Sitting in a hotel in Bozeman, getting ready to fly back to Georgia after seven days of hunting public land in Montana.
I didn’t kill an elk, but what an incredible, though at times discouraging, trip.
We saw elk, foxes, mule deer, whitetails, moose, ospreys, and all kinds of other wildlife. We got into plenty of mule deer, a few elk, and even got within 45 yards of a nice 6x6 bull, but couldn’t seal the deal with a bow.
The biggest disappointment was the lack of bugling. We didn’t hear a single bugle the entire trip. Most of our time was spent hunting one unit, though we did a three-hour middle-of-the-night drive to try a different unit, still no bugles. The one bull that gave us a shot opportunity showed up after we sat on a meadow for ten hours straight.
We tried hard core loud knockout battle bugling, super soft chuckles, cow calls etc. could never get a response. We saw elk everyday but one and saw an absurd amount of sign, but never got them to talk. A local hunter we met who has hunted the area for a long time and killed 33 bulls in the unit blames it on the wolves and hunting pressure.
It was an amazing adventure, but I’m not sure what my future looks like when it comes to elk hunting. I will be back, just not sure if I want to take a week off work and fly across the country to hunt such pressured elk vs go with an outfitter. I am hunting Africa next year, so an elk hunt is off the table in 2026. I could probably afford a $10K elk hunt every 3-4 years, and I feel like that might be the route I go. Anyone else give up DIY public to hunt with outfitters?
As an example, we met a woman at the bar next to our cabin who lives on a 2,600-acre ranch. She showed us videos of elk bugling nonstop and a herd of 50 elk feeding in her backyard at 1 p.m. Not looking to do a road hunt/high fence, but is the happy medium saving points for 6-8 years and then doing public?
