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SW MT

Started by natureboy, October 16, 2015, 14:58:01 PM

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natureboy

Countdown initiated, t-3weeks.



Elk tag, deer tag, upland license, and fishing license in hand.

Here's to long nights on the mountain in search of a wapiti, fat brown trout, and not getting eaten by a bear.  0:0

Any of you part-time Montanan's still out there?

flatlander

Cool.  What area/Mtn range will you be hunting?

natureboy

S. end of the Madisons and Gravellys, maybe the east end of the Centennials.

flatlander


Dougfish


natureboy

Checking in, does not suck here.   It does snow a lot though.

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natureboy



It's pretty crazy how quickly trips like this come and go... 

After a swing and a miss on the draws in several states I floated the idea of picking up leftover deer/elk combo tags to my buddy.  It took him about 5 minutes to text back "I'm in".  With that we sent our donations in to the MT FWP.

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Tags in hand, we set about the task of finding a place to hunt, deciding when to go, and everything else you need to do for a hunt that's going to be 2,100 miles from home in a place you've never been to.  Maps ordered, crashed Google Earth a few dozen times, talked with the bios, let's do this...

We added another member to the family this spring, so time for anything hunt related was minimized.  Luckily the learning curve for western hunts it flattening out a bit.  Over the summer and fall I managed to work in a couple trail runs a week to make sure my lungs were moderately prepared for the thin air of the Rockies.   MT may be lower in elevation than CO, but it's still steep.

As is typical leading up to a big hunt, the closer it got, the busier things were at home and at work.  My buddy spent the morning working before heading north to pick me up and I spent about 5 hours on the computer while strapped to a projectile on my way across the country tying up some loose ends at work.

On the ground in Denver, then N/NW we go.  Dinner in Cheyenne, check engine in Casper, limp into Buffalo for the night in half power mode, good morning Sheridan Ford service center...

After the first "fix" we made it about 2 miles on the interstate, the check engine light was back on and we had lost about 10 gallons of diesel, back to the shop we went...

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Luckily we had Herb to shuttle us to the local sporting goods store to burn some time and debate whether or not we should purchase bear spray.  We also spent some time at the local box store to gather food and last minute supplies while we had time to burn and we got in some good hunt/politics talk while staring at the injured vehicle.

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6 hours later we were back on our way.  Our plan was to push into Region 3 and hunt one location for a couple days before pressing further SW to our primary location.  With the delay we realized we weren't going to make it as far into the Big Sky Country as we thought.  Time for a Plan B.  We wanted to scout somewhere in the daylight, so out comes the gazetteer, gps, and the reg book.  Region 5 it is.  As we rolled toward the mountains Region 5 appeared to have a good supply of deer.

When we got back from our evening scout we checked into the local hotel, the attendant promptly informed us that the drainage we had scouted didn't have any elk in it. 

Well we hunted it anyway.

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It was refreshing to be alone on the mountain.  Made for the top, on the way up I found a couple griz scratching posts... Finally cut a couple elk tracks, but the wind wasn't right so I wandered on.  Eventually crossed paths with a couple deer, but ended the day with no shots fired and about 8 miles on the boots.

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The next morning we hunted the same area, our tracks out from the night before were covered by some lion tracks.  Unfortunately the morning hunt was interrupted by a couple 4x4's plowing up what we thought was a foot trail...  With that we spread out and made a big loop to the truck.  We hit the 2 track with no shots fired and talked to a fellow up from CO, since we were on our way out of the area, we gave him as much intel as we could fit into a 10 minute conversation.  Then it was off to Region 3.

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We got to our destination in time to put some glass on the mountains, eat a good dinner, and get a warm welcome. We spotted a herd of elk, some bighorns, and few other critters, so things were looking up.

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The next morning we set out to find the elk again, but failed to find the big herd, however we did see a group of 4 bulls high on the mountain along with a few more bighorns.  We decided to get up the mountain a bit, but before that we glassed a little from the trailhead.  Unfortunately there were two folks already there and we watched as they shot.  One cow fell and a calf was injured, head up, but not mobile.  As we pulled on our packs to head another direction an older fellow pulled in and started unloading a sled.  We told him we had watched guys shoot the cow; he informed us it was his son.  I explained that there was an injured calf up there too; he said they were aware and he was taking his tag up and would claim the calf.  He also rambled on about his son once shooting two moose and that the game warden had given them a warning, though they had to donate the second moose to the food bank.   Needless to say as we parted ways, I was a little less than impressed with their ethics from what I had seen and heard so far.

I made my way up the mountain toward where we thought the bulls had disappeared to earlier.  As couple miles clicked off, I check the gps and was now in the wilderness, the timber got thicker as did the elk sign.  There was about a foot of quiet snow on the ground and calm wind.  In spite of the time approaching mid-day there was a light breeze down the mountain, so up I went.  As I climbed the ridge the scent of elk drifted through the timber, I packed away my trekking poles and took the scope covers off my rifle.   As I crested a small rise I spotted the tan hide of an elk no more than 50 yards in front of me, at that I froze, fully expecting the woods explode with panicked elk, but it was dead quiet.  As he turned his head I saw that it was a bull, completely unaware that I was there.  I eased my binos out and studied this elk and his surroundings for several minutes.  He was alone and had pretty unique antlers, but to my relief had the requisite brow tines of a legal bull.  I slowly knelt down and eased to the side to get a clear shooting lane, I think he may have seen a slight movement as I shouldered my rifle, but stayed bedded and was relaxed.  Once in position, with safety off the thought crossed my mind whether I should wait for him to stand, that thought quickly passed as he was bedded broad side, so I picked my spot behind his shoulder and touched off the shot.  I worked the bolt, but he didn't rise from his bed.  My first bull laid there in the Montana snow.  I picked up my brass out of the snow and made my way over.

