I have had surprisingly great hunting on Block management land. The BMA properties that I’ve hunted have been worth whatever fwp is paying, maybe more. I’m very grateful for this program.
With that said I had another highly enjoyable MT hunting season. I saw some humongous bulls, plenty of legal bulls and many cows. I saw a couple of very big mule deer bucks, tons of little forky mule deer and a massive whitetail Buck. My hunting experience on MT BMA’s was high quality and has...
I agree that ‘hunters’ with extremely poor judgement are to blame based my many first hand observations this fall of blatant wildlife violations, downright awful etiquette and disregard for rules regarding land access. It sucks to watch people do things that are very illegal and wrong, knowing...
I shot mine on 10/6. He and the other 4 billies he was with weren’t rutting yet. I also expected my goat to have an odor about him especially when I saw those big glands behind his horns and his big ol nutsack…but he was the most odorless big game animal I’ve ever killed. Smelled like granite. I...
I had a perfect goat hunt in 2022. It was awesome. I won’t apply for a tag again though mainly because the meat was so terrible. I killed a 6yo Billy that was in perfect, prime health. The carcass was beautiful. Every time I’ve ever killed a healthy 6yo Buck or bull the meat has been incredible...
My thoughts exactly. The bottleneck is the availability and quality of your horseshoer. A horse shoer who does high quality work and is readily available is a unicorn. There are very few horseshoers (less than 5%) who I would trust to properly sharp shoe my horses. The ones that I would trust...
If you have a good footed, hardy horse then go for it. Especially if your horses are mostly just being used for 1 day of game retrieval not day after day of riding to hunting spots. With this year’s weather, having horses shod with traction and snow pads has been unnecessary…but hopefully it’ll...
Also, my horses are all shod with borium or studs and snow pads for hunting season. Even on an Indian summer day you will often have to ride steep, frozen solid icey trails on north facing slopes. Seriously dangerous deadly stuff on a slick shod horse
If you kill something lead the horse to it up wind and tie close enough so that he can see it but not smell it (up wind)…while you are readying your quarters for packing their is a lot of time for your horse to get balled up with anxiety or cool down and relax. Always remove the lower leg at...
I had a local guy rebarrel a m700 with a standard chrome moly shilen 26” barrel, no fluting. I think it was almost half the price of Shilen’s premium or benchrest line. With a good bedding job and a 2lb trigger my $600 Shilen barrel shoots 1/4 moa.
At the end of this many mile day my horse was totally fine…me, I ended up puking my brains out from all of the exertion about 1/2 mile from the truck at 2 in the morning
As to ‘suggested weight limits’ of a horse, I packed out (11miles) an entire quartered 6pt bull on one riding horse with those trail max panniers and some parachord. Not ideal but when my planned pack horse punctured its sole 2 days before opener, the one horse was all I had. On that hunt I...
I keep it under my stirrup on my on side-it’s flexible and you forget it’s there. That saw IMO is the most essential item for recreating in the mountains safely while horseback.
I would say there are definitely bulls if there are cows. Bulls will be quiet and hold to cover until dark. I would scout those cows to see if they have a standard routine of say, visiting a spring or a small meadow at a certain time of day. It’s unfortunate that you aren’t good at bugling...
…and the only thing worse than realizing that you forgot your lunch in the saddlebags is coming back to find your lunch on the ground trampled and covered with dirt and horseshit