the nikster
Well-known member
I got back late last night from a very good hunt in Montana unit 700.
I hunted for 4 days with some buddies from NY. I was alone on day 1 so I just did some scouting and tried to get familiar with the area-77,000 acres!
I was suprised by the volume of game I saw that first day. The mulies and antelope numbers in Idaho must be WAAAAAAAYYYYYY down!!! Hold on to your backsides cuz I saw(no lies) at least 200 deer every day with about 1/3 being bucks in the small 3x3 + or - range. I saw at least 150 antelope every day with most groups of 6 or more does packing at least 1 small 10" to 13" buck.
Day 2: I hunted high in the morning with Dennis trying to intercept the big bucks coming off the fields. About 10 seconds into my stand I saw a buck with my binos that was about 800 yards away and broadside. He was pushing 20 or so does up a coolie. From the right side I could see at least 9 points so I thought he was a 5x5, but how wide?? He was tall, I could see more antler above the ear than below it, but how wide??? He moved about 200 yrds further to my right before he turned his head-OH MY HECK!!!(morman) From the rear he was 2 times as wide as his body!! Now he looked short!! I signalled Dennis I was on to a shooter and off we went. We circled above his location and began moving in. We saw another 3x3 buck go over the ridge to our west. I saw another buck(maybe the big one?) bed down in a coolie so we straddled the draw and headed down-no does anywhere!! About 100 yrds and there he was! running like the wind! 5x5, short, not wide, not him, but we both shot .......................we both missed! We walked the entire draw and never saw another deer-Poof!
It was afternoon so we concentrated on antelope for a while. We saw a herd or about 50 animals with 3 bucks in it across a wooded draw so Mike, Marco, Dennis and I headed through the brush to the other side. Crash! 3 mulie does to my left busting out. Crash! 1 mulie buck (2x3) busting out to my right. Crash 2 mulie does busting out to my left again. Crash 2 whitetail does go out right behind the mulies but turn a hard left and keep going. The 2 mulie does to my left go over a ridge above me and come into sight a little to my right about 400 yards out, 3 deer! Buck! Big buck!! 30" plus 4x4 at least-gone in an instant:BLEEP: I am not yet 100 yards from my truck!
refocus on antelope: I stay low just between the ridge and the coolie and Dennis goes high. We are going to sandwich the antelope between us and the M&M boys. 20 yards and blast goes a rooster pheasant which I think hit both my knees on the way up. Another 100 yards and, Crash! Off to my left, down in the coolie, 8 yards, antlers seemingly everywhere! boom! he keeps running- 40 yards boom! he goes into a small dip-disappears. 1 hour later I find him, my dink whitetail, 5x4 1/2 17" wide. I was all smiles.
Half an hour later Dennis dropped his antelope at 280 yards. They ran back and forth 2 times before he got a shot at the buck-1 shot 1 kill.
Day 3-zip, lotta sightings but little to report, couple of big bucks but no shots.
Day 4: Last day! gotta getta speedgoat! A.M. put a stalk on a herd with 35 does and 3 bucks laying on a hill outta the wind. 2 hrs-600 yards-nothing I want to shoot. 2 bucks about 11 or 12" and 1 buck about 14" but his horns were all screwy lookin, pointing all over so back to spotting I go. I pick up Mike cuz he shot a dink 2x3 mulie and is also looking for goats in the afternoon.
We spot a herd behind a knob in a small draw. 1 shooter buck! We stalk for 30 minutes and peek into the draw-poof! their gone! 1000 yards to the north is another draw and I spot'em again! Yippeee! Another 30 mins and we are there looking down on the herd. we get set-up.... Mike shoots! buck runs, I shoot, buck runs into middle of herd. Herd moves around within sight for some 10 minutes never offers another shot then moves off to another ridge. We look all over for signs of a hit-NOTHING!! 2 clean misses. We kick ourselves all the way back to the truck.