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My buddy made his way up the mountain at the shot and after a few quick pictures we got to work.  We've hunted together for almost 10 years now, so the hard parts of the hunt are pretty automatic now.  I skinned and quartered, he de-boned, and within an hour or so we had the beast bagged and ready for the haul.  With it being early in the hunt I decided to keep the skull for a euro and to have the whole hide tanned.  We shuttled everything a few hundred yards from the carcass, hung half, and headed out with our gear, a hind, and the loins/tenderloins and all the trim.  It was a beautiful evening as we headed to the truck, getting there just after dark and being treated to an amazing Montana sunset.

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My buddy's wife arrived late that night, just in time for a tough pull the next day getting the rest of my elk off the mountain.  We hit it at daybreak, with the plan to slowly hunt up to where we had stashed the rest of the meat and cape/horns.  Unfortunately as I glassed, I saw what appeared to be the injured calf still on the mountain.  I decided to hike up to check it out and after a deceivingly long hike, she was still there, still alive.  The wind was howling, I was sweaty and a little cold, but I sat down on a stump and called the FWP for some direction.  I was passed off to the game warden, but unfortunately I didn't get an immediate response, eventually my buddy was in sight and I waved him and his wife over. There was no doubt what had to be done, so with that he finished it and notched his tag.  A few minutes later the warden called back, I explained the situation and told him what we had done, for which he thanked us.  Fortunately cows were legal with the general tag in the unit we were hunting; it was unfortunate he had to burn his tag on a calf so early in the hunt, though on the bright side, calf elk is delicious.  We cut and packed most of the day, the last loads back to the truck about 30 minutes before dark.  As we got to the trailhead a couple trucks were glassing a herd that was filtering through where we had just come from.

The next day we slept in, drove to town for a nice breakfast, and then got down to butchering.

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We cut and sealed most of the day, then went out for an evening hunt at a new location.  Saw a couple cow elk, two sage grouse, a great looking coyote, a poorly placed locked gate, but no deer.  The next morning saw us glassing another new location, within a few minutes we had a nice 4x4 muley, unfortunately I was prepared for glassing and not hunting, wasn't going to climb the hill in my running shoes with a foot of snow on the ground...lesson learned.  We went back to camp and finished butchering, we had everything sealed and wrapped in time for a short evening hunt.  I saw nothing and my buddy saw several with a good buck mixed in, but no shots fired.  The next morning found us at the same location; I stayed at the truck to finish capeing out my elk while glassing for deer.  About the time I finished up I found a little forky within shooting distance of the parking lot, he got a pass and about that time my buddy's wife came back to the trailhead about half frozen.  She had to get back to the airport that morning and my buddy and I decided to pack up early and head back to some better deer hunting ground for our last evening.

We hit the road for Region 5, on the way we dropped off my elk hide and head, and then made for the mountains.  By the time we hiked the mile and a half back to the spot we wanted to hunt, there was only an hour or two of our hunt left.  We split up to watch a couple likely areas as the sun disappeared behind the steep mountains.  There was at least one good whitetail and one good muley in the area from what we had seen earlier in the trip.  Just before sunset, I caught some movement below me, sure enough it was a buck, my rifle was already braced across my hiking poles, and he was only 50 yards out.  As I peeked through the scope I could see it was a small whitetail and with time running out he was definitely on the menu. After the shot I drug him over to a flat spot and built a small fire to keep us warmed up as the mercury was dropping fast.  Within a half an hour or so we had him boned out and packed up for the haul out.  As we made our way down the mountain we talked about what a great trip it had been and eventually got on the subject of how fragile life was and how thankful we were to be breathing the cold, thin air, with bloody hands, and heavy packs.  We loaded up the truck under the stars and cruised into town for a cold beer and a hot meal.   

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We were up early for the haul out of Montana and across the entire state of Wyoming in a light breeze (50mph), a few odd trailers strewn about the highway to keep us on our toes.  Before we could get across the border I-25 took another pound of flesh in the form of a chunk of metal in the tire and a rock to the windshield, but other than that it was a beautiful drive.

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Welcome to Colorado.

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In the hotel parking lot we repacked for the last leg of the trip, including me cutting off the deer horns to fit in the cooler with my meat.  All that was left was a 5 am flight and a 3 hour drive from the airport back home.  I got a few "looks" while hauling my load through the airport and onto the shuttle bus.

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I like it when I have to plug in the back-up freezer.

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Here's a pic of the trophy MT whitetail. 

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Can't wait to do it again.

Da Heisenberg

That's good stuff man.

Al

Great write up Natureboy.  I envy your youth and stamina.

Onslow

Cool report to read on such a rainy/shitty day. 

Dee-Vo

That's beautiful country, a whole different world. Good times and memories. Very nice.

Dougfish

Solid work. And what great memories.  bd;0
"Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here?
 Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change? "
Kelly's Heroes,1970

"I don't wanna go to hell,
But if I do,
It'll be 'cause of you..."
Strange Desire, The Black Keys, 2006

swervinmervin

This is great. Awesome report and pics. Have family in Powell, WY who've asked my wife, parents and I to come out for a visit. Montana has been a dream of mine for a while.

NCsporksman

Fuck yea

Infinitely more planning done here than I've ever even started to do on the longest of fishing trips

natureboy

Thanks guys!  A bit ashamed to say I didn't fish any, but on the upside I'll have a lifetime supply of material for EHC's. 

Swervin, I was through Powell a few years ago, I'll try to dig up some info for you, I think you'll enjoy the visit.