Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game A Fall in Eastern MT

This fall has been one of those that we all dream about. I have spent lots of time with great people, hunted and fished a lot, and had some pretty spectacular days. To go back a little, my son and I have been doing some work for a friend that ranches north of my place. He likes getting all of his little projects out of the way and we enjoy getting together and doing a little work with each other. My son just got rolling on adult life about 3 hours north of here, where he works as the county attorney and is in private practice. He and his pretty, young, wife are kidless at this point, so he still has quite a bit of free rein when it comes to running around and hunting or generally hanging out with his dad. Here's a pic I have posted here on the fire of him in the past, and another of he and his wife.

I guess I'm getting older, because I truly realize how I took for granted the ease with which I could spend time with him while he was under my roof. Now, we spend time together, but not nearly enough for me. Regardless, this fall we had big plans to hunt our friend's ranch hard during archery elk season. Last fall we had a lot of close calls, but no luck. My son had a shot at a VERY nice bull, but blew it after the bull charged in at a dead run, bugling and screaming with blood in his eyes, to 45 yards. The miss that followed has been eating at him all year. This year was going to be different. With that said, we prepared for opening day. He had practiced endless hours, to the point that anything inside 60 yards was in big trouble.

There is a sorghum field on one part of the ranch this year, and there were a good number of bulls feeding in it. We decided to focus on those bulls until the rut got going. Close call after close call, left us with no arrows released, but lots of action that first weekend. The second weekend of the season we had to run over to eastern SD to pick up his new lab pup, Harvey. We had a great trip and lots of long political discussion on the drive out and back. Here's Harvey av Valhalla!

The weekend after picking up Harvey, we were back after the elk. The rut had not hit yet, but the bulls were starting to think more about cows and had started sparring and spending less time in their bachelor groups. We gave it our best shot, but week 3 of season was mostly a bust. We saw a ton of elk, we had bulls bugling back at us, but nothing got interested in coming in to the call and we struck out on cutting them off leaving the fields. By now, the young wife was also getting tired of her hubby being gone every single weekend and the new lab pup was terrorizing the house, so the boy needed to take a break. Luckily, I didn't have the same problem!! I spent that following Monday back at the neighbor's ranch looking for a bull.

To be continued!

We had been seeing a lot of elk moving to the east of the fields on another part of the ranch, so I concentrated my first evening effort in that direction. I had hurried home from work, thrown my gear on and flew the 8 miles north of the house to my hunting spot. When I arrived, I rushed off toward the NW corner in hopes of getting in on some of the rutting action I'd seen from the sorghum fields to the west. As I got closer to the spot I wanted to be in, I slowed down a bit and glassed. I had one ridge left to cross to be in position, but I didn't want to end up in the middle of them if they were already up and moving, so I popped my MT cow elk decoy up and did a few seductive mews on my cow call. Almost instantly, I saw ears and then a head poke up on the ridge 150 yards to my front. Before long, there were 15-20 cows milling around on top of the ridge and eyeballing my sweet little Montana cow decoy. As I was glassing them and wondering where the bull was that had gathered them up, a deep, ear splitting bugle echoed from behind that ridge as gorgeous 350" class bull trotted up to the ridge top. I plead with him to come gather up the lonesome cow behind me, but he wasn't having it and off they went. Dejected, I contemplated what I had done wrong. Wind was right. Didn't feel like I had over called... And another big bull bugle from just behind that ridge. I quickly moved up to the crest and holy Wild Kingdom! The entire landscape was COVERED in elk!!

Seeing that there was no way to move on them, I grabbed my cow decoy and moved to the other side of the butte that I was tucked up against. From that point, I could just see the lead animals in the extremely large, loose herd that was moving in my direction, down the 300 yard wide open draw. I put the cow decoy between me and the elk and slowly moved to the middle of the draw. Hiding behind some tall sage, I stuck her in the ground and crawled to the edge of the sage. Slowly, the herd moved to a small, nearly dry dugout to water. most of them came on the other side of a 15 foot tall hump that runs down the middle of the draw, but a group of cows decided to start down my side. I had ranged a number of prominent clumps of grass and sage before the elk came fully into sight, so as they approached, I knew when they had made it into bow range. Looking to my left I could see several large bulls tearing up the mud of the dugout and wallowing. The noise from the 150-200 head of elk was impressive, to put it mildly. I was beginning to wonder if a bull would follow the group of cows that were now within 5 yards of me, hunkered in the sage. Just as I was beginning to think that I was out of luck, a gorgeous 6x6 poked his head over the ridge and started toward me. It seemed to take him forever to get to my 50 yard sage brush, but he got there. As he took the the last steps, he put his head down to graze and I drew my bow. I caught one of the cows next to me looking at me as I drew, out of the corner of my eye, but she held. I settled my 50 yard pin mid body behind the front shoulder and squeezed the trigger on my release. I watched as the arrow arched and then came back down perfectly hitting my aim point. The herd had paid little notice to my shot and continued to mill about just as they had before. I waited and soon my bull was down!


