The Season '23

[LoganKenworthy]

I’m home. That was enough. Hot as blazes even at 10k’. No bugling. Even did a big loop one night hitting the tube and calling, nada. Elk sign was plentiful, dozens of boot miles off trail. They win, sort of. It was fun for me.

Then some random elk twists the knife. Found this right behind the tent this morning. Could that be deer poop? Only deer tracks seen.

View attachment 606846

Not deer shit. Definitely the elk gods ******* with you

 

[FalconRidge]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nice rig! Have yet to shoot a Mathews but I've heard great things!

 

[Pony Soldier]

This looks like the flavor of the thread is largely archery but---. This is covering north sw Montana. This has been one of the worst years I have experienced in 20 years. The worst was 1971.

The winter was long cold and harsh. The elk herds this summer were limited and rare. The rut for bow season was a month late and lasted the last two days of archery. The first week of rifle was dry and chrispy. Then we got 6-8 inches of wet snow that then froze. A week later we got a soaking rain and followed that with a freeze. That wiped out the high country as well as most of the north side thickets. What snow we got this last week came down as ice chrystals. Then the south side thawed and north side was largely ice chrystals.

With endless amount of available feed from a summer of rain, the elk could feed anywhere with unlimited options. They didn't herd up or even follow normal migration paths. Many are in groups of 1-3 on the summer range.

We couldn't hunt high or on the north sides because of the crunch and limited amounts of deaf elk. The hillsides froze making it unsafe for foot or horse travel. Northside roads had turned into slides of glaze ice. This required you to chain up.

My kids and I sat around this morning looking for a hunt for the last day. After an hour discussing every option and failing to pick a single acceptable one, we went for a walk, closed gates, and declared defeat. Hope you folks did better than us. Twenty plus days on horseback and in the dog hair jungle and I saw one calf, two cows, but no bulls. I did see one muley doe but no males of the specie.

 

[fportillo21]

My integrated Matthew’s QAD has issues in the 2020 season, it wouldn’t stay in the “up” position one morning when it got in the single digits in Wisconsin. After the hunt I processed a warranty claim with QAD and they said it was a known issue when their rest was in super cold temperatures. I was sad to hear they had no plans to fix it. I switched to a Hamskea since then. Have you experienced any issues like that with the Matthew’s QAD in those cold temps?

 

[HUNTMAN]

This was action packed !!! Wow

 

[SwiftShot]

62 yards quartering away. You can see the broke off exit. Packed out alone, not my favorite thing ever.