2013 DIY Public Land Montana Elk/Deer Bowhunt

[Scoot]

When you do a hunt like this, multiple hunters with multiple tags over multiple days, if one of you scores do you pack out the meat that day and hike back in to continue hunting? Does everyone hike out? Even just hunting a short drive from the cities, the logistics of balancing meat spoilage with daily responsibilities is difficult.

Excellent question mainbutter. When we were doing the backpack portion of this trip (the trip we planned for), we had a few thoughts, but all of them ended with the elk in coolers at the truck. The truck had four coolers loaded with block ice. This ice will last the week if it's kept in the shade and it doesn't get too warm.

Unless we shot one back towards the truck a long ways (unlikely) our plan was to call in the packer (Rusty T) and have him come and get it and bring it to our coolers. We'd haul it to a main trail and he'd take it from there. Last year I shot the first elk and I essentially wrecked Jon's hunting chances for nearly the next two days. Because of that, we decided we'd call in a packer on the first elk and have him take it out so the other two guys could keep on hunting. If we shot another animal we were going to decide on what to do with it, but were leaning towards the two tagged out guys hauling it to the truck in two seperate trips. If we were lucky enough to shoot a third animal, we'd all three man up and take it out in one trip.

If two guys haul out an average size elk, you can do it in two trips (for each guy) and with about 80 lbs in each pack. If all three of us haul an elk out in one trip it'd be 100+ lbs in each pack in one trip. It'd be a painful pack out, but it'd only be one trip instead of two.

Another thing you need to know is what you need to have with you to take care of the animal once it's down. For me, that means a Havalon knife and three spare blades, four 48" Alaskan Game bags, and a kitchen sized garbage bag to help keep the inside of my pack clean (I put one game bag in my pack).

So, if you know how long your ice will last, know how much man power it takes to get one animal out, and know how long it'll take to get a load out from where the animal is down, you should be able to take care of your meat with no spoilage or problems.

[BLACKJACK]

Thanks for sharing Scoot!!! Great read!!! Can't wait to hear about the snow and how it affects your hunt!!

Curious how you handle splitting up the meat when the hunt is done, is it a straight 3-way split regardless of who shoots what??

Did you save a few of the choice cuts of the mule deer for camp meat??

[Scoot]

Curious how you handle splitting up the meat when the hunt is done, is it a straight 3-way split regardless of who shoots what??

Did you save a few of the choice cuts of the mule deer for camp meat??

Good questions BlackJack. Yes, we split up the elk evenly 3 ways, regardless of who shoots what. We didn't take any of Jon's muley though, because we all expect to get some deer meat at home. Elk is different- I really like deer meat, but I LOVE elk meat!

No, we didn't cook any of the muley at the hotel. Our room actually had a kitchenette, but we were too shot at the end of the day to cook it.

[Scoot]

Day 6

After the day we’d had before, we happily headed back to the same area in the morning. When we got to our parking spot it was snowing and spitting out and the wind was howling. It was downright miserable and we waited for a break in the weather before we headed out from the truck. Eventually the weather did break a little, but we had about six inches of snow where we parked the truck and it was dang cold.

Once the wind and snow settled down a bit, it was a nice morning. Things sure did look different!

I really like this pic below. It shows how dramatically the snowfall can change, depending upon elevation. As you can see, as you drop elevation the snow gets less and less, but there was fairly distinct line on the mountain where the snow simply stopped. If you went above a certain elevation you had snow, but below that same elevation it was all brown and green.

In the few hundred feet of elevation change shown in the pic above there was about 6-8 inches of snow difference from low to high. Imagine how much snow was up another 3000 feet, where we started our hunting trip. Later we would come to find out that up where we had started hunting they got over 30" of snow and drifts were over 10 feet high in some places. Clearly we had made a good decision to get off the mountain!!!

Gabe and Jon headed to the general area Gabe and I had been the day before and I headed to the general area Jon had been. Jon and Gabe’s day can be summarized as follows: nada. They didn’t hear or see a thing.

Early in the morning I heard a bugle. It was weak and a long ways off to my NW, but I clearly heard it. Twenty minutes later I heard it again, and this time it was closer- maybe 600-800 yards. I glassed where it came from and eventually saw a spike bull quickly cross an opening. The bull I heard wasn’t a spike though, so I pressed on. Eventually, I found the tracks of the “bull” I heard calling…

That afternoon we checked out an area Block Management Area. In short, the area seemed like a place we weren’t going to spend any more time at.

OK, I've got a confession I'd like to make: I like aspens. I love stands of quakies, not only because the elk love them, but because I love them!

