jryoung
Well-known member
Currently sitting back at my desk a bit weary eyed from combing through hundreds of emails. Fortunately I have a conference call and usually that means some time to surf the net but I figured I’d jot down a few memories from my trip to Montana….I’ll try and keep the words short where I can and just post some pictures.
The trip started off pulling out of San Jose at 6pm and driving through the night, it was mostly uneventful other than getting a ticket for going 90 in a 70 somewhere between the middle of nowhere Nevada and completely unpopulated Idaho.
We arrived at our destination in the Pioneers to find the old man had slept in his horse trailer overnight; we revived him with coffee and a cliff bar. He said he had driven all the roads and most were closed off due to snow. My plan was to hunt on the ridgetops and the close quarters of the steep walled canyon wasn’t going to bode well for the old man’s fake hip and fused back. So I called my second audible (the first being this particular canyon to hunt since the September snow had most of the elk migrates out of our originally planned area in the Big Hole).
We drove down the road about 8 miles and got to a new area, here it was Thursday so we needed to make a call set up camp and get everything in order. After camp was mostly together I set out on an elk finding mission, and it wasn’t long before I was seeing tracks, moist poop and the wonderful sweet musty smell of elk piss. SWEET!
The next day we chopped wood, hung tarps and did campy sorts of things.
For opening morning my brother and I decided to head to the Big Hole since I had a B tag and I didn’t want to start out the trip with a bowl of tag soup. We discovered that there was “200 head” (why is it always 200 head) on private, we heard lots of shooting….like 42 shots in in about 10 minutes. We waiting in hopes of them passing through on the way to Idaho but ultimately figured we were pissing into the proverbial wind.
So after the morning we drove back to the Pioneers to find the old man slightly calmed down from his morning foray. From my scouting mission two days prior I was dead on the elk, and as he and my nephew were making their way into a draw they had two bulls bugling and as light permitted the were 600 yards away from a heard of about 50 with three legal bulls.
Huffing and puffing the old man was working up the hill when the buzz of a 4 wheeler came into ear shot. Knowing that the road went right up into this elk filled basin he had my nephew run down the road and stop the guy. “Oh, these elk won’t be bothered by me” as he continued to race up the hill and pushed the elk into the timber. What a friggen douche….he did the same thing every morning that week which was fine because the rest of the week the basin was clear of elk.
Anyway, I was somewhat glad I was on the money about the elk and I figured I knew where they went for the evening hunt so I set a course for the mountain top above the basin they were in, on the back side of it was thick timber and a safe hidey hole for them.
I climbed to the top and began working my way around the peak; I found beds, moist poop and more sweet musty smell of elk piss. I was again on the elk, but light was fading so I worked my way to the front side and towards our rendezvous point. While the pack side of the peak was “pickup stix” thick lodgepole, the front was steeper, filled with shale like rock or things that went crunch and red fir trees spaced 30-40 yards apart. I decided to get cute on the radio and ask for a shuttle, before I could stop giggling with myself I saw the outline an elk occluded by a tree 100 yards ahead of me and slightly downhill.
I figured I was busted, I stopped dead in my tracks, shut the radio off and waited. Fortunately I had the wind in my face, but I had made a lot of noise and had trouble keeping quiet if I wanted to move. I got ready to shoot if he hit an opening, I could see he was legal (brow tine) and had a frame to be a big 5, or nice 6 but couldn't get any more details than that. Hunting out of state for $959 in tags with one B-Tag in a bowl of soup, he was most definitely a shooter.
He did exactly what he needed to do and angle up the hill coming into my shooting window and giving me a quartering away shot. I whistled to get him to stop and fired a shot; he took off downhill and out of sight. I worked my way to where he was last standing and when I arrived I saw him side-hilling across the mountain at full bore. There was no time for a shot, so I searched for blood and found none. I marked a waypoint and followed his path down the hill then across….still no blood. I searched into the darkness and still none. I called it a night, and was disgusted with myself.
As I replayed the event, I think they rifle slipped off my backpack shoulder strap and cameback hose causing me to pull the shot….who knows for sure.
I spend the entire next morning retracing steps, finding my empty shell and searching for any sight I hit him but found none. At least at this point I felt comfortable there wasn’t a wounded animal out there, but was still annoyed with myself for not taking a better shot.
The next five days were much of the same, up and down hills, a trip out to a new area, but always on step behind the elk. I had a couple of close encounters in the pickup-stix, but tough to shoot in there. I knew they were there, but just couldn’t anticipate their next move. I was always behind their tracks by a day, but if anything I learned a lot about the area and where they go….but that won’t feed me this winter.
