PlusFive
New member
Hello, I apologize if this gets a little long winded. I am cutting my teeth on my first season of western hunting here around the Bozeman M.T. area. Due to school and work I only get a day or two a week to hunt, but these are my experiences and thoughts after the first few weeks of season. I hope that those who are thinking about coming out west for the first time will read this and hear advice from one greenhorn to another. So here it begins.
Hunting area:
Almost all of the hunting I have done thus far was in unit 301. For starters I have come to know this unit as a crowded one. Not necessarily with hunters, but with hikers, dog walkers, and Mt bikers. Everyone I have met has been very nice and asked how the hunting has been and some have even told me where they have seen game in the past. I appreciated this. Elk and deer sign is not too difficult to find. I have found some wallows, rubs, and great trails, but have only observed one cow elk scooting across a ridge a few hundred yards away, other than that I have heard a few bugles here and there, but never close enough to them to get the heart really going.
Scouting and Big Country:
In my scouting I marked off a few areas that show promise for elk, but one has fell almost off the list due to the amount of people using the trails and resources there. Even though there is good elk sign, the sign is only updated at night. The daily commotion drives them onto private land. The other spots have been harder to get to as I have learned it is easy to scout out paths that look okay on google earth and end up being back breaking hikes and climbs over dead falls and steep hills. So, makes sure to plan multiple ways into a spot in case one is not do-able safely. Also remember this is big country not the 50 or 100 acre whitetail farm of the mid-west, there are many places animals can hide.
Advice I missed:
The next piece of advice I underrated was glass. Invest in a good pair of binoculars. I have an okay spotting scope and would much rather have binos. I have had issues picking out deer with the scope and then being able to find exactly where they were on the hillside. This cost me a stalk on a group of mule deer one day. I would have rather invested in a good pair of binoculars that allows me to pick out game and where the game is on the mtn.
The elk rut thus far:
I have heard big things about the elk rut. As of right now the rut has had no impact on my hunting. I have not heard many bugles and have not seen any rutting activity on public land, private land is a different story. Now that we have snow I am hoping for a change in luck. This Sunday I am heading about hour into the mtn range to try and see if my luck changes higher, but I am not too optimistic. The conclusion here is that the elk rut, like the whitetail rut, is a time of potentially high elk activity, but not everywhere and every time during the rut. The elk rut makes some good spots better, others stay the same, and poor spots are... still poor spots.
What I have had success at:
WHITETAILS! The whitetail deer here are everywhere. I have got into the whitetails almost every time I have hunted and could have filled by tag on small bucks and does multiple times. I think this area is extremely underrated for whitetail. So, get a deer tag and you should have no problem getting a whitetail to bring at least some good venison home. There are big bucks here as well, but they are still pretty nocturnal as they are at home in the midwest.
I am hoping to post my thoughts every so often throughout the season. Most posting will be of mistakes as I make a lot of them while learning haha. However, I will also try to post some sort of success when it comes about.
Hunting area:
Almost all of the hunting I have done thus far was in unit 301. For starters I have come to know this unit as a crowded one. Not necessarily with hunters, but with hikers, dog walkers, and Mt bikers. Everyone I have met has been very nice and asked how the hunting has been and some have even told me where they have seen game in the past. I appreciated this. Elk and deer sign is not too difficult to find. I have found some wallows, rubs, and great trails, but have only observed one cow elk scooting across a ridge a few hundred yards away, other than that I have heard a few bugles here and there, but never close enough to them to get the heart really going.
Scouting and Big Country:
In my scouting I marked off a few areas that show promise for elk, but one has fell almost off the list due to the amount of people using the trails and resources there. Even though there is good elk sign, the sign is only updated at night. The daily commotion drives them onto private land. The other spots have been harder to get to as I have learned it is easy to scout out paths that look okay on google earth and end up being back breaking hikes and climbs over dead falls and steep hills. So, makes sure to plan multiple ways into a spot in case one is not do-able safely. Also remember this is big country not the 50 or 100 acre whitetail farm of the mid-west, there are many places animals can hide.
Advice I missed:
The next piece of advice I underrated was glass. Invest in a good pair of binoculars. I have an okay spotting scope and would much rather have binos. I have had issues picking out deer with the scope and then being able to find exactly where they were on the hillside. This cost me a stalk on a group of mule deer one day. I would have rather invested in a good pair of binoculars that allows me to pick out game and where the game is on the mtn.
The elk rut thus far:
I have heard big things about the elk rut. As of right now the rut has had no impact on my hunting. I have not heard many bugles and have not seen any rutting activity on public land, private land is a different story. Now that we have snow I am hoping for a change in luck. This Sunday I am heading about hour into the mtn range to try and see if my luck changes higher, but I am not too optimistic. The conclusion here is that the elk rut, like the whitetail rut, is a time of potentially high elk activity, but not everywhere and every time during the rut. The elk rut makes some good spots better, others stay the same, and poor spots are... still poor spots.
What I have had success at:
WHITETAILS! The whitetail deer here are everywhere. I have got into the whitetails almost every time I have hunted and could have filled by tag on small bucks and does multiple times. I think this area is extremely underrated for whitetail. So, get a deer tag and you should have no problem getting a whitetail to bring at least some good venison home. There are big bucks here as well, but they are still pretty nocturnal as they are at home in the midwest.
I am hoping to post my thoughts every so often throughout the season. Most posting will be of mistakes as I make a lot of them while learning haha. However, I will also try to post some sort of success when it comes about.
