Is it Halloween yet?

[Scott M]

45 days....

[Cooter]

I'll be back from CO by Halloween, heading out the 16th for muleys. You must be doing 3rd rifle hunt?

[Nate McVey]

It can't come soon enough Scott! I picked up a 2nd tent yesterday, we will be living well!!!!

3rd rifle season it is.

[MN Mike]

No Colorado trip for me this year, didn't draw a deer tag, I'll be hangin' out on Lake of the Woods a little longer this year.

Hope you guys do well and have some great hunting weather!

Post up some hunting pictures when you get back.......... Please ?!

Mike

[Scott M]

Elk Camp

Price Creek Camp

Big Hole Valley, MT

by Ben Romans, Field and Stream

Bloodlines connect only a few people here, but inside the tent it feels like a family reunion. The hunters swap stories about the drive to camp and trade weather predictions. They ask about the week's whiskey provisions. No one even mentions the word hunting. Some have traveled 1,500 miles to get here, others just 15. Some will be here all week, others just a few days. But none of that is important now. All that matters is that they're all here - and no one would rather be anywhere else.

It's the last week of November, and in Montana's Big Hole Valley, elk camp is just under way.

This camp started with a small group of childhood friends who hunted whitetails in the Midwest together long before their first elk rendezvous in 1996. Every year since, the camp has grown, like a family, to include wives, friends, and friends of friends. For the next week home is an arrangement of three A-frame tents joined to form the canvas equivalent of a double-wide trailer. Think of it as one part central command, one part bunkhouse, and one part gambling hall. There's plenty of room for the three woodstoves it takes to keep the space warm, as well as the cots, chairs, breakfast tables, and one of the most elaborate kitchen set ups you'll ever see- a fryer of eggs and pork in the morning, a wet bar in the evening. The perfectly pitched aluminum skeleton and soot-laden stovepipes take half a day to set up, but this time of year creature comforts and a few ounces of treated fabric go a long way. If you've ever camped in single-digit weather, you need no explanation. Scratches, smoke stains, and hints of mold decorate the tent walls, and tears have been stitched closed. Still, as bruised and battered as these walls are, they serve the camp well.

"We've had the center tent since we started hunting elk together," says Mike "Chewi" Steffenson, one of the camp's original members. "Since then it has been put up and taken down I don't know how often - sometime several times a year between archery and gun season. It hasn't let us down once."

The sense of family doesn't stop at the tent's front flaps. It extends to others in the area, and never is that more apparent than when Chewi's buddy Paul Lovaas stops by each night for a seat at the poker table. His visits are part social, part elk reconnaissance. Lovaas owns a small resort a few miles from camp, so he has an intimate knowledge of the land. At the price of a beer or two, maybe a shot of whiskey, and some laughs (occasionally at his own expense), Lovaas is happy to help sway the elk odds in the camp's favor. Midway through the hottest Texas Hold'em streak of his life, he tips off the camp to a promising spot.

"Did you guys hunt Wallow Basin?" Lovaas asks.

"That's where I'd go. There is some terrain in there that is just dead sexy. Some of the most delicious stuff you've ever seen."

There's a brief moment of silence, as Chewi and a few others seem to shuffle through their mental topo maps until they locate Wallow Basin. Once they have it, they rush out of the tent and hop on their ATVs to investigate the area. They come back around midnight with frozen beards, snotsicles, and good news: fresh elk tracks.

Tomorrow they will hunt, and hunt hard - just like they always do. They won't find elk, but they won't sulk or second-guess their approach. They'll simply come back, open the bar, and eat a big supper together. They'll play cards and laugh and curse. They'll enjoy the time they have left as a family at camp.

They won't even mention the word hunting.

"Time in camp is time in camp." says Chewi, standing outside in front of the campfire. It's the last night. "You have to make the most of it while you're here - save all of your poetic and philosophical conclusions for the drive home. For me, the whole thing stopped being about chasing hides and racks a long time ago.Sure, I like to run around these mountains as much as the next guy. But I also like to split firewood, smell hot coffee on the woodstove, and feel completely relaxed when I stretch out on the cot. I could almost give up hunting just to come to camp."

He pauses and sips whiskey from a tin cup, staring into the flames: "Almost."

[Nate McVey]

Good read, thanks for sharing.........

Gets me awfully excited for the end of October!