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Montana Hunt Success 2015
Last year, my friend, Rich, and I went into the Montana big game application period completely blind. Rich grew up there, but is a police Captain in Las Vegas and had not been scouting in Montana in many years. Regardless, we made it happen and after scoring a couple of deer, we decided to apply again with the hopes of trying the traditionally much more productive late season. This time, my other friend, Frank (a retired Nevada game warden), would join us with a general deer tag of his own.
The problem was that we had also applied for antelope tags last year, and the bonus points we earned resulted in us drawing an antelope tag instead of banking another point and drawing that tag next year. Not a terrible thing to draw another tag, but it forced us to straddle both deer and antelope season, as well as hunt in another unfamiliar region of the state. This meant that we would be hunting the least prime portions of both seasons in new territory, making the odds of scoring a really big specimen in either season very unlikely. This was exacerbated by the fact that we would be confined to public land.
No worries. We decided that we would remove the stress, take whatever we came across and enjoy the week. The end result was one of the most rewarding, memorable hunts, filled with ups and downs, and resulting in 5 tags filled in 5 days. If that wasn't cool enough, another tag was filled on the fly when the other two guys bought over-the-counter whitetail doe permits with a few days remaining.
This is how it all went down...
We started months out making phone calls to various game agency staff members. One guy in particular was incredibly helpful. He told us the best areas to start looking and saved us from making hotel reservations way further away from the prime hunt areas than we should have. He also strongly suggested buying a specialized GPS/cell phone map application (OnX map system) that denotes public/private land areas. This ended up being an absolute lifesaver, as it was useable even without phone service and distinguishing these boundaries and legal hunting areas would've been nearly impossible without it.
Armed with the location info and the GPS phone app, we set off to try our first huntable area. Right away, the app proved invaluable when a local rancher got confrontational with us, claiming that we were hunting on his land, snapping pictures of Rich's license plate and trying to intimidate us into leaving the area. When I showed him our location on the app, pinging us clearly in public land, he backed off immediately (it didn't hurt that we informed him that our group consisted of a cop, a military officer and a retired game warden), realizing that we knew that this area was legal to hunt and that we weren't going to leave.
What we discovered after the fact is that his property sits nearby and abuts a public area with PRIME deer and elk hunting, along with a few antelope. Our best guess is that he likely charges people to hunt his spot and is infuriated that people can go right onto the public land next to his ranch and score just as well, if not outright cut off his clients to the best game. If it were up to him, he'd likely buy that public land spot up right away. We're pretty sure that he was trying to exaggerate his borders to the uninformed in an effort to keep them away. Even after that early run-in, we saw deer skirting the public land boundary just a bit out of reach.
After the morning hunt, we checked out some other places and made notes of what looked good. We found more deer in a different area in very good numbers, but cover and terrain masking were at a premium, and we couldn't get close with all 3 of us working the same turf. We got 3 decent bucks in range, but found coordination way too hard with that many guys and lost the opportunity when we got spotted. It was not a problem. We had already seen enough deer to know that scoring was only a matter of time and other chances abounded. We also found some antelope later that afternoon, but discovered that as late as we showed up into a non-rut antelope season that they were VERY spooky. We got close, but never got a shot. I had already decided that because I took a nice buck just last year, I had no issue whatsoever shooting a doe as soon as a shot was possible.
On the way home, I was scanning the mapping software, monitoring available hunting land as we drove along. Out of the blue, I spotted an antelope doe alone in a field that was smack in the middle of state land and legal to hunt. She was just 70 yards from the edge of the road and simply stood there as I got my .284 Winchester XP-100 specialty pistol setup, put in my earplugs and assumed a prone position. Just as I deployed the bipod, she finally took off. She ran for what seemed like forever, but I tracked her until she finally hung up broadside at about 260 yards. I aimed accordingly, the trigger broke and the 162 gr. A-Max flew. A solid thump and a bucking kick from the doe indicated a good hit. She ran about 40 yards and tumbled head over heels, going down for good.