Later.... We spot THE herd we have been looking for!!!! 40 does 10 bucks 4 definate shooters over 14" We sneek to within 1000 yards and peek over a rock pile. Wench doe spots us and poof!! into the next zip code they go! We finally see them again about 1.5 miles later in an open field with a knob they are feeding towards. 40 minutes later we are on the knob giggling at how cool this is going to be when CRASH!! 3 small bucks go smashing down the knob right into the antelope changing their course by some 90 degrees CRAP!(morman again). We re-assess and Mike says we should go back around to the west and let them feed to us. After some arguing I agree. We have moved and we are in place. It is 6:00pm and we have 30 min of legal light and they are about 280 yards out and feeding straight to us-giggle/giggle! 6:15pm, 200 yards out and 2 huge bucks are in the lead-we decided it was now or never. I aim left, Mike aims right. 1......2......3!!!!!We both shoot! Thump! mine goes down like a ton a turds!! Mikes runs and I watch it for him. It settles next to another shooter buck at 250 yards and Mike unloads on it. Then a dink buck joins the other two. Oh no, Mikes out of ammo! he reloads while I watch his buck. Dink suddenly tips over and dies!!! The shooter bucks join the herd at about 700 yards, mill about for some 5 minutes then leave the area. My buck is gone!! Totally:BLEEP: gone!!! We gut the other and drag it (after searching 30 min for mine in the dark)to the edge of the field then walk to the truck to get the tag. Almost 2 miles in the dark trying to figure out what happened.
Conclusion: I shoot my buck, he goes down.
We watch as Mikes buck moves away some 100 yards and mike shoots.
Meanwhile-my buck thrashes around-losing his horns in the process!
My buck-now the dink- joins mikes buck as mike runs out of ammo.
Mike stops shooting and dink falls over totally perplexing us!!!
I tag buck, we look for my horns in the dark-Right! No way do we find em.
Landowner agrees with scenario and agrees to search tomorrow as we have to leave. The landowner gave me a couple of 11" drops to mount on my buck, Just-in-case. What a bummer/huge success!!!
Still smilin'
I hunted for 4 days with some buddies from NY. I was alone on day 1 so I just did some scouting and tried to get familiar with the area-77,000 acres!
I was suprised by the volume of game I saw that first day. The mulies and antelope numbers in Idaho must be WAAAAAAAYYYYYY down!!! Hold on to your backsides cuz I saw(no lies) at least 200 deer every day with about 1/3 being bucks in the small 3x3 + or - range. I saw at least 150 antelope every day with most groups of 6 or more does packing at least 1 small 10" to 13" buck.
Day 2: I hunted high in the morning with Dennis trying to intercept the big bucks coming off the fields. About 10 seconds into my stand I saw a buck with my binos that was about 800 yards away and broadside. He was pushing 20 or so does up a coolie. From the right side I could see at least 9 points so I thought he was a 5x5, but how wide?? He was tall, I could see more antler above the ear than below it, but how wide??? He moved about 200 yrds further to my right before he turned his head-OH MY HECK!!!(morman) From the rear he was 2 times as wide as his body!! Now he looked short!! I signalled Dennis I was on to a shooter and off we went. We circled above his location and began moving in. We saw another 3x3 buck go over the ridge to our west. I saw another buck(maybe the big one?) bed down in a coolie so we straddled the draw and headed down-no does anywhere!! About 100 yrds and there he was! running like the wind! 5x5, short, not wide, not him, but we both shot .......................we both missed! We walked the entire draw and never saw another deer-Poof!
