ANOTHER GREAT YEAR IN MONTANA (pic heavy)

[LittleJohn]

We made a fire and began to work her up for the pack out.

[scudmaster]

Great trip congrats to all!!

[LittleJohn]

I called my hunting partner on the radio, He had heard me shoot. I told him to keep hunting being it was our last day.
He showed up a short while later to help pack her out.
We managed to get the whole thing boned out and on our backs.
We were pretty happy to be headed home with some elk meat.
We had only hiked about a half mile and we jumped a cow in the timber. I managed to get her stopped with some cow calls before she made it over the ridge. Boyde dropped her with one shot in her tracks.
Killing elk while your packing elk is pretty tough to beat in my book 

[270Shooter]

Such a great post. Love that state, can't wait to go back.

[T Pearce]

Super!
Thanks for sharing.

[LittleJohn]

We gutted her out and headed up the ridge toward the truck. Morgan was about as excite as a kid could be. Two elk kills right in front of him in a matter of hours.
We didn't know it at the time, but Boyde's cow hit the ground about 100 yds from an ATV trail. We made our way to the truck. We drove up the road to a large elk camp. We noticed that they had an abundance of ATVs in there camp . It was a sunny sunday afternoon and they were all in camp listening to a foot ball game on the radio.
We explained what we had going and offered them $50 dollars to drag out our elk to the truck. It was only 2 miles up the trail, but would save us 3 hours by the time we hiked in, boned out, and packed out.
They were all excited to help and next thing we new we had 4 guys on ATVs headed up the hill.
They had the elk back to the truck whole in 25 minutes, helped us load it and refused to take any money. It was great to meet some friendly sportsman in the field. 

[Turner89]

Awesome trip, and story little John

[LittleJohn]

It was a Great trip and couldn't have went any better. Made some amazing life long memories with my son and hunting partner. With the freezer full I was excited to be able to hunt for a trophy buck with no pressure to have to kill one.

The wife and I both had B deer tags for whitetail does in our home area. We both managed to fill out tags. Sorry no pics  we both head shot our does to avoid any blood shot. Good clean kills but not very photogenic 

I hunted hard for a wall hanger buck the last few weeks. Saw a TON of deer and some good bucks, but not one I wanted to put on the wall. Thats one of the great things about Montana. Being able to put meat in the freezer and still eat your tag and feel good about it. Its a strange feeling after growing up in Western Wa where its usually a different story.

I managed to get in on 8 elk kills this year and not sure how many deer (a bunch). Its a real blessing to have horses and get to use them to pack out friends harvests.

Deer and elk harvests and over all populations seem to be better than the past few years. At least the areas I was hunting.

I am excited to get after the wolves with a vengeance starting tomo am. I'll have most of my trap line out by the end of the week and hoping for some catches.
I'll be trying to call them in when i'm not checking my traps.

I also was blessed with a Lion tag for hounds here in my area. Cant wait for some snow to go chase some lions around.

Hope to post pics of my lion and a wolf or two. That would be put this year over the top if that happens.

Thanks for reading and Thanks for the great comments
God Bless

[Skyvalhunter]

congrats on a great year John

[Mark Brenckle]

Great post, congrats on all the harvests and getting your boy out there with you! You're creating memories he'll be telling his kids about.    Good luck with your cat and wolf tags.

[HUNTaHOLIC5]

Great year for sure.    over that bull

[actionshooter]

Looked like an awesome year!

[blackveltbowhunter]

Awesome right up and pics as always! Congrats on everything man, looks like a blast!

[2MANY]

John,
What stood out to me was a couple things.
1) The amount of respect you have for your hunting partner's hard earned success.
2) The true joy you experience when out with your family.

Pretty good stuff.

[finnman]

The word "epitome" comes to mind.

Absolutely perfect! A trophy hunt as defined by the hunters own ideals, not by commercialism or greed.
Thanks for sharing!