Finally, on Thursday, our last day to hunt I said I was headed to the mountain where I missed and wasn’t coming down until I found a bull, all week there was sign that those steep hillsides held elk. After a quick morning hunt of an adjacent drainage I felt even better there was more than one bull on that hillside.
Prior to heading out I decided to mix it up like I did when I use to play baseball. I switched guns (from New Haven made M70 30-06 FWT to Pre-64 M70 30-06 FWT), and grabbed a new hat. Surely, this would help me break my “slump”
I started out at 1pm and worked my way up and down the nooks and crannies, as with an hour of light left I worked my way to the center of the hill with a view in every direction of the slope and cuddled up to a tree. I was hoping for anything, mulie, a bull….hell anything that I could have punched a tag on. I couldn't believe I hadn't found an elk on that hill. I was wearing KUIU and Kenetreks, I looked like a total badass hunter I couldn’t walk off this hillside without blood on my hands.
Then, with 30 minutes of light left as I panned to my 11 o’clock there it was, glowing like a 1000 suns, a beautiful white ass of a wapiti. Dark legs, pale blond fur I was sure I had found a bull. The wind was heavy in my face and I had ever advantage I needed. I scanned the hillside for more eyes, one cow, two, three, four + a bull. I didn’t see anyone else so I worked to get an angle on my soon to be friend. He was hidden behind a tree at 87 yards, sure I wasn't about to make the same mistakes as five days prior I got into perfect position, I just needed him to step out. I could see him taking the necessary steps and I clicked off the safety. He cleared the trees, picked his head up and sure enough he was a beautiful spike, clear of any trash that could have even been remotely considered to be a brow tine.
And, thus my trip was over. We came home empty, but killed a lot of coffee and cliff bars. We saw cat tracks, dog tracks, moose, elk and deer, but just couldn’t seal the deal. Though, I learned a new area and will likely be back with a bow come next September. The warden stopped by and said there haven’t been many bulls taken out of this area so there should be some good 4-6 year old bulls. It was just us and Mr. 4-wheeler hunting the area so hopefully next fall will yield better results.
Just before I missed on opening day
Obligatory “fencepost pics”
My brothers AR…
Pickup-Stix
Meow
Woof
Lexus, not just for soccer moms.
My bladder froze up Tuesday morning so I went all McGyver with some tin foil and the sun….though nothing exploded.
The trip started off pulling out of San Jose at 6pm and driving through the night, it was mostly uneventful other than getting a ticket for going 90 in a 70 somewhere between the middle of nowhere Nevada and completely unpopulated Idaho.
We arrived at our destination in the Pioneers to find the old man had slept in his horse trailer overnight; we revived him with coffee and a cliff bar. He said he had driven all the roads and most were closed off due to snow. My plan was to hunt on the ridgetops and the close quarters of the steep walled canyon wasn’t going to bode well for the old man’s fake hip and fused back. So I called my second audible (the first being this particular canyon to hunt since the September snow had most of the elk migrates out of our originally planned area in the Big Hole).
We drove down the road about 8 miles and got to a new area, here it was Thursday so we needed to make a call set up camp and get everything in order. After camp was mostly together I set out on an elk finding mission, and it wasn’t long before I was seeing tracks, moist poop and the wonderful sweet musty smell of elk piss. SWEET!
The next day we chopped wood, hung tarps and did campy sorts of things.
For opening morning my brother and I decided to head to the Big Hole since I had a B tag and I didn’t want to start out the trip with a bowl of tag soup. We discovered that there was “200 head” (why is it always 200 head) on private, we heard lots of shooting….like 42 shots in in about 10 minutes. We waiting in hopes of them passing through on the way to Idaho but ultimately figured we were pissing into the proverbial wind.
So after the morning we drove back to the Pioneers to find the old man slightly calmed down from his morning foray. From my scouting mission two days prior I was dead on the elk, and as he and my nephew were making their way into a draw they had two bulls bugling and as light permitted the were 600 yards away from a heard of about 50 with three legal bulls.
Huffing and puffing the old man was working up the hill when the buzz of a 4 wheeler came into ear shot. Knowing that the road went right up into this elk filled basin he had my nephew run down the road and stop the guy. “Oh, these elk won’t be bothered by me” as he continued to race up the hill and pushed the elk into the timber. What a friggen douche….he did the same thing every morning that week which was fine because the rest of the week the basin was clear of elk.
