HuntandFly 2022 Elk and Deer recap

[huntandfly]

Day 1 dawned very cold but drying out. I opted to hunt a spot off the highway that I hadn’t seen as much sign in and that most people didn’t really spend time in. My home was to find some overlooked deer in some tougher to access country. Right off the bat I found a nice buck track on my walk in and then 5 does feeding in some beautiful open parks among some ponderosa, but sadly no bucks were with them yet. I moved along over the saddle of a large ridge to drop into a huge canyon/basin on the other side. As I dropped in, I heard a mature bull elk bugling his head off like he was in full rut mode, which I thought was odd. I found a lot of elk sign as I worked up the canyon, but almost no deer sign. I stopped at a couple different spots on the way in to glass across to the thick north slopes, but despite spending 3-4 hours glassing huge chunks of hillside, I didn’t see a living thing over there all day. Eventually I ran out of time to keep going up the canyon and turned around to start working back towards the truck. On the way back I found some cool rock formations, as well as a really nice glassing point overlooking the canyon bottom which surprisingly had a lot of water in it. Found the same 5 does on my way back, as well as a large herd of elk with a nice 5 point bull tending them. Day 1 was the biggest hike of the trip at about 12 miles. It was also the least amount of deer and sign which amounted to a solid lesson learned and area crossed off the map.

 

[huntandfly]

Day 2 I decided that the roads had finally dried up enough that I was going to try out some of the better looking spots I had scouted in the cedar tree country. I drove about an hour in the dark (that became the routine each morning) to park the truck and start hiking up the hill 30 minutes before daylight. I reached my glassing knob as it was just getting light enough to see. I immediately saw a decent buck over a mile away walking out to feed in the canyon bottom. He was acting jumpy and only spent a few minutes there before working up the hill into the cedars. I spent the next 3 hours glassing and only turned up about 10 does and a small 3 point on the hill across from me. Just as I was getting ready to climb down, I glassed up a side canyon one last time. Something caught my eye and I thought “there is a nice bull bedded up there.” As I looked closer I realized I had just found a nice 6 point shed (first one ever through the spotter). I packed up and headed down to snag it on the way out, and laying directly below it was the match set. Easily my biggest set of sheds to date as I don’t spend much time looking for them.



I went back to camp that morning to find that a couple of the guys staying there had connected on very nice bucks, one of them being an old trashy buck. I spent some time looking them over before heading back out. For the evening hunt I hiked in about a mile and a half to look over a massive creek bottom filled with sage and PJ. I found about 25 does and 2 or 3 more small bucks along with another herd of elk, but still sadly no mature bucks.

 

[huntandfly]

On day 3, I headed up to the highest point in the unit that I could find to hike back into a big steep canyon with a lot of good feed openings in it. As I am walking in, I barely need a headlamp as the moon is bright and some of these deer trails look like interstates with all the tracks form what I assume are migrating deer. It’s a perfect morning, about 10 degrees with almost no wind. The sky is brightening right as I get to my glassing knob, and the canyon below looks like prime deer habitat. This morning it takes a while before I start finding deer, but eventually I do. Most of them are down on a couple sizeable private chunks over a mile away, but I do find a fair number right in below me that I can hunt. I end up seeing probably 50-60 deer total, and probably 5 bucks, not a single on of which is larger than a forked horn. At this point I am finally starting to get slightly discouraged. I stay in there until around noon and then hike out to try a different spot for the evening.



That afternoon I drove back down the road about halfway to the highway and parked to walk in to another good looking canyon with tougher access. I jumped 10 or so deer along the road on the hike in, and upon reaching the edge of the canyon I found the bottom full of deer. There are probably 40 does right below me feeding, and over the next couple hours I dig up another 10-20 up in the thicker stuff including 2 small bucks. Finally with about an hour left of light I finally see what I would call my first decent buck of the trip, a probably 3.5 year old 3 point that feeds into the bottom. It’s encouraging to see him checking does, and I am happy he is around the corner of the canyon as I can see 3 hunters working up the bottom that I’m confident would have probably shot him (they were setting up on a forkie just up the hill from them). Day 3 ends with high hopes for the last 2 days.

 

[huntandfly]

On day 4, I’m pulling out all the stops. I have been trying spots all around the unit and am slowly finding good deer numbers concentrating towards a certain area. I head in there a couple miles this morning and set up overlooking a beautiful canyon bottom with open steep side hills. Right away I find the two best bucks I have seen yet and move over to get a closer look at them. They casually spar in the bottom for over 20 minutes as I decide that neither one is the type of buck I am looking for. There are a number of other bucks and does in the bottom as well. As I finally turn my attention to the canyon sidehills, I catch a deer about halfway up feeding towards the thick cedars on the plateau above. As soon as I get my spotter on him I know this is the buck I am looking for. He is a monster of a 3 point and clearly an old deer with a gigantic body. I range him at 1000 yards and with the way he is moving I know I can’t close enough distance before he gets into the thick on top. I opt to just watch him and see what he does, as he tops out and walks back into the cedars. Having grown up in SW Washington, I have spent a large portion of my life still hunting in thick brush. In this case, I was overconfident in that ability and decided I was going up there to track him and try and sneak onto him. The wind was right and I wasn’t confident I would ever see that deer again in this canyon. I climbed up the far canyon wall and as I topped out I immediately found his track. I slowed to a creep and hunted my way back into the plateau. My main goal was to get to the side draw about 300 yards adjacent to me to see if he dropped in there where I would’ve able to see him. I crept along to the side canyon, losing his track about halfway there but confident in his overall direction. I sat down and began glassing, and about 30 minutes later, I hear a deer bust about 200 yards north of my on the plateau. I immediately hear what sounds like a human whistling to stop a deer. I haven’t seen another soul in this canyon all day and the only thing I can think is that this person came clear off the top 4 miles up the ridge to get in here. I whistle back and I never hear a shot or see the person, but I am relatively confident that someone has just bumped this buck likely out of my life.

