2009 Montana Elk Archery Opener Sept. 5,6,&7

Last weekends opener for elk in Montana proved to be a very nice Labor Day Weekend. We rode our bikes in to a camp about a mile and half behind a gate. After setting up camp we scouted a bit. We were pleased to find some tracks that looks somewhat recent.

With the full moon out and this meadow pictured above not to far from our camp, we were able to do some night time glassing. Around 11:30pm we heard a spike making some noise in this meadow. And was joined later in the night by a bugling bull and some cows. At one point we could see the bull trashing a tree in the meadow.

Saturday proved to be a warm day. We managed to jump the spike on a ridge top( spikes are not legal in this district). He winded us before we reached the ridge. By afternoon a thunderstorm rolled in a cool things down. This got the elk moving and we managed bump into four cows in three separate groups after the storm moved through. We never managed to get set up in time for a shot on these cows but it was encouraging nonetheless to be into elk.

Sunday proved slow with the exception of Sunday evening we bumped into the same spike with 20 minutes of shooting light left. After hearing us cow call he was eager to find us long after we stopped calling. It was all we could do to get to camp with out him busting us.

Finally on Monday with a nice cool morning, we managed to get a bull bugling. We did our best to figure out where he was. Several draws and ridges later we were on top of his location, but by then he was no longer responding to our bugles. It was a bit of a wild goose chase, but we ended up in some country we had not hunted in this area before.

The B.O.B trailers make for a pleasant pack out of camp. Even if our trailers weren't loaded down with meat.