The next morning, Rich and Frank sat the same side of the public land near the curmudgeonly rancher's property. Meanwhile, I crossed the road to the other side of the public land on a fact-finding mission to see if anything else was lurking over there. With the sun barely shining, I found an excellent line of trees leading up a hill that looked like great cover up to a high vantage point. I climbed it slowly, planning to peek through the trees on the way up, looking for game. Almost immediately I found a herd of about 100 elk on the front side of this hill, extending behind it and even all the way into the treeline adjacent to it. A couple of spike bulls even got into a little play fight as the herd slowly made its way into the trees while the sun came up.
The iPhone picture quality sucks in low light, especially when zoomed, but you can see the front edge of the emerging herd as dark spots on the hill:
After the elk left, I continued on to another small, bald peak about 150 yards ahead of the previous one, getting a full view overlooking the bowl below. Right away, four doe mulies filed in before me. About 30 minutes later, a 3-point buck (3x3 for us eastern hardwood hunters) came down a distant saddle and began to feed just 200 yards from my position, followed shortly by two forkies. I thought long and hard about letting him go for a bigger buck, but decided to stick with the plan, take what I was offered and tag out. This would ensure that I could dedicate my time helping ensure that the other guys filled their respective tags and everyone would go home with some meat.
This time I was armed with my Tikka T3 Lite Stainless in .243 Win. At just 208 yards, the distance was easy and the position offered a prone shot across a flat rock. It was only a matter of waiting for a broadside shot. When the buck finally turned curiously to look back at the two forkies that were headed his way, he gave me a decent quartering angle worth taking. I let one rip and never saw the buck again after coming down from recoil. He disappeared behind the small hump he had been feeding on and the two forkies took off in two different directions. I couldn't tell for sure if the buck was down, but those other bucks staring back at where my buck once stood was all the evidence I needed to know that he had already ate the turf.
When the other deer finally cleared the area, I made my way down and found my buck down just 20 or so yards from where he was hit. Upon further inspection, the 100 gr. ProHunter was found just under the offside hide, strange considering the short distance it travelled and given that it has fully penetrated similar animals on further shots. While it mushroomed perfectly, it appeared to have encountered bone (most likely the shoulder ball given the exit path that it took - not the pushed up dark spot of hair in front of the leg) and had clearly shed a lot of weight. The scale at home showed that it only weighed 37.4 gr. after impact, but the fact that it held a good mushroom despite this was very good to see.
The problem was that we had also applied for antelope tags last year, and the bonus points we earned resulted in us drawing an antelope tag instead of banking another point and drawing that tag next year. Not a terrible thing to draw another tag, but it forced us to straddle both deer and antelope season, as well as hunt in another unfamiliar region of the state. This meant that we would be hunting the least prime portions of both seasons in new territory, making the odds of scoring a really big specimen in either season very unlikely. This was exacerbated by the fact that we would be confined to public land.
No worries. We decided that we would remove the stress, take whatever we came across and enjoy the week. The end result was one of the most rewarding, memorable hunts, filled with ups and downs, and resulting in 5 tags filled in 5 days. If that wasn't cool enough, another tag was filled on the fly when the other two guys bought over-the-counter whitetail doe permits with a few days remaining.
This is how it all went down...
We started months out making phone calls to various game agency staff members. One guy in particular was incredibly helpful. He told us the best areas to start looking and saved us from making hotel reservations way further away from the prime hunt areas than we should have. He also strongly suggested buying a specialized GPS/cell phone map application (OnX map system) that denotes public/private land areas. This ended up being an absolute lifesaver, as it was useable even without phone service and distinguishing these boundaries and legal hunting areas would've been nearly impossible without it.