Anyway, I was somewhat glad I was on the money about the elk and I figured I knew where they went for the evening hunt so I set a course for the mountain top above the basin they were in, on the back side of it was thick timber and a safe hidey hole for them.
I climbed to the top and began working my way around the peak; I found beds, moist poop and more sweet musty smell of elk piss. I was again on the elk, but light was fading so I worked my way to the front side and towards our rendezvous point. While the pack side of the peak was “pickup stix” thick lodgepole, the front was steeper, filled with shale like rock or things that went crunch and red fir trees spaced 30-40 yards apart. I decided to get cute on the radio and ask for a shuttle, before I could stop giggling with myself I saw the outline an elk occluded by a tree 100 yards ahead of me and slightly downhill.
I figured I was busted, I stopped dead in my tracks, shut the radio off and waited. Fortunately I had the wind in my face, but I had made a lot of noise and had trouble keeping quiet if I wanted to move. I got ready to shoot if he hit an opening, I could see he was legal (brow tine) and had a frame to be a big 5, or nice 6 but couldn't get any more details than that. Hunting out of state for $959 in tags with one B-Tag in a bowl of soup, he was most definitely a shooter.
He did exactly what he needed to do and angle up the hill coming into my shooting window and giving me a quartering away shot. I whistled to get him to stop and fired a shot; he took off downhill and out of sight. I worked my way to where he was last standing and when I arrived I saw him side-hilling across the mountain at full bore. There was no time for a shot, so I searched for blood and found none. I marked a waypoint and followed his path down the hill then across….still no blood. I searched into the darkness and still none. I called it a night, and was disgusted with myself.
As I replayed the event, I think they rifle slipped off my backpack shoulder strap and cameback hose causing me to pull the shot….who knows for sure.
I spend the entire next morning retracing steps, finding my empty shell and searching for any sight I hit him but found none. At least at this point I felt comfortable there wasn’t a wounded animal out there, but was still annoyed with myself for not taking a better shot.
The next five days were much of the same, up and down hills, a trip out to a new area, but always on step behind the elk. I had a couple of close encounters in the pickup-stix, but tough to shoot in there. I knew they were there, but just couldn’t anticipate their next move. I was always behind their tracks by a day, but if anything I learned a lot about the area and where they go….but that won’t feed me this winter.
Finally, on Thursday, our last day to hunt I said I was headed to the mountain where I missed and wasn’t coming down until I found a bull, all week there was sign that those steep hillsides held elk. After a quick morning hunt of an adjacent drainage I felt even better there was more than one bull on that hillside.
Prior to heading out I decided to mix it up like I did when I use to play baseball. I switched guns (from New Haven made M70 30-06 FWT to Pre-64 M70 30-06 FWT), and grabbed a new hat. Surely, this would help me break my “slump”
I started out at 1pm and worked my way up and down the nooks and crannies, as with an hour of light left I worked my way to the center of the hill with a view in every direction of the slope and cuddled up to a tree. I was hoping for anything, mulie, a bull….hell anything that I could have punched a tag on. I couldn't believe I hadn't found an elk on that hill. I was wearing KUIU and Kenetreks, I looked like a total badass hunter I couldn’t walk off this hillside without blood on my hands.
Then, with 30 minutes of light left as I panned to my 11 o’clock there it was, glowing like a 1000 suns, a beautiful white ass of a wapiti. Dark legs, pale blond fur I was sure I had found a bull. The wind was heavy in my face and I had ever advantage I needed. I scanned the hillside for more eyes, one cow, two, three, four + a bull. I didn’t see anyone else so I worked to get an angle on my soon to be friend. He was hidden behind a tree at 87 yards, sure I wasn't about to make the same mistakes as five days prior I got into perfect position, I just needed him to step out. I could see him taking the necessary steps and I clicked off the safety. He cleared the trees, picked his head up and sure enough he was a beautiful spike, clear of any trash that could have even been remotely considered to be a brow tine.
And, thus my trip was over. We came home empty, but killed a lot of coffee and cliff bars. We saw cat tracks, dog tracks, moose, elk and deer, but just couldn’t seal the deal. Though, I learned a new area and will likely be back with a bow come next September. The warden stopped by and said there haven’t been many bulls taken out of this area so there should be some good 4-6 year old bulls. It was just us and Mr. 4-wheeler hunting the area so hopefully next fall will yield better results.
Just before I missed on opening day
Obligatory “fencepost pics”
My brothers AR…
Pickup-Stix
Meow
Woof
Lexus, not just for soccer moms.
My bladder froze up Tuesday morning so I went all McGyver with some tin foil and the sun….though nothing exploded.
