Pathfinder's Montana Hunt

[Pathfinder101]

Well, I think I have everything packed.  Borrowed CoryTDF's camper, rotated the tires on ol' red, packed, unpacked, repacked, made a checklist, repacked again...
My wife says I have been insufferable for the last 3 days.  Pathfinder Jr is afraid I am going to hike 10 miles from the road and die in a Montana snowstorm.
Fillin' up the propane tanks in the morning and blasting out of here a little after lunch.  Headed Northeast.  Right now, the goal is to find a mule deer larger than one I have killed here in WA.  I am told that 24" wide is a realistic goal, so that is where I will set the bar for the first 5 or 6 days.
I am taking my laptop and wireless card, but no idea if I will have service.  If I do, I will try to update daily.

...off I go....

[yelp]

good luck

[muleyhunter]

Good luck   I'm heading out in 5 days. A 24'' buck is very likely to harvest. The longer you hold out the better it gets. Every new day just gets better  

[cascademountainhunter]

i was surprised i had cell phone service mostly almost everywhere where i was. ur gonna have an awsome time over there good luck to ya!! the rut should be in or about in full swing also i would think. they were just startin when i was there last week.

[Rack Hunter]

Good luck 

[CoryTDF]

Just got off the phone with Pathfinder "Mark" he shot a nice 4x4 tonight. Guess it was a pretty long stalk and a 300+ yard shot. I wont say to much he will be posting pics and a story when he gets back. He is staying a few extra days to help our buddy Thomas get one.  BBD BABY!

[firecrotch]

i cant wait to hear about it!

[colockumelk]

I bet you nobody on a Montana Hunting forum has a post titled "JoeBob's Washington Hunt" and then says I'll keep you posted with pics of this hunt.  And if they did I doubt anyone would be  or hanging on with excitement.  I also bet no one would say "My goal is to shoot a bigger buck than one I've taken here in Montana."  It would be more like "Well my goal is to shoot the first legal buck I see." 

I know I'm weird.  I can't help it, I was born this way. 

[CoryTDF]

Um....... you got home at like 0400 after like 14 hours of strait driving. It's now 1045! Why have you not posted yet. You have had plenty of time.

Story? Pictures?

When you going to tell me about my camper window?

[strutnrut1984]

come on pathfinder lol

[CoryTDF]

It's 1214 just sayin!

[Pathfinder101]

OK, I am back.  It was more like 19 straight hours of driving...  No kidding.

So, here's the story.

Like I said in my first post, I had things all packed and ready to go when I snuck out of work early (around noon) on Friday.  Swung by Les Schwab and checked the tire pressure on CoryTDF's camper and put a little more air in my back tires, filled the propane tanks and charged off up the road.

I made it 20 minutes from Walla Walla and realized that my little 4 cyl Toyota Pickup was just not going to make it 700 miles and over 3 mountain passes.  I was barely getting 45 mph under normal conditions.  So, I turned back around and made another phone call.  My buddy Jon loaned me his full-sized Dodge pickup to tow the trailer, and I left my TOyota with him to use for the week.  As I was loading up my gear in his truck he patted my rig and made a cryptic remark about "finally being able to make it all the way across town without refilling the tank".
Once I got on the road, I saw what he was talking about... I got 8 mpg towing the trailer.  I think at this point, I should post a picture of CoryTDF's camper.  At no time during the telling of this tale will I make a disparaging remark about this capable piece of equipment.  It made it all the way to Malta without incident, kept us warm (despite one desperate phone call to CoryTDF the first night for "retraining" on how to get the heater going), provided us soft beds, cooked us dinner every night, and then (against all odds) made it back home today without tipping over, despite wind gusts that I will wake up in a cold sweat remembering for years).  It doesn't just have character, it's got balls.

[bow4elk]

Hilarious.  I'll bet a 6 pack one or both tail lights don't work, or at least flicker    Hey, any roof over your head is better than a friggin' tent!!  I'd be proud to tow that trailer anywhere!  You should have seen my old Starcraft tent trailer in it's prime - no appliances and a wood burning stove for heat, just like a wall tent!  I used to tow that damn thing all over Oregon with my 4 cyl Mazda.  45-50 mph on I-84, constantly slamming into 3rd gear to keep my momentum.  I can't imagine towing that big box!  Good times!

[huntnphool]

Yeah the wind was nasty late last night coming through Livingston

[Pathfinder101]

 I rolled into our hunting spot at about 9 am after pulling an all-nighter to get there.  "There" will remain nameless except to say that it is Northeastern-ish Montana, and was Public Land (mostly BLM with a little Block Management).  When I got to our pre-determined rally point I met up with my hunting partner Tom, who is originally from Washington, moved to Montana for college, and now works as a biologist for MT FWP.  He had never hunted the area that we were in either.  
Tom was pretty excited to see me, or more accurately, the camper.  It had been 9 degrees when he had rolled out of the back of his pickup at 5:00 am that morning, so he was stoked about the propane heater and the soft bed bouncing precariously behind the truck.
We picked out a spot to camp, and had no sooner unloaded the camper and the truck when a ranch foreman pulled up.  He was a friendly sort and chatted a while before informing us that the area we were about to camp in was about to be overrun with a cattle roundup in the next 12 hours.
The camper has an awning with a PVC Pipe frame that we had already pulled out.  The frame is so long that it barely fits in the camper, and is a bit of a hassle to get in and out, so instead of putting it back in the camper, I tossed it in the bed of the truck.  Of course it stuck out a couple of feet.  At this point I am thinking that I am getting pretty good at backing up the camper, so I whip the camper around in a neat button-hook to set it back on the road right in it's tracks and...
...I hear a POP!
I look back and see the awning pole sticking right through one of the camper windows.  When I turned around, it shortened the distance between the pole and the window
Half a roll of duct tape later, we were back in business, but I still owe CoryTDF a new window...
We got camp set up and got out for an afternoon hunt.  Tom said that he had already seen several bucks, including 5 in a single canyon the night before I got there.  We hunted a different canyon that night and passed on a nice tall 4X4 with deep forks, but only about an 18" spread.
The next morning we went to the canyon where Tom had seen the 5 bucks (including a 4x4 with a kicker that he would later regret not shooting the first night he saw him).  It was a cold, frosty morning with a stiff wind and the bucks were rutting hard and on the move.
After checking out several cruising bucks, we located what looked like a nice buck with a herd of does across the canyon.  We pulled a half-stalk and cut the distance between us to about 400 yards and glassed him again.  He was about 22" wide, but really "crabby", both fronts and backs so we decided to pass on him and back out.  He had two other 4 points in his herd, but they were both small.
That was a crazy day.  We saw 20 bucks that day, and 10 of them were 4X4s.  Tom got better pics than I did and if he remembers to send them I'll post them.  I only got one through the spotting scope that turned out at all.
That night, about 25 minutes before shotting light ended we did see the only really big buck of the whole trip.  It was hard to see him in the tall grass and does kept getting in the way, but I am guessing he went about 27" wide and very, very tall.  His back forks were either rally crabby or he didn't have any at all, but he was a big buck.  We tried in vain to put a fast stalk on him but ran out of light when he was still about 700 yards away.    

I will continue this tomorrow, since I am wiped out.  Pulled an all-nighter to get home, so I am going on 40 hours without sleep as of right now.