Pathfinder's 2010 Montana Deer Hunt (Updated-now ridiculously picture heavy)

[Pathfinder101]

Well, after striking out here in WA for the first time in 7 years, it was off to Montana last week to redeem myself.  Drawing a Montana Deer A Tag 2 years in a row had me worried that I had already used up most of my luck, but I loaded the truck (no crazy-1970's-camper, trying to pull the truck off the road everytime a gust blew.  We packed the wall tent and stove this year), packed all my warm clothes, and headed out east Tuesday after work.  
I pulled an all-nighter to get to Great Falls, the passes weren't too bad, even though they were getting snowed on pretty hard when I came through.  I came down off Roger's Pass just as it was getting light, and was treated to quite a sight; mule deer everywhere!  It was the first big snow of the year, and the migration was in full swing.  Between the last trees at the bottom of Rogers, and the first prairie town I hit I must have seen over 100 deer, including at least 8 bucks 3 point or better.  And they were rutting HARD.  Noses up, chasing does, bucks chasing each other off, posturing, etc...  What a sight.  I should have tried to get some pictures, but was nervous about being stopped on the icy highway (not much shoulder on Hwy 200), and that someone coming up behind me suddenly might not be able to stop in time.  I did see 2 whitetails also, and they were both big (140-150ish), but both clearly on private property near the Dearborn River.  None of the mulies looked enough like shooters at a glance for me to pull out the maps and start figuring out if they were on huntable property or not, so I kept going.
I made it to Great Falls at about 8:00 am and met up with Montana Tom.  Tom is originally from Walla Walla, left 6 years ago to get his degree in Wildlife Biology from the University of Montana, and never came back, which I think makes him officially the smartest person I know.  Last year he got a bit frustrated with the seasonal work and pay of a wildlife technician, so he went back to school to get his pilot's license.  We hunted together last season and had a great hunt, so this year we were looking for a repeat, but in a different area.
I had booked a reservation on a large BMA (which will remain nameless, since it was on a tip from another Montana buddy who swore me to secrecy) east of Great Falls, and Tom and I were hoping that the limited access would give us a chance at some of the older age-class bucks that had eluded us the year before on the BLM land we had been hunting.  
We checked in at the ranch after lunch on Wednesday and were told what part of the ranch we would be "assigned" to.  The rancher showed us 3 large drainages on the map, 4 to 6 miles long that ran from the highway to the foothills at the edge of the ranch.  
We noticed that he was cleaning off the skull cap of a nice, wide 3x3 mule deer.  "My wife shot this one this morning." He told us.  "We thought it was bigger, but the spread fooled us."  Then he pointed to a skull up on the roof of a nearby shed.  "That one is mine.  Got him last week."  Tom and I looked up.  A 28 inch rack sat on the shed, obviously being picked clean by birds, a mainframe 4x4, with some extras.

Now, if that isn't enough to get you going, I don't know what is...

