The Beginning

[diamond hitch]

Well now. Here it is. I got shoes on the horses. A stockpile of grain is in the bins. Truck is repaired. Got the guns sighted in. Clothes and boots are laid out. All the "gotta do" tasks are completed.

My last conference call is tomorrow. My clients have been advised that I won't be available till December. Saddle up. From now on it's 5 weeks of ground pounding, weather be damned, I don't care what your problem is- elk hunting. This year I have hair.

life is short. When you are on your death bed you ought to be able to look back and say "she was a hell of a ride".

My season is beginning. I hope all of you are preparing to suck the most out of it that you can. Work and honey-dooes be damned. As my partners wife said - you might as well take him. He's not worth a damn this time of the year anyway. Good luck and be careful and may you get enough memories to last the year.

 

[Dave N]

Good luck and be safe, sir! I'll wait for your further postings.

 

[MNElkNut]

Best of luck to you!

 

[Pahoundsman]

You are right,we only get one trip here make the best of it. Good luck and keep us posted

 

[fallfreak]

Good luck. Hope you post the results.

 

[Dan O]

Good luck!!!! Enjoy the season and the horses.
Dan

 

[bobbydean]

I hope for a good hunt!

 

[Roughwater]

Well now. Here it is. I got shoes on the horses. A stockpile of grain is in the bins. Truck is repaired. Got the guns sighted in. Clothes and boots are laid out. All the "gotta do" tasks are completed.

My last conference call is tomorrow. My clients have been advised that I won't be available till December. Saddle up. From now on it's 5 weeks of ground pounding, weather be damned, I don't care what your problem is- elk hunting. This year I have hair.

life is short. When you are on your death bed you ought to be able to look back and say "she was a hell of a ride".

My season is beginning. I hope all of you are preparing to suck the most out of it that you can. Work and honey-dooes be damned. As my partners wife said - you might as well take him. He's not worth a damn this time of the year anyway. Good luck and be careful and may you get enough memories to last the year.

I love your posts Diamond! I always enjoy them and look forward to reading them. I got back from Montana a couple weeks ago. Been catching up on my honey do list after a month in the bush bow hunting. Wish I could rifle hunt too. I wanted to go back but stretched my time away from the wife more than is best as it was. My first trip to Montana but hopefully won't be my last. I did all my hunting on foot. Put in 8 plus miles most days initially but after a couple weeks I was hearing elk bugle from my tent where I was camped just off a forest service road. So I took the advice of those who say don't walk past elk to hunt elk. Everyone camping near me was jumping into their trucks or ATV's every morning and heading up higher on the mountain. I was the only one in a tent which of course don't have any soundproofing so I suspect I could hear the elk where some other's probably couldn't in their campers. I couldn't quite close the deal though. I could only get the elk to come toward me so far by myself bugling. Tried to ambush some near a Wallow. Had put up a trail camera but someone took it down and stole my memory chip. Elk were bugling pretty early in the month where I was fortunately. There was some smoke in the air from fires north of me early on but it had dissipated considerably sometime after the middle of Sept. Elk were still bugling the day I left around the end of Sept. I was tearing down my tent in the AM and heard a Elk bugle from the same direction I normally was hearing the bugles from so I had to grab my bow and have one last hunt. It was a short one though as the Elk were moving away from me toward their bedding area and only responded to me one time. On my way back to the tent I heard another Elk bugle but from a different direction but a return bugle from me never got a response. In my older age (70) my hearing isn't the best and I have a hard time figuring out what direction the bugles come from. Other age related things inhibit my hunting some but I do my best to work around them. There is a part of me that would like to be out there even when I can't hunt. I think I would be good with just supporting my younger hunting friends however I could.
Being older and living in north central North Carolina it took me a week to get used to the elevation change and my legs and lungs adjusted to the steeper inclines. I would hike in 4 miles but struggle getting back. I bought me a sport watch which records the distance walked and my pulse etc. My pulse was up past 130 at times forcing me to take a lot of short breaks on my way back that first week. I wasn't so much worried about the pulse rate though till I could feel and hear it in my head which seemed to generally happen past 130 BPM. But I did carry a Garmin InReach, my phone and a GPS. I feel like a person needs to push them self sometimes especially when your older. We have enough natural disability already with age, if we don't push back somewhat age prevents us from doing some of the things we finally have time to do. Anyway, I babbled on enough. I enjoyed my time in the Mountains, saw Elk, heard Elk, got a shot at one elk and a couple near opportunities at getting a couple elk. Learned new areas to hunt quite well. Will try to get a tag again next year in Montana unless something better comes along but I can't imagine right now what that might be. I was a bit nervous about the presence of bear out there but I only saw one and it was at a distance and though it saw me as well never acted threatening. I was alone most of the month but I did put up a simple bear fence around my tent. I set up a 6 person 4 season tent and slept on a cot with a foam mattress. I bought a cheap propane heater and put in the tent though I only kept it going one night that was very windy and got below 20 degrees. I stayed warm enough in the tent. I carried a 10mm Glock 20 Auto and hard cast ammo and sometimes bear spray as well. The only times I felt a little insecure is when I was walking back to the tent or truck in the dark or hitting the trail pre-daylight by myself.

Oh yea. Thought I should mention the one thing I seem to forget every year. A darn Shovel! Montana Forest service requires you have a shovel and a bucket. I have several shovels now as I always forget to bring one and have to buy a new one locally. I couldn't even find one at the local Walmart in Bozeman as they were sold out. They were sold out as well on many hunting related items. Ended up buying one at a local hardware store. They say you gotta bury your poo about a foot. Sounds like a good plan but unless you bring a pick and maybe a jackhammer that's pretty hard to do where I was camping anyway. A person has to be pretty resourceful working different angles just to get your tent pegs in the ground to hold down your tent!

 

[BearFoot]

Good times!