Finally gettin' after elk here in Montana.
Its a late-season start for me this year.
Just been trying to wrap up a bunch of personal stuff.
It's one of those years where I was hoping to get out and going weeks ago,
But here we are. We're super stoked.
We made it to elk camp. Shot a few shots through the bow and actually
consistently hitting to the right, which is interesting because, I just shot a
deer last Friday and I hit him to the right.
So I'm wondering if something didn't get knocked off.
that's why I always carry my target with me.
We're gonna set up camp and get some rest.
We got a long hike ahead of us in the morning. We'll see where it goes.
It's a smaller one, but it's a bull.
Man there's a bunch of elk in here.
Well it's a good start.
We hiked up here this morning and we got about a mile before the sun popped up, maybe a mile and a half.
And just hunkered down and just watching over this giant basin here.
And there's elk at every pocket on top which is what we're hoping for.
But it does appear that the shooter bulls are over on this far side, of course.
Which is a long elevation drop and rise, but it's still early so we're gonna pop over there I think.
Might gain up here and then drop back.
Nice!
Maybe that's gonna be a sign, shoot this guy today.
I don't know if I want to carry it around all day though.
So we decided to drop the elevation to gain back up.
Right now we're probably about 400 feet higher than we were,
And there's a big herd up in the head.
We watched two herds go over earlier.
Now this third one.
We know that there's at least two shooter bulls in the herd that went over the ridge.
Time to gain some more elevation. Looks like we got another 800 or so to go.
We're sitting here just trying to eat our granola bars. I guess he was hungry.
Josiah's like, "Spike bull." I'm like, "where?" He's like 20 yards in front of us.
Well we lost track of one of the bigger bulls.
We were sitting on top of his herd all afternoon, all day pretty much.
And there's one big bull and another one scurrying back and forth.
Towards five o'clock we saw that other bull,
and then it blew up, something spooked them.
Ran off.
We followed one herd down a ways.
We found the first big bull, but then we couldn't see the second one,
so we assumed he's still up here with this crowd.
But there's nothing but spikes in there. So that's the way it goes.
Still got to see some neat activity and lots of screaming.
A great first day in the woods so far.
So we're staked up here
where we've been seeing a herd hanging out all day yesterday
and nobody seemed to bother them. So we got up early and hiked up into here.
2 cows just fed across this hillside down into this draw behind me.
Thermals coming up. Which is kind of strange as cold as it is.
It's a beautiful foggy morning with the sunlit tops.
And hopefully we will put a bull on the ground.
It's as good a chance as we can get
Well our plan almost worked.
It's still pretty early in the morning and the thermals are pretty swirly.
But we got between the bull and his cows.
I just was hoping it would be a bigger bull than that.
So were just going to hunker for a bit see if there's more herd coming
and if not, we'll head over here where we heard some bugles.
Over in the other direction where we feel like there's a bigger bull.
So we'll go looking in there and see what we can find.
That's another hunter.
Well it's the third or fourth hunter we've seen today,
so not that we don't enjoy others enjoying public lands,
but it's definitely cramping the elk hunting.
so we're gonna bail back down to camp and pack up and relocate to
one of my other elk hunting locations.
Hopefully to find a little bit less pressure.
so it's midday, perfect time to do it.
We got about hour and a half to two hours to the truck,
and get out of here and see if we can find something,
big bulls screaming!
cuz they're not talking here.
We got here last night in the dark and just pitched camp down below here, and
had no really idea what the spots like.
We hiked up in here, got a little better idea.
There's a beautiful little spot at the bottom here.
There's a creek going through and we're gonna go set up camp there.
It's a better place to stay for the next couple of days.
They're all bedded down right in the wallow area.
So we're just kinda stuck here about 200 yards.
We just going to hang out.
We're within that zone to where anything could happen.
There could be a bull that just gets up and walks right up here.
2 of the bulls have run off now.
There's a 6 x 7 that took off, and a 6 x 6 that took off that way.
There's just two 6 points that are left. Down to 2 shooter bulls.
And about 40 - 45 cows.
So it's tough odds but, we don't have any other choices.
We've been on them all day.
We're gonna see.
Drink some water, eat something.
We slipped in to the area that they keep coming to wallow and drink.
It's 4:45 - 5 o'clock.
We're expecting them to come down one more time
before they head back over towards the fields.
And hopefully, if that's the case, we will probably get to shoot 1 tonight.
Yes.
Oh my goodness. Thank you Jesus.
Yes!
Yeah!
Dude.
Yeah!
Oh my gosh!
Thank you Lord!
My legs numb.
Oh wow!
Herd bull.
Oh Wow!
We just waited for him to just get in our lap.
He's perdy.
Incredible to be able to see one of these guys on the ground.
Very humbling and very exciting at the same time.