As you can see in the pic above, the quakies change color during the month of September and I love being there to see this color change. Some elk hunters believe that when the quakies change, the elk rut will go into full swing. Regardless of whether you believe that or not, I love seeing the changing of the aspens in September. Jon and Gabe also enjoy giving me a hard time about the fact that I love quakies and they talked me into a few pics that would mockingly show my love for aspens. Here ya go Jon and Gabe!

[mwal]

Scoot,

Can't wait for the next posting. Thank you for the great stories and and excellent photography. I physically can't do a trip like yours but you make me feel like I am there. Keep writing. It is very appreciated by the guys that can only watch from sidelines.

Mwal

[NoWiser]

Gol-Dang tree huggers.......

Love the story so far, Scoot!

[bigbucks]

Very cool story, very nice mule deer.

[HooknHorns]

Gol-Dang tree huggers.......

Crack me up!

[Scoot]

Day 7

In spite of a tough day there the day before, we headed back to the area we’d done so well at two days prior. This day again put a whoopin’ on Team Elkblood’s collective butt! Jon and I saw one muley doe and Gabe saw five muleys. That’s it.

There was plenty of fresh snow and this snow revealed only a few muley tracks- the elk seemed to have vacated the premises. Because of this, we left this area and headed towards the area we had started the trip at, only at a much lower elevation. On the way there we passed through lots of lower ground. This low ground is nearly all private and loaded with critters. Here are a few of them we saw on the (mostly) private ground in between spots.

Here’s a nice, young muley buck we saw on private land, just a couple hundred yards from public land.

When the buck turned around, we saw he had been in a recent scuffle (just above his right shoulder in the pic below). When we talked to Rusty T about this he said it almost certainly was the result of a mountain lion attack.

Many elk would come out of the foothills of the range and feed in the ag fields down low. This herd of about 50 or so showed up at last light in a harvested wheat field.

[Scoot]

We only had a couple hours of light left when we made it to the second spot. We headed down a trail and before long started cutting tracks in the snow.

One of the first set of tracks we saw were from a bobcat.

Soon we cut a set of fresh elk tracks and I decided to head up a steep hill chasing them and Jon and Gabe headed down the trail hoping to cut a different set of tracks or hear a bugle. I trailed the tracks for about 30 minutes and before long I realized I was on a very, very fresh trail. Eventually, I knocked an arrow and slowly and quietly moved along, expecting to see an elk at any minute. Soon the tracks turned back downhill and again met with the main trail. At the main trail I discovered something pretty funny—Jon and Gabe’s tracks met up with the tracks I was following and they had started trailing the tracks off of the main trail. Those dirty buggers stole my hot trail from me!!! LOL. I didn’t want to move in on them and screw anything up, so I headed back to the truck and waited for them to return.

Jon and Gabe had cut the tracks about 20 minutes after we split up. Not long after trailing them, a nice 5 point bull was standing less than 30 yards from Jon on a pine sprinkled hillside. Unfortunately, the bull spotted Jon at about the same time he spotted the bull. They stayed on the bull’s tracks for over a mile, but in the end the bull won the battle. Here are a couple shots of the master trackers before we split up and got on the bull’s trail. They decided to take turns being smart alecks in these pics…

One final bit of info about the trip for this post- we were really upset about the trip we planned being all busted up. To keep our plan as much as possible (or because we’re pathetic and lack social skills), in the evenings after a hard day of hunting, we’d head back to the hotel room and make our Mountain House Meals. Here’s a couple shots from our “hunting camp” in the evening.

Here’s a shot of Jon and Gabe, apparently very impressed (or is that amazed?) by the process of boiling water in the hotel room.

[Coach1310]

Great chapter as always Scoot! Looking forward to the next one.

[DonBo]

Are you sure that's a bobcat track? Looks more like fisher or something from the mink family to me. Wolverine maybe?

Anyway, great photos, nice recap so far.

[Scoot]

Are you sure that's a bobcat track? Looks more like fisher or something from the mink family to me. Wolverine maybe?

No, we're not sure. I looked online and bobcat seemed to be a pretty good match, but the difference in the size of the front and back paws makes me wonder if you're right. They look too big to be a mink family member to me, but I'm not a tracking expert, so I certainly could be wrong. Wolverine? No clue... If someone else definitely knows what made these tracks I'd be interested to hear...

[BoxMN]

Fun story!!! Looking forward to more. Love how your pics are so varied, and capture all aspects of the trip. Nice. Thanks!

