November 16 - 25 Elk Season Ends
November 16, 2012
On November 16th we hunted a gulch that we had never been in. The aerial photos showed some isolated timber in the top of the gulch that I thought may have been overlooked by other hunters. The area still had six inches of snow cover, so we had high hopes for finding elk or sign by glassing.
Typical for this area, two thirds of the elevation gain was accomplished over the first third of the hike. After climbing high on the ridge we side hilled back into the area glassing everything we could as we went. The area is a mix of burn and timber, so we glassed the burns and any open timber then still hunted through the thicker timber.
We finally found tracks at the top of the gulch, but could not locate the elk that had made them. There were also a lot of deer tracks, so I was hoping to find a good buck, but most of the tracks were several days old and none of them had deer standing in them.
After hiking to the top we decided to glass the opposite side of the divide and only hike down if we could find elk or convincing sign. It didn’t take long to find a lot of sign in the snow below us that appeared to indicate a herd had been there recently. We hiked down with high hopes that there would be a herd bedded below the sign in the timber, but when we got there we learned that the sign was from cattle that apparently had hidden from their owner when he was rounding them up before the rifle season started.
On the hunt out we found where a herd of ten or so elk had spent a day or two during the week, but we could not locate them. We’ll keep that info in the back of our minds for future hunts, but it didn’t help us on this day.
November 22, 2012 (Thanksgiving Day)
We had been invited to eat Thanksgiving dinner with friends, so we weren’t planning to hunt on Thanksgiving Day. However, once I found out that the friends had a tradition of hunting on Thanksgiving morning while the wives prepared dinner, I decided I might as well get out for a short hunt myself. Isaac wanted to sleep in, so I hunted alone. I planned a short hunt in one of the areas where we had seen three separate family groups of does earlier in the season. An elk would have been great, but I was hoping to find a decent buck hanging out with the does.
I made it to the top of the ridge I wanted to glass from at daybreak. I located only four does that were making their way toward me. They were acting suspicious and watching their back trail. I was hoping a buck was following them, but I watched them and the surrounding area for an hour and never spotted a buck.
The wind was brutal and cold this morning and my glassing spot wasn’t protected, so I decided to move up the ridge farther to a protected location and glass from a different angle for some of the other does that I knew where around there somewhere and any buck that may be with them. After hiking a short distance I spotted what had the does acting suspicious. There was another hunter above me that had apparently come in from an open atv trail on top. I hadn’t heard any atv’s up there this morning, so the guy may have hiked in, but it was a really long hike to that spot unless you parked where I had, and I was the only truck there.
I was disappointed at finding the other hunter. He was in the middle of what I was going to hunt, so I hunted back out to my truck and made it a really short hunt. The ridge I was on was really steep and the loose small rock that made up the surface was almost like gravel and it was frozen. While on the way down both feet slipped out from under me so fast that the only thing that broke my fall was my backside. I slid several feet before I stopped myself with my heels. The fall hurt and added to my frustration. The 7mm mag that was on my shoulder stayed on my shoulder, but it hit the ground and slid with me and the scope had several scuffs on it. The scope still had a good picture through it, but I questioned if it could still be on target. I unloaded the gun for the rest of the hike down and had to make a note to shoot some paper when I got home. The scope checked out ok when I got home, so other than a scuff or two it was ok.
November 23, 2012
(Morning)
Well before daylight we hiked up the gulch toward the location that Isaac had missed the cow. Our plan was simple. We would start on the ridge overlooking where we had found the elk before and glass the surrounding area. If glassing didn’t turn up any elk we would hunt some of the hidden gulches, looking for elk that were holed up from the orange army.
I expected the same elk we had shot at to still be in the area or another herd to have moved in, so we glassed for a while from our ridge top, but was unable to locate any elk. We spent the rest of the morning peeking into several holes where we suspected the elk could be hidden, but were unsuccessful in locating any elk.
It was a disappointing hunt.
(Evening)
That afternoon we decided to relocate to the opposite side of the mountain where Isaac had missed the cow. We found several sets of elk tracks that had been left during the last day or two, but never did find any elk close by. However, we did glass a herd that was almost two miles away. We could see 8 elk and two of those appeared to be bulls. We couldn’t tell much about antlers, but one of those that appeared to be a bull was substantially bigger than the rest of the elk.
