December 22nd, Bow hunting in Western Montana's riverbottoms

With the temps finally climbing into the teens I decided to head out on Monday for a morning of bowhunting in Western Montana's riverbottoms. Well even with the temps in the teens it still was very chilly and I only managed to stay in my stand for about an hour and a half.

I did plenty of glassing and was not encouraged to stay in the stand. The combo of the cold temps and not seeing any deer I was ready to get moving. After getting out of my stand I did some walking around to see if any deer were moving. I was a bit dismayed to not see many tracks, however I did find a few rubs from this seasons that I had not found before.

Even thought I didn't hunt for very long in the stand it was still nice to get out for a while.

Best not to think about how cold these get up in the tree stand.

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.

Oct 30th and Nov 11th, Bow Hunting Success! Whitetail in Montana's Riverbottoms.

Well after 3 years of bow hunting I finally managed to harvest a big game animal. On October 30th I headed to my tree stand for the first time that season. While I wasn't necessarily expecting to get anything on this day, I had a really good feeling heading into my tree stand. I just felt like I was going to get something. Sometimes forgetting things can help you get other things. At around 6:30 a whitetail doe walked under my stand, I drew back to aim and released the arrow. After the shot the doe jumped forward about 5 yards and then proceeded another 30 yards and went down for good. I waited in my stand for a half hour before getting out of the stand. I had forgot my head lamp and wanted to find my arrow and the blood trail before approaching the deer to make sure she had expired. As far as forgetting things I forgot my camera and headlamp that day. So Laura was kind enough to bring me my headlamp. Shortly after bringing the head lamp we found the deer. I was great to have Laura, Finn, and our Friend Adam to helped me drag out the deer. Its too bad I didn't get a photo, but to say the least harvesting this doe made my confidence grow.

After harvesting the doe in October I hunted as much as I could out of my stand. This probably totaled about 4 0r 5 times before the 11th. I had seen some deer but never had any good shots on animals. On the morning of the 11th I headed into the stand with the hopes of seeing some rutting activity. Well it turned out to be a good morning. I saw three bucks, a few chasing does and shortly I had this buck hanging around the stand. He moved into a shooting lane about 24 yards from the stand. I managed to stay composed long enough to get off a shot. The deer moved off about a 100 yards and was down. Again I forgot my camera so I took this shot with the cell phone which turned out surprisingly well. It was tough getting him out of the woods even with a game cart, but he will fill the freezer nicely!

Ted's Success

While I didn't fair that well this season, my friend Ted managed to harvest this nice buck.

Ted's arrow after a complete pass through.

Ted is in his treestand and I am standing in the area where he shot the buck. The buck went about 60 yards after being hit, a nice shot by Ted!

The game cart makes things a bit easier.

River Bottom Hunting

Living in Montana, I am very fortunate to have a hunting area only a few minutes drive from my house. While this area is convenient, it does have its drawbacks. Being close to an urban area, dog walkers and kids playing in the woods are not uncommon sights after settling in to my treestand. My friend Ted took these pictures. Thats Ted's tree stand and his target/decoy. After a morning of seeing a few dog walkers that managed to scare away a few nice bucks and a doe, I headed over to Ted's stand and we both did some target practice.

If you look hard you can see me up in Ted's tree stand in the background.

This is me in Ted's tree stand. My stand is about

150 yards away from this one.

The target is approximately 20 yards away from me.

Ted showed me this scrape that he found not too far from his tree stand. This well used scrape is on a line of scrapes within the area.

An exciting scrape close-up.