Armed with the location info and the GPS phone app, we set off to try our first huntable area. Right away, the app proved invaluable when a local rancher got confrontational with us, claiming that we were hunting on his land, snapping pictures of Rich's license plate and trying to intimidate us into leaving the area. When I showed him our location on the app, pinging us clearly in public land, he backed off immediately (it didn't hurt that we informed him that our group consisted of a cop, a military officer and a retired game warden), realizing that we knew that this area was legal to hunt and that we weren't going to leave.
What we discovered after the fact is that his property sits nearby and abuts a public area with PRIME deer and elk hunting, along with a few antelope. Our best guess is that he likely charges people to hunt his spot and is infuriated that people can go right onto the public land next to his ranch and score just as well, if not outright cut off his clients to the best game. If it were up to him, he'd likely buy that public land spot up right away. We're pretty sure that he was trying to exaggerate his borders to the uninformed in an effort to keep them away. Even after that early run-in, we saw deer skirting the public land boundary just a bit out of reach.
After the morning hunt, we checked out some other places and made notes of what looked good. We found more deer in a different area in very good numbers, but cover and terrain masking were at a premium, and we couldn't get close with all 3 of us working the same turf. We got 3 decent bucks in range, but found coordination way too hard with that many guys and lost the opportunity when we got spotted. It was not a problem. We had already seen enough deer to know that scoring was only a matter of time and other chances abounded. We also found some antelope later that afternoon, but discovered that as late as we showed up into a non-rut antelope season that they were VERY spooky. We got close, but never got a shot. I had already decided that because I took a nice buck just last year, I had no issue whatsoever shooting a doe as soon as a shot was possible.
On the way home, I was scanning the mapping software, monitoring available hunting land as we drove along. Out of the blue, I spotted an antelope doe alone in a field that was smack in the middle of state land and legal to hunt. She was just 70 yards from the edge of the road and simply stood there as I got my .284 Winchester XP-100 specialty pistol setup, put in my earplugs and assumed a prone position. Just as I deployed the bipod, she finally took off. She ran for what seemed like forever, but I tracked her until she finally hung up broadside at about 260 yards. I aimed accordingly, the trigger broke and the 162 gr. A-Max flew. A solid thump and a bucking kick from the doe indicated a good hit. She ran about 40 yards and tumbled head over heels, going down for good.
The next morning, Rich and Frank sat the same side of the public land near the curmudgeonly rancher's property. Meanwhile, I crossed the road to the other side of the public land on a fact-finding mission to see if anything else was lurking over there. With the sun barely shining, I found an excellent line of trees leading up a hill that looked like great cover up to a high vantage point. I climbed it slowly, planning to peek through the trees on the way up, looking for game. Almost immediately I found a herd of about 100 elk on the front side of this hill, extending behind it and even all the way into the treeline adjacent to it. A couple of spike bulls even got into a little play fight as the herd slowly made its way into the trees while the sun came up.
The iPhone picture quality sucks in low light, especially when zoomed, but you can see the front edge of the emerging herd as dark spots on the hill:
After the elk left, I continued on to another small, bald peak about 150 yards ahead of the previous one, getting a full view overlooking the bowl below. Right away, four doe mulies filed in before me. About 30 minutes later, a 3-point buck (3x3 for us eastern hardwood hunters) came down a distant saddle and began to feed just 200 yards from my position, followed shortly by two forkies. I thought long and hard about letting him go for a bigger buck, but decided to stick with the plan, take what I was offered and tag out. This would ensure that I could dedicate my time helping ensure that the other guys filled their respective tags and everyone would go home with some meat.
This time I was armed with my Tikka T3 Lite Stainless in .243 Win. At just 208 yards, the distance was easy and the position offered a prone shot across a flat rock. It was only a matter of waiting for a broadside shot. When the buck finally turned curiously to look back at the two forkies that were headed his way, he gave me a decent quartering angle worth taking. I let one rip and never saw the buck again after coming down from recoil. He disappeared behind the small hump he had been feeding on and the two forkies took off in two different directions. I couldn't tell for sure if the buck was down, but those other bucks staring back at where my buck once stood was all the evidence I needed to know that he had already ate the turf.
