Montana 2020

[Dos Perros]

Nice buck. Did you rough score the second one? He looks pretty heavy.

 

[hobbes]

Nice buck. Did you rough score the second one? He looks pretty heavy.

I will tonight. Driving home now

 

[hobbes]

I scored him pretty accurately this evening sitting in my garage. He grosses 150 4/8. He's not got the length or width that last year's buck had but more mass. Last year's buck was 9" higher, but this buck has more character. His teeth didn't look particularly worn. The CWD tester at FWP guessed 4 1/2 years old.
Here is my handwritten score sheet. I plugged it into the B&C electronic score sheet for ease, but I couldn't get it to produce a PDF like I've done before.

 

[hobbes]

I looked for a bull thus morning without any luck. It had to be a short hunt because my granddaughter's daycare has closed temporarily due to COVID. I had to be home by 12:45 so her momma could go to an appointment. Old tracks were the best sign that I could find.







I cut up Isaac's MD loins this evening. He'll take them home tomorrow when he comes over for Boyd's birthday. Boyd is my youngest and will be 18 tomorrow.

 

[hobbes]

I worked on my deer meat today. Loins are cut into steak and the rest is prepped for grinding along with Isaac's burger. I did decide to cook half the neck as a roast. I've not told my wife that it's a neck roast. . "The neck" freaks her out, so I'll just let her eat with the description of "roast" and be happy.


I browned the roast first



Then seasoned and cooked in beef bone broth for 3 hours before adding potatoes, carrots, onions, and brown gravy packet.


Veggies were cooked an hour.

I'm going to eat soon. I'll let you know how it tastes.

 

[hobbes]

Crazy good, probably the best venison roast I've made

 

[Jsuss]

Crazy good, probably the best venison roast I've made View attachment 234516

Looks awesome

 

[rooster440]

Neck roast is hands down my favorite. Not a better roast out there.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[hobbes]

A friend has went out of town and I volunteered to check on his horses. I'm really just breaking ice in the mornings for a few days, but I could hang out with these guys all day. The big ones are Percheron draft horses around 6' at the shoulder. They are just incredible animals. They are gentle Giants, but crazy powerful.

My coworker

 

[battleborn54]

way cool thanks for sharing

 

[hobbes]

I went glassing for elk today for a bull or cow where I have a cow tag. I spotted elk around 2 miles away just before dark. It will be a 2.75 mile uphill hike in the morning. I'll give myself 2 hours to make my way up there in the dark, so I'll start early. Shouldn't be much snow until I'm nearly to them. However, I've never hiked this before, so could be interesting in the dark.

It will likely be an all day affair. if they get onto inaccessible land I'll probably wait for them to come back out and of course having some luck and killing one may require the rest of the weekend. If I or someone else blow them out, I'll likely just come home since I know they'll bail off onto private that's off limits.

This is the last weekend, so I could definitely have company from other hunters. I hope not or at least I hope they don't hike this far.

A legal brow tined bull and a cow are fair game, but I won't be holding my breath for this to work. There are way too many things that I've seen go wrong in these situations. I'm still making a run for the finish line.

Wish me luck.

 

[Shrek]

Good hunting my friend ! Hoping for elk neck roast next !

 

[hobbes]

I'm on Block Management. Elk had already moved across fence. I never got to see them. I ran into three other guys together and talked to one. He'd seen them and said cows and two spikes. They don't have cow tags. Acted like they hadn't spooked them. I hope he's correct.
They don't own the land where the elk went but the ranch to the north and east. They came in from there. He offered to let me pack an elk out through their road. Said he could bring a snowmobile up if I needed it.

I'm sitting here for now watching the ridge that the went to. The fence is about 100 yards below me. The face they were feeding on last night is to my left with a deep saddle to my right. I'm going to sit here a while but may have to drop back over the hill out of the wind to start a fire and warm up around mid day.

 

[hobbes]

Just had 5 hunters walk by. Two men and three kids. I suspect they drove up. They headed straight over to where I planned to have a fire. I'll hang out a while to see what happens but may not make it all day after this development.

 

[hobbes]

Man a fire and a sandwich raises a man's spirits. If I can just keep from melting my face off

 

[hobbes]

The elk never showed again. I'm pretty sure they saw the neighbor guy based off where they were and where his tracks were. They didn't do anything wrong, they were hunting same as me. I didn't talk to the other group but as late as they were about getting up there, they couldn't have seen the elk. They must have known the elk had been there though because they stayed up there until almost dark. I didn't know it until I stood up to reposition from where I'd posted up in some spruce trees and spotted them in the wide open on the face where the elk had been feeding last night. They were about 150 yards from me and I didn't know it. . Tomorrow is the last day but I probably had enough today.

 

[hobbes]

Holy Smokes!!!....my wife just showed me in the paper that my cow tag has been extended to Jan 15.

That's what it used to be but they'd changed it this year to end of regular season. I didn't even realize it had been shortened until a little while ago. I'll have to confirm it of course. If so, it gives me a couple more times out anyway.

 

[hobbes]

Sunrise today:




Moon on my hike out tonight. It was darker than the photos in look but the moon was incredibly bright. The first is about 2 minutes after legal shooting hours had ended.

 

[hobbes]

This little guy almost stepped on me today a few minutes before I tried to get a photo

 

[hobbes]

I took my old German Wirehair out locally this evening for a short hunt on some BM. I spotted a rooster as we drove by but, as so often happens, he disappeared. I suspect that he ran back across the road where he knows he's safe. We did put up several hens, but nothing for the old boy to retrieve. Cash is 12 now and suffers from a hip injury he had when he was a young dog. It's really slowed him down the last few years, so a short hunt is it for him these days. No birds in the bag was fine for me since the hunt was mostly to let the old dog out, but Cash would have sure liked a good retrieve. He was a rooster tracking, pointing and retrieving machine in his day.





The couch is his favorite spot now.