Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Montana Youth Hunt 2023 - Backpacking Trip

We left the carcass for predator bait and took off for a high point for the evening glassing session.

We found another buck along the way, a heavy 3-point but he never gave us a shot. He wasn’t overly concerned and I had some confidence we might get another chance at him in the next couple days.

A break for lunch and nap was called for. Bellies full of last years deer delivered via homemade snack sticks, a notched deer tag, a fine buck boned out and hanging in the shade…I am sure the Sun on my face while I napped has felt as good, but it has most certainly never felt better. It must have been pretty good because the sound of my own snoring woke me up…

We were going to climb a prominent knob but about ¼ of the way up I smelled elk. Not heavy, just a whiff…but enough to make the decision for us to backtrack to camp and hunt the north faces Addie’s buck has been on from across the drainage.

The sun was warming things up pretty good and I began to be concerned about the meat. Since we would be hunting back toward the trailhead in the evening we loaded it up and took it about a mile closer to the truck and, more importantly, down a significant elevation drop that would save us some work the next day should we need to make more then one meat run.



We had stashed the meet in a shady area and were working back up to the level we were camped on when Trevin spotted another deer. There was two small bucks just leaving some regen not 200 yards across the drainage and barely over 100 yards from where we had just stashed their older cousin.



They were unaware of us and it was an easy shot for Trevin but he passed. I don’t like to tell them what to shoot -- their tag, their choice. Trevin already had killed a couple deer bigger than these and I knew he wouldn’t be happy with them. Life would have been pretty easy if he had. Two quick meat runs on a mostly level trail and we would have both the deer out in a few hours the next morning.

I am glad he passed. Easy doesn’t make for great memories. Trevin had passed up easy a couple weeks prior and ended up with a fine antelope to show for it. I wrote about that here...

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...023-montana-antelope-opener#Post18838028

We glassed and still-hunted back to camp. We turned up another little buck and a small group of does, likely the group we saw near Addie’s buck in the morning.

We got to camp at dark and pulled the food back down.



Dinner was a hearty affair with fresh tenderloins on the menu. I had forgot my garlic salt, pepper and oil that I prefer but being somewhat of a wilderness gourmet (*sarcasm*) I used the next best thing…a beef flavor packet from some Ramen. Mixed with a freeze dried beef marinara meal it was pretty darn tasty.



The wind howled so I didn’t want to light the stove. It didn’t cool off much and I started to get nervous about the meat…