MontanaHunter's 2016 Wanderings

MontanaHunter

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I have been a long time viewer of MM and not so much a participant. I think I started hanging out here back when Cowboy was posting up a big CO buck he took. Anyway, I have always enjoyed checking out the Hunt Adventure Challenge thread and decided I should give it a try.

I'd like to thank Founder for doing it one more year. Even though, there are many like me who would rather read than write. :)

Right now, I don't have any exciting tags in my pocket. I still have hope for one, but realistically, I'll have just have MT deer & elk. We do get to head out of state once. This should be an exciting hunt for my daughter but more of that when the time arrives. Good luck to all this year and hopefully we can all find our best buck yet.

~MH
 
I need to backtrack a few months to my first hunt of the year.

After the AZ elk deadline has past and I'm done being disgusted with my draw odds, I start getting ready for my spring snow goose in ND. Years ago I went for the first time and ever since I have been hooked. If you hunt everything and are thinking of trying it, I would say don't. It will save you money and frustration in the long run. Since my first hunt I have graduated to my own spread and a landowner that has become a great friend.

With the warm spring, we moved our hunt date up two weeks to March 10th. Getting ready is a multi day process for me and it keeps getting longer each year but when you have to drive 17 hours you damn well shouldn't forget anything.

These two are excited to hunker down in their dog box for hours. Getting the box in the truck is only the first step. They'll have to wait a couple of days.
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Decoys are in and ready to rock. I have a mixed spread with GHG full bodys and White Rock Silosocks. This is the part where your money goes once you get hooked. :)
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In case you are wondering, Yes, that is a University Of Montana Griz paw on the door. :p

Besides the decoys and the dogs, I now have the batteries, the batttery charger, ammo, guns, dog food, E-collars & chargers, license, clothes for any weather, blinds, flyers, coolers, stakes, 4 wheeler, sleds and a hotel reservation ready to go. Man do I hope I have everything.

5:00 AM I hit the road. . .

~MH
 
Getting a group together to snow goose hunt is not as easy as you might think. 3 months out everyone wants to go, 2 months out about a third drop out, 1 month out and only 1/4 are still willing. This year wasn't different. Except everyone, but one long time hunting friend, threw in the towel. The number of guns in the spread was right but the number of guys to set up and tear down were a little on the light side.

So I hit the road at 5 and I picked my buddy up after a couple hours of driving. Day one and two really are just one really long painful day. Wake up, drive, set up, hunt then go to bed about 40 hours later. With luck everything goes perfectly and a guy can catch a nap.

After 7 hours, the dog is ready to get out and strech his legs. I swear he's smiling about being able to sit up straight. For all you small state dwellers, you can drive 10 hours in one direction and don't even be close to a MT border.
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The drive goes really well. We make it into ND before it gets dark. After stopping the death march to ND several times for coffee, dinner and streching the legs, we're finally parked in front of the gate to our field. Its go time, we are both DOA & it's 2:00 AM.

Since the weather had been so warm, we were really concerned with soft fields. The field we hunt has a lot of hills and if you stay high you are generally really safe. The first 50 yards of the field look the worst. We get out, walk it and we are good to go.

We start driving out and at 75 yards in we find a soft spot and the truck and trailer stop moving. Well crap, now what? We unhook the trailer and the truck drives off pretty easily. Not wanting to miss critical setup time we scout the field in the truck and find a place that would be easy to pull the trailer. . . if we can get it unstuck.

The temp is 31. We decide to sleep for an hour or so and hopefully the ground will setup a little bit making it easier to get out. Wrong, after an hour and a half the temp had gone up to 34.

We decided to either bury both the truck and trailer or get out and set up for the morning hunt. Luck was with us, after using a little truck muscle we finally coaxed the trailer out.

We got to our spot and started pulling all the full bodies out of the trailer.
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By the time day broke we still had a lot of work left. If we had one more guy we would be ready when the birds started to fly. These mallards liked how we looked and buzzed us several times.
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Getting stuck cost us some valueable time and birds were wanting to drop in, even with the truck parked in the middle of the spread. Probably 1/2 way through the morning flight we were finally a 100% ready.
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There was more sleep happening in the blinds than hunting. I'm just getting to old for these extended hours. The day is good, the weather is warm and we are seeing plenty of snows migrating throughout the day. We even manage to kill a couple of birds.
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ND sunsets are awesome and some of my favorites.
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Finally, day one and two is done. Time to find our hotel and get some good sleep. After getting our key, we parked next to this guy.
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We must be in the right area.

~MH
 
The sleep did us all good. We are up and in the blinds before light. As it starts to get light, we can hear the plains come alive with the sounds of geese. We turn on the E-Caller and wait for those white devils to show up.
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We are seein lots of birds but getting them to put the feet out and want to land is difficult. We change our spread a little bit and hope this does the trick. After about 10:00 AM, the birds are all stuck on migration mode and fly by without even looking.

