"Craig! Buck! Buck, buck, buck! On the South edge of the knob."
Craig quickly rose from his afternoon siesta to glass the buck.
"Got 'em. He's tall, but not very wide. Smaller than mine. Wait - there's a second buck on the left."
"Got 'em," I confirmed. "Looks wider, but not very tall. Not sure either is what I'm looking for."
"Understand. Your call."
Ahh.. Decisions, decisions. This wouldn't be the last time I mulled over whether to flex my trigger finger on this trip. Deciding to make the long drive to Eastern Montana in first place, well, that was a no-brainer!
After the close of the Oregon blacktail season in early November, I spent my first two consecutive weekends at home since August. It was a nice little break that I used to recharge and reorganize my gear before hitting the road to Montana.
I left work early for the short 6hr drive to Spokane to meet with Craig before making the big push the next day.
One day, and one very long state later, we reached our destination. We arrived a few hours after dark, still largely unaware of what to expect from the topography. Striking out under a clear pre-dawn sky, we were greeted with a starting temp of 1*F. Brr!
The first morning was a bust, with only a whitetail doe and fawn spotted. It wasn't as though we expected to tag out in the first few hours of the hunt, but we certainly expected to see more activity than we had. We decided to move to the North side of the unit and hunt the breaks that separated the high plateau from the valley.
We had moved only a few hundred yards up the ridge-line when we caught movement. A quick scan with the binoculars revealed an eagle standing in a grass-less patch of snow. He stared back at us briefly before lifting his great body into the air to ride the thermals to a safer vantage in the distance. A closer inspection of his former roost confirmed our suspicion: he had been lunching on a dead deer.
We could see the deer was buck, and it looked to be a decent one. In Montana it is legal to take the antlers and skull of a deer that has died of natural causes. Unfortunately for this old monarch, his end came from a well placed rifle shot. I can only hope that the story of his demise is an honorable one, but we'll never know.
We continued up the ridge, glassing the adjacent ravines as we went. There was little in the way of sign and we reached the high flats without a sighting. Taking advantage of the gentle topography of the flat, we quickly moved a couple ridges over to make our return.
Nearing the bottom we stopped to glass a recent burn. Bingo! Our first proper mule deer sighting! Using our trekking poles as rests, we took our time glassing the small herd.
There was a young buck in the group, but not quite what we were looking for. Still, it was encouraging to finally find some critters, and I was feeling good about my new binos with the 955yd spot!
Not ten minutes after we left the herd, Craig picked up another group on the opposite side of the ridge. We figured there were more than the two he saw and crossed the ravine to make a stalk. We closed to about 400yds and set up to glass, this time using the spotting scope to get a better view (guess the excitement finally finding deer went to our heads on the first group - completely spaced the spotter!). We couldn't put horns on any of the bedded deer and decided to trek further up into the new area and return to this group at dusk.
We found two more groups of deer that evening, and discovered the group we had originally targeted also held a few more deer than we located previously. Despite the slow start we both agreed that it was a successful end to the day.
Call me a wimp, but the rise in temperature all the way up to 8*F the next morning did not feel like a warming trend! We bundled up and struck out to explore a new area.
The sun was just beginning to cast its warming rays across us when we picked up the first group of deer. To be fair, "picked up" isn't entirely accurate. More like "busted up." Oh well. It was early and we were seeing deer. It felt like it could be a good day!
In order to stay concealed we were careful to keep in the shade. I rested against a tree to keep my shaking arms still while I glassed a far knob.
"Deer."
I guided Craig to the far hillside where I had spotted the doe. Once in sight he settled in with the spotting scoped to get a better view and survey the surrounding area more precisely. It didn't take long.
"Got one bedded." And soon after, "Found the buck. Good buck. Really good buck!"
I took one short glance through the spotter at the massive 4x4 and pulled out the GPS to plan a stalk. After talking it over we settled on a route.
45min later we got as close as we thought we could get. The big buck was still there. He was somewhat concealed on the edge between the burn and some live timber. And he was huge. Easily the biggest deer I've ever seen on the hoof, or on the belly. He was bedded and sleeping so soundly his head was down in the snow!
I ate an energy bar. We confirmed the range. I found my rest and settled in for the long wait for him to stand. At some point we felt a little repositioning would work to our advantage, and in that precise moment he stood and moved.
We caught glimpses of him moving through the timber, but never a clear shot. Several hours later we called off the hunt on this giant. I would be lying if said I wasn't disappointed in the result of this stalk, but it was a valuable learning experience.
