1st bull

[rcfireninja]

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[rcfireninja]

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[rcfireninja]

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[rcfireninja]

Figured I would get pics up then do the write up. SW Montana Public Land archery bull, my first bull. It was an adventure.


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[Rockin'A]

congrats! looks like an awesome trip!!

 

[ChrisAU]

Congrats! Those are gorgeous pics!

 

[Mac7]

Congrats. Nice bull and pics.

 

[cg2737]

Congratulations, thanks for sharing.


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[dangerousD]

Congrats! Well done on a nice bull!

 

[BlakeHunter]

Awesome job and congrats! You hooked now?

 

[rcfireninja]

Once I drew my tag I started to do a lot of research into different areas of MT for the General Elk Season. I focused on SW Montana due to what I thought would be lower hunter numbers. Wow was I wrong.

We drove two trucks over Sunday afternoon after my youngest sons first flag football game. We arrived at the area we were to start off roading back into a spot to drive by 5 camps at least of hunters along the way. Arrived at the truck camp site around 1130 pm, was in bed around 1230 to then get up at 0400. we hiked in the dark to a high point to start glassing. Busted some mule deer on the way in that scared the shit out of us. From the high point nothing to see. We hiked even further up to another ridge that overlooked a bowl I wanted to hunt from escouting. Did not see anything from the ridge in the valley at all. No bugles going on anywhere. This was the 9th of Sept. We hike down into the bowl seeing a sow and cub grizzly on the way down. Only issue is its way harder to go up the avalanche shoot then it was to go down, so we continued into the bowl skirting the outside of it to head down the draw to get out into the main valley. With seeing no elk or hearing anything we still had our main packs on. We had hiked about 8 miles at this point. My hunting buddy started to feel the effects of not being in prime shape. He started to cramp in his thighs which caused him to slow down and eventually say he couldn’t go any further. We set up camp so that he could hydrate and rest. I hiked up to a high point and again could see nothing until dark, no bugles but did hear some wolf howls. In the morning I was up at the high point again, nothing to see or hear so we made the decision to hike out of there and find somewhere else.

We get out to the closet town, get some lunch and WIFI to download new onx maps for the next area we want to go. We drive up the main road then get off road a little to a vantage spot to look up some drainages. At about 5 pm we spot a bull with 10-13 cows about 8 miles away up the drainage. We drive to the closest trailhead then hike in right away after them to try and get close for a morning hunt. It was an amazing night out, so we put down a tarp and bivy sacked it in our clothes on the hillside about 3 miles from where we had seen the bull. At 2345 that night a herd of elk walk through where we camped. This caused us to jump up shining flashlights, bear spray and my friends pistol in every which way trying to see what made all the noise. I was for sure in my mind it was a bear since I didn’t put up the bear fence this time. We saw it was elk, they didn’t run away, just kept eating and slowly moved through the area. At 0430 the bull started to bugle waking us up. We put spike camp away and hiked in the dark a little further down the trail towards the bugle. At first light it took a little bit to pin point where he was. We found him on the other side of the drainage across private land in a meadow with his herd. He started to move them off the meadow to a dark spot of timber to bed down. We watched them go in and bed down then started to hike down the trail, we had a spot picked out to drop our packs, get some fresh water then go after them. While hiking we heard noise up on the hillside above us, then two horses with hunters on them appeared in front of us about 200 yards away. They had ridden up off trail to the top of the hill the trail was on then rode around the hill to cut us off. They would not even look over at us as they rode towards the dark timber after the bull. The 1.5-hour hike i figured for us to get to the bull took the horses about 20 minutes. I was in complete shock. I had planned out taking it slow and getting the wind right to change with the thermals, so we could take advantage of the first bull we had seen. Only to be cut off. We hiked out in disgust getting back to the trailhead and finding it was a horse trailer and truck from Pennsylvania.

We decided to move areas completely after this. We drove a couple hours towards Bozeman to get fresh supplies and ideas on where to go. My friend called me when we were 15 minutes out saying his dash was lighting up like Christmas with all kinds of codes. He found a dealership to take it to. I met him there after a Walmart stop for ice, snacks and such. He said they couldn’t get it in until 1600 so he was going to stay in Bozeman for the night. I would go to a spot we had picked within an hour of Bozeman to scout. I didn’t see anything that night and weather came in, so I went back to Bozeman to sleep in a bed and hot tub my sore muscles. The next morning, I was up early headed to another area while my friend waited for his truck to get fixed, they said it was a DEF sensor and DEF pump they could have done by 1200 then he would meet up with me.

