After five years of applying in Montana in a limited-entry unit, I finally drew the archery elk tag again! I had taken a good 6-point bull on the same unit in 2018 after nine days of self-guided archery hunting and couldn’t wait to go do it again. A guide from that unit reached out to me, and we talked for a while. I would be lying to say I wasn’t really tempted to book with them as they had 100% shot opportunity on big bulls, but that just wasn’t the way I wanted this hunt experience to be. I told my wife, Deb, the experience I was looking for was to have to struggle for it. I wanted to set up our own camp, sleep under the stars, listen to the coyotes at night, make our own food and coffee, and kill a bull three and a half miles from camp and have a good, hard pack out.
We left on a Friday and started the 24-hour drive from Pennsylvania. We got to the unit we were hunting on Saturday evening and found a nice camp spot on a piece of public land I had marked on onX and wanted to check out.
The first evening, we glassed a private alfalfa field on the edge of public land and found hundreds of elk coming off the public land onto the field. The closest road to hike in from through public land was over four miles to get into the public piece the elk were bedding on. Our game plan was to get back on that public piece before the elk came back from the field they were feeding on at night.
In the morning, we hiked early in the dark and got in three miles. Just as it was getting light, I spotted a big bull heading across the flat we were trying to get through. We hunkered down in the wide open. He was around 600 yards off. We watched him disappear into a coulee, and I told Deb, “Let’s hustle into that coulee and try to head him off.”
We got about 500 yards ahead of him and dropped into the same coulee we had seen him go into. I hoped he would keep coming in to head to the trees behind us or he could pop out on the other side and head to some trees above us.
As soon as we were set up, I peeked through the sage over the edge and could already see him coming straight at us. I dropped back and got ready for the shot, and within a couple minutes, I could see tines coming. I came to full draw and settled my 30-yard pin as he came into view. The arrow hit him perfectly, and we watched him expire in less than 30 seconds. Deb kept saying, “Is this even real?” After we got done celebrating, we walked over to him and he definitely grew in size. We quartered the bull, caped him, and shuttled all the meat half a mile to the closest trees so it could hang and stay cool. Then, we loaded our packs for the first of the three trips it took to get the cape, horns, and meat out. It took us the rest of that day and the next forenoon to get everything packed out for a total of 20 miles of packing.
Getting a good bull the very first morning was not what we had expected, but we were over the moon! We took the meat to Eastern Montana to a butcher we have used in times past and also dropped the cape off at a taxidermy so they could finish skinning the head and freeze everything for the drive home. We had three days of downtime and I still had a buck tag, so back to hunting we went.
We glassed public land pieces for the next two days without turning up any good buck. On the evening of the third day, we found a piece of state land with a nice burn. I started glassing and almost right away turned up a pretty nice buck. The wind was howling and it was raining, which allowed me to make a stalk. Forty-five minutes later, I was in position for the shot. I drew my bow, settled the pin, and made a great shot. He turned and started walking away from me and allowed me to get a second arrow in him. He had no idea what had happened and ran back towards me. When I hit him with the third arrow, he started flipping down the hill and my second tag was filled.
I thanked the good Lord all the way off that mountain as I headed back to the truck to get Deb to help with the pack out. I believe God cares about every aspect of our lives, and I never go on any hunt without asking for His help and guidance. He definitely helped us on this trip. I might mention something next time about being closer to a road when we kill on an elk hunt. In less than a week of hunting, we got exactly what we dreamed about – tent camping, hiking hard, heavy packs, we heard coyotes at night, saw amazing stars, made food on the mountain, and always started the morning out with hot coffee. Even though our bodies were tired at the end of the week, our hearts were so happy.
This was the first time Deb went with me that we stayed in a tent to hunt, and I told her she was my good luck charm. She’s welcome to stay in my tent anytime.
Montana Deer, Montana Elk
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