spot anything from there, so we headed to the other side of the ranch. After glassing up high in the mountains for a while we spotted what we were 90% sure were elk and made a plan to go check them out. At the parking area a nice fellow from Bozeman who had just gotten off the mountain informed us that in fact what we had seen were elk and it would take 3 hours to get to them and he was "too damn tired" to go back up after them.
We left the truck at 11:10 am and made our way 3.5 miles and 2200 vertical feet up to within 650 yards of the bedded elk. The wind was absolutely howling and there was no way we could make that shot so we backed out and came around to our left to 500 yards with the wind right in our face and the sun directly behind the elk. We hunkered down and were waiting for the wind to die and sun to set when I looked to the left and a lone cow was bounding toward us like a mule deer! She turned and came 200 yards in front of us and I let out a cow call to get her to stop and she came running right at us! She came in to 80 yards and stopped. Ben put one into her chest and she dropped from the impact but got up and ran towards the trees. we trailed her and found her piled up under a tree.
I cannot express the excitement that Ben looked at me with when we walked up on her. The hard work we had put in from September had finally payed off and he wouldn't have to buy meat for the year. This was his second elk ever and I am grateful to be a part of it. We got back to the truck with all the meat at 8:30 that evening. Thoughts on shoulder hunts aside, I'd like to thank the Galts for the chance for Ben to get some meat.
PS: Sorry about the terrible pictures Jose
Right off the bat the first morning I spotted a group of 6 bulls up on the mountain from the bottom. We made a plan to hike into the hills and see if we could locate the cows. After 8 miles and all day we just couldn't sniff out any cows within decent walking distance of where we were.
After a wonderful steak from the Montana Roadhouse the first night we got up just before light the next day and headed back to where we saw the bulls the previous morning. We couldn't spot anything from there, so we headed to the other side of the ranch. After glassing up high in the mountains for a while we spotted what we were 90% sure were elk and made a plan to go check them out. At the parking area a nice fellow from Bozeman who had just gotten off the mountain informed us that in fact what we had seen were elk and it would take 3 hours to get to them and he was "too damn tired" to go back up after them.
We left the truck at 11:10 am and made our way 3.5 miles and 2200 vertical feet up to within 650 yards of the bedded elk. The wind was absolutely howling and there was no way we could make that shot so we backed out and came around to our left to 500 yards with the wind right in our face and the sun directly behind the elk. We hunkered down and were waiting for the wind to die and sun to set when I looked to the left and a lone cow was bounding toward us like a mule deer! She turned and came 200 yards in front of us and I let out a cow call to get her to stop and she came running right at us! She came in to 80 yards and stopped. Ben put one into her chest and she dropped from the impact but got up and ran towards the trees. we trailed her and found her piled up under a tree.
I cannot express the excitement that Ben looked at me with when we walked up on her. The hard work we had put in from September had finally payed off and he wouldn't have to buy meat for the year. This was his second elk ever and I am grateful to be a part of it. We got back to the truck with all the meat at 8:30 that evening. Thoughts on shoulder hunts aside, I'd like to thank the Galts for the chance for Ben to get some meat.
PS: Sorry about the terrible pictures Jose