While we are there we see a lot of waves like this. They were heading North as fast as the wind and their wings could take them.
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In the afternoons we would checkout other fields, to see if next year we should break from our norm. We came across this windbreak on our way to one of those fields. Loaded with deer tracks I could almost imagine a big ol whitey standing at the other end. These windbreaks are a world all their own. I may have to see about a deer hunt. ;-)
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The weather this year was crazy warm. On this day, it was 76 with no wind. Last year, we were in 30 MPH winds and under about 4" of snow. If I remember right, I could hardly get my dog away from the truck heater. This year he thinks he's on vacation and not a job. He's getting soft in his old age.
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ND provided for some nice views while we were there.
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We managed to bag some birds, more that I wanted to process. Then this guy and his siblings showed up and decided to fill our cooler.
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Fortunately, we were able to pick up quicker than the set up. Soon we hit the road for home. The last three and a half days were awesome. With that I will put this trip to bed.
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I'm already looking forward to next spring and maybe that other field by the windbreak.

~MH
 
The trip home was a breeze but wouldn't ya know it, the last 50 miles had ice on the road. Slowing down was torture. The next weekend we took a drive North for fun.

These are the Mission Mountains. Big rugged country with lots of grizzlies.
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With the goose hunt done early, I still had a couple of weeks left of March and then another in April before turkey season would start. So, I decided to build a semi permanent place to put archery targets. One of my greatest accomplishments as a hunter, is to have kids that want to give up easy and go hunting. My kids and I seem to kill hours shooting our bows and to make it even better they both take it rather seriously.

The stand is rather simple but it is wide and tall enough to hold 4 bag targets or one big block target.

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With some selective choosing, I was able to find a spot where I could shoot further than I ever would in a hunting situation. I will add a roof to help protect the targets from the sun but as of today it is 100% functional.
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The youngest had to be the first for a test drive. Apparently you can shoot while wearing PJ's.
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Not to be out done the oldest went back aways and let them fly. :)
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By the second week of April the fields will be dry enough to drive in and it will be gopher time.

~MH
 
It's gopher time.:D

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You may look at my tripod and wonder what in the world is going on. Yes it is a bog pod, but I took off the U shaped piece and replaced it with what you see. My kids were having trouble with their rifles bi-pods. This way there is a spot for each bi-pod leg, their shooting accuracy increased. Don't ask me why, all I can say is it worked.

After a quick warm up near home, my nephew and I head to the Big Hole. On our way there we run across this lady who took over a Osprey platform.
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We found 100's of these guys. Many of them didn't make it home for dinner that evening.
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Here are some of the other things we saw.

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This poor guy looks like he has winter ticks.
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This area has always been an adventure. A great place to go to find the "wild". The mountains you see here are even mentioned in Lewis and Clark's Journals.
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On the trip, we decide we are going to try paddle fishing this year. I have never tried it but am excited to see if we can get a tag.

~MH
 
Turkey season was a complete bust this year. For some reason, I had no motivation and I couldn't get myself to buy a tag. I would have had plenty of chances this year. Our yard has become part of their home range. :p

Anyway, here are some that stopped in to say hi.

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My youngest was ready to go on stake out, to nab one of these gobblers, but wasn't quite old enough. Next year, these toms may be in danger.

~MH
 
This year was Montana's first paddlefish draw. If you got a tag you could keep one otherwise it was catch and release. My nephew and I put in as a party. Wouldn't you know it? We can't draw a deer or elk tag to save our lives but we got a fish tag right out of the gates.

Our tag was good for the upper Missouri so we planned on fishing North of Lewistown. We hit the river at a perfect time. It had snowed the Monday before and it put the river flow at the optimum level.

Here are some views above the spot we fished. The walk down was easy but trekking back up was a chore.

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This is just a panoramic cell phone pic
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Not everyone fished from shore. There were about half dozen boats fishing between us and the folks on the other side.
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If you have never paddlefished before, you are using a snagging setup. The pole reminds me of a long pole cue with 60 pound braided line. There are two weighted treble hooks, about 18" apart, that does all the work.

The first thing you do when you get ready to fish is pop a couple of aspirin. Tugging on those weighted hooks all day make all your arm and shoulder muscles ache.

Depending on were you hook a fish will determine how much fight you will have. Hooking them on the side in the middle of their body will be like pulling in a tire. If you hook the head or tail things get more exciting.

