Pathfinder's Montana Hunt

[sporked horn]

Your a lucky guy,I would love to hunt Montana.  I just worry about driving that far and not know were to hunt before hand.

Dan

[Pathfinder101]

I had a hard time sleeping that night.  I kept waking up, thinking about that tall, wide buck I had seen.  His image is still burned in my mind (in fact, he may be getting bigger... )
The next morning we were up and headed to the same canyon where we saw him last.  We set up on a high ridge and glassed until about 8:00 am.  Not only did we not re-locate the bruiser, we didn't see a single buck.  A few groups of does was all we managed to locate.  Tom changed positions and managed to spot two forkhorns with a herd in the next drainage to the west.  We noticed that there had been no frost on the ground, and that it was the warmest day since we had arrived (don't know if that had anything to do with it... maybe the bucks were so active the day before that they were just taking a "day off").
After checking out several drainages and spotting only does, we decided to head back to camp for lunch.  We were driving a ridgeline looking for the two-track that led to our trailer, when we spotted deer in the bottom of a canyon far below us.  THe ridge we were on was so steep that we were looking almost down directly on top of them.  There was a 4 point buck with that group.  We stopped to take a better look at him, and when we stopped the truck, two more bucks busted out of the sagebrush several hundred yards to the right of the herd.  One of those bucks was about the same size as the 4 point with the herd, the other one looked significantly bigger.  I set up my spotting scope and announced "He's a shooter".  Of course that was a moot point, since he was 1/4 mile away and gaining distance (the herd was moving off in a different direction, into the canyon).  We decided to watch and see what developed from our elevated position.
The two bachelor bucks began to work their way up a draw that would take them over the ridge were were on, so we started to hatch a plan to intercept them, when a single doe came trotting down the draw towards them.  Those two bucks forgot all about us, escaping, and their draw.  They turned right around and followed here down into the valley and right in with the herd (which by now was in the middle of the valley, near a deep, dry creekbed). 
So, now there are 3 four point bucks and a herd of 8 does, in the middle of the valley, and one of the bucks is noticibly larger than the other two.  The herd is moving up the valley away from us, when a truck with a 4 wheeler trailer appears on the opposite side of the valley.  The deer immediately spot it and stop.  Almost as if on signal, the larger buck drops down into the dry creekbed and out of sight, leaving the two smaller bucks up on the flats with the does.  The truck stops.  Two guys get out, set up spotting scopes and watch the herd for about 10 minutes.  After judging the obviously small bucks they got back in their truck and drove off. 
Tom and I looked at each other.  "I wonder how many #@!ing times has that happened to us...?" I said.  "Just what I was thinking.." he replied.
We continued to watch the herd, and after a few minutes the bigger buck came out again and started to feed.  The guys in the truck (who we thought were going to screw us up), had actually done us a favor.  Their appearance had stopped the herd's progress up the creekbed, and now they were feeding in a stationary spot.  We watched a couple of does bed down.  They were about a mile below us (as the crow flies), with a deep, meandering, dry creekbed that ran right to them.  Perfect for a stalk.
We geared up and left the pickup about 1:00pm, snuck down a draw into the bottom of the valley and hopped into the creekbed.  It was a substantial creekbed, 6 feet deep in some places, which was nice because at times it actually allowed us to walk upright (if you have never done it, walking bent-over with a rifle and a pack at a fast clip for several hundred yards is a great ab-workout ).  Other times it was so shallow we had to bellycrawl.  The valley floor was impossibly flat, and we soon found that locating the deer without being seen ourselves was going to be a bigger challenge than we had thought.  From the pickup we had marked a fence that crossed the creek.  We guessed that when we got to it, we would have about a 200 yard shot.  When we got to the fence, we saw that the deer had moved (it had been nearly an hour since we had last seen them), and bedded down several hundred yards further up the creek, so we continued to move.  Another half hour later we were able to range a tree close to the nearest doe at a little over 250 yards.  The lay of the land and the next bend in the stream prevented us from getting closer, so we set up and tried to locate the bucks.  After about 15 minutes of carefully peeking up above the lip of the streambed we had found the bucks, all bedded (as were most of the does), but we couldn't tell which one was the bigger deer.  We were looking through grass and sage, so getting an accurate range to the bucks was impossible, all we knew was they were bedded quite a ways behind the tree we had ranged.
Then, on one of our "peeks" we noticed a doe, looking right at us.  We ducked back into the riverbed and hunkered for 5 minutes, hoping she would forget about us.  When we peeked again, she was standing, still looking in our direction.  She spotted us again, and started walking around nervously.  Deer started getting up out of their beds.  It was now or never.
I couldn't shoot from the streambed (the grass was too tall), so I rolled out on top and quickly set up the bipod on my .270.
I was in full view now, and most of the does had spotted me and were milling around.  All three bucks were up and mixed in with the does.  Tom rose up out of the creekbed enough to see with his binos.
"Which one is he?" I whispered looking through my scope.  Some of the does were starting to trot off.
"The one in the middle" Tom replied.
From my angle, the buck in the middle had a doe in front of him, and his head was down.  I put my crosshairs on the two deer and waited for her to move.  When she moved, he was facing straight away, and I didn't want to do a Texas-heart-shot, so I waited.  A second later he turned completely around and came straight towards me, his head down with his nose almost on the ground.  I put the crosshairs high on his shoulder, figuring he was just a little under 300 yds, and as he took a step just slightly to my left, I touched off a round.
No tell-tale "whop".  I had missed.

