Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Montana 2023

Six of us went out to the little belts on Friday the 27th for a week of hunting. Private ranch with a lodge, hunting is DIY and we cook for ourselves. We drove out on a 9 hour drive in 13 hours, real crap, and woke up Saturday to -5F temps and everything covered in snow. We shot two cows that day, and a third later in the week. Two of us had general tags, one of us had a deer tag, four of the guys had private land cow tags. As it worked out, the guys with cow tags had the bull opportunities. Of course that's how it worked out.

We saw tons of partridge over the week. I'd love to go back with shotguns and dogs. I had the deer tag and was super fussy, we need a dead deer at our house like a hole in the head. I saw three I would have shot, went after all three and failed to get it done. Wind switches are deadly to hunters but not to big bucks. We saw elk every day, and had a fantastic time. By weeks end the snow had melted and refrozen and just made things difficult. The full moon didn't help either. No need for headlamps on this trip.

Day one going back for lunch after our first stalk attempt


On stand here mid week I took the obligatory rifle pic and then spotted a huge mulie about a mile away.


I hiked up after him but he was watching too closely and decided to amscray before I got there.


I did get up above these guys and within 120 yards or so which puzzled them to no end.

Coyotes legal? Plug them.

Cool, fun hunt!

Nice! Pretty country.

More pics?

I might be the odd fellow but I just don't "plug them" when there's game about. Rancher doesn't want us to shoot them either, maybe that makes us a pair.

I'll put some more pics up, sure. This first one is a moon rise. Not a sun rise but a moon rise. We dealt with it all week.


Last herd we stalked. They bedded right there, we were back in the morning but couldn't close the gap acceptably. The wind was howling at about 30.


One of the cows


The happiest little critter on the mountain is in this picture, you can hardly see him. We watched a band of mule deer all week long including this wooly little bugger still in his spots. He jumped and ran and played and I hope he makes it.

We don't rough it any more. No tents for us.

Man, that is the way to do elk camp!

Its a great setup. Fits our style perfectly. Lucky to find it and darn sure want to hold on to it.

Those steaks make me hungry!

Cool trip for you all.

Great report! Congrats on the hunt and scoring some elk!