The rancher showed us where we could pitch the wall tent, an old corral with a warm-spring water trough, right at the mouth of the main drainage we would be hunting.  We got camp set up, and took off on a scout.  Driving around before dark, we spotted a few deer, including one shooter buck, but he was on adjacent private property, so all we could do was watch him chase does until dark.  In the headlights on the way back to the tent we also saw a masher whitetail cross the road in front of us, close to the river bottom.  We didn't get a good enough look to score him, but he was tall and heavy.  
The next morning we were up by 5:00 and hiking up the drainage by 6:00.  The walking was fairly easy in the dry creekbottom along the farm road (this BMA is Walk-in hunting only.  The only folks allowed to put tire tracks of any kind on the ranch were the ranchers), and by shooting light we had covered almost 3 miles.  Before long, we started spotting deer.  Does at first, then, as the sun came up and it started to warm, we spotted a cruiser buck.  Not a big one, a medium-sized 3x3, but it was encouraging.  
We kept spotting groups of does, but nothing with them, and the does generally ignored us as though we didn't exist.  As we hunted our way towards lunch-time, we evidently grew careless and around 11:00 we crested a hill, fully sillouetting ourselves, faces into the sun, standing fully upright...
And of course, you know there was a big buck on the other side.  He was alone and cruising, about 450 yards away, in the shadows, and of course, since we were being idiots, he saw us before we saw him.  We promptly flopped down in the middle of a cactus patch   and tried to ignore the spines as we glassed him.  He was a mature deer, about ears-wide (23 to 24 inches), and very tall with great forks front and back and some extras on both sides, making him a 6x7 if you count the eyeguards, about a 160 mainframe buck, not counting extras. Having spotted us though, he was moving in the other direction, alternating between a walk and a trot.  We barely had time to get out the spotter as he crested the opposite ridge into the next drainage.  Sorry, again, no pictures.  Didn't have time to get out a camera.
As we made plans to try to follow/intercept him (this we would later find was impossible, due to the terrain on the other side of that ridge-there was NO way to tell which way he went ), we noticed the sky clouding up behind us.  We knew from weather forcasts that something big was blowing down from Canada, and that is was supposed to come in that afternoon.  As the wind started to kick up, we bailed off into the canyon to try to run a wide circle on where we thought the buck might have gone.
As we fought our way to the top of the ridge we had seen him go over, we got hit with a blast of wind that nearly knocked us off our feet.  I don't mean that in a metaphorical sense.  I am not *censored*tin', it nearly knocked us both down.  Looking back to the north, we could see the storm coming.  It looked like a huge, gray carpet unrolling in our direction.  The icy wind that had come out of nowhere had us immediately bundling up.  We bailed off into the drainage where we had seen the buck go, more to get out of the windstorm than with the intention of catching up to the deer.  Our first look into the canyon showed us the futility of catching our deer.  The next drainage was not simply a canyon, it was a maze of hills, rocks, sagebrush, blind draws and more mini-drainages.  We walked down off the crest, and decided that the only thing we could do was leave one guy on a vantage point with binos and the spotter and send the other guy bird-doggin' down into the canyon-maze.  Since Tom is younger and in much better shape he volunteered to bird-dog.  Turns out he got the better end of the deal, since the walking kept him warm.  I had sweated coming up the ridge, and within 10 minutes of sitting I was frozen solid.  
Tom did kick out a couple of deer, one of which was a young 4x4, but not a shooter.  More accurately, he kicked out a doe, and the buck came following her out like a puppy.  I don't think he ever knew that either of us where there, but she did.  A good sign, but our big buck had disappeared, never to be seen again.
By the time Tom got back up to my vantage point the storm had fully blown in, and it was snowing.  Actually, more like pelting ice crystals.  We climbed back up over the ridge (almost getting knocked over again a couple of times on the slippery crest), and headed back to camp to warm up and refit.
After an hour by our glorious, life-giving barrel stove, it was approaching the last three hours of daylight.  We peeked out the tent door.  It was snowing sideways.  Withdrawing back inside, I will confess a moment of weakness.  We almost talked ourselves out of going back out that evening.  Crazy talk like "Nothing's gonna be moving anyway", and "Probably won't be able to see 100 yards", and "Is it worth frostbite?" started flying around the tent like angry sharks.  
Then, we came back to our senses.  "You know, we wait all year for this", and "We've only got 4 days to hunt this ranch", and "Who knows what we'll spot hunkered down in a draw".  By 3:00 we were geared back up, and fighting back out into the teeth of the storm.

Actually, our first instincts were right.  Nothing was moving.  We could barely see 100 yards.  We very nearly got frostbite.  And we didn't see a single, living creature that evening hunt.  Nuthin'.  So, at dark we hiked back to camp, restoked the fire and had a good laugh at how our bravado had overcome our common sense.  

...more to come....

[BIGMIKE]

Congratulations. Where the pics....I told you I will keep tabs on this one. I am looking forward to see the pics. Hurry...this is torture.

[boneaddict]

Good stuff....

[Austrian Hunter]

I wan't more...I wan't more 

[CoryTDF]

You STILL have not called me!!!!!!!!! WTF>>>>>>>>>>

[ser300wsm]

Good story now need some pics please... 

