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.

Managing Elk in The Great Yellowstone Ecosystem

Saw this article in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2009/05/20/news/000brucellosis.txt

Some interesting words here from USFWS Head, Tom Roffe.
Feed grounds will continue to be a contentious issue in the management of elk. And unfortunately I don't see a resolution to the problem in the near future.

May 18th: Scouting for Montana's Elk Season

This is the time of year that I find my self pouring over maps and spending too much time with Google Earth. And now that I'm done with school for the semester I have managed to find some time to put into preparing for hunting season. I started the weekend shed hunting, attended a 3d shoot on Sunday, and Monday I selected as a day to get out and stretch the legs.

Right out of the car I encountered a hillside overflowing with Heartleaf Arnica.

I have a post about bowhunting for elk in this area that you can read here. I covered about seven miles with about five of them being off trail. Monday was our first real day of warm temps here in Montana. The morning started off rather muggy and temps climbed quickly. Finn and I were not used to the heat, and spent the morning sweating as we gained elevation. Aside from the warm temps the bush-whacking had us covered in ticks. I spent many moments through out the day pulling them off of us.

Here are a couple shots of Highwood peak. On the way to the summit of Mcleod Mountain, I found this hillside covered with Glacier Lilies.

The brown foliage in the bottom of this picture is last years Yarrow bloom. I can only imagine what it looks like in full bloom.

Here are some nice shooting stars. This ridge line is a good example of why I found elk here last year. These south facing slopes can be feed on at night and then it is and easy escape (for an elk) to the safety of steep north facing slopes.

And finally I had to put this in here. Driving around this morning doing some more scouting ( I was foiled by a road that the Subaru couldn't handle) I found these toms with a few hens, two days after the season and of course in a district where turkey hunting is not allowed.

Elk Management in Montana

Slammed with school, I haven't had time to update my blog, nor have I been able to have any adventures worth blogging about.

If your interested if found this to be a very interesting article from the local paper in Helena.
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2009/04/26/top/55st_090426_elk.txt

Last Day of my Montana Game Damage Hunt for Elk

Well after an unsucsesfull weekend of hunting last weekend, and a pummelling in school that did not allow me to hunt at all during the week, I was excited to head out and try and hunt some elk on the last afternoon of my game damage hunt.



















As I stated before I was allowed to hunt on three pieces of property and I could glass them from various roads around the area. So I headed out to look for elk on these properties.



















I was dismayed, after some driving and glassing I couldn't find any elk on the property that I was allowed to hunt. I was even further dismayed when I found about 75 elk on piece of property conveniently located between the three pieces of property that I could hunt.

















These elk were a ways from the property that I could hunt and would not be heading that way before dark.
This kind of put a damper on the hunt, so I glassed up these elk for a while and headed home.

I took these photos through a pair of binoculars with my handheld camera. The process is called digiscoping and I first heard about it on Bowcast on the this podcast.

Well that is it. That puts and end to my big game hunting season for 2008-2009. Now all I can say is bring on turkey season.

Montana, Elk Game Damage Hunt: First Two Days

So Saturday the 7th was the first day of my game damage hunt. I had been out a few mornings and evenings before the hunt, and did some glassing from the road, and was pleased to find elk on both of the properties that I could hunt on during the game damage hunt. After a restless night of sleep I woke up and headed out for what I hoped would be a great morning of hunting.




















When I awoke it was lightly snowing outside and I took this as a good sign. Unfortunately when I got to my hunting grounds I was greeted by a ground hugging fog. The property that I was hunting was mostly open ground so I didn't have to many trees for reference. These are vertigo inducing conditions and made it virtually impossible to hunt. And my rangefinder was not liking these conditions as well.



















For reference the first picture is of the ground in front of me. This second picture is of the sky.




















This gives you and idea of what I was up against. Needless to I decided to head home until this fog lifted. I never cut a track in the fresh snow while I was in the fog, and once the fog lifted I didn't glass up any elk on the properties that I could hunt.
























So I returned for an evening hunt. I setup in an ambush position near a well beaten elk path. I spent the remainder of the evening heavily glassing for elk heading my way. And watches a heard of elk across the valley from me on property that I was not allowed to hunt.



















And while I never managed to see any elk on the property I was hunting. I was able to watch a beautiful Montana winter evening unfold before my eyes.

Sunday morning I was again greeted with ground hugging fog so I waited for the evening hunt. Once again I didn't see any elk, but was treated to one of mother nature's s beautiful light shows!

Game Damage Hunt Preperation; Lead Sled

My game damage elk hunt is a just a few weeks away. Since I didn't rifle hunt this Fall I figured I better get some practice in. So I borrowed a buddies lead sled and headed out the range. My .270 was shooting good at 100 yrds, and I took a few shots off the bench with out the sled, once I had it dialed in.




















Next week I plan on dialing the rifle in at 200 yrds. Given the open nature of the area I will be hunting I'm thinking that I will be taking a shot longer than I'm used to while hunting the forests of Western Montana. However, the hunting area is in close proximity to a few subdivisions so single lethal shot is of utmost importance, and I will need to have my shooting skill it top form and make sure that I execute a good shot.

Elk and brucellosis management in Montana

I just saw this article on the FWP's website. Recently that spotlight has been pointed towards elk in regards to brucellosis transmission in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Sportsmen and women must watch this management closely. Elk must be managed as a wild population, and brucellosis management applied to bison in the Park, could not and should not be applied to elk. With that being said it think that it is important to support the ranching communities effected by this issue. Ranching has a rich tradition in the West, and aside from being good stewards of the land, working ranches keep valuable property from being subdivided, or turned into amenity ranches which carry a whole different set of problems when it comes to managing wild elk populations.