My nephew was hoping for a male and he was lucky enough to catch this male which weighed about 35 lbs. I thinks that's about the normal size.
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Here is a look at the hooks we used. My nephew and his buddy melted the lead and added the weight to the hook.
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Here I am with the fish I caught. She weighed 74 lbs and was 47.5" from the fork in her tail to her eye. Beginner luck without a doubt.
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Well now it's time to hit the hills and set some camera's and see if we can find something to put on the hit list. My kids and I are still waiting to see if we drew MT antelope and AZ deer. This fish may be the only tag I get this year. Az is a pipe dream so I'll cross my fingers for an antelope tag.

~MH
 
My wife's grandfather would have been 95 a couple of days ago. He died about 10 days before his birthday. He had a lot going for him, one of which was welding. In his mid to late 60's he started creating welded art. This is the one thing that impressed me the most.

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I loved the raw look to this ram head when he created it. Later it was painted and kind of lost a little wow. Still, the outside measurement was 12'. I'm not sure of the height but it was somewhere between 7 and 7 1/2 feet.

~MH
 
It's time! Time to start setting cameras, time to start lifting and time to start shooting daily. I love the preseason. I finished my stand for my archery targets. It's far from perfect but it does what I want. The four targets are a perfect fit. They are tight enough that they don't need to be tied in place but still fairly simple to place.

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With my kids starting to take up the bow I have started reacquainting myself with local elk areas. Just before the 4th my youngest and I went out to set cameras. The whole hike was quite an experience. The road I usually drive in on had be taken out. We found an alternate but the whole day was learning how to get into our spot again. We finally made it in but didn't set any cameras. The elk sign I am accustom to seeing wasn't there so we thought maybe we would try again in a few weeks. Here are some pictures of the area. I've had elk in every scene. Hopefully we'll see a change.

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On the way out we say this little guy. He was pretty nonchalant with us in the area so he probably won't see next spring.

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We also saw a small 4X4 muley and two does & two fawns. We did find some elk on the way out about 2 miles away but they were cows and calves. Time to spend some hours finding those bulls to see what this year has to offer.

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This was just a cool pic of a cinnamon teal I took one evening training dogs. I hope to get one of these for my wall too.

~MH
 
I took the easy path this weekend. Instead of getting out and setting more cameras I took a short drive and filmed these bachelors. Unfortunately, these bucks are off limits. A couple of them look pretty good. I'm not impressed with my video skills, hopefully they will improve over the summer.


~MH
 
Another week of prep is in the books. On Saturday, I took a drive to some new country that's relatively close to home. It turned out to be some of the thickest and in many places the steepest I've been in for a while. Don't think I will be going back. Here are a couple of pictures from the area.

Found these two young moose wandering the main road. This was the only view they would give. They weren't too excited to leave the road.
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There have been a couple of things I've done with my kids that have been fun. The first was creating Kindergarten skip day. This is where they skipped the first school day of hunting season and spent it with me chasing elk. The second is a Texas trip once they've passed hunters safety. Well, my youngest passed her test last spring and every since it's been non stop Texas talk. This hunt she will be using a crossbow for deer, turkey and any pig that gets to close. Saturday was her first time shooting the crossbow and she did pretty good. Here is some of the action.

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Here are the last three shots. Not too bad for the first day.
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Texas is a fun trip. Plenty of good hunting and some good friends to visit with. I'm already looking forward to the trip. I still haven't found that special bull or buck. Maybe in the next couple of outings I will finds one.

~MH
 
I wish I could find some awesome bucks like Founder, but it just isn't happening. All of the tag results have come back, and I think I cursed myself in one of my first posts. Yep, I only drew that paddlefish tag. How is that possible? But trying to keep a positive spin on things my kids and I went to Big Sky and shot the Total Archery Challenge. What an excellent time!

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We all shot pretty good and hiked a marathon in the first two days. I did, however, discover my bow cables and string needed replaced. Why not? Less than a month until elk season. :( After the shoot, my crew took a trip through Yellowstone. Just after crossing in the park the first animals we saw were these two.

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We drove from West Yellowstone, counter clockwise through the park, and saw a total of 4 elk, 2 deer and 4 Bison bulls. That is until we reached Mammoth. In town, there were dozens of elk. When we got to Gardiner, there were several hundred around town. We've all been screwed by wolf idiots!

Fortunately, not all my seasons were so grim. I applied for a premium WY deer tag for years. After the bonus point system kicked in I finally drew. Unfortunately, it was at a time when I didn't have free time but I made it to 102 for an archery hunt. This hillside doesn't look like much but watching the deer magically appear in the dusk was awesome.

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I took a nice buck. By many standards he would have been passed on but I took 4 hours crawling through the sage to get to him. An easy 30 yard shot sealed the deal. To this day it is one of my proudest one VS nature experiences.

I've been blessed to sit in the Kaibab with my bow and watch the sun come up . . . and go down.