[Pathfinder101]

Day two of our hunt dawned looking a lot like the night before, but by the time we had hiked our 3 miles back into where we had seen the buck yesterday, the wind had died down to a bearable level, and the snow was only spitting intermediately.  As shooting light approached, we decided to split and watch different drainages.  The weather forcast had put the high that day a 4 degrees, not counting the windchill, so I only lasted about an hour past shooting light before I had to get up and move to get my blood flowing and feel my extremities again.
We hunted until noon seperately, then located each other and had lunch.  We were seeing lots of does (I counted 16 that morning, but only 1 buck, a confused, horny spike x 2 that couldn't figure out if he was supposed to be hanging out with the ladies, eating or cruising the gut for chicks.  We spotted him 4 seperate times that morning, doing something different everytime.  No mature bucks though.  It was wierd, full rut and all, and NO bucks anywhere near all those does.  No bucks that is, except for that wierd spike.  We decided that he was being paid by the mature bucks to keep tabs on our location, hang around "doing deer stuff", and report our whereabouts to the shooters.
Tom had spotted a 6x6 bull elk, bedded in a draw near three mulie does.  We had nothing else to look at, so we sat there, eating our frozen sandwiches, trying unsuccesfully to thaw out the drinking tubes on our camelbaks, taking digi-scope pictures of the elk, and trying to figure out where the hell all the bucks were.  Finally, in frustration, we pulled out our maps.  There was one drainage in our area that we had not hunted yet.  It looked large, and was the furthest one away, nearly 6 miles as the crow flies from our camp.  We were within a 2 mile hike of it, so we decided to peek into it.  
Well, as you can probably guess, that's were everything was hiding.  Our theory is that since this was the third week of the deer season, most of the deer had been pushed off into this drainage.  And we had underestimated it's size on the map.  It was friggin' HUGE.  We crept out to a vantage point, settled down, took out the binos and started glassing.  It was over a mile to the other side of the drainage, and we were perched on top of a 100 foot cliff, looking down and across.  Immediately, we started spotting game.
We saw over 50 head of elk up in the foothills at the head of the canyon (this was a draw-only unit, so all the elk we saw that day were safe from us).  Scattered all over the hills were groups of antelope (bucks all shed), including one impressive herd of about 70.  We started seeing groups of deer, most of which had small 3x3 or 4x4 bucks with them.  Even most of the cattle it seemed had been pushed off into this isolated drainage.  Then, almost straight across the canyon, in a small draw near the top of the next ridge, I spotted a group of deer.  A quick look with my binos showed that a couple of them had antlers, so I dig the spotter out of my pack.  When I focused it on the herd, I just about fell off the cliff.
In the center of the herd, keeping the three younger bucks at bay, was a very large mulie buck.  Tall, wide, heavy, deep forks, thick, everything you think about when you fall asleep at night.  And there he was, about a mile away, neck stretched out, lip curled, looking like a magazine cover in the snow.  I hissed for Tom to take a look.  Immediately, we started coming up with a game plan.  
The stalk would cover over 2 miles, walking about a 1/4 mile up the drainage to an area where we could cross.  Then it would be down into the canyon, up a high ridge that ran down the middle of it, down that, then up the other side, staying hidden in a draw that would bring us out just a couple of draws short of where the herd was tucked out of the wind.  We had less than two hours of shooting light to accomplish this, so we packed up and took off as quickly as we could.  
Except for stopping to pull some cactus thorns out of my ass once, we made it to the opposite side of the canyon in a bit over an hour without a glitch.  As we worked our way up the last rise, we spooked a herd of cattle that stampeded off to our right (the opposite direction of the deer).  As we gained the top of the ridge, still two draws away from where we had last seen the deer, we saw something that stopped us in our tracks.  Two bull elk, a raghorn 4x4 and a 2x3, spooked out of their beds by the stampeding cattle, trotted nervously past us at 100 yards, in the direction of the deer.  We hunkered down in the snow, and let them pass, even though were sticking out on the side of the bare hill like a turd in a punchbowl, they largely ignored us and kept trotting.  We knew there was no way they would not alert the deer.  
After they trotted out of sight, we picked up and moved to our intended draw.  
Peeking over the lip, we saw nothing but tracks.  Lots of tracks, with, of course, two big sets of elk tracks running right through the middle of them.  At this point, we had less than 30 minutes of shooting light.  We were about to start following tracks, when we noticed a deer standing in the sage that we had not seen before.  It was a spike x 2, and he was looking curiously at us.
Now, I am not going to imagine that it was the same spike that had been dogging us all day, but it sure as hell looked like him.  And it sure as hell looked like he had been left as a rear-guard by the big boy to fight a "delaying action" with us while the rest of the herd got away.  We had a 10 minute stare-down with him, the temperature dropping by the minute, loosing more shooting light everytime he blinked.  Finally, I guess he figured he had earned his pay, and he walked slowly over the hill in the direction of the rest of the herd.  20 minutes of shooting light left, so we picked up as fast as we could and started to follow him.  As we carefully crested the next finger, we saw another buck.  A small 3x3 (one that we had seen with the herd earlier), walking right down the finger towards us.  History repeated itself, and we commenced another staredown.  This one lasted 15 minutes, with us exposed on the finger, not wanting to blink and spook him, the dark growing, the temperature dropping and us squatting in the freezing snow and wind, our legs falling asleep and our hands growing numb (I had switched to light finger shotting gloves at this point, a fatal mistake).  Finally, with only 5 minutes of shooting light left, we decided that it was now or never, so we got up and did our best to walk around him and not spook him back into the draw he had come out of.  Amazingly, he stood there and watched us the whole time, never acting anything but curious.  Not far behind him was another buck, a young 4x4, watching us curiously also.
As we crept over the next finger, we started seeing deer on the opposite side of the draw, milling around in the thick sagebrush.  The does were not nearly as curious as the young bucks had been, and they began milling to leave.  Just from sheer body size we immediately located the big buck, still checking the milling does, unaware of our presence.
Tom and I both flipped out our bipods and sat down.  By prior agreement, I would have first shot, since I had spotted the buck first.  If I missed, or didn't have a clear shot, he was fair game.  Tom ranged the hillside he was on.  "350 yards" he said.
I found the buck in my scope.  The problem was that I was so cold from our 15 minute squat in the snow and wind that I was shaking uncontrollably, and couldn't steady the crosshairs.  Three times I inhaled and exhaled, trying to control my body and stop the shivering.  I had to physically look at my finger taking the safety off, because I couldn't feel my fingers at all.  After the third try, I figured I was as steady as I was going to get, and I touched off a round.  
"I think you hit him" Tom said, looking through his scope.
"I don't think so." I said, chambering another round.  "Go ahead if you can".
I was about to touch off another shot, when I hear Tom's rifle echo next to me.  The tell-tale "BOOM-WHOP" told me that he had hit.  The deer dropped in his tracks, hindquarters first, signaling a broken back.  Because of the angle, the bullet had passed through his lungs also, and he was dead by the time we had made our way to his resting place.
No ground shrinkage here!  After a round of backslaps and some well-earned whoops we got down to the business of trying to figure out how to get him out of there.
Now, I am not going to pretend that I wasn't disappointed that I didn't kill that buck.  He is beautiful.  We later green-scored him at 174 and some change, easily the biggest mule deer I have ever had a chance to kill.  But I can't be too bummed.  My buddy got him.  I got to see him killed, got to be part of the hunt, even got to take the first shot.  The fact is that Tom, being in his mid-20s and in great shape didn't sweat as much climbing thos ridges to get to him, therefore was less affected by squatting in the cold wind for 15 minutes, and was able to make the shot that I missed.  Sucks getting old, but I don't begrudge him that buck one bit.  He earned it.  And besides, I still had two days to hunt.  