I drove towards Virginia City area driving back roads and such trying to find a high point to glass and listen. It was snowing up high, rain on the hills sides and mud in the bottoms. I drove out to Ennis to grab lunch and check some areas around there. Every trailhead I went to had 4-6 trucks, wall tents and horse trailers. I keep going until I found an area that did not have more than 1 tent. I found this and set up my truck to camp. At around 2300 a truck pulled into the trailhead. 4 guys get out of the truck and set up a floodlight, start a campfire, turn on music and get to drinking and setting up tents. This lead to the first tent that was set up to tell them to shut up they were trying to sleep. I dozed back off to be woken up at 0430 by 2 guys in headlamps walking up the road to the trailheads that must’ve camped below us. I started to get up to hike up along with the 6 other guys camped there. When the 4 guys split into 2 groups and wanted to cover both trails, the 2 guys who had been there camped before took offense to this saying that was there trail and the 4 guys should hunt the same trail. More words were exchanged, and I really thought it was going to come to blows. I went up the trail that hadn’t been walked yet while all this was going on. Hiked in about a mile to glass and listen. I did not hear anything but a helicopter and only saw hunters. I hiked out of there and started driving back towards Bozeman. My friend called saying the whole DEF system needed replaced and he couldn’t get out of Bozeman. I said I would be there around lunch after I checked a spot on my way.

I drove into a new area again to look around. Camps and hunters set up everywhere on a Friday morning. I was getting discouraged. There was some smoke in the air from a fire that was about out. We had rain for the past couple days. I drove up to a high point to glass around. There was a forest service engine there from Florida, with two trucks camped for hunting. I glassed for a while turning up nothing. There was some fresh sigh on a trail I hiked there so I was thinking about just needing to find a spot away from people. I started to drive down the road and ran into a crew cab ranger.

The driver of the ranger turned out to be a hunter named Mike with the only NR moose tag for the area. He asked if I had seen any moose, I said no I just drove in, have you seen any elk. O ya a couple small bulls have been killed in this basin. He pulls out a topo and points me to right where it happened. He said no one wants to go in there now since there is two carcasses and grizzly. He knows there are more elk in there and his 2 friends aren’t hunting that area also since it’s such a hike and grizzly. He tells me where they are camped and where I can probably camp that will be away from people. I get amped right away. Fresh intel. I say thank you and head to Bozeman to grab lunch, a tent to truck camp with since it’s been raining and download more on x maps for this area now.

I get back to this new area around 1500. I set up my tent and then drive back up to the high point I found. I glass around for a couple hours. At 1800 I find a bull moose in the timber. I take some shitty pics of it through my spotting scope for Mike and marked it on my on x map to show him. I then found a great mule deer buck high up above me. I tried to go after him but with a 75-minute hike up he was gone by the time I got there. I hiked back out in the dark. I drove over to Mike's camp to show him the pictures and give the area I saw him in. Mike had on x on his iPad and phone, so I gave him the waypoint and air dropped him the pics. He was excited now that he had pics and intel on a bull for the next day which was opening day. I told him good luck and if he got it to let me know and I would help if I could.

The next morning arrives and I’m up early ready to hike the basin. I kept my pack light so that I could hike around the basin on trails to learn the area with the expectation that I would hunt it hard the next two days. I was in fresh elk sign within 3 hours of my hike, fresh poop, wallows with piss in them and I could smell elk. No bugles and nothing responded to me. I hiked up the trail to the high point to have lunch and glass. I found the biggest bear shit ever along with what looked like a den to me they used covered with shit around it. I ran into recreational users of the trail system on horse, motorcycle, atv and utv. The trails did a large loop of the basin, not going into it. The only trail down it was for foot and horse. I hiked down the other side finding sign at the same elevation of the first side. I got to the bottom of the basin where my hike began after 15 miles on foot. I sat at a little lake resting and snacking when suddenly, a bugle rang out up the valley from me.

 

[rcfireninja]

I bugled back to him to see if I could pinpoint his location and if he was talking. A bugle responded that sounded big. No high note, just a very low growl that ended with chuckles. I worked my way towards where I thought he was. Every 200 yards or so I would bugle. He would bugle back at me from the same area. I moved in to where I could hear cows mewing. I couldn't see anything since it was so dark timber. I had a valley area in the bottom that was open, so I set up where it was a 40-yard shot across this finger of the meadow from the opposing dark side. I let out a bugle with no response. I then switched it up to start some cow calls then bugle to myself after the cow calls. I did this a few times with no response. I could no longer hear any cows or the bull. 10 minutes go by and I’m thinking I just screwed up my only chance. I start to get my pack on when on the trail in the dark timber coming my way is a bull. I put my pack down and grab my bow, stand up in front of a tree watching him. The trail he is on follows the timber around the finger meadow I’m set up on. I see a shooting lane he is about to enter, I draw back. He gets to the opening in the timber and then steps out directly into the meadow looking around. I have no shot. He stares at me for what feels like 1 minute. He steps back to the trail to keep heading on it presenting my shot. I pull the trigger on my release, hear the arrow hit, the bull does a 180 running back down the trail and my arrow is in the ground behind him lighted up. I hear the bull run through a tree then what sounds like him go down. I go across the meadow to my arrow. Great blood on it. I start down the trail and there is blood. I peak over a little rise to find my bull already expired on the hillside. Then it sets in. I'm 2.5 miles from camp at 1800 with a bull down in grizzly country.

