elk_hunter
Active member
Okay guys, I just got back from a long, cold Montana hunt but I wanted to stake a thread for the stories and pics...have to run out with the fam to a kiddo birthday party but this evening I'll post the info.
Montana Elk & Deer
- Thread starter elk_hunter
- Start date
Come on elk hunter. I am wanting to hear these details.
elk_hunter
Active member
Here we go.......
Day 1 (Wednesday, 11/11): Left Reno at 4:30pm en route to Bozeman, MT.
Day 2 (11/12): Arrived in Bozeman, MT around 10:00am and met up with my dad (came from Colorado) after traveling crazy ice and snow covered roads for most of the trip through Idaho and Montana. The wonderful thing was the 2 feet of snow in town and it was falling heavy...
Stopped by the FWP Office and picked up some bear spray (just in case), a little better map and a quad registration; after some brunch, we headed to the mountains for our 2009 elk and deer adventure. And it snowed most of the way to the hills, along with providing some slippery times on icy roads too. Pulled into "camp" around 4:30pm and it was still snowing so we didn't set up the tent. Instead we whipped together a quick bite and slept in our rigs.
Day 3 (11/13): The morning gave us clear skies but bitter cold and even colder wind. I must have been paying attention to the possibilities Big Fin talked about for the area we were hunting and not the type of conditions we could run into and needed to be prepared for.
About 600 yards on a hillside, I glassed a decent little forked horn chasing some does who didn't want anything to do with him. I was tempted to pull the trigger but dad talked me out of it since it was our first day hunting.
Later on that evening, dad glassed that same hillside and found a nice 5pt bull weaving his way through the pines down from the top of the mountain. Did I mention how windy it was? At least that was my excuse to my dad for not shooting the bull at 450 yards. Mistake #1.
Day 1 (Wednesday, 11/11): Left Reno at 4:30pm en route to Bozeman, MT.
Day 2 (11/12): Arrived in Bozeman, MT around 10:00am and met up with my dad (came from Colorado) after traveling crazy ice and snow covered roads for most of the trip through Idaho and Montana. The wonderful thing was the 2 feet of snow in town and it was falling heavy...
Stopped by the FWP Office and picked up some bear spray (just in case), a little better map and a quad registration; after some brunch, we headed to the mountains for our 2009 elk and deer adventure. And it snowed most of the way to the hills, along with providing some slippery times on icy roads too. Pulled into "camp" around 4:30pm and it was still snowing so we didn't set up the tent. Instead we whipped together a quick bite and slept in our rigs.
Day 3 (11/13): The morning gave us clear skies but bitter cold and even colder wind. I must have been paying attention to the possibilities Big Fin talked about for the area we were hunting and not the type of conditions we could run into and needed to be prepared for.
About 600 yards on a hillside, I glassed a decent little forked horn chasing some does who didn't want anything to do with him.
I was tempted to pull the trigger but dad talked me out of it since it was our first day hunting.Later on that evening, dad glassed that same hillside and found a nice 5pt bull weaving his way through the pines down from the top of the mountain. Did I mention how windy it was? At least that was my excuse to my dad for not shooting the bull at 450 yards.
Mistake #1.
elk_hunter
Active member
BF, I'll give you even more details -- let me know when you want to hook up on the phone.
Day 4 (Saturday, 11/14): On and off snow the previous day kept the tent setup at bay but by this day we'd had enough so we ended up setting up the tent after the morning hunt. The locals woke us up a little earlier than we expected but they discovered the difficulty in getting around in lots of snow. Our quads really helped since the roads were too loaded with snow to travel with trucks.
We returned to the canyon to glass the semi-open hillside and discovered the 5pt bull still in the SAME EXACT SPOT as we left him the night before along with a new, 6pt bull that had joined him! We hurried along the opposite hillside to try and close the distance to something less than 600-something yards. Have I mentioned the killer wind in Montana yet?? We got into position that would have give us 385 yard shots but instead, the bulls moved higher on the mountain quickly as they listened to us crunch the snow when we walked. We could have taken 500 yard shots (and beyond) as they fed quickly up the hill, but ultimately passed because of the really strong crosswind blowing up the canyon. Mistake #2.
