M
MontanaTines
Guest
A fuzzy pic, but had to include the smile!
Here's the story. We arrived late at night on Saturday the 24th, and got camp set up in the same spot as last year. This was a private ranch in central MT, we couldn't have been more exicted about hunting We woke about 4:00 and got a quick breakfast, Scott went back to sleep after walking out of the tent and puking. Some sort of bug, I guess, so it was just Seth and I for the morning. We hiked about half way up and started to slow down and hunt. The first cow call brought elk out of the timber below us, a nice 5 point and a cow, which started up the ridge to our left. We slipped in behind them and started following the bugles and tracks up the hill. There was about 4 inches of snow on the ground. We set up several times but could not get them turned around. At one point I slipped over a ridge and saw the bull out in a clearing about 200 yards. There were multiple bulls bugling and lots of tracks, somewhere along the line we switched to another bull and followed him. We caught up to him just after he had crossed the infamous fence line, a spot where we anticipated seeing bulls that morning before we got sidetracked with the 5 point farther down the hill. This new bull was a mature 6 point, probably close to 300 class. I got to about 60 yards crawling through the snow. The wind was right and he was slowly feeding. I just couldn't get close enough before he drifted into the timber. We followed the tracks into the timber and watched the cows get out of their beds, but never saw the bull again. We moved out of the timber without going in too deep to their bedding area. We started down the mountain to retrieve our sick hunting partner. On the way down we played with a 5x6 who was with 3 cows raking a tree and bugling on an open slope at 1:30 in the afternoon. He stayed just on the other side of a fence, on private that we couldn't hunt.
We got back to camp and Seth faded quick, laid down and didn't get back up. So I switched hunting partners, caller/guide, and we headed back up the mountain. Scott, now feeling better, and I started up the mountain about 4:30. About half way up the bulls were already bugling and we hurried to get in position in front of them. They were already coming out of the thick timber and working through a clearcut to the fence line. We made our way to the fence line, the wind was perfect. Just before I settled in about 20 yards from the fence, the closest bull bugled this time probably within 150 yards. Scott cow called a couple times and minutes later I heard antler on tree and watched the bull step out on the fence line. I saw a 6 point side and that was enough. He turned and quartered towards me up the fence. He stepped out at about 50 yards, and walked up the fence, I drew as he stepped behind a tree. He looked at me and then took another couple steps and stopped. He was below me down the hill and now only slightly quartering towards me. The third strand of fence was across his lower vitals with the top strand somewhere up in his back. I put my thirty yard pin just behind his shoulder and above the lower strand of wire and released. I saw the arrow perfectly as he turned, I could tell I only got about 10 inches of penetration and the arrow started wobbling out as he ran. I was unsure of the penetration and the hit looked a bit high. He was probably at about 27 yards. We backed way out and waited impatiently for over an hour. We returned about a half hour before dark to look at the hit and decide whether to leave him till morning or not. I had shot about 2 hours before dark, now that's un-pressured elk! We started finding blood and had the snow to track. We lost blood after about 100 yards, and I started getting uneasy as we tried to unravel his tracks now mixed with several others. In doing so I looked up and there he was 60 yards up the hill and down for good. What a relief. Pictures ensued and we gutted him out, then went back to get Seth, packs, and a sled. We started back up the mountain at 11:00 that night, my third time up that day, and got him all out in one trip. Back to the truck at 4:30. We were a mess with loaded packs and probably 150 plus pounds on the sled. We were falling all over ourselves and lucky that nobody got hurt. It couldn't have worked any better, and the opportunity to hunt up there is unexplainable. Seth almost got a shot the next night at a 5x5 only 300 yards up the fence from where I shot!
The shot as you can see was a bit high, but due to the downward angle and quartering towards shot it punched down into the lungs enough to do the job quickly.
An interesting note is that I was on State land when I shot through the fence at the elk on the private we were allowed to hunt. It was one of those sections of state completely surrounded by private with no access. I hate those except when were the lucky ones able to access it! Definetely a private land bull, but you could technically call it 1/2 and 1/2 I guess! Sorry for the longwinded story! Good luck to all!
