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The Montana Slaughter

I hope one day to be one of the Idoits who stumbles across a Bull or cow and gets a clean shot. Worked my butt off this year in Wyo and saw only 1 bull in shooting range just could not get a good shot so I let him walk. I enjoyed the hunt & learned alot on my first Elk hunt ever. I will be back next year and do it again.
Just remember, Ignorance is skin deep, but Stupid is to the bone. :D
 
Y
You realise the "legal" way is the MINIMUM set of behaviour standards our society deems acceptable. Perhaps you should invest in some ethics some day???
Here we go. I know that it is unethical to shoot elk in deep snow. Most of the bulls I heard of getting shot wouldn't even run. They were trying to conserve energy. That's sad. All I'm sayin is there is not just one right way to kill an animal.
 
How many guys in here remember 1991? Or 1985? It was the same type of year for most of Montana. It was estimated in 91' that over 2000 bulls were taken in the Upper Yellowstone alone. And that was only the general season. I saw things going on over there that made me sick and swore I would never hunt over there again and I havent been back since.

I have a good friend who was making a play on a bunch of bulls this past weekend and almost got hit with a stray bullet, fired from someone a half mile below him at the elk he was closing the gap on!! He said one bullet struck the ground a mere 10 feet from where he stood.

Glad I was filled out in October...
 
The last 4 days of season sometimes get kind of disgusting. The rule book kind of gets pitched out the window by a lot of guys..
Some people take filling an elk tag wayyy too seriously.
But I didn't get hit by shots sent my direction ..which was a pleasant surprise.
:rolleyes:
 
I'm already crying too because next year might be my last hunting season out here and everyone is already saying there aren't gonna be any bulls left for me to chase. Sweet. Thanks guys.
 
How many guys in here remember 1991? Or 1985? It was the same type of year for most of Montana. It was estimated in 91' that over 2000 bulls were taken in the Upper Yellowstone alone. And that was only the general season. I saw things going on over there that made me sick and swore I would never hunt over there again and I havent been back since.

I have a good friend who was making a play on a bunch of bulls this past weekend and almost got hit with a stray bullet, fired from someone a half mile below him at the elk he was closing the gap on!! He said one bullet struck the ground a mere 10 feet from where he stood.

Glad I was filled out in October...

Pat,

I agree 1991 was probably worse. I wasn't there that year but i just talked about that year of 1991 with a friend of mine today who was there during the blazing...........sounded like many guys didn't even take a gun, just fast shoes and a knife and tag. Dodging bullets as they ran out to tag elk that weren't even shot by them..........

Pretty sad and disgusting. Where was FWP this weekend, sounded like there was an azzpile of illegal stuff going on over there and nobody was seeing any fwp??

Mdunc8, there are a couple bulls left, but only a couple:) Go find this guy, by next year, hopefully he will be a shooter...
 

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Pat,
Only thing that crossed my mind of why i was thinking to give him a bullet was his relatively close proximity to a road............roughly 2.7 miles:):)

lol
 
Breaks runner, I was still living there for both the '85 and '91 seasons, and your right they were both slaughter fests on the elk. Saw a guy gutting a 350 bull in the ditch next to the hiway at Devils slide in '91, dead bull elk loaded whole was the norm as you headed south from Livingston to Gardner for sure. Not sure this year has been as bad from what I've seen from family and friends, the family who normally kills elk, killed elk, the family who doesn't, didn't.
 
The news reported that the Ennis checkstation was up slightly this year from years past with 778 elk checked this season with a lot coming in the last week of the season. Will still be interested to see the harvest statistics from this year when they finally come out.
 
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As far as Gardiner goes... those of you that are more familiar with it...

Do you feel like more "big bulls" were killed in the last week of the season this year than if they had the late hunt like usual? Since there is no late hunt this year, those bulls wont get hit in Jan/Feb...

???
 
I think as usual it varies widely in a state the size of Montana...elk may have been hit hard in some areas, not so much in others.

The country my family and I have hunted for 33 years was literally unhunted the last 10 days of the season. My friend Brian, my brother Matt, and I were the ONLY tracks busting through 20-30 inches of snow to get into our hunting spot (public land). There werent even any old tracks from hunters, and there wasnt even tire tracks to the the end of the road!

The first day in, on Friday, we saw 8 bulls, all brow-tined bulls and around 50 elk total. Nothing had moved low, all still up high.

I didnt hunt Saturday, but did hunt the last day on Sunday. Nobody had hunted on Saturday as our tracks from Friday were under another 3 inches of fresh snow. I just figured with us busting a trail in on Friday, we'd have company the last weekend. NOPE. I guess everyone headed for Gardiner...

I killed a 5 point bull at 2:30 pm on the last day after again seeing close to 50 elk and 6 more bulls, all different bulls than those we saw two days prior. Went up yesterday and spent 8 hours getting it to the truck, not one elk track on the road in, all the elk are still up high. In 30 consecutive years hunting there, I've never seen that many brow-tine bulls. Most years, I'm lucky to see a couple. I expect great hunting in the near future.

Road closures work...keep lazy people out and elk secure.
 

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