As we sat, cursing ourselves and the conditions, dad spotted a herd of elk on a distant ridge a couple miles away. There were several good bulls in the group so we started formulating a plan of attack. Once we figured out the best way to approach and attack, we started our trek. But, that ended abruptly because as we kept glassing across the 2 canyons at the herd, we saw a group of 4 guys trekking up the canyon closest to the bulls, seemingly unaware of what they were hiking into. So, we cancelled our journey and sat back to watch the action unfold. As we thought, these guys were oblivious and when they got near the top, the scout cows on the periphery alerted the entire herd and they were off and running to private property in about 3 seconds.
An interesting note about Montana...there were many locals up cutting firewood and I haven't seen that kind of fun since I lived in Oregon. These guys came in and were falling really large trees across roads and then proceeding to cut them to bed-size lengths and haul them out. Talk about cool...although with that logging noise, maybe that's why we had trouble locating animals on the lonely slopes around camp.
2009 must have been the lucky year for every guy in Washington to draw a MT tag...every single hunter we met (and we met a lot of them) was either from Washington or a local MT resident. We were the oddballs. One of the groups (4 guys) shot a little 4pt raghorn about 5 miles in on a gated road. It took them 5 hours of hiking (one way) to pack out the front quarters and even longer when they came back for the rears.
Day 5 (11/15): We woke early and began our routine of glassing ridges and hillsides in search of elk and deer. We were surprised to see nothing. In fact, the entire day was a bust.
The droves of local loggers were successful in more trees and great firewood.
We heard of a camp down the road below us that shot a little dink forked horn that was barely legal, in terms of location in the unit. Lucky bastards we thought.
Day 4 (Saturday, 11/14): On and off snow the previous day kept the tent setup at bay but by this day we'd had enough so we ended up setting up the tent after the morning hunt. The locals woke us up a little earlier than we expected but they discovered the difficulty in getting around in lots of snow. Our quads really helped since the roads were too loaded with snow to travel with trucks.
We returned to the canyon to glass the semi-open hillside and discovered the 5pt bull still in the SAME EXACT SPOT as we left him the night before along with a new, 6pt bull that had joined him! We hurried along the opposite hillside to try and close the distance to something less than 600-something yards. Have I mentioned the killer wind in Montana yet?? We got into position that would have give us 385 yard shots but instead, the bulls moved higher on the mountain quickly as they listened to us crunch the snow when we walked.
We could have taken 500 yard shots (and beyond) as they fed quickly up the hill, but ultimately passed because of the really strong crosswind blowing up the canyon. Mistake #2. As we sat, cursing ourselves and the conditions, dad spotted a herd of elk on a distant ridge a couple miles away. There were several good bulls in the group so we started formulating a plan of attack. Once we figured out the best way to approach and attack, we started our trek. But, that ended abruptly because as we kept glassing across the 2 canyons at the herd, we saw a group of 4 guys trekking up the canyon closest to the bulls, seemingly unaware of what they were hiking into. So, we cancelled our journey and sat back to watch the action unfold. As we thought, these guys were oblivious and when they got near the top, the scout cows on the periphery alerted the entire herd and they were off and running to private property in about 3 seconds.
An interesting note about Montana...there were many locals up cutting firewood and I haven't seen that kind of fun since I lived in Oregon. These guys came in and were falling really large trees across roads and then proceeding to cut them to bed-size lengths and haul them out. Talk about cool...although with that logging noise, maybe that's why we had trouble locating animals on the lonely slopes around camp.
2009 must have been the lucky year for every guy in Washington to draw a MT tag...every single hunter we met (and we met a lot of them) was either from Washington or a local MT resident. We were the oddballs.
One of the groups (4 guys) shot a little 4pt raghorn about 5 miles in on a gated road. It took them 5 hours of hiking (one way) to pack out the front quarters and even longer when they came back for the rears. Day 5 (11/15): We woke early and began our routine of glassing ridges and hillsides in search of elk and deer. We were surprised to see nothing. In fact, the entire day was a bust.
The droves of local loggers were successful in more trees and great firewood.
We heard of a camp down the road below us that shot a little dink forked horn that was barely legal, in terms of location in the unit. Lucky bastards we thought.
elk_hunter
Active member
Day 6 (Monday, 11/16): Again we woke early and were off in hot pursuit of big game. We ended up hearing a couple shots behind camp and discovered a local father-son team had success in locating and killing a nice little 6pt bull -- the 12 year old's first elk and he was excited to say the least. They stopped by camp and asked us to make sure no one stole their animal (back in the forest about 2 or 3 miles) so we stood guard. They returned a couple hours before dark with 4 more guys (for a total of 6) to help them pack out the elk in 2 halves on sleds.