[DonBo]

Here's what I found: Top is bobcat. Notice front and rear track are the same size, round and pretty much in a line.

Fisher: Looks a lot like the photo you have. Rear track bigger and spaced apart, side by side, fronts smaller and pretty much on top of each other.

My guess is these are the tracks from a large fisher.

[Scoot]

My guess is these are the tracks from a large fisher.

Yes, it sure looks like that's the case to me too. Thanks for digging up those pics, DonBo.

[Scoot]

A few more pics of some of the beautiful scenery we were blessed with on our trip.

This country sure does make a guy feel pretty small.

A couple of rock solid guys and great friends to share a hunting trip with!

[slimngrizzly]

Great read as always Scoot! Cant get em every time. Nice to see your bud got a great mule buck though! Great post!

[Scoot]

Great read as always Scoot! Cant get em every time.

That's definitely true, slim. One day left though, and I haven't written it up yet. I'll try get it together today and post later this morning if I can.

[Scoot]

Day 8

This was our last day to hunt. We went to an area Rusty T suggested to us- it was a transition area on public land where the elk would travel through while going from night time feeding to daytime bedding. The ranch he works at has a large alfalfa field that was getting hit by a bunch of elk and he thought they might go right past us in the AM if we played our cards right. We got situated with us all spread out across a small draw, which we hoped the elk would take back to the foothills behind us. Here was my view:

Gabe and Jon were split up just to the right side of the pic above, about 200 yards apart. Not long after getting settled morning’s light turned the blobs and rough figures in the tiny draw into trees and cut banks. Soon I saw four whitetails, somewhere in the general vicinity of Jon or Gabe. Afterwards, I found out that Gabe nearly got a crack at one of the bucks, but he couldn’t quite close the distance. Of course they strolled right past Jon, but he couldn’t do anything about it because he had already filled his deer tag. Here’s the last I saw of those bucks before they disappeared into the more heavily wooded area behind me.

Soon I saw two cow elk crest the ridge to our West. The zig zagged through the open area and made their way past Gabe and towards Jon. They were on the same path as the whitetails and would likely come out 40 yards from Jon. …and they did just that! The first cow walked up to the same tree that Jon had ranged the whitetail bucks at 40 yards. Jon just started to get ready to draw his arrow back and BAM- the cow snapped his head in his direction and instantly pegged him! BUSTED! We’re still not quite sure how the cow busted him so quickly and well, but she sure did. She trotted off towards me, but veered off to my South. Here’s a shot of her as she angled away from me.

The second cow followed the first, but on a line that took her out of Gabe and Jon’s field of view. Here’s a shot of the second cow retreating on a very safe path away from us.

Right after the cows came through Jon spotted the main herd of elk- about 60 of them. They came through just as they were supposed to, but they were about 300 yards NW of where. We'd guessed the wrong spot they came across the public land. There were a couple satellite bulls and one nice 6 point bull in the mix with these 60 elk.

Dang! Very close, but no dice for Team Elkblood! Our morning was done, but Rusty T had gotten us permission to hunt some private land on the ranch he works at. We were extremely appreciative and humbled by this- we certainly didn’t ask him to do this and he kindly did it just to be nice. We hoped this land would be full of elk that were pushed there both by the snow and by other hunters. We headed there mid-morning and spent most of the rest of the day there.

[Scoot]

A few more pics from our trip.

This was a stream on the private land we hunted that afternoon.

This neon yellow-green moss was on many of the trees. In some areas, the trees limbs were covered with it. Wind would blow it down off the trees and at night the stuff would practically glow in the light of our headlamps.

The moss in the shade seemed to die off first and looked like this.

We didn’t see as many grouse as last year, but they were definitely still around in good numbers. Rusty T told me he’d seen a ton of them on the roads in the early AM.

Here I am coming to full draw on one of them. Sadly, this would be the only time I drew my bow for the entire trip.

[Scoot]

For the remainder of the morning and early afternoon Jon went solo and Gabe and I teamed up to try find a bull in the 11th hour. Jon called sporadically:

