Montana rifle success

[JGarneeks]

So many people on here helped me with information and tips prior to my hunt and I just wanted to say thank you to all the regular and occasional contributors that help everyone out.

Hunting the Montana rifle season is no joke. I have never hunted a state with so many dedicated hunters before. We ran into hunters miles back in off the road multiple times. Long story short, we had 4 miserable days with 8 to 12 miles on foot a day and didn't see a single elk. We ended up running into a retired guy in the middle of no where who hunted Montana his whole life. We made small talk and figured out he was a former Marine, same as myself and my hunting partner. Sensing our frustration and possibly out of pity or the Marine Corps brotherhood he told us of a spot to go to. It wasn't going to be easy to get into but he said there was less pressure and more elk.

We ended up hiking in to the new spot and glassing elk up on the first day there, they were far off. The next day we came in and got into a good position. There were no legal bulls in the herd of 14, my partner had first choice on shooting on this trip. He was after a bull so he declined. We had 2 days left to hunt and I was perfectly fine harvesting a cow. I got myself steady resting my rifle on my pack and was able to harvest my first elk at 600 yards with my suppressed 300 PRC. She ended up rolling 3/4 of the way down a very steep hillside. We made sure she expired before headed down the steep ridge and up the other side to get her.

While we were processing her 2 local guys came up to congratulate me on my first elk. Then they told us after I had shot, a herd of 30 came out of the timber on the opposite side of the hill. They told us there were 2 legal bulls in the herd, but it wasnt anything they were looking for. We processed my cow in about 3 hours, bagged all the quarters, then hung them up in trees down in the creek bottom.

We made our way back up the hill around 1230 and decided we'd wait until dark to pack the cow out. We immediately saw the herd of 30 still on the hillside feeding. We located a legal bull feeding on a small section of private land on the hillside. My hunting partner spent 45 minutes watching him feed closer and closer to the line. We used OnX to make sure we knew where the line was. The bull crossed the public line and we gave him about 100 feet of margin before my buddy shot his first bull elk. He center punched the shoulder and the bull dropped. Then he got back up, second shot hit him right behind the shoulder. The bull rolled a few times before letting out a moan and we knew he had expired. Two elk in one day! We spent the rest of the evening processing his bull. All the meat was in game bags by dark. We hung all but 2 up and the skull. Then started on our 24 hour meat hauling journey. It took 3 heavy heavy trips and over 15 miles of hiking the next day but we got it all out. A hunt I'll never forget!

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Awesome to see the tight nit community helping everyone out. Were all here for the same love of the outdoors I believe and awesome to see people still helping others teaching. It can go a very long way and to see the success you had Is inspiring to others to get out there work hard and have fun during these wild hunting trips!