We ended up seeing 4 elk that morning and 2 were cows and 2 were calves...unfortunately no bulls in the mix, otherwise we could have taken the bulls at a 500 yard or so distance and with no wind at the time, that was tough to take.
With the weekend behind us, we figured we'd enjoy a bit slower time with the locals going back to work. For the most part, this was true, although there were still some firewood die-hards out continuing their gathering. The occasional hunter group would come up, turn around and head back down the mountain when greeted with all the snow. But a few would try and venture up higher. Again, the quads were invaluable and we didn't rely completely on all the mileage going on snowshoes/boots.
Later that evening, dad was glassing a canyon and found a really nice 5pt bull at dark which gave us pause to drool but not much more than that.
Day 7 (Tuesday, 11/17): We thought with all the action behind camp that we'd hunt that section that bordered private property so we headed out. Got about 5 yards from a really nice, fat doe but no buck was with her.
That evening, we returned to glass the canyons and hillsides and I saw a nice group of does (7) but no bucks were chasing or anywhere to be found. Unfortunately on the way up the mountain, we saw a bloody drag coming off the hillside...someone had shot a nice buck right off the road. Lucky bastards!
Dad went back to camp to get a fire going since it was bitterly cold and windy and he couldn't take much more as the day ended. When I got back to camp, he mentioned that he went for a quick zip down the road and jumped a doe...behind her was a really nice 3pt and a forked horn chasing her. All completely carefree as he sat and watched them frolick at 50 yards. Unfortunately they were on the wrong side of the road so he wasn't able to shoot.
Day 8 (Wednesday, 11/18): Back at it hard again, first thing in the morning with no luck and no animals to be found around our area. So we returned to camp and made a really nice breakfast. We started talking about trying to break through the snow drifts on top of the mountain that no one had been able to do yet so we fueled the beasts and headed up to see if we could gain some better vantage points for glassing. As luck would have it, we made it up top and began glassing.
I spotted a herd of at least 50 elk, 10 of which were all shooter bulls with a couple of absolute monsters. The problem was this herd was several miles away in a beautiful, open basin with no way to get to them in any kind of timely manner. All the roads leading to their basin were socked with anywhere between 4 and 5 feet of drifted snow and it would have taken a day or a day and a half to get over there. So we jealously watched them feed for a couple hours.
Elk weren't the only animals in inaccessible places..........we spotted some nice muley bucks on private property too.
The evening was slow until dad spotted a flicker of an animal run across an open patch on "our hillside". We glassed like mad until I found that the flicker was a nice 5pt bull, feeding down the canyon and across the hillside. So, I took off across the hillside and cut the distance from 800 yards to 385. I laid down and found him moving at a quick pace in my crosshairs. Just as I'm about ready to squeeze the trigger he walks behind some young pines and doesn't present a shot. He emerges and right when I get ready to squeeze for the second time, he moves downhill into a thicker group of trees. So I move my Mystery Ranch Crew Cab pack a bit to give me a better angle on the bull when he emerges. The bull steps out but feeds back toward the ravine he just came down...that's when it fell apart. With light fading, I lost the bull in the trees and the ravine. I ran back across the hill toward my dad, furiously checking that patch of trees for the bull. He disappeared! Tracks in the snow later revealed that he went down a hidden ravine in that patch of pines and from my angle, I couldn't see that.
We ended up seeing 4 elk that morning and 2 were cows and 2 were calves...unfortunately no bulls in the mix, otherwise we could have taken the bulls at a 500 yard or so distance and with no wind at the time, that was tough to take.
With the weekend behind us, we figured we'd enjoy a bit slower time with the locals going back to work. For the most part, this was true, although there were still some firewood die-hards out continuing their gathering. The occasional hunter group would come up, turn around and head back down the mountain when greeted with all the snow. But a few would try and venture up higher. Again, the quads were invaluable and we didn't rely completely on all the mileage going on snowshoes/boots.
Later that evening, dad was glassing a canyon and found a really nice 5pt bull at dark which gave us pause to drool but not much more than that.