It was too late in the evening to even think about making a run for them, so we watched them and planned out the next morning. They were located near where we had hunted on the first day of the rifle season and we couldn’t see any orange near them. We felt good about our chances since we knew the area, but were worried about the hunter numbers on the last Saturday of the season. Still, we had elk to hunt the next morning, and that was nice for a change.
November 24, 2012
We arrived at our parking location almost 3 hours before daylight, so that we had plenty of time to hike the long steep climb to the elk. We had decided that the most direct route would put us in their view, so we looped around them hoping to ease over the top for a shot at daylight. If other hunters pushed them from the bottom, we would also be in place to catch them as they slipped over the top.
Most of this hike was in the open, but we stayed below the ridge top on the opposite side to stay hidden. Our plans depended on the elk staying near where we had seen them the night before. They were feeding away from our planned route when we last saw them, so we felt confident that we would not be seen. However, during one of our breaks in the dark we herd one animal spook over the ridge. It didn’t sound big enough to be an elk, but I started smelling elk shortly after we restarted our climb. I still wasn’t convinced that we had bumped the herd we had seen the day before since they should have been another half mile from us. I didn’t even think the animal that ran was an elk, but I could definitely smell elk shortly after that.
We continued on with our original plan and made it into place about 20 minutes before legal shooting light. We had only been there a few minutes when we both herd several cow mews that convinced us both that the herd was in the burn just below us and slightly to our left. We glassed the area intently but could not find a single elk. We could see several mule deer does that we thought may have a buck with them, but I was determined to not shoot a deer unless it was a really good buck since we were certain the elk were close by.
We backed up and moved around to glass from another location, but could not find any sign of the elk in the area where we had herd the cow talk. We still felt the elk were there somewhere, so we continued to work our way around the back side of the ridge and peek over into every spot that the herd could be hiding in.
A half hour after daybreak we spotted three hunters on another ridge that were moving at a rapid rate up the spine of their ridge and appeared to be on a mission. I finally found what they were hiking towards. There was a herd of elk about a mile and a half from us that may have been the herd from the previous night. The elk were feeding slowly up a sage covered face and into the timber on the opposite side. I could only see three or four of them, but there were likely more that had already fed into the timber. There was no use going after them. The three hunters would beat us there by a long shot, so we continued to hold out hope that we were near elk on our ridge.
We also found two more hunters below us that had taken the direct route to the area we were hunting and watching the three hunters on the next ridge. They finally spotted us above them and just sat down on their side ridge. I suppose they were disgusted at the number of hunters they had seen and hoping we would bump an elk to them. I was none too happy myself. They would have bumped the herd if the herd had been where we saw them the previous night, but even then I think we would have caught the elk in the open after crossing over the top.
We eventually heard shooting from the area the three hunters and elk were bound to have met up. There were eight or nine shots fired and we never saw the hunters again, so I suppose luck shined on them during this last weekend and they were fortunate enough to be quartering elk.
We hunted until late afternoon, but we never could find the herd. We found a lot of tracks where they had been throughout the area. We even swung back around and hunted the area where we had bumped the animal in the dark. The tracks we found didn’t look like the herd had been there, so if it was an elk, I couldn’t find its tracks. I wish we had hunted this area more, but there are so many hunters. We will keep it in mind for next season.
Our view on the way out:
While hiking out we found this winter or lion kill. Its location and the brow tines lead me to believe it is a muley without the forks.
November 25, 2012 (Last Day)
We went to church in the morning and planned a hunt up high in the evening. The hunt didn’t work out as planned because the roads were worse up high than I had anticipated. I had chains, but the result of sliding off the road would have been rolling several hundred to a thousand feet down the mountain side. The risk of sliding on the ice was more than I cared to take.
We drove back down lower and hunted the three hours of daylight we had left. I didn’t expect to find elk in the area, but thought I still had a chance at a buck since we had seen several in here earlier in the year. We held out hope right up until dark, but it apparently wasn’t meant to be.
Closing out the season:
There was no denying that we were both disappointed with our results after so many close encounters during bow season, but overall it had been a good season. Although we didn’t kill an elk, Isaac was able to take his first mule deer. Hopefully we learned from our first season in MT and can improve on the one deer next season.
As I write this we are preparing to bowhunt whitetails in IL during a two week vacation over Christmas and New Year. Isaac won’t hunt as much as I will because he wants to do a lot of visiting with his cousins that he hasn’t seen in almost a year, but hopefully he can hunt just enough to record his first bow kill. I’ll bowhunt as many days as I can and still visit with family and friends.