We knew there was no way we could get him out of there 6+ miles that night, so we gutted him, slashed his armpits, opened up his hips and hiked out, intending to come back the next morning with pack frames.
It took us an hour and a half to work down the canyon we were in to the nearest road, and then after hitting the road estimated that we had 5 to 6 miles of road marching back to our tent.  It was blizzarding again at this point, we later heard on the radio that they put the windchill at -20.  As we walked/stumbled happily down the highway, a pair of tailights passed us, then stopped.  We were still easily 3 miles from camp, so the sight of brakelights in the blowing snow were a more than welcome sight.  Turned out it was the rancher's father in law (they manage the ranch together), and he figured we were the two idiots camped in the tent, so he gave us a ride.  
We told him about the buck and where we had killed it.  He was quiet for a moment.  
"You mean you guys hiked all the way back into the head of (name withheld) Creek?"
We nodded.
He shook his head.  
"Well, you guys are probably the first ones to do that this year, except for my son in law.  No wonder you killed that buck."
When he dropped us off, he rolled down his window.  
"Look," he said, "You guys will be hauling that thing out of there all day if you take it out on your backs, and you only have two more days to hunt.  Why don't you swing by the ranch tomorrow morning after chores, and we'll help you get it out.  We've got pickups and a 4 wheeler."
"I don't know." I said.  "Can you get a truck back there?"
The old fellow rolled his eyes.
"Did you see a fence back there?"  He asked.
"Yes"  I said.
"Well, whaddaya think, we pack those posts out there on our backs?"

