Sept 13th Out for elk again

Sunday morning found biking into my elk hunting location under a blanket of stars. Biking and hunting solo, I kept wondering if I wasn't cougar bait. Luckily I didn't seen any of these creatures. Not so luckily I didn't see or hear a peep out of any elk on Sunday morning. With the warm temps arriving early, and school work on my mind I hunted until 10:00 and started heading for home. Considering I got to the trail head at 5:25 it still felt like I had been out there a while.

It was nice to see a splash of color on the hills. The ninebark is especially nice right now.

This fawn didn't fair so well. I found this while hiking out. Not sure what took it down. My guess was of course a cat.

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.

August 15th Montana's Antelope Archery Opener

Montana's antelope archery season opened on Saturday, and I was fortunate enough to draw one of the 5600 either sex archery tags. This is my first year antelope hunting. A new species and terrain, the learning curve turned out to be very steep. I headed out on Friday the 14th to scout out a few area for the opener on Saturday.

I left my corner of western Montana and headed across the divide. I'm lucky enough to have the

Front Range a few hours drive away.

As you can see in the photos we have been experiencing an unusually wet August this year. Record breaking in fact. Which meant that sitting on water was not going to be an option. While I don't think that the terrain I was hunting is overrun with antelope, as say some of Montana's further east regions, the terrain here is an advantage for the spot and stalk hunter. I hunted all state lands during this hunt. This areas has numerous block management opportunities. But they are not available for hunting until Sept. 1st.

Once across the divide I drove and scouted a few areas before sunset. The first three antelope that I saw were some dandy bucks. Of course they were all on private land, but I was encouraged none the less.





I was hoping to fill my massive new cooler.

I glassed hard that evening from my camp.

As dawn broke I headed out.






I preceded to spend the next five hours getting busted from miles to hundreds of yards away by antelope. I think the closest that I got was about two hundred yards from 4 antelope.

I used this gully to sneak up on them as they were bedded. And then waited for them to rise and hopefully head my way. My plan worked for a while but was eventually busted by the wind. I did get to see a badger on my stalk. And I watched these 4 antelope chase of a coyote.

Harsh country.












In the afternoon I blew a potentially great stalk by not knowing which landmark I was going to. A lesson I will not be forgetting soon.

Haystack Butte a landmark that dominates the area.

While I was only able to hunt the opener on Saturday I had a blast. This hunt helped me get things dialed in before elk season starts. Hopefully I will make it out for at least a few more days this season.