dcoryn
Well-known member
I have been a lurker on hunt talk for quite a while now and thought it was time to share a bit of my success from last fall. It was our first western hunt for myself and three college friends and we decided on Muleys in Montana for a nice easy diy hunt to get us started. I had some info from an acquaintance that pointed me in the right direction as far as a starting point but that was it. I spent hours on google earth and playing around with my onxmaps chip finding hunting spots and chunks of public.
We were on a tight schedule so we left the east coast on Halloween and drove straight through to Montana overnight. 26 hours later we arrived and got settled into the hotel. Our first day out was quite successful, we were seeing decent numbers of deer and several small bucks. We finally spotted two decent bucks but they were bedded about 20 feet into private ground so we passed them. Later in the day we spotted two more decent bucks and were able to take a double. The first was a little small but being the first day we weren't sure what to expect. They ended up going about 100" and 120".
The second day was just as good with several decent bucks spotted and lots of dinks. However we didn't have any shots or excitement.
The third day we spotted a shooter on a hillside with about 15 does but there was no good way to get close, my friend belly crawled to them until they stood up and took a 450 yard shot with no luck. He hit about 4" low beneath the buck. We continued to hunt and ended up spotting a large group of does with one tall tined buck about 1.5 miles off the trail. We only had about an hour till dark and the deer fed down into some drainage ditches so we put an aggressive stalk on them and closes the distance to about 300 yards. We were crawling over cactus and sage brush trying to get closer. We were losing light and getting closer to shooting time. The does fed up out of the ditch but the buck didn't follow. I checked my watch and we had less than 10 minutes left so we decided to make a move and stalk up to the creek bed. We had only taken about 20 steps when he sprang up within 100 yards. My friend made a great offhand shot and dropped him. He ended up scoring 141". We were thrilled that we were 3 for 3 in three days with decent bucks.
We got a late start on day four because we had to wait for the butcher to open up to drop off the deer from the night before. On our way out to the hunting area we didn't see a single deer which was very different from the previous three days. I was a little worried because I was up to bat now. We made it to where we were headed and I caught a glimpse of what I thought was a sleeping buck. A quick glance through the binos revealed that it was indeed a smoker of a buck bedded up snoring about 320 yards out in the middle of the sage brush. He had no idea we were there so I found a good rest, got settled and shot him in his bed. At the shot he stood up and took two stagger steps backwards and I put another into him to drop him. I knew he was big but I hadn't really focused on his antlers so when I walked up to him I was amazed at how big he really was. His body was unbelievable, he was a solid old war horse. He ended up scoring 165" with a broken G4. I was thrilled, we had gone 4 for 4 in 4 days and all killed respectable bucks.
We enjoyed the hunt so much we are doing the same hunt again this fall, hopefully we will have similar results. We are going one week later to try and catch a little more rut action.
I'm not to savvy on uploading pictures so I will try my best
We were on a tight schedule so we left the east coast on Halloween and drove straight through to Montana overnight. 26 hours later we arrived and got settled into the hotel. Our first day out was quite successful, we were seeing decent numbers of deer and several small bucks. We finally spotted two decent bucks but they were bedded about 20 feet into private ground so we passed them. Later in the day we spotted two more decent bucks and were able to take a double. The first was a little small but being the first day we weren't sure what to expect. They ended up going about 100" and 120".
The second day was just as good with several decent bucks spotted and lots of dinks. However we didn't have any shots or excitement.
The third day we spotted a shooter on a hillside with about 15 does but there was no good way to get close, my friend belly crawled to them until they stood up and took a 450 yard shot with no luck. He hit about 4" low beneath the buck. We continued to hunt and ended up spotting a large group of does with one tall tined buck about 1.5 miles off the trail. We only had about an hour till dark and the deer fed down into some drainage ditches so we put an aggressive stalk on them and closes the distance to about 300 yards. We were crawling over cactus and sage brush trying to get closer. We were losing light and getting closer to shooting time. The does fed up out of the ditch but the buck didn't follow. I checked my watch and we had less than 10 minutes left so we decided to make a move and stalk up to the creek bed. We had only taken about 20 steps when he sprang up within 100 yards. My friend made a great offhand shot and dropped him. He ended up scoring 141". We were thrilled that we were 3 for 3 in three days with decent bucks.
We got a late start on day four because we had to wait for the butcher to open up to drop off the deer from the night before. On our way out to the hunting area we didn't see a single deer which was very different from the previous three days. I was a little worried because I was up to bat now. We made it to where we were headed and I caught a glimpse of what I thought was a sleeping buck. A quick glance through the binos revealed that it was indeed a smoker of a buck bedded up snoring about 320 yards out in the middle of the sage brush. He had no idea we were there so I found a good rest, got settled and shot him in his bed. At the shot he stood up and took two stagger steps backwards and I put another into him to drop him. I knew he was big but I hadn't really focused on his antlers so when I walked up to him I was amazed at how big he really was. His body was unbelievable, he was a solid old war horse. He ended up scoring 165" with a broken G4. I was thrilled, we had gone 4 for 4 in 4 days and all killed respectable bucks.
We enjoyed the hunt so much we are doing the same hunt again this fall, hopefully we will have similar results. We are going one week later to try and catch a little more rut action.
I'm not to savvy on uploading pictures so I will try my best