Day 7 (Tuesday, 11/17): We thought with all the action behind camp that we'd hunt that section that bordered private property so we headed out. Got about 5 yards from a really nice, fat doe but no buck was with her.
That evening, we returned to glass the canyons and hillsides and I saw a nice group of does (7) but no bucks were chasing or anywhere to be found.
Unfortunately on the way up the mountain, we saw a bloody drag coming off the hillside...someone had shot a nice buck right off the road. Lucky bastards!Dad went back to camp to get a fire going since it was bitterly cold and windy and he couldn't take much more as the day ended. When I got back to camp, he mentioned that he went for a quick zip down the road and jumped a doe...behind her was a really nice 3pt and a forked horn chasing her. All completely carefree as he sat and watched them frolick at 50 yards. Unfortunately they were on the wrong side of the road so he wasn't able to shoot.
Day 8 (Wednesday, 11/18): Back at it hard again, first thing in the morning with no luck and no animals to be found around our area. So we returned to camp and made a really nice breakfast. We started talking about trying to break through the snow drifts on top of the mountain that no one had been able to do yet so we fueled the beasts and headed up to see if we could gain some better vantage points for glassing. As luck would have it, we made it up top and began glassing.
I spotted a herd of at least 50 elk, 10 of which were all shooter bulls with a couple of absolute monsters. The problem was this herd was several miles away in a beautiful, open basin with no way to get to them in any kind of timely manner. All the roads leading to their basin were socked with anywhere between 4 and 5 feet of drifted snow and it would have taken a day or a day and a half to get over there. So we jealously watched them feed for a couple hours.
Elk weren't the only animals in inaccessible places..........we spotted some nice muley bucks on private property too.
The evening was slow until dad spotted a flicker of an animal run across an open patch on "our hillside". We glassed like mad until I found that the flicker was a nice 5pt bull, feeding down the canyon and across the hillside. So, I took off across the hillside and cut the distance from 800 yards to 385. I laid down and found him moving at a quick pace in my crosshairs. Just as I'm about ready to squeeze the trigger he walks behind some young pines and doesn't present a shot. He emerges and right when I get ready to squeeze for the second time, he moves downhill into a thicker group of trees. So I move my Mystery Ranch Crew Cab pack a bit to give me a better angle on the bull when he emerges. The bull steps out but feeds back toward the ravine he just came down...that's when it fell apart. With light fading, I lost the bull in the trees and the ravine. I ran back across the hill toward my dad, furiously checking that patch of trees for the bull. He disappeared! Tracks in the snow later revealed that he went down a hidden ravine in that patch of pines and from my angle, I couldn't see that.
Any smiley faces for this hunt? So far, all frowns and embarrassment.
One of the groups (4 guys) shot a little 4pt raghorn about 5 miles in on a gated road. It took them 5 hours of hiking (one way) to pack out the front quarters and even longer when they came back for the rears.
You say this like it's a bad thing
Hurry up and tell us how it ended!
elk_hunter
Active member
Day 9 (Thursday, 11/19): We rose early again, in search of elk and deer on the ridges and hillsides we had grown so familiar with. Unfortunately we didn't see anything new. Except wolf tracks.
So we thought about dropping down lower in elevation and hunting a block management area. As we dropped in elevation, we saw many animals on private, non-BMA ground and by the time we arrived at one of the BMAs, we weren't impressed with the lack of animals and wide-open fields, so we regrouped. We thought we'd try another canyon, to the north of where we had been hunting, so down the road we went to catch a different spur. We ended up getting way up into the forest but found nothing promising so we headed back to camp.
On our exit, we came through a thinned timber area next to a meadow and dad yelled that he saw a buck chasing a doe. He pulled out his 300mag and dropped the little forky about 30 yards from the truck. Yay! We finally broke the "no blood" streak! A quick gut-out job and we dragged him over and threw him in the truck and back to camp we went to hang and skin.
We ate a quick lunch and headed out to glass ridges and canyons again. Around 2pm I got tired of the lack of action and decided to go higher on the mountain and see if I could spot the elk herd in the far basin we had seen previously. On my way up the road, I noticed some "fresh" deer tracks so I started watching the trees carefully. As luck would have it, a little buck had just crossed the road and he was up a bit farther, moving up the mountain, paralleling the road and only 10 yards in the thick timber. So I chambered a shell in my 300WSM and fired. Hitting the buck in the spine in the shoulder area meant an almost instant death as he fell to the ground.
