An Outdoorsman's Journal

Ten Days on a Montana Mountain

Hello friends,

   To say that chasing elk, camping in the mountains and pushing myself to extremes is a passion is an understatement. I am so into elk and mule deer hunting that I have driven to Montana two years in a row to camp in grizzly country with my 24-year-old daughter Selina Walters during the month of August to scout. This year we found good numbers of elk near Livingston and were very excited for our late October rifle hunt.

   Monday, October 27th
   High 46, low 23

   I wrote last week that this 10-day way of life in the mountains is the tale of 2 elevations, one with snow and much cooler temps and one of just the opposite. This morning Selina and I hunted near camp on what is over a mile hike for Selina and about 3/4s of a mile for me.
  To be honest, today, which is day 3 of hunting and day 6 of camping, we have not seen much elk sign but did pass up some small whitetail bucks.
   Both of us would be watching meadows that are carved out of a mountain valley with a beautiful stream running through it. We were both set up 30 minutes before daylight and as always, very excited for our hunt. My big thrill on this hunt would be watching a red fox hunt mice for 30 minutes and not so thrilling was a 2-inch snowfall while hunting that had a way of getting everything wet.
   One of the craziest/funniest stories of this trip was that despite next to zero action on spotting elk or talking to another hunter that saw an elk or even hearing a rifle shot was the teaser elk. Four times while we were sleeping at night, we had elk walk within 20 yards of camp and four times while hunting we walked into camp with elk tracks in the snow within spitting distance of our tents.
   My guess is that the average person is thinking why didn’t you hunt at camp. This may be tough to understand but our camp was in a mountain drainage and the elk that came through were traveling in dense spruce and when we tracked them, there were no beds, no droppings and I believe this drainage was a travel route.
   We slept on the ground every night. One night, what must have been a very heavy animal walked within 5-yards of our tent. At first I could hear it from a distance as it's hoofs broke through the frozen snow, then I could feel the pressure on the ground as its weight/body passed within 15-feet of us.
   Another very interesting story that was nonstop is that everywhere we hiked, including our camp there were a lot of coyote and fox. I had my 3-year-old golden retriever Red along, and she was in heat and putting off a lot of scent. One night we had a coyote that did not appear to be the least bit scared of us and I was kind of thinking, the yote as well as the fox thought Red was smelling really good. On that same note, if you are looking for a pup from good stock, next summer, reach out to me, I will be keeping what will be my 9th golden since I was 20 and looking forward to it.
   Here is another question, we would see deer, and it was split up between whitetail and mule deer. We all know how crazy a whitetail buck can get when the rut is on, how in God's name does a whitetail buck not breed a mule deer doe or vice versa with a mule deer buck?
   For any older hunter I think it is common knowledge that the evenings in camp after absolutely physical days are a pretty dam close tie to the enjoyment of the hunt. For me the thrill of having Selina take over the cooking duties without being asked and her playlist of music on a speaker and our ability to enjoy every moment are what it is all about.
   The trip down the mountain. Fill a 12-foot trailer and your truck bed with an atv and a thousand pounds of other gear and go 10-miles down a snow- and ice-covered mountain at trips end. Any type of negative luck is a real bad story. When we reached the bottom 80 minutes later my brakes on all 4 wheels were so hot you could fry an egg on them.
   Selina headed home to Missoula, I headed to Wisconsin and I have a question that hopefully someone can answer.
   I would like to find elk in late October and have not been having good luck the last couple of years. If someone has a suggestion, I would really appreciate it. Preferably Montana, not in what is guaranteed to be snow covered mountain passes, perhaps at a lower elevation.

  Hunt/fish with your children, have a friend for life!

  Sunset