 

[huntandfly]

For the afternoon, I quietly backed out of that plateau and back to the edge where the buck had gone over that morning. I set up where I could see his tracks from the AM on his likely routes down into the canyon. As soon as I set up I can see another nice elk shed in the cedars below me, bringing my total shed count to 3 for the trip. I spend the whole afternoon here and the wind picks up pretty heavily. I spot a few more bucks in the bottom, but all are young deer. I grab my shed and hike out the couple miles to the truck in the dark.

 

[huntandfly]

Last day, Day 5: I’m pretty sure I had fever dreams about that buck. I know I’m going right back in there on the wild chance that he decides to come back to the same canyon. I spend the morning looking at some of the same bucks from the day prior, along with a very nice 4 point moving through the thick stuff below me that I likely would have shot given the opportunity. Sadly he never worked into an opening and I was unable to get on him. The giant 3 point from the previous day is a no show as expected, and around noon I hike out of the area to try a Hail Mary in one last location.

That afternoon is extremely windy as a cold front is blowing in. I hike in about 2 miles behind a gate to a glassing point overlooking the biggest creek/canyon bottom yet. I spend 5 hours there with at least 3 of them glued to the glass and I see a grand total of 5 deer. The wind keeps them in their beds for the last evening, and the hunt closes out with no shots fired.

Despite not shooting a deer, this was in my top 3 deer hunts ever. The country was beautiful and the deer were plentiful. I was able to look over a ton of deer and learned a ton for a person who thought they knew lot about mule deer hunting. I passed somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-12 bucks that were 3 point or better, although only a couple that bordered on mature. Here is hoping I will draw the tag again some time in the next 15 years so I can settle the score with the offspring of that giant 3.

 

[kansasdad]

You had some amazing adventures in some marvelous places.

Thanks for sharing the journey

 

[huntandfly]

Finally had time to finish up with my MT deer write up.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t think Montana should be letting me hunt deer in mid November on a general tag. Mule deer less than 4 years old were harmed in the making of this post, and they made some delicious beer brats and summer sausage. Here’s hoping they stop letting us hunt these dates, I know we are taking a couple years off from hunting MT.



My dad and I managed to pull our 3rd MT general deer tag in a row, along with my long time hunting partner and neighbor. We have a place we have gone every year and have a blast looking at deer and enjoying the beautiful landscapes.



Day 0.5: we split the drive into 2 days just to make it easier on ourselves. On the second driving day we rolled into the area we like to hunt just after noon. We opted to take a long drive through the hills to get to the couple of small areas we could hunt. We mostly hunt BMAs but also do some hunting on state/BLM ground as well. There had been a fair amount of snow in the area for a couple weeks, and it was snowing and blowing hard that first day as we forged through some snow drifted back roads and eventually into our hunting area. We planned to just drive through and look at the area to plan for the next day’s hunt. We saw a couple small bucks, and then as we reached the far side of the area we came across a nice herd with a 3x4 buck in it. We looked at him for about 20 seconds at 200 yards and decided we wanted to keep hunting. As we drove through the private ground on the way to town where we would be staying, I counted 22 bucks and a fair number more does, including a dandy whitetail buck and one really nice 4 point mule deer. We took our time just looking at the deer and enjoying the chance to watch them rut.

 

[huntandfly]

Day 1: we drove back in to the same area as the previous day. The three of us opted to stick together initially and started hiking into the large section south of the road. We had only gone 500 yards when I look back behind us and see a nice buck has walked over the ridge 100 yards from where the truck is parked and is staring at the truck. We immediately turn around to try and cut the distance, but when we get within 300 yards and pop over a rise the buck has vanished and his tracks head east off the property we can hunt. At this point we split up, dad and I head north and our buddy heads back south. We hike a couple miles up a drainage then up on top of a big bald topped ridge, bumping about 10 does in the process. As we get to the top, my dad glasses up a nice 4 point buck bedded with about 10 does just on the south side of the road. To the south of them about 300 yards I see my buddy hiking away from them on an adjacent ridge. Dad and I agree that it’s a shooter buck and we should head that way to make sure either we get a shot at it or our partner gets a shot if they feed into the next basin. Before we pack up to hike towards the buck, I glass farther up the canyon to the West and see what looks like another decent buck chasing a doe.
We start the hike over, and as we get within 700 yards, the buck begins feeding with the does away from us into the other drainage. We hustle down to 500 yards and set up but neither of us are 100% happy with the shot so we let him feed over the top and out of sight. With no idea where our hunting partner ended up, we cross the draw and start up the far side to try and pop out above the buck in the next basin. Just as we are 100s from topping out, I hear *whack*…BOOM from out in front of us. Sounds like buddy has picked him up in the next basin. He shoots twice more and then quiet. We pop over the top to see him gathering his stuff in a saddle just south of us and starting to walk down to the buck.