To be continued!

As it turned out, my son just couldn't get away again for archery season. He spent the rest of the early fall chasing some gorgeous bucks on a place up in his neck of the woods. I on the other hand decided to do some fishing! I have a good friend who is a bit of an angling god and occasionally I get lucky enough to get an invite to go fishing with him. Lately, I had been hearing lots of stories of how he was catching multiple walleye that were over the 30" mark when he was out. A little shameless begging later and he said he'd take me out to see if his luck would hold.

The day of our of trip to the lake arrived with absolutely beautiful weather, and being a bit of a fair weather fisherman, this seemed a good omen. We spent the day on the lake working pretty hard to catch much! Two big channel cats in the 15# range found their way on the boat early on, along with a couple of 10# pike, but the walleye were hard to come by. We continued to move around and use the electronics to locate the fish and structure that he wanted, but it was looking like a long boat ride more than a walleye fishing trip. Then, as the day was nearing the end, we got a beautiful 29" walleye! Then a 27"... and a 28.5"... None of which I caught! And then the last fish of the day... I caught the walleye I've been trying to catch since I was a little kid. A gorgeous 30" 11 pound walleye!!!

A few weeks later, opener of deer season was here! I had plans to run up north and stay with my son and his wife for the weekend so we could do some bird hunting with my young lab and get in a little time looking for the big deer he had been watching all fall. Things in MT have changed a lot in even the last 10 years and opening day of big game season has become a bit of a circus. We knew that our best chance on 2 of these big deer would be opening day, before all of the NR trampled the BMA land to the east of the fields that the bucks had been feeding in. But I'm getting ahead of myself... For a couple of days before the opener, we chased pheasants around and had an absolute blast!


This brings us to opening morning of big game season. We decided to work our way into the private that we had permission on by accessing the BMA to the east. This would put us in a good position to catch anything that got pushed in there from the BMA or the more heavily hunted private to the west. A quick 30 minute walk put us in position on a hill that overlooked the entire creek bottom just as the sky started to get pink. We sat quietly and drank coffee while we waited for shooting light. As it got brighter, a very nice 5x6 whitetail with a drop off the front of the main beam strolled by at 50 yards. My son decided to pass on him, and I had mule deer on the brain, so off he went. Probably an upper 140's to low 150 buck. Shortly after this buck went by, another very nice whitetail appeared on the hillside in front of us at just under 300 yards. This one was a nice typical 5x5 that was around that 155 mark. Again he passed! To give you an idea of why, he had been seeing a whitetail in the area that was pushing the 180 mark and he wasn't going to end his season on day one with a smaller buck. By now the mule deer herd had started to accumulate on the BMA to our east. Roughly 40 deer were milling about in the creek bottom and side hill and I was keeping an eye out for one of the two big deer my boy had sent pics of. At one point, I thought that I had seen one of them, but the brush was heavy and I didn't see any more of it. And then the sun hit a huge buck on the side of the hill. I got the spotter on him and immediately knew that this one was good enough to end the season on the first day. I ranged him and dialed the scope on my AEM Precision in 6XC. When he got fully broadside, I sent a 108gr. ELD M on its way and down he went!! What a buck and what a morning spent with my favorite hunting partner!! No idea on the weight of the buck, but he was the heaviest I've ever seen. Had to pack him 3/4 of a mile to the private so we could get the pickup to him. My pack was 104# and the boy carried out the hind quarters over each shoulder.

Damn good season and write up! 👍

Sounds like some good times for sure,thanks for sharing that.
Congrats on a great season.

Thanks fellas. I still have some upland and waterfowl hunting to do and I have wolf and lion tags, but it's a win from here out whether I shoot again or not. Mostly piddling around with my coyote traps and waiting on cat season to start right now.

Very well done!! Glad you two are getting to share these hunts. My dad's been gone 14yrs this month. I'd give anything for one more hunt with him.

Excellent!! Always enjoy your posts!!

One hell of a good time

Ranger1: Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work (Hunting, photography, write ups and sportsmanship).
Life is good!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Most excellent! Thanks for sharing and good luck on the cat and wolf hunts!

Good stuff, congrats.

Great memories made there and thanks for sharing.

I'd call that living right, congrats on a proper MT fall so far!

Thanks for the kind words! It's funny how priorities start to change a little as you get older. I definitely still enjoy taking big critters, but the time spent with people whose company I enjoy is truly what makes the experience worth while. Sitting on that hillside watching the sun come up while having coffee with my son was just as great as shooting that big mule deer. Spending a day on the lake with good people was just as much fun as reeling in that big walleye. I guess I'm getting sappy.

Congrats Ranger! Heckuva year for you and your son. Good to hear your adventures again.

Totally agree with you that as I age, the time spent with those close to us is becoming more important than squeezing the trigger.

What a fantastic season, congratulations!

Good to hear from you, Lonny! Hope your fall is treating you and yours well.

Congrats ranger . Mb