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This place is awesome and where I shot my first buck with a bow. AZ is one of my favorite states to chase deer. If you ever get the chance, do an OTC desert archery hunt in Jan. :)

A MT moose tag probably will never happen for me. I have applied every year since I was 12 with nothing but a lot of refund checks. So, to counter my bad luck in my home state I went to BC for a moose hunt. WOW! If only I could do that every five years, I would never apply here again.

You know when a trip starts with a plane like this, its going to be awesome.

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I hunted in the most spectacular place I have ever been. No roads, no phones and a 3 day hike back to base camp. We ate fresh fish until we couldn't stand it any more and one day before the end I took this bull.

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I was a bow hunter on this trip but while I was helping recover my brothers bull I fell and ripped the sight off my bow. I ended up using my bro's rifle to put this guy on the ground.

Texas is still coming up. My kid is feverishly shooting the crossbow. Here is the first trip we made. We sat in the rain for 3 hours waiting for these turkeys to show up. Finally, just before we left they showed up. My girl made a perfect shot and put this young Rio on the ground.

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Two days later she smacked her first buck! It made me get all misty eyed. :)

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Hopefully, you've all had a more productive scouting season. Elk start in less than 30 days. Good luck everyone.

~MH
 
Looks like everyone has been having a great September. I wish I could say the same. Some how, after months prep work, I've been out once. I hate to think of what I missed by not being able to get out. Here are a few from my only outing.


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On the bright side, I got my youngest her first rifle. Here she is punching paper for the first time.

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Next month is Texas. Hopefully I'll start getting pictures with critters in them rather than just scenery. Hunt Hard!

~MH
 
It's almost Texas time. The crossbow is dialed and the broadheads are hitting perfectly. Shot placement on a pig, turkey and deer are being reviewed daily. I think that once a critter steps out, my girl will be ready and know what to do.

My friend that we are hunting with set out trail cam's and sent us a couple pictures. It looks like we should have a great trip.

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A couple of days after we get home from Texas the Montana youth deer hunt will take place, where we will be heading to the in-laws ranch. My kids plan to chase a couple of bucks that should have came home with us last year. Buck fever! My girls get it bad, real bad. :)

~MD
 
Our whirlwind tour of Texas is complete. It was way hotter than we were prepared for but it was still a lot of fun. This was my girls first trip on a airplane. She has talked about flying for months and was so excited.

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I'm not sure if this is Montana or Wyoming but it was nice to see snow on the mountains and imagine some high country hunting. Once we hit Denver there was a quick plane change then on to Texas.

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Stepping out of the airport in Texas we were met with a summer heat wave. The temp was 89 degrees clear and sunny. This beggar was the only creature in sight.

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When we left Montana it was 56 with a light rain. The AC in the truck was a nice find. We then hit the road for about an hour to find our room and prepare for the next mornings hunt.

~MD
 
Morning Day 1

6:15 AM, cloudy, light South wind and 74 degrees. We are settled in our blind waiting for daylight and the coyotes have started howling. We are pretty excited to see what comes in. We're expecting only deer in the AM but hopefully some turkeys too.

Our first customers were a small group of hens and pullets. The grass is so tall, we see only their heads. Since turkeys are last on the hit list, we just watch. They hung around for a couple of minutes then headed out.

Next, this buck came in. My girl passed on him since we knew from the trail cam pictures there were better.

About 15 minutes later, another buck came in and the adrenaline rush won. When the deer stopped perfectly broadside, she took careful aim and fired. The bolt thumped the deer and we could hear it land on the rocks as the buck scrambled away.

We waited about 10 minutes and then went to find the bolt and look for blood.
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It looked like a great hit and we found blood, but we decided it was best to go back to the blind and wait an hour before tracking. On the way back to the blind, we ran across this giant spider. It's web spanned about 10' and the butt was the size of 2 ping pong balls.
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As we waited, another buck came in to take his turn. We talked about shooting him too but thought we should find the first before taking another.
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So Far Texas has been really really fun.

~MD
 
So we sat and waited. After the last buck left the action stopped. We could hear turkeys talking some but they weren't getting any closer. It was time to stop looking out the little hole in our blind and see if we could find a deer.

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We went to the first drops of blood we found earlier and started tracking the deer. The blood and tracks took us through some cedars to a small opening. Not 40 yards from where he had been shot, we found the buck.

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Since these whitetails bodies are so small, my girl thought she would drag him to the road solo.

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After loading up the buck and our gear, we hurried back to the house. We hung the deer and pulled off the meat so it could be cooled.

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She was a little akward at first but she figured out the knife and cutting out backstraps. It was fun to watch as she figured out how and where cut.

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With the meat in the freezer, it was time for lunch and a quick nap. The plan for the evening hunt is to hunt hogs.

~MD
 
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