Eventually, Jon got on a set of tracks and followed them, and followed them, and followed them. He eventually wandered uphill and all the way over to where he and Gabe had gotten on the 5 point bull the day before. Each time the tracks would lead him into a thicker area he’d slow way down, glass and look carefully, trying to pick out any sign of a bedded elk. After doing this for almost three miles Jon came into a thicker area and again moved at a snail’s pace trying to pick up a visual on an elk. He looked ahead and to his right and caught a tan colored patch through the thick cover. He looked closer and could make out part of the body of an elk. He couldn’t tell which way it was facing, if it was a bull, cow, or calf, but he knew it was an elk. He suddenly realized he was inside of 20 yards of this elk and quickly, but quietly knocked an arrow. Even though he didn’t make a peep, the elk must have sensed something was wrong. It stood up and Jon could now see it was a nice 5x5 bull. Jon came to full draw and put his pin on the bull’s vitals. Even though the cover in this area was relatively thick, Jon had a clear shot all the way to the bull’s broadside chest, except one angled branch that was just inches from the bull. He could have forced a shot above, below, in front of, or behind the sweet spot, but he held tight, hoping the bull would take a step forward or up the hill away from him- either one would result in an open shot. After a half-minute standoff, the bull wheeled and ran uphill away from Jon in the blink of an eye, offering no shot opportunity. So close…

Gabe and I got on a bull pretty quickly after we got going late that morning too. However, we simply couldn’t close the distance to him. We’d move in on him and he’d back off. We played that game for a while, but he eventually went silent and disappeared. I think swirling winds got the best of us once again on this bull.

The three of us met at the truck to regroup later in the afternoon. Jon and Gabe wanted to hunt the private land until dark. I chose to go back to where we were in the AM in hopes of catching the herd or a straggler elk coming out before dark. In short, Jon and Gabe struck out that evening. I had a very quiet night too. Here’s my view as I sat quietly waiting for an elk to wander out of the hills towards the fields below.

I saw no signs of life that night, so with about 15 minutes of light left I decided to pack my gear up and try catch an elk coming out somewhere from the hills on the way back to the truck. I scanned the open terrain in front of me one last time- nothing. Still sitting, I turned around and dumped my remaining water from my Nalgene bottle and tucked it away in my pack. I also put my camera in my side pouch of the pack and zipped up the pouch- Zzzzzzziiiiiiiiip! I turned around to see a nice 5 point bull staring directly at me from 80 yards away. He was standing right in the middle of the picture above and had seemingly appeared from nowhere. Had he not heard me, he’d have certainly come past me to my right or gone straight, both of which offered me a shot inside of 40 yards. Instead, I was completely pegged as he’d heard the zipper pull as plain as day in the quiet evening air. He stood there for a minute, then turned and quickly trotted off. I watched him juke and jive through the sage flat until distance and darkness swallowed him up. …and that’s how my trip ended. I was mad that I finally had a chance to get a chance at a bull, but had unwittingly bungled it. But, in a sick sort of way it almost seemed fitting for the trip to end this way.

Not much went as planned on this trip. Heck, I couldn’t even manage to get a good sunset picture to end my story with this year (I like to end all of my stories with a sunrise or sunset picture). But… that’s hunting! We went out, worked as hard as we could, did all we could do in spite of tough conditions and came home without one elk tag punched. Although we got some help from Rusty T with local info, we did it on our own otherwise, didn’t hire a guide, didn’t have anyone holding our hand, and busted our rears to the best of our abilities. That’s how we hunt and that’s all that we could do. It just wasn’t in the cards this time. We had fun, got to spend some great time with great friends, and got to spend time in the Rocky Mountains chasing elk and mule deer- we’re very fortunate to have had the chance and had a wonderful time.

Montana and Mother Nature kicked ol’ Team Elkblood’s butt this year. However, we’ll be back and we’ll do our best in the rubber match!

[jerkbait]

Great read Scoot! Thank you for sharing again this year. Look forward to more of your adventures.

[daydreamer]

"I also put my camera in my side pouch of the pack and zipped up the pouch- Zzzzzzziiiiiiiiip! I turned around to see a nice 5 point bull staring directly at me from 80 yards away. He was standing right in the middle of the picture above and had seemingly appeared from nowhere. Had he not heard me, he’d have certainly come past me to my right or gone straight, both of which offered me a shot inside of 40 yards. Instead, I was completely pegged as he’d heard the zipper pull as plain as day in the quiet evening air. He stood there for a minute, then turned and quickly trotted off. I watched him juke and jive through the sage flat until distance and darkness swallowed him up. …and that’s how my trip ended. I was mad that I finally had a chance to get a chance at a bull, but had unwittingly bungled it. But, in a sick sort of way it almost seemed fitting for the trip to end this way."

You know Scoot, I've come to enjoy these situations. It's what keeps you coming back for more. Whether it's a big fish getting away, big buck encounter or a bull busting you it's those experiences that keep hunters hunting and I enjoy that. Great read as always. Thanks for sharing with us along the way.

[paceman]

Outstanding recap scoot! Thanks for taking us along with you!