Stay tuned for more...

(sorry about the lack of pictures right now.  My camera wouldn't fire in the cold weather, so Tom got all the pictures.  He only got a few to come through the email, but he burned a disc that he put in the mail Wednesday night.  I should get them anytime.  I'll add them as soon as I get them.)
 

[boonerboy]

sweet! great buck

[180-GRAIN]

good looking buck, congrats.

[Michelle_Nelson]

When he dropped us off, he rolled down his window.  
"Look," he said, "You guys will be hauling that thing out of there all day if you take it out on your backs, and you only have two more days to hunt.  Why don't you swing by the ranch tomorrow morning after chores, and we'll help you get it out.  We've got pickups and a 4 wheeler."
"I don't know." I said.  "Can you get a truck back there?"
The old fellow rolled his eyes.
"Did you see a fence back there?"  He asked.
"Yes"  I said.
"Well, whaddaya think, we pack those posts out there on our backs?"
 

  ROTFLMAO

[rosscrazyelk]

That thing is a pig.. great job pathfinder

[kramer]

awsome buck. good job.

[Austrian Hunter]

WOW, that's all I have to say!!!! I wan't more....I wan't more!!!!! 

[Ironhead]

STUD!

[Pathfinder101]

The next morning we showed up at the appointed time, and Tim, the rancher was waiting for us.  Tim is a pretty serious mule deer hunter, and I think he was actually excited to get the morning "off", see the buck, and probably most importantly, see where we killed it.
He loaded the 4 wheeler in the truck, and we were off.  Along the way Tim told us that almost everyone else that had been scheduled to hunt the ranch had either cancelled or not shown up because of the weather.  Only one other group was hunting.  We passed through the edge of their area.  Tim told us that they had drawn elk tags, and they were chasing the herd that we had spotted the day before, as well as deer.  When we passed their pickup, there was a nice mulie buck in the back, probably a 140-150ish buck.
We did spot a couple of nice bucks on the way out to Tom's deer, but they were at the base of the foothills, in the area that the elk hunters were hunting, so we drove past them.  One looked like a shooter, at least I think so.  I could see antlers pretty clearly on him at about 500 yards in a bouncing truck.
We drove ther truck as far as it would go.  We parked, and Tim and Tom got on the 4 wheeler.  I slung my rifle and plugged along behind on foot, hoping to spot something worth shooting.  I caught up to the parked 4 wheeler just in time to help drag the buck to it.  
On the drive out, Tim said the same thing his father in law had said.
"I am not suprised you found him way back here.  No one hikes back this far.  Besides me, you guys are probably the first ones back here this year."
Then he told us that he had seen us hiking out into that storm Thursday night.  
"That was crazy." He chuckled.  "That's why I had my wife shoot hers on Wednesday.  I didn't want to be out in that stuff."
When we got back to the ranch, Tim's wife Cory and her dad came out to admire the buck, take a few pictures, then she ordered us inside the house for chili.  
Tim said "She's been worried sick about you guys out in that wall tent."  He laughed  "She keeps making me drive past there to make sure you are still alive I guess."
As we sat in Tim's kitchen gratefully eating hot chili, another blizzard started to blow in.  We all stared for a while out the kitchen window at the sideways blowng snow.
"You guys still got another tag to fill." Tim said.
We nodded.
"You gonna go out in this mess?"
We said that we were planning on it.
"Well," he said, looking out into the storm.  "I know where they'll be in weather like this..."