When the other deer finally cleared the area, I made my way down and found my buck down just 20 or so yards from where he was hit. Upon further inspection, the 100 gr. ProHunter was found just under the offside hide, strange considering the short distance it travelled and given that it has fully penetrated similar animals on further shots. While it mushroomed perfectly, it appeared to have encountered bone (most likely the shoulder ball given the exit path that it took - not the pushed up dark spot of hair in front of the leg) and had clearly shed a lot of weight. The scale at home showed that it only weighed 37.4 gr. after impact, but the fact that it held a good mushroom despite this was very good to see.
Accuracy: because white space between bullet holes drives me insane.
Replies
A short time later, we went further up looking for mule deer. Rich and I climbed the same hill I had shot my deer from, but a miscommunication led to Frank accidentally walking right up into the saddle where the deer had come from the day prior, spooking them right out the other side. We thought that the hunt was blown, but never in my life would I dream up what happened next.
Presuming that our morning was done, Rich and I started working back down the hill just as Frank retreated from the saddle. We all started heading toward each other. Though we were looking for deer at the time, Rich was still holding his antelope tag. As Frank crested the last hill before getting to us, a lone antelope doe came running over it away from him, but then just stopped and stared back at him. This put her perfectly broadside to me and Rich. Most importantly, she was far enough from Frank to offer a safe shot. I quickly gave Rich a 190 yard laser range and he promptly got prone.
After seeing how much confidence I had in my .243 Win using 100 gr. bullets, Rich decided to bring one of his own in the form of a Remington 700 SPS with Federal Premium softpoint ammo. He let one rip and got a solid report, indicating a great hit. The antelope ran a couple of aimless circles in the field. Frank reported seeing an enormous amount of blood pouring out of the doe just before she went down and Rich's confidence in the round was cemented. The frothy blood on her muzzle and post-mortem inspection revealed a beautiful double-lunger tucked neatly behind the shoulder.
[img]http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/n545/lplozada/Hunting/Montana Deer and Antelope Hunt 23 Oct% 20-%202%20Nov%202015/IMG_2684_zpsyc71f1i1.jpg[/img]
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After Rich's field dressed his antelope, we decided to rest that area and try someplace new. We pushed much deeper into our unit and found incredible numbers of deer in several places, but had issues as a result. With that many deer and two hunters with bad knees, unable to get completely down to a low crawl, stalking proved very difficult. We had several encounters that ended with deer and antelope extremely close (inside of 70 yards on a couple of occasions), but spooking before either guy could get a clean shot.
Great fortune struck when Rich and I worked on a distant herd of deer. Frank stayed behind at the truck, but spotted a herd very close by and decided to make a move. As Rich and I came back toward the truck, flustered by the fact that we lost sight of the spooky herd we were after, Frank began vigorously signaling us to get down. We were perhaps 100 yards away, and little did we know that he had a forkie just 60 yards below him!
Frank was in a good, seated shooting position and blasted the forkie in the neck with a 175 gr. Trophy Bonded Bear Claw from his Remington 700 chambered in 7mm Rem mag. The damage was remarkable and the deer never took another step...
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With just one deer tag left to fill for Rich, we all returned to the public land honey hole that, despite being only about 1 square mile, had already produced a deer and an antelope, along with the amazing sight of all of those elk. Just as we got enough light to scan and ensure we wouldn't bump something, we followed the exact same route as the previous hunts, leaving the road for the tree-covered vantage point en route to the slightly higher bald peak just a short distance away. As luck would have it, we never even made it that far.