I couldn't believe it.  How could I have missed?  Even if I had misjudged the range and the bullet dropped I should have hit him, just lower.
I jacked another round into the chamber and tried to pick him out of the chaos that had ensued. 
"He's still the middle buck" Tom said. 
I picked him out and snapped off another shot.  This shot was rushed, and I knew I had pulled it as soon as the gun went off.  I took a deep breath and chambered another round.
By the time I settled behind the scope again, the two other bucks and most of the does had exited stage left, headed into the creekbed.  My buck turned to follow them, offering a broadside trotting shot.  I put the X on the lead edge of his shoulder and squeezed.
"WHOP!"
He followed the other deer into the streambed.  One by one they came out the other side, headed for the draws on the east side of the valley.  When they were all out in the open again, one deer was conspicously absent.  "He's in the streambed" Tom said.  "I saw him stumble in there".
Tom was right.  He was hit a little far back (liver) and jumped up and ran into the sage, so I finished him with a shot to the neck.
I'll be honest, there was some ground shrinkage.  He turned out to only be 20" wide.  When we first spotted him, I would have guessed him at right around 22" or 23", but the angle, the distance and the presence of the two smaller bucks must have thrown me. 
Still I am thrilled with him.  He was nice and tall, with deep fronts and crabby backs, but I love him.
I imediately saw why I had missed the first shot.  His G3, crabby though it was, what shot off.  When I took the shot with him walking with his head down towards me, I had struck his antler. 

[Pathfinder101]

As Tom went back for the truck and the deer cart, I checked the yardage I had shot from.  310 yards (a little farther than I had guessed), and checked the GPS.  It had been a 1.8 mile stalk along that meandering creekbed.  After gutting him I set up and took a few more pics. 
I'll post the story of the rest of the trip and Tom's buck when I get back from church....

....to be continued....

[Pathfinder101]

...one more...

[whacker1]

great story - great stalk - now smile, you just shot a nice buck

[huntnphool]

Great writeup Mark, congrats on a great trip and fine trophy.

[Pathfinder101]

great story - great stalk - now smile, you just shot a nice buck

Hey, I AM smiling.... that's as good as it gets...

Hilarious.  I'll bet a 6 pack one or both tail lights don't work, or at least flicker 

You would have won a 6 pack, bow4elk.  All the lights work, but the left blinker blinks right, and the right blinker blinks left.  Try remembering that at 3:00am in a snowstorm going over Lookout pass...