The buck is a nice 4x4 as we expected and qualifies as my buddies biggest buck to date. We make quick work of the processing and pack him out about a mile to the pickup.

 

[huntandfly]

Day 1 continued: after dropping my hunting partners buck at the truck, we cruise up the road to the west end of the hunt area to do some glassing. My dad is really trying to shoot his first whitetail buck so we are looking mostly for those. We glass up a small 4x4 whitetail about 700 yards above the road and decide to hike in to see if we can get a shot. The buck disappears over the ridge as we head up into the draw. We get to where we had last seen the buck and find nothing but his tracks in the snow. After about 5 minutes glassing we see him top out on a ridge over a mile away. It blows me away every time how far these cruising whitetail bucks will travel in a short period looking for does! With that plan in the bin, we start chatting about plans to hunt our way back out, when suddenly my dad says “Buck! Buck right there!” I look over, and 200 yards across the draw the same buck I glassed earlier jumps out of the willows in the bottom with a doe and heads for the opposite ridge top. We lay down on our packs and the buck does the standard “mule deer look-back” giving my dad a perfect shot. He center punches the buck and it starts to jump forward a few times before falling backward into the snow. 2/3 tags filled now on day one. We process the buck and our buddy hikes in to help us pack it out. We decide to call it a day and enjoy the drive back to town in the daylight looking at a bunch more deer, including a couple more big whitetails on private.

 

[huntandfly]

Day 2: I am the only guy holding a tag now, and I decide to give the hunt area from yesterday a rest and try a different BMA that I got my whitetail buck on last year. We sign in and start to head up my favorite draw and immediately run into a herd with 2 young 4 points pushing does. Nothing I’m interested in shooting here and they slowly move up onto the ridge and into the next canyon. We are still within 400 yards of the road when a good looking buck comes running into the draw from the adjacent private ground. I glass him and he closer to a shooter than anything else I have seen. I guess him at a 3.5 year old 3 point with decent front forks and a crab pincher 4th on one side. I’m still not ready to fill my tag as I would really like to try and find a mature buck. We let him go and he heads up to join the other deer out of sight. We hike another half mile and as we crest into a big draw, all the deer from earlier have now joined up with another herd and they are rutting it up down in front of us at about 250-400 yards. There are 6 bucks now, the biggest still being the 3 point with a bunch of 2.5 year old 4 points in the mix. We watch them for about 30 minutes just to make sure we aren’t missing something, and the. Head out towards them as they are between us and my desired glassing peak. We push them out even farther back into the BMA, and then proceed to glass for about an hour on the peak. We find 3-4 more bucks and one of them is a whitetail that I would shoot, but he is a mile farther back and on the move. The weather is turning bad and I am ready to back out and head back to the BMA from yesterday.
As we pull up to the BMA, the land owner is driving by and stops to let us know that I made a poor decision that morning as he had seen a large heavy 4x5 right off the road while taking the kids to school that morning. Just my luck. We drive the area and glass real quick but now the weather is getting really bad. Winds are picking up to 20-30 mph and the snow is falling hard now. Visibility is reduced to about 300 yards and it’s the middle of the day. We do spot a couple deer running down into a draw, and my buddy and I hike over to check them out. We look crest over the edge and see a heavy-ish 2x3 from the day before tending a doe. I guessed him probably as a 3.5 year old as well with poor genetics. I pass on him and the other 2 young 3x4s that were just on the outskirts watching the hot doe.
With the blizzard going, I decide we should just park the truck and try and take a quick nap to wait out some weather if possible before I strike out into the blizzard for the afternoon. 20 minutes into our “nap” my dad says: “here come some deer across the draw close.” Sure enough, 3 does run through the draw and like clockwork a buck runs across behind them. We glass the buck, see a wide frame and I decide that it’s a shooter. I quickly grab my pack and gun, and hike a couple hundred yards up to a knob where I’ll be able to see where they went. At the top, I see the buck at 270 yards. I lay across my pack, catch my breath, and hammer the buck in his tracks.

I could put down 4-5 different excuses straight out of the popular “ALMOST GOT HIM” thread here on HT, but I won’t. This buck is smaller and younger than 4 bucks I had already passed, but I was happy to have him and was ready to get on the road home to spend some much overdue quality time with mom.

Thanks for reading of you made it this far and good luck to everyone in the upcoming application season!

 

[Khunter]

Congrats of some well executed and fun hunts and for the great writeup!

 

[RyGuy]

Nice bucks. Congrats on the good hunt!