Just as we walked up to that first clutch of trees, I spotted what were clearly two mule deer on the side of a hill just 130 yards to the right of where I shot my deer. A quick look through the binos and rangefinder confirmed that the left deer was a buck at just 220 yards! I gave Rich the range, instructing him to quickly but calmly get prone on the edge of the hill and aim for that left deer, now standing almost perfectly broadside. A split second after the crack of his shot, the deer leaped about 4 feet in the air and took off downhill. It appeared to go over a bend as the doe he was with took off, but we never saw him emerge with her. A quick look in the area we last saw them showed that Rich had just dropped a 4x3 mulie that never made it 10 yards from where he was hit.
[img]http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/n545/lplozada/Hunting/Montana Deer and Antelope Hunt 23 Oct% 20-%202%20Nov%202015/IMG_2695_zps2tqccru1.jpg[/img]
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Yup. We had just filled 5 tags in 5 days with time to spare. Guess what? There were plenty of whitetail B licenses (aka antlerless tags) left. A quick mental check made me realize that because I flew in, there was no way I was going to be able to take home any more meat, but since Rich and Frank drove from Las Vegas in an F250, they most certainly could. From our previous hunt, Rich and I knew that scoring a whitetail doe was doable, so both he and Frank bought tags.
We had some chances the very first time we went out, but it was the second night when things materialized. We scanned a small sliver of BMA land (state-leased private land legal for public hunting) and saw what were clearly two antlerless whitetail deer bedding right in an open field. We had ample daylight to conduct a stalk, and the taller grass at the edge of the field made for a crouched approach that was much easier on Frank and Rich's knees. We had a building in the background during the initial approach, but a patient stalk to a better angle corrected that issue easily. I had both shooters set up at 160 yards behind a pair of wheels on a dormant field pivot that was stowed in the tall grass. As the daylight grew dimmer, each shooter was to take the deer on his respective side based on whichever one stood and presented a broadside shot first. The one on Frank's side finally did just that. Another 7mm Rem mag shot later, a buttonbuck was down in a heap.
Upon inspection, I told Frank that he should never bring that blasted rifle out again. The heart was bifurcated, lungs destroyed and leg broken. My, what a mess! :vomit: Regardless, he had his whitetail and now everyone had two tags filled!
[img]http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/n545/lplozada/Hunting/Montana Deer and Antelope Hunt 23 Oct% 20-%202%20Nov%202015/IMG_2702_zpsyyjaumg5.jpg[/img]
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Long story short, despite having a couple of chances, Rich ultimately decided to not go out after the second day of the whitetail hunt in order to spend some time with his cousin in Helena. We know for a fact that he could've finished out this hunt with a score, but he wasn't too concerned after the already great hunt. Seeing well over 1,000 deer, antelope and elk, punching 6 out of 7 tags purchased, and harvesting several hundreds pounds of meat between all of us was more than ample indication that we would have to come back out this way again. It was a phenomenal time and all of us agreed that it will have to happen sooner rather than later!
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Good to see the XP draw blood
"The Un-Tactical"
Contrats on a nice buck and a great hunt. Sierra bullets, whether Pro Hunters or Game Kings, just work. Nothing fancy but they're accurate and they bring down game reliably. I've even seen them do this out of a .270 a time or two. I mean who'd a THUNK that?
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
Thanks for sharing your experience
Dad 5-31-13
I felt really stable and secure making that antelope shot. It's a lot of work getting ready to shoot an XP with a single-digit ounce trigger pull weight, and Ernie and I discussed the fact that you never even dream of loading the thing until you are set up on target. The muzzlebrake requires earplugs, and I really should've had the band type that go around your neck and can be deployed rapidly rather than individual foamies, but it all worked out in the end.
You may not believe this, but after we set that rancher straight (and I already knew his name before he told us because it was in the plat data on the phone app), his tone changed completely and he assumed a good disposition. We actually came back to see him before we left. With a few days to consider things, we figured that there could be a lot to gain by making good with him. That public spot we found near his land was incredible, and if we ever down an elk back there, he might actually be keen on letting us borrow or rent an ATV or some hauling gear. We all shook hands and left on good terms.
