4ohSick
Well-known member
But I’m not. So I’ll take the luck.
Deer camp 2022, central Montana, my buddy and I filled our cow tags last weekend so life is good and we can focus on finding good bucks. We arrive Friday afternoon, unhook the camper, and have about 2 hours to hunt before dark. We immediately spot a group of deer and pull out the spotter - it’s a small buck with a few does; nothing worth chasing but promising to see deer!
We skirt around that group, checking down each coulee while occasionally looking back into the field. Fifteen minutes before last light, we crest a knoll and spot a big group. Even with the naked eye, you can see there’s a good buck, but we can’t get a good range in the fading light before the group starts to get nervous and heads out.
That night, sleep is tough to come by as that buck grows in our minds. We have a plan for the morning that is foolproof. We show up earlier than planned, a product of the fitful sleep and anticipation. After choking down as much coffee as we can handle, we hike out to the tractor we’re going to sit at waiting for first light. Right as dawn begins to break and we start to see silhouettes of deer, wind starts to gust and a sideways rain starts to pound us. The deer flee to the shelter of coulees and we hunker down under the tractor to wait it out. A miserable half hour later, we’re back to a dry, cold wind that will somehow get progressively worse throughout the day. Anyone hunting that day throughout the state knows what I’m talking about.
The top field is obviously a miserable place for man or beast, so we take to the coulees trying to glass bedded bucks. We spot a few does, but glassing is tough as you have to be fully exposed to that awful wind to glass the leeward slopes. We spend a while sheltered on a bench but don’t turn up any deer because we’re glassing the windiest slopes. Finally, we decide to check around the nose of the slope we’re on. Looking into the wind, I see two dark spots in the coulee and pull up my binos. Not deer. Start looking elsewhere, but wait, I swear that was antler. I look back, and I was right. But not that kind of antler. Two bulls, bedded at 250 yards. In a general unit NOT known for elk. So we shot them.
My first bull elk:
Packed meat all day, and the next morning I shot a decent 3x4 buck, and that night my buddy got his best buck, a super heavy 4x4.
Someday, maybe, somehow I’ll learn how to find bulls during rifle season intentionally. Until then, I’ll take this.
Deer camp 2022, central Montana, my buddy and I filled our cow tags last weekend so life is good and we can focus on finding good bucks. We arrive Friday afternoon, unhook the camper, and have about 2 hours to hunt before dark. We immediately spot a group of deer and pull out the spotter - it’s a small buck with a few does; nothing worth chasing but promising to see deer!
We skirt around that group, checking down each coulee while occasionally looking back into the field. Fifteen minutes before last light, we crest a knoll and spot a big group. Even with the naked eye, you can see there’s a good buck, but we can’t get a good range in the fading light before the group starts to get nervous and heads out.
That night, sleep is tough to come by as that buck grows in our minds. We have a plan for the morning that is foolproof. We show up earlier than planned, a product of the fitful sleep and anticipation. After choking down as much coffee as we can handle, we hike out to the tractor we’re going to sit at waiting for first light. Right as dawn begins to break and we start to see silhouettes of deer, wind starts to gust and a sideways rain starts to pound us. The deer flee to the shelter of coulees and we hunker down under the tractor to wait it out. A miserable half hour later, we’re back to a dry, cold wind that will somehow get progressively worse throughout the day. Anyone hunting that day throughout the state knows what I’m talking about.
The top field is obviously a miserable place for man or beast, so we take to the coulees trying to glass bedded bucks. We spot a few does, but glassing is tough as you have to be fully exposed to that awful wind to glass the leeward slopes. We spend a while sheltered on a bench but don’t turn up any deer because we’re glassing the windiest slopes. Finally, we decide to check around the nose of the slope we’re on. Looking into the wind, I see two dark spots in the coulee and pull up my binos. Not deer. Start looking elsewhere, but wait, I swear that was antler. I look back, and I was right. But not that kind of antler. Two bulls, bedded at 250 yards. In a general unit NOT known for elk. So we shot them.
My first bull elk:
Packed meat all day, and the next morning I shot a decent 3x4 buck, and that night my buddy got his best buck, a super heavy 4x4.
Someday, maybe, somehow I’ll learn how to find bulls during rifle season intentionally. Until then, I’ll take this.
