Well better late than never, I have been to busy to do a write up. But here goes, the longest story I have written. I hope it isn't boring.
With the price of Montana deer and elk tags, I was left looking for more reasonably priced alternatives. So I read through lots of HuntWA stories, reviewed harvest data, and tag availability. I called my huntin partner and we decided to put in together. If we were lucky enough to get drawn on our first attempt, I planned to hunt with a friend’s brother in SE Montana. He graciously agreed to point us in the right direction. With the close of the Washington tag drawing and seeing a bunch of NOT SELECTED, I was hoping for a little Montana luck. Sure enough, the opportunity arrived in the mail.
I called my friends brother, and he also had some good news. He got a new job….. in WASHINGTON!!!! Ahhhh
, and would be moving prior to the opening of Antelope season. He was sure he could point us in the right direction anyways. Happy for his new opportunity, but disappointed we wouldn’t be getting to spend some time with friends. So I started some more research and contacted a HuntWA member. I will leave his name out of this story, but I am very grateful for his assistance and giving me some great leads. Re-energized again, we had a plan. He also suggested looking into the SD card chips for the GPS. That was a great bit of advice. The last bit of advice he had was to stay in the motel if it rained, that was probably the best advice!!
We planned to hunt the first 6 days of the season, and hopefully be back sooner so that we could get back to deer hunting the wonderful state of Washington.
The entire drive over to Montana it rained hard! Remembering the advice of my new friend, I figured we would be safe if we stayed on the gravel roads. Just avoiding the dirt roads… right?
Wow, we learned the hard way.
Montana mud sucks!!!!!!! After traveling 15 miles, we were passed by a Fish and Game warden who suggested we turn around. We heeded his advice, and watched him slip and slid as he trudged on to check one of the check in boxes. We proceeded back the way we came and still had a few hours to burn. We planned to rough it in a tent to save some money, so we needed to find some state land to throw up our little camp. We headed down a paved road to the next sign in box (BMA), and check it out. Upon arrival we found about 14 other people had already presigned in for the day. We were a little disappointed, as most of the BMA’s would be down the mud entrenched roads. We made a second attempt at a different gravel road expecting better results.
It was a little better but the farther we went the worse it got. Night was falling fast, so we found some state land. But the rain was too hard and wouldn’t be good for setting up a tent. So we decided to sleep in the truck. Just before dark, I made a quick walk out over the lip of the hill, and low and behold a fair size herd of Antelope, including a couple nice bucks. They appeared to be getting ready to bed down for the night!!!! Things were looking up!
Back to the truck for some attempted sleep, which you would think wouldn’t be tough because we had been up for 38 hours.
That was also a poorly thought out plan or lack of plan. With a restless night, we were still in high spirits. We walked out the hill and they antelope were gone, and there was truck tracks that drove past us during the night. So I know we must have gotten some sleep. We went back to the truck and the Montana mud was started to dry up. So we drove through! A short drive a way we found two nice bucks…but on private property. Drive on past, and onto government property. We found the herd, but the other truck must have spooked them during the night cause they were also on untouchable land. By about 10 am we finally found some goats on huntable land, we gave chase, got close but got busted by their optical vision!!!! Damn goats! We found that they don’t or won’t jump fences. So we followed them to a corner fence. Again things didn’t go our way, and we were headed back to the truck again. We decided to head back to find a spot we could setup camp.
Lucky us we found a little spot with some trees (rare) and quickly setup a place to hopefully catch some sleep later in the evening. After the quick setup we were back in action and headed back to the mudded road from yesterday. It is amazing how fast that stuff drys up, cause it was big improvement from the day before. As we headed down the road we were approaching some state land, and my partner noticed some goats running towards the property. We quickly stopped the truck and got a short distance off the road and as the goats crawled under the fence my partner steadied his gun and BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. Untouched the goats continued on their path. My partner hollered “OUT OF BULLETS”. Well I guess I will get a chance at em. I took a quick read of the rangerfinder, 360 yards, layed out prone, and BOOM/WHOP!
Buck down, we made quick work and headed back to camp. Skinned him in the head lights, and off for some well deserved sleep!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Day 2, very disappointing day. Seen very few goats and too many people.
Day 3, partner was starting to get worried, cause we had heard that the winterkill was really bad (worst report was 80%). And the numbers we were seeing we substantially lower than we had heard about from the previous years. Day 3 started much the same as Day 2…. dismal, but we kept after it. We came to a little dirt road that drove through some state land, and decided we would walk it out. The little walk turned out to be looonnnggg hike, and we found ourselves sitting on a ridge overlooking lots of wide open country. Almost immediately we started picking out several different herds of goats. We evaluated our potential routes and chose one that gave the best chance of slipping in undetected. At about 700 yards we were running out of cover, and had to do the old crawlin around on all fours. We finally got to within about 500 yards and the rangefinder wasn’t giving us a good reading. Ahhhhhhh.. so we tried to slip in a little closer, we made it another 50 yards and the big buck busted us. We layed out on the ground and tried the rangefinder again. My huntin partner was concerned about the wind, I told him to wait out the wind gusts and on the lull pull the trigger. BOOM, neither of us could tell if he hit the buck. But the big guy was obviously not with the group. Shortly we see Mr. Big limping along, and long story short a couple more shots and we were tagged out.
Some photos, boned him out, and the trek was on back to the truck. Which was complicated by my partners quadruple blisters
I want to say thanx to the gentlemen who gave us the tip, best of luck to you next year on your next trip! I hope you guys enjoyed this story, and the photos!