The meat logistics were definitely helped by shooting most of our animals early in the hunt. In fact, another part of why Rich decided to skip on trying to connect on his whitetail after the first couple of sits was directly attributable to the cost of rush processing. It nearly doubled the cost to have it done in 1 day, so he figured it just wasn't worth it.
Sako
Its unfortunate that honest hunters have to waste precious time dealing land use disputes. I think it's a problem that will increase dramatically with time.
I encountered out of state hunters in the area a couple of season's ago. I went out of my way to be friendly. When I packed up to go home they gave me a deer (legal here under certain criteria)and a very valuable cooler. I intend to continue to foster this type of good will in the future. Its really the only solution to more crowded land use.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
It really is sad that it's gone this way, but the reality of life is that the almighty dollar has just increased competition for ever-limited resources and decreased people's willingness to tolerate each other. It's refreshing to hear that those out of state hunters were so kind to you. I think a lot of what the rancher we encountered forgets (along with many other locals) is that non-resident hunters dump an enormous amount of money into their economy. Butchers, airports, shippers, restaurant owners and so on all benefit from the cash surge that hunting season bring. The problem is that they only benefit directly when a non-resident hunter pays for their specific patch of turf. The ancillary cash benefits suddenly pale in comparison when a non-resident gives someone a direct $7000 payment.
Oh, and an update on the meat:
I normally process my own game locally, but I think the airline attendant would've looked at me funny if I brought two entire deer/antelope carcasses to the baggage check. So, I was forced to use local processing.
We taste tested the antelope last night and I have to say, it was just as good from the local processer in our area as the one me and my other buddy, Kirk, processed with me in Nevada. My wife's exact quote was "just shoot antelope from now on, please." Yeah, to my surprise, it was that good.
We'll be trying the deer this weekend.
I went and got the deluxe Michigan edition for my Android phone and it rocks! I bought some land in northern Michigan and have been waiting for the surveyor to come out and stake the corners for me so when I put the trailer up there and clear out an area for a camp, I know for sure it is actually my land. With Michigan deer season starting in a week and a half, I am running out of time. The app lets me find my lot lines and everything via GPS. If I can't find the corner stakes with the app and a metal detector on Friday, I know I will be at least close enough to know I am not setting up camp on either my neighbor's or Federal land.
Great hunt! Thanks for the report.
I hear you when it comes to guys wanting to hunt YOUR land, but in our case, we were exclusively hunting on public land. We were not bothering this guy for permission at all, and still contributing to the local economy in the form of our trip expenditures. That's where I had the problem. If we wanted to hunt his land, I can understand him expecting something in return given the property tax situation alone for a lot that size.
It's great, ain't it? There's no guess work at all. Sounds like you found an awesome use for it given your situation and you'll be able to hunt without fear!
Seems to be a great animal killing "not for hunting" bullet. Ha. The new ELD-X may prove useful.
Yup. We actually *invited* him to call the warden so we could see who was right. That was right about when he did an about face in attitude.
That ain't nothing, guys. Linefinder and I had a psycho rancher stop us in the middle of a county road and accuse us of poaching on his property. I had had a previous run in with him, so I told him he could write down my license plate and call whomever he wanted to. I then started my truck and drove off.
I later learned that even the locals didn't like this guy.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.... now who's bringing the hot wings? :jester:
In Utah, it was fairly common for ranchers to try to close access roads to BLM land as well...some went to far as to use a back hoe to do it...
In MN, if the sign is not posted properly with your name and phone #, it is invalid
Jerry
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=609.605
I hear that a lot in PA, and it isn't true here either.
Not saying the rancher is right, but with his reaction, how many times do you think folks parked where you did and hunted right across the line with the "I didn't know" or "my buddies wifes cousin twice removed said it was OK." defense?