[Pathfinder101]

Well, we got my buck back to the truck by dark, but only thanks to CoryTDF's deer cart.  Next morning we were up and at 'em looking for a buck for Tom. 
We hunted hard the next three days, never seeing the camper in the daylight.  We spotted the 22" wide crabby 4 point in the same valley with the same group of does we had seen him with before (looked like he had run off the smaller bucks), and tried to intercept him just before dark on Tuesday night.  We had him dead to rights, but couldn't see him until he busted (too busy watching the does).  Tom tried a running shot and missed him clean.  We never did see him again. 
We made several other stalks, but Tom decided to pass on several more deer, including one that looked like the exact twin brother of mine at 327 yards (the only deer all week that we got an exact range on).  He might have considered taking that buck, except that we were in a sheltered draw with no wind, the buck was in a sheltered draw also, but the wind was blowing in the canyon in between us, and there was no way to tell how hard it was blowing or how much to adjust for it.
Lots of glassing, lots of bucks spotted, but all were about the same size (20" wide 4x4s), and nothing outstanding so Tom held out until the last day.
One thing we did find was quite a few sheds.  Mostly sheds that looked to be about the size of the bucks we were seeing; 16" to 20" 4x4s.  Which begs the question; Where were all the bucks that dropped the sheds?  We never did figure that one out... 
 

[bearpaw]

Sounds like a good hunt....gotta luv MT...

[Joe_Hunter]

Been going to Montana for the past few years and intend on continuing that tradition. Saw some awesome bucks while goat hunting. unfortunately all I could do was wave to them as the opener was weeks away

[Pathfinder101]

When we woke up Thursday morning (last full day of the hunt) Tom said; "OK, I'm gonna shoot the first good 4x4 we see".  First light found us high on a ridge in the badlands, watching a series of draws that ran into a sagebrush valley about a mile and a half below us.
We spotted 2 cruiser bucks at first light.  One was a small 3x3, but the other buck looked promising so we moved to another ridge to get a better look at him.  By the time we spotted him again he was with a herd of 5 does.  A couple of the does bedded down, so we started our stalk.  There was about a mile of ground to cover between us and the deer, and soon we had cut the distance to 500 yards, so we set up again to get a better look.  Tom evaluated him and decided he was indeed a shooter, so we continued.
As we cut the distance to 300 yards, a doe spotted us (more accurately, I think she spotted our shadows).  When we next crept up to peek, all we saw was the last doe trotting over the hill away from us.   
We had no idea what was on the other side of the hill, but decided we would give them 15 minutes to calm down, then go see.  While we were waiting, another 3x3 cruiser buck came past us, headed into the badlands, nose to the ground.
The wind was in our faces when we crept around the hill, and continued down into the sagebrush flats near the creekbed.  When we finally could see the part of the flats that were shadowed by the hills, you should have seen the sight that greeted us.  We had found deer heaven. 
There were over 40 deer down there, in one big herd.  5 of them were bucks.  4 of those bucks were 4x4s.  It was like a Roman Deer Orgy, with bucks running around sniffing everything, and annoyed looking does prancing around avoiding them.  Tom couldn't get a clear shot from our position, so he started to belly crawl up the spur to get some elevation.  As he was doing this, one of the bucks spotted him.  As he eased over the lip of the spur to get into shooting position, most of the deer spotted him and were starting to leave.  The 4x4 we had spotted earlier was the closest deer (about 250), and because of his position, had not seen us yet.  Tom settled the crosshairs on him and touched off a shot.  A miss.  It looked to me like he had overshot him (probably because of the steep angle).  The deer didn't know where the shot had come from, pranced a few steps and swiveled his head back and forth, looking for where the danger was coming from.  This was all Tom needed, and the second shot entered his neck and exited his right shoulder.  The buck dropped in his tracks.

[Pathfinder101]

So, thanks to a loaned pickup, camper and deer cart, thanks to Tom's extraordinary GPS Reading skills, and thanks to a state that actually has more deer than hunters, we both had the best hunt of our lives last week.  I think the last picture says it all.

[bearpaw]

congrats to both of you....

[Gobble]

Congrats! Great story and pics

[Woodchuck]

congrats pathfinder on a great hunt