It was afternoon so we concentrated on antelope for a while. We saw a herd or about 50 animals with 3 bucks in it across a wooded draw so Mike, Marco, Dennis and I headed through the brush to the other side. Crash! 3 mulie does to my left busting out. Crash! 1 mulie buck (2x3) busting out to my right. Crash 2 mulie does busting out to my left again. Crash 2 whitetail does go out right behind the mulies but turn a hard left and keep going. The 2 mulie does to my left go over a ridge above me and come into sight a little to my right about 400 yards out, 3 deer! Buck! Big buck!! 30" plus 4x4 at least-gone in an instant:BLEEP: I am not yet 100 yards from my truck!
refocus on antelope: I stay low just between the ridge and the coolie and Dennis goes high. We are going to sandwich the antelope between us and the M&M boys. 20 yards and blast goes a rooster pheasant which I think hit both my knees on the way up. Another 100 yards and, Crash! Off to my left, down in the coolie, 8 yards, antlers seemingly everywhere! boom! he keeps running- 40 yards boom! he goes into a small dip-disappears. 1 hour later I find him, my dink whitetail, 5x4 1/2 17" wide. I was all smiles.
Half an hour later Dennis dropped his antelope at 280 yards. They ran back and forth 2 times before he got a shot at the buck-1 shot 1 kill.
Day 3-zip, lotta sightings but little to report, couple of big bucks but no shots.
Day 4: Last day! gotta getta speedgoat! A.M. put a stalk on a herd with 35 does and 3 bucks laying on a hill outta the wind. 2 hrs-600 yards-nothing I want to shoot. 2 bucks about 11 or 12" and 1 buck about 14" but his horns were all screwy lookin, pointing all over so back to spotting I go. I pick up Mike cuz he shot a dink 2x3 mulie and is also looking for goats in the afternoon.
We spot a herd behind a knob in a small draw. 1 shooter buck! We stalk for 30 minutes and peek into the draw-poof! their gone! 1000 yards to the north is another draw and I spot'em again! Yippeee! Another 30 mins and we are there looking down on the herd. we get set-up.... Mike shoots! buck runs, I shoot, buck runs into middle of herd. Herd moves around within sight for some 10 minutes never offers another shot then moves off to another ridge. We look all over for signs of a hit-NOTHING!! 2 clean misses. We kick ourselves all the way back to the truck.
Later.... We spot THE herd we have been looking for!!!! 40 does 10 bucks 4 definate shooters over 14" We sneek to within 1000 yards and peek over a rock pile. Wench doe spots us and poof!! into the next zip code they go! We finally see them again about 1.5 miles later in an open field with a knob they are feeding towards. 40 minutes later we are on the knob giggling at how cool this is going to be when CRASH!! 3 small bucks go smashing down the knob right into the antelope changing their course by some 90 degrees CRAP!(morman again). We re-assess and Mike says we should go back around to the west and let them feed to us. After some arguing I agree. We have moved and we are in place. It is 6:00pm and we have 30 min of legal light and they are about 280 yards out and feeding straight to us-giggle/giggle! 6:15pm, 200 yards out and 2 huge bucks are in the lead-we decided it was now or never. I aim left, Mike aims right. 1......2......3!!!!!We both shoot! Thump! mine goes down like a ton a turds!! Mikes runs and I watch it for him. It settles next to another shooter buck at 250 yards and Mike unloads on it. Then a dink buck joins the other two. Oh no, Mikes out of ammo! he reloads while I watch his buck. Dink suddenly tips over and dies!!! The shooter bucks join the herd at about 700 yards, mill about for some 5 minutes then leave the area. My buck is gone!! Totally:BLEEP: gone!!! We gut the other and drag it (after searching 30 min for mine in the dark)to the edge of the field then walk to the truck to get the tag. Almost 2 miles in the dark trying to figure out what happened.
Conclusion: I shoot my buck, he goes down.
We watch as Mikes buck moves away some 100 yards and mike shoots.
Meanwhile-my buck thrashes around-losing his horns in the process!
My buck-now the dink- joins mikes buck as mike runs out of ammo.
Mike stops shooting and dink falls over totally perplexing us!!!
I tag buck, we look for my horns in the dark-Right! No way do we find em.
Landowner agrees with scenario and agrees to search tomorrow as we have to leave. The landowner gave me a couple of 11" drops to mount on my buck, Just-in-case. What a bummer/huge success!!!
Still smilin'