So here I am with the spoils. Man, these MT deer have really, really big bodies and very thick hides. I couldn't believe how far I had to reach up inside his ribcage to cut the pipe and organs out of him!
So we thought about dropping down lower in elevation and hunting a block management area. As we dropped in elevation, we saw many animals on private, non-BMA ground and by the time we arrived at one of the BMAs, we weren't impressed with the lack of animals and wide-open fields, so we regrouped. We thought we'd try another canyon, to the north of where we had been hunting, so down the road we went to catch a different spur. We ended up getting way up into the forest but found nothing promising so we headed back to camp.
On our exit, we came through a thinned timber area next to a meadow and dad yelled that he saw a buck chasing a doe. He pulled out his 300mag and dropped the little forky about 30 yards from the truck. Yay! We finally broke the "no blood" streak! A quick gut-out job and we dragged him over and threw him in the truck and back to camp we went to hang and skin.
We ate a quick lunch and headed out to glass ridges and canyons again. Around 2pm I got tired of the lack of action and decided to go higher on the mountain and see if I could spot the elk herd in the far basin we had seen previously. On my way up the road, I noticed some "fresh" deer tracks so I started watching the trees carefully. As luck would have it, a little buck had just crossed the road and he was up a bit farther, moving up the mountain, paralleling the road and only 10 yards in the thick timber. So I chambered a shell in my 300WSM and fired. Hitting the buck in the spine in the shoulder area meant an almost instant death as he fell to the ground.
So here I am with the spoils. Man, these MT deer have really, really big bodies and very thick hides. I couldn't believe how far I had to reach up inside his ribcage to cut the pipe and organs out of him!
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elk_hunter
Active member
Day 10 (Friday, 11/20): We woke early with 50% of our tags filled and feeling like today would be the day we'd kill a pair of bulls. So we headed out to glass. And came up empty. So, we went higher and east and I discovered the same giant herd of elk several miles away, feeding nonchalantly in that same basin we had seen them in previously. We looked at maps and tried to figure out how we could get close enough to the herd to pick off 2 bulls but unfortunately we couldn't make it happen -- one of the downsides of being so green in a new area.
A weather report indicated an approaching storm, threatening to dump significantly more snow on us so we decided to call it a season, and a good season at that. We packed up camp, headed to town and snagged a couple rooms at the motel and headed for home very early Saturday morning.
In all, we had an absolute blast. Killing critters is always gravy but more importantly is being out there in the woods, finding that peace that accompanies, making great memories and enjoying the hunt. As we all know, the highs are high and the lows are low and you have everything in between those extremes. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
So, thanks again, Big Fin, for your advice and suggestions. We'll have to chat more in-depth about some of the specifics that I'm sure you'd be interested in.
And Randy11, after your packout, I'm sure that 5 hour one-way trip is gravy compared to yours!
A weather report indicated an approaching storm, threatening to dump significantly more snow on us so we decided to call it a season, and a good season at that. We packed up camp, headed to town and snagged a couple rooms at the motel and headed for home very early Saturday morning.
In all, we had an absolute blast. Killing critters is always gravy but more importantly is being out there in the woods, finding that peace that accompanies, making great memories and enjoying the hunt. As we all know, the highs are high and the lows are low and you have everything in between those extremes. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
So, thanks again, Big Fin, for your advice and suggestions. We'll have to chat more in-depth about some of the specifics that I'm sure you'd be interested in.
And Randy11, after your packout, I'm sure that 5 hour one-way trip is gravy compared to yours!
csutton7
Active member
good job on the hunt---chris
elkkill2006
Member
What a great story! Cool pics also.
elk_hunter
Active member
Thanks guys!
noharleyyet
Well-known member
Nice job elk hunter, thanks for the story and pictures.
Dinkshooter
Well-known member
You are just like Grimmett. You always have the same pose in Hero shots
Looks like a good time.
Looks like a good time.
elk_hunter
Active member
Dink, I really wanted to join the ranks of the extreme pics you, Greenie and others have posted on here, emulating some of the real champion hunters.........but there were no rock outcroppings or cliffs around. Perhaps I should have hoisted him up into a tree about 30' or so and done something like that?
Perhaps I should have hoisted him up into a tree about 30' or so and done something like that? 
