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.

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.