Montana Buck

[bear]

Streak and I left on the 20th with extreme cold forecast. 18 hours later when we were arriving at our destination is was -13.  We had permission to hunt a private ranch that a friend of ours had hunted previously.  It was about 2000 acres.  We hunted it hard for about 2 1/2 days and Streak ended up with a 4 point.  After hunting the same areas over and over we were ready for something different.  I had called on some BMA's that I thought we might want to check out.  We drove about an hour to get there and saw a lot of good bucks right on the road on the way but on private land.  Got checked into the BMA and drove an hour back to our hotel.  Following morning we checked out, drove the hour down to the BMA and planned on checking into a closer hotel that evening.  It was -14 this morning but the wind that had howled through the night had let off so we drove to a spot that looked good and got out and started walking.  We ended up finding some really nice draws that were more similar to what we are used to hunting, steeper and bigger than most of the ranch country.  It took a while for us to find deer, but after a while Streak started pointing them out left and right.  After a while I started to spot some too and we saw several groups of does and bucks.  These deer had been hunted hard!  The wind switched direction a bit and when the bucks got our scent they busted out of there and left the does to themselves.  We didn't see any shooters so we decided to head back to the truck and drive to a different part of the BMA and glass up into some draws to see if we could locate a good buck.  As we drove below one draw Streak stop for one second, pulled up his binocs and spotted what he thought was a good buck heading through the trees dogging a doe.  The buck spotted us and bolted up into the draw out of sight.  We had about an hour of shooting light left so I headed up the ridge down wind to see if I could spot them hoping they were still somewhere in the draw.  About half an hour later, I had made it up to the ridge and was glassing down into the draw and spotted the buck.  Ranged at 260 yards, got set up and waited for them to clear some trees so that I could have a clean broadside shot.  It took about 5 minutes but he finally walked out from behind the trees and I took the shot as he was walking slowly behind the doe.  He just turned facing me head on and I thought that I had missed.  I had to stand up to get a clear second shot and thankfully I had bought a bi-pod capable of a standing rest before this trip.  I heard the wack of the bullet and down he went.  I didn't realize until later skinning that I had broke the far shoulder on the first shot and he just turned toward me and stood there!  Luckily my second shot hit him in the neck and took him down.  This is my best buck to date and he's definitely going on the wall.  We got him to the truck and headed west to get a hotel.  We had elk tags and thought we'd try our luck at that.  The next day after driving through a whiteout and arriving at our elk area we just felt burned out.  We hunted for a few hours and decided we were ready to be home.  We ended up driving 2600 miles on this trip and 3 different hunting locations in 7 days.   Bear
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[longrange7mm]

nice buck congrats

[SuperDave]

Great write up and nice lookin buck!!  Congratulations!!

[Bandit]

Nice muley BEAR,  Gotta love Montana.

[blacktailer]

That's an awesome buck Bear.  Like the deep forks and great brows.  Glad you guys had a nice hunt

[money794]

o my !

[stickbuck]

Awesome buck!! Check out those deep forks!!

[buckmaster_wa]

Great buck. Does he have a little kicker off of his G3?

[jstamp]

looks like a great buck to me. I haven't seen a whole lot of MT bucks this year with good main beams. looks like yours has some good ones. and I love the eyeguards. just a guess, but i would put him in the 160's but i'm horrible at judging off of pictures. regardless, it's a dandy buck. congrats.

[bear]

Great buck. Does he have a little kicker off of his G3?

Yes, about 2".

looks like a great buck to me. I haven't seen a whole lot of MT bucks this year with good main beams. looks like yours has some good ones. and I love the eyeguards. just a guess, but i would put him in the 160's but i'm horrible at judging off of pictures. regardless, it's a dandy buck. congrats.

I'm not very good either but I was guessing 160.  He does have really good mass.  We ended up hunting in a good area but I won't apply for the big game combo again.  It's just too much money now with the tag increases and the amount of time it takes to fill 2 tags each.  I hope to apply for the deer combo but fear that could take 5 years or more to draw.  Bear

[Lowedog]

Congrats!  Great looking buck!  I'm guessing 170ish gross give or take.

[Pathfinder101]

Great buck man!  We were out there in that same mess (-20 windchill etc...)  Congratualtions on your best buck yet!  GOnna make a great headmount.