Summer Scouting

The 12&13th of July found me out doing some summer scouting for and area that I plan to hunt for elk in the fall. It was a beautiful weekend. The bugs were still a bit pesky but the Mountains had plenty of green grass and many abundant wildflowers. One of the coolest flowers I saw was a yellow monkey flower which for some reason I neglected to take photos of. Hopefully this scout trip will help me out in the Fall and at least keep me from gettting to turned around during the heat of the battle. Because Sunday was the 13th that proved to be my unlucky day. I ran into some car trouble and had to get my car towed and repaired in Philipsburg a small town about twenty miles from the scouting area. I finally was able to retreive my vehicle this weekend.

Finn my trusty field scout.

This drainage has and old mining claim in it. Aside from this old blaze there was much evidence of the previous activity that once happened here.





































Finn in front of an old cabin.

This looks like a pretty lonesome place to live.














































I am taking this old Schmidt beer can as a good omen! You can't see it too well, but there is big old elk on the this can.

Sticky Geranium.

























A nic patch of Bluebells.

It turned out to be a gorgeous night.



















And a beautiful Morning.



















Finn heading into a field of Buckwheat, Lupine and Sage.

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.

Return to Spanish Ravine

The September 23rd trip to " Spanish Ravine" was foiled by fowl weather. While we saw some Elk sign we ended up not seeing or really hearing anything. So I returned a week later. I was accompanied for a day and half by may friend Mark, and the second day by my friend Ted. Unfortunately shortly after Ted showed up the weather again turned fowl and didn't help out our hunting opportunities. While Ted and I did manage to call in a bull elk, he never revealed himself to us.

Near the Summit of North Point

Even if you don't get an Elk, late September is a great time of year to be out in the woods.

Cold and Lonesome!

Adding a Layer.

Ready for action.

Sept 23rd

When is elk hunting not that fun? Not that we didn't have fun, but at times it didn't feel like it. Especially on the bike ride out when our hands got very cold. Sometimes a hunter is better off staying bed in the morning and not going hunting, considering what time in the morning that we got up to get to here, we should have stayed in bed on this day.

Here is that picture again.

Ted is smiling because we have only be riding about 3 minutes. Our smiles soon faded. If they only made camo spandex.

Sept 16

Waller and I had a blustery morning and a day of no Elk! You can see in some of the photos there is still smoke in ther air on September 16th, one of the last smokey days.

Where's Waller.

Smokey

An Elk didn't think to highly of this tree.

Burned in 2003

Sept 15th

What I thought was going to be a great day was foiled by a rig pulling ahead of us on a dirt road and getting to our trailhead before us. Ted and I made the best of it and we still had a good day. The weather was pretty hot and we ended up not really seeing or hearing anything.



Ted about to gain some elevation.
Steep Country!

Get used to this picture until my hunting buddies start bringing their cameras.