July 24, 2024 – Montana Hunting Journal Pt. 6, Days 14-16

Hi All,

I have been meaning to tell the rest of our story from last fall and decided I needed to make it a priority and get it done (about time, I know). I only have a couple more entries to go to conclude our adventure and they are a bit of a rollercoaster. So, stay tuned the next little while as I’m going to try to get them all done.

We woke up early the morning of day 14 and started our 45 minute or so drive to where we were going to set up camp and begin hunting. On our drive through some very open ranchland we saw a mess of whitetails and a few herds of antelope. Being from Ontario, antelope are such a foreign animal to us so we always stop to watch them for a while whenever we see any.

We arrived at our spot an hour or so after daylight and got camp all set up. We stockpiled a little firewood so we wouldn’t have to worry about it in the dark later that evening, and while we were completing our chores we heard a 4-wheeler approaching us. We looked up to see a man on an ATV with a dog or two on the back rack. When he arrived next to our tent we realized he actually had 3 dogs on the back of the bike with him, and he told us he was a ranch hand out looking for 50 or so head of cattle that had been grazing in that area and wandered off. We had passed through a large chunk of Block Management land (which is private land with open hunting access) on our way to our campsite on the national forest, so it wasn’t a surprise to see ranchers working cattle in the general area. We told him we hadn’t seen ay cattle and chatted a little bit before he loaded the dogs back onto the bike with a single command and was off across the flats at a good 25-30 mph. All three dogs standing tangled amongst each other on the back rack, seemingly unphased by the speed of travel or rough terrain. It’s so amazing watching dogs that are trained for a specific purpose working with their handlers, they knew the program well and were not risking missing their chance at a ride when he told them to load onto the bike!

After we were all done our work we set off deeper into the national forest out of the flatter prairie and into the foothills at the base of the mountain. We started by heading into where we had seen elk last hunting season, but all we turned up were a couple other hunters out hiking around. Knowing that area was covered we decided to make a big circle around the open hillsides to gain some elevation for a better vantage point and to see some new country. We stopped on a nice glassing spot about midday to glass around a little and to eat lunch. While we were eating Lindsay noticed a bunch of ravens landing a few hundred yards from us, and upon further inspection realized they were landing on what appeared to be a dead, whole elk. We finished our lunch and took a walk to investigate, bringing a rifle but leaving our packs behind as we weren’t going far.

A few minutes later we were standing over a dead calf that appeared as though it had been shot and for whatever reason, hadn’t been recovered. It seemed to be reasonably fresh, although was definitely starting to stink, I suspect it had died within a few days. It happened to be thanksgiving day, so we called Montana FWP and left a message, not expecting to hear back immediately. As it would turn out, we would never hear back from them despite leaving a couple of messages on a couple of different voicemails – well, we tried.

While out for our stroll I decided I wanted to climb this little knob near us to see what sort of visibility we would have from the top. Of course like dummies we had left the bulk of our gear behind and were continuing to get farther away from it. We reached the top of the glassing knob and really liked our view, so we decided to sit there until dark. Well, we would sit there after I got back from a quick 1/2 mile or so run to grab both of our packs – haha. Once I returned with my pack on my back and Lindsay’s strapped on my front, we settled into our new spot and glassed until dark. We didn’t turn up any more animals and saw a couple more hunters off in the distance. Between the number of hunters we were seeing, and the clearly shot elk we found, it was beginning to paint a pretty clear picture that this area had been hunted out pretty hard. We headed back to camp at dark a little skeptical about whether or not we were going to see anything alive in our new spot.

The next morning we decided to head straight back to that same glassing knob as it offered the best view of the surrounding area. We arrived before daybreak excited to glass at first light, but were met by a dense, heavy fog that reduced visibility to basically zero. Knowing there wasn’t too much we could do we built a fire in a nice little ring someone had made before us, and settled in to wait for it to break glassing in whatever short windows we had between clouds.

About midday when the sun began warming up the air, the fog finally began to lift and we could begin glassing. After a couple hours of not turning anything up I decided to take a little hike into some country that we couldn’t see too well from where we were, to snoop around and to check for any sign. What I found was another elk carcass (this one had been harvested in it’s entirety) and some relatively fresh sign, likely from earlier that week. That was all the proof we needed to confirm that the area we were in had seen a lot of elk moving through it, but they had already been hunted hard and I think the pressure had drove them out of there, likely onto the adjoining private land. We decided to glass the rest of the day until dark since we were already back there, and as expected we didn’t see anything.

On our hike back to the tent that night we discussed what our plan would be as the season end was fast approaching; we had four days left. We checked the weather back in the area that we had left, and as it turned out the forecasted storm that drove us out never actually happened. Thinking that it was relatively quiet back there (less the one other hunter we had seen) and it was a big area with a lot of elk we decided to go back and give it another try as it had a chance to quiet down for a few days. We would spend the night where were and sleep in a little to be well rested before tearing down camp and heading off back the way we came. It was a little frustrating that we had left at all considering the past couple of days were unsuccessful, but we made the right call instead of risking get caught back there if the storm had come. By early afternoon on day 16 we were all packed up and heading out, leaving behind our signature circle imprint from the tent.

We set up camp just after dark by the time we got back to the first area, and settled in to get some sleep as we were off to hunt hard the last three days we had left. Stay tuned for an exciting last couple of days filled with action, heartbreak, and lessons learned!