Resolving this issue will not be easy and will take some time. Until then I think it is important to monitor the management of elk, by state and federal agencies.

Lessons learned from a season chasing elk in Western Montana

I thought that I would list of a few things that I learned this season while chasing elk with the bow. Bow hunting for elk is to say this least difficult and the learning curve is steep. I was fortunate this season to see and hear animals almost every time that I went out. And some day I hope to actually harvest an elk with my bow.

1. You can't be in too good of shape for elk hunting. This is 100 percent true. Glassing up animals and the sounds of the bugles will have you traipsing all over the country. And elk live for the most part in a steep rugged world. Expect to hear bugling elk on an opposite ridge, loose and gain large amounts of elevation getting to there, only to hear elk bugling the direction you just came from. Being able to keep pace all day long will greatly increase you enjoyment in the field.

2. Eat a good breakfast. This seems really common sense, but for some reason I can't always live by it. Whether it's the lack of appetite early in the morning or the need to get a move on, I don't always make time or enough time for breakfast. Once you get onto elk you may not be able to stop and eat for a while, so fueling up in the morning will help when you are on to animals, and will help you go strong all day long. Next season I plan on packing along some energy gels in the field. Something that I can access easily and not have to stop and eat. I found several times that after I got on elk it was for some time, and stopping to eat was not an option. However, after a while physical and mental fatigue set in. Once this season, I set my bow down and didn't realize it until a few vertical feet and minutes later. I spent some time and effort finding my bow, instead of hunting.

3. Try and get a good setup. I'm still learning about this one, and years in the field will only help this out. Still there is much to learn about this and there is more to it than just playing the wind, and be a good bugler and cow caller. For a good resource check out this podcast on Bowcast about this subject.

Remember these are just my thoughts and opinions. I have yet to harvest an elk with my bow and I am by know means and expert. Nonetheless, it is helpful to reflect on things that did or didn't help you out in the field, and these are things I will be changing in the future.

Montana Game Damage Hunt

Woo Hoo! On Wednesday the letter came in the mail that I had been waiting for. I received notification from the Montana FWP, that I had been selected to participate in an elk game damage hunt. I had been watching the FWP website for the last several weeks and had been seeing hunts continually listed and finally my district came up, on Tuesday. The hunt takes place on two ranches within the area. These hunts are designed to stop depredation of resources on private land owners property, and while this benefits the land owner, it is still very gracious of these private land owners to allow hunters on to their property. The hunt is a rifle hunt for antlerless elk, and I have been selected to hunt from Februrary 7th-13th. This is the last hunt period for the hunt, so I hope that animals are still present during my hunt, and haven't been completely run off by other hunters. While I had good success with the bow this season, and I would gladly call my season a complete at this point, it would be really nice to put an elk in the freezer. I will be in school during this period but, you can be sure I will be doing my best to go out and hunt as much as I can during my period.

December 26th, Bow Hunting Elk On Public Land in Western Montana

The morning after Christmas I headed out with my friend Ted, to do some late season bow hunting for elk. This particular district in Montana is open until Jan. 1st. We were going to be hunting on a FWP, block management area, and some adjacent US Fish Wildlife Service land.

I can't say enough good things about the FWP's block management program. The amount of access this allows hunters is phenominal and many areas only require that the hunter merely sign in before hunting the area. So if you are new to an area you can hit the ground running without having to orchestrate permission. That being said please check the regulations for each area that you plan to hunt before heading out.

The country that we hunted was a cool mix of sparse forest, glacial moraines, and wetlands intermixed with sage flats. The temps were in the teens and there was about 8-14 inches of snow on the ground. As we hiked through the country our noses were often filled with the pungent smell of crushed sage.

Let me say that before this hunt I was indifferent to mule deer hunting. But after spying many of the large mule deer out here, my opinion has changed. The open terrain here will make it difficult, but given the timber and moraines, spot and stalk could work out here.

We spent the morning glassing and hiking through the open terrain looking for elk. It took us a while but we finally spotted about four cows in some mixed timber. We put together a plan to move in on these elk. Unfortunately the wind was constantly switching. We finally caught up with two of these cows but they were bedded and we were only able to get within about 150 yards before they spooked. We were not sure their location having them bedded made it difficult to find. Subsequently these elk saw or heard us before we knew that they were there.

I think this can be a productive area, however we should have hunted it a bit earlier in the season.

December 19th, River Bottom Bow Hunting in Montana

Starting on the 20th, we got into a major cold snap that lasted a good week or more. I was wanting to get out for some late season whitetail hunting but wasn't about to go out on the stand with minus 2o wind chills. Finally on Friday the 20th the temps broke a bit and reached the upper teens so I planned to head out that morning. Here in Montana in the 260 river bottom district you can bow hunt for elk until the 15th of Janurary. I was going to be headed to public land administered by Montana FWP I had heard of place outside of town that folks had seen elk in during various times of year. I figured with the cold temps and recent snowfall that perhaps some elk had wandered in here. I didn't have anything to loose so I headed out.

While I didn't manage to see any elk nor their tracks, I did get in some scouting for next year. This area is a little ways out of town so whitetail hunting down here would require more effort on my part, it potentially looks good. I manged to stumble upon a rub line and took a few shots of the rubs. It is hard to tell in the photos but one of the trees is decent size and a nice buck probably made the rub.

Given the sub zero temps the river has just about frozen over. The little remaining open water is attracting plenty of wildlife. The open water in the picture above was filled with ducks and heron.