I snap a few pictures then get to work. I set the alarm on my phone for 1930 so I am not hiking out too late. I get the front quarters taken out bone in and hung up in the meadow. I take the backstraps out and get in my pack. The hinds take a little longer. I’m getting worked over by this bull on the hillside. No close tree to tie a leg to or anything. I cut my fingers a few times. I get the hinds put in sacks and hung up. I leave the guts in the bull. Alarm has been going off for a little while now. I attach my bow to my pack and start to hike out with the backstraps. Headlamp on, bigger flashlight in one hand and bear spray in the other. I turn some rock music on my phone on low and start talking out loud while walking back to camp. A couple creek crossings and dark timber don’t make the hike any easier. I get back to camp to get everything put away. I find a note from Mike that I should stop by their camp. I go over there to see if they got the moose I had spotted.

Mike says they got up there to the area and found moose sign everywhere. They found beds and fresh poop. They did not see any moose but that was the best area they had been in for sure. I let them know about getting my bull down. They ask where it was and how far I had hiked. I must have looked tired as all hell to them since hiking over 18 miles that day. Mike, Dan and Matt all say they want to go help finish getting it out. Dan and Matt said they haven’t seen any sign for elk in the areas they have been. Mike says he doesn’t want to go back into the same spot and spook the bull moose out. I try to talk them out of giving up a day of hunting to help me but they all just want to help. I couldn’t believe my good luck with them.

The next morning, we hike in at first light. We have fog in the bottom of the valley and temp was 30 degrees. I feel good about the meat due to the temp. I’m just hoping that no grizzly or anything found the carcass. Mike, Dan and Matt each bring a pistol, two shotguns and a longbow in case Mike finds a moose in the area. We hike in to the same valley when all sudden the bugle from the night before starts ringing out. We go from hiking to hunting quick. No one brought a bugle tube, so we cow call and start raking trees. The bull still bugles for the next 10 minutes. Then he goes quite again. We can hear them moving out of the valley up into the dark timber. We go back to getting to the bull. I can see the meat bags right where I left them. The bull has not been touched either. I take the guts out, get the tenderloins out, cut off the rib cage that was against the ground then cut off the head. Take the lower jaw off the head. We debone the front quarters that were hung to pack out less weight.

I take a hind quarter and the head with me. Dan takes the two front quarters, Matt takes the other hind quarter and ribs. Mike takes the tenderloins and heart. We pack out the rest of my bull the 2.5 miles back to my camp. We are done by 1100 that morning. I was beyond grateful for these guys helping me when they didn’t have to. I put away all the meat in the coolers on ice. I go back to their camp for lunch and a beer to celebrate. Matt and Dan are going right back in to that valley to go after the bull from the morning. Mike and I go out to find a moose. My elk hunt is over and now I am moose hunting.

We are not able to find a moose that evening, Dan and Matt go back into the same area to find no elk and no bugles. We have steaks and beer that night at camp talking about previous hunts and future ones. I made 3 great friends in just a few hours while in a new state elk hunting. We exchange numbers and emails with plans on pheasant hunting in SD along with bear hunting in MT next year possibly.

I break down camp the next day and drive out. At the first town my cell phone explodes. I get more ice and gas at the local station. I try to respond to a few texts and get some out. I drive to Bozeman to get on i90 and head home. I spend a lot of time on the phone talking about my hunt and then issues with work. I get home around 1800 to my kids in the driveway waiting for me. We go over the hunt and the bull. Put away few things then sleep in a bed soundly. The next day I go to my friends who truck broke down and we cut up all the meat. I have so many steaks and roasts I’m ecstatic. I take the ribs and heart to my crew at Station 7 for them to have for supper.

Now it’s time to plan my mule deer hunt for Montana in 29 days.

Chris

 

[elkguide]

Too much fun!!!!!
Thanks for taking us along.

 

[rcfireninja]

awesome job and congrats! You hooked now?

yes!

 

[rcfireninja]

The mt goat was from a camp next to mine. The night before I got my elk I saw they had that on the trailer and stopped by to get the story and have a beer with them. The area I stumbled into is a place I hope to now hunt for years to come.

Chris

 

[codym]

Outstanding! You will never forget your first and you really earned it.

 

[Jeepers87]

Great bull! The first of hopefully many for you !

 

[Battleguy]

Thanks for sharing, seems like a great experience for you.

 

[Thess87]

Awesome!!!

 

[bm-55]

I was typing "random goat?" and saw the explanation... great bull and gorgeous country, congratulations!