Through the rest of the day we saw a couple dozen more deer, including another 4-5 bucks, but all very young deer. Day two ended filled with more lessons and more fantastic encounters!
We had found deer and promising, beautiful country our first two days, but the vast endlessness of the geography at our disposal filled us with a curiosity of the next, and we decided to strike out for new ground yet again.
The temps were beginning to warm as well. Only 12*F. Double digits! Whoohoo!!
With each new section we explored it was like we were in a different state. Steep sage-laden breaks. Low rolling timbered hills. Old burns. New burns. Bare grassland flats. Timbered steeps with acres of open graze land peppered throughout. It was new and different and unique each day.
We moved up yet another lonely ridge, this time in an old burn with endless vistas to glass on either side. Near the top we decided to split ranks and follow separate paths back down. Craig had glassed a single doe early on, but other than her, the hills were still.
I wound up on a high knife ridge while Craig continued down the lower and wider ridge below. The process of navigating side to side through the weathered rock formations to glass the ravines and valleys below was reward enough for braving the brisk morning cold.
Nearing that point of the ridge where the descent shifts in dramatic fashion from steep to "what did I get myself into?!", I stopped to glass the vast expanse that spread before me. It seemed my binos had no sooner reached my eyes than they were jerked away by the bark of a .300mm Mag several hundred yards below me!
Craig was moving East on the burned-out ridge, already devising his strategy for the timbered end that was sure to hold deer. His intense focus on what was to come was broken by the bounding of what was to be!
From the unconcealed expanse to the South came bounding a buck. A good one! Using a conveniently located downed tree as a rest, Craig tracked the buck through his scope, and when the buck paused to look back, Craig set him down for good.
With a smile on my face I put the binos back up to see if the echo of the report had brought any deer to their feet. I immediately found a group of six not 300yds out that included a small buck. Moments later I picked up a lone deer in the cool shade of the timber at the end of the ridge that Craig was on. Soon another appeared, but was quickly run off by the deer I had first located.
Bucks. At almost 800yds it was difficult to size them through the binos. Time to move.
I made way toward Craig, backtracking to keep my silhouette concealed. The temperature had risen above freezing by now, and my excited hike down and up to the next ridge reduced me to a tired sweaty mess. Upon reaching Craig however, those concerns were quickly forgotten.
We took a moment to admire the critter and take a few pictures.
"Ready to go get my buck?" I asked.
"Hell yeah!" Craig instantly responded.
"See that knob? He's 200yds on the other side."
It took a minute to explain the details; that I had seen a group down the ridge just after his shot, and all we needed to do was make the short stalk. As soon as it all came together, we were off.
We inched from one side of the knob to the other trying to find the best combination of clear sight lines and concealment. There was a very young buck and a doe that we could see. It was likely that more were just out of view, so we decided to settle in and wait them out. It wasn't long before the relative warmth of the sun began to lull my hunting partner toward a brief afternoon nap.
As if somehow beamed in, the deer seemingly materialized from nowhere on the grassy knoll a few steps from the concealing timber. When it raised its head from feeding I could see antlers rising above his ears.
"Craig - buck. Buck, buck, buck! On the South edge of the knob."
Craig quickly rose from his afternoon siesta to glass the buck.
"Got 'em. He's tall, but not very wide. Smaller than mine. Wait - there's a second buck on the left."
"Got 'em," I confirmed. "Looks wider, but not very tall. Not sure either is what I'm looking for."
"Understand. Your call."
Ahh.. Decisions, decisions. At last I decided that I was looking for something else, and watched as the bucks fed away into the timber. This wouldn't be the last time I mulled over whether to flex my trigger finger on this trip.
We returned to convert Craig's deer into heavy packs.
Over the next few days the temps continued to warm. The snows on the chilly North slopes gave way to the dry grass it had blanketed just days before. We explored new country with each new dawn, and with every boot track added to our education in this "mulie university." We refined our approach, got more aggressive with our stalks, found more deer more consistently, and even got on another couple impressive 4x4's, but the clear shot never presented itself.
We toasted our last night in Montana, recounted the shoulda's, woulda's, coulda's and everything we learned along the way, and decided then and there that an adventure like this was too much fun to experience just once. We'll be back next year!
It was just before dawn the next morning when we finished packing the truck for the long day back across this very long state. Behind the Rubbermaid's full of gear and the coolers full of meat, I tossed in the one trophy I wasn't taking home solely in my memory banks. For all the effort, I wasn't leaving Montana without a little bit of bone!
Cheers,
-c2
