Sticks and Stones- Breaks and Bones

Last week my daughter Olivia and I wrote chapter 3 of the Martin family's whirlwind 2017 hunting season. As chronicled in other threads, chapters one and two were amazing hunts by their own right but that didn't keep me from having hopeful expectations of what opening week in Montana's Missouri River Breaks country would provide.

Like many other Montana hunters, I had been applying for a special elk permit for fourteen years, without success unless you count the cow tag I burned four points on by mistake. My daughter Olivia was in her second year of the draws. When the permit drawings were completed, I checked my results with anticipation and was pleased to see that I had drawn an either sex rifle permit for the Breaks. When I checked the results for the rest of my family, I was astounded to see that Olivia had drawn the exact same tag as I! Spring progressed and when the June moose/sheep/goat draws came out I was completely amazed to see my wife had drawn a Shiras Moose tag. We went on that hunt at the end of Sept. https://onyourownadventures.com/hun...Failure-is-Just-a-Dress-Rehearsal-for-Success


Our plan was to arrive in the unit a few days before the season to give us time to familiarize ourselves with the lay of the land, legal access points and hopefully lay eyes on some elk before opening morning. Due to last minute work commitments we ended up arriving late on Thur. instead of Wed like I had wanted. Dave Crisp (Elkaholic) generously drove out from Ohio to lend a hand with spotting/packing and hopefully to hunt mule deer at some point in the hunt.

Friday's scouting turned up a herd of elk on a piece of Block Management ground and no elk anywhere else. Given the amount of traffic in the area, I knew that other hunters had to have seen them as well. I was pretty sure that trying to get in on the bulls that we saw in the herd was going to be a fiasco at daylight, but without better knowledge of any other elk, we made the decision to try and be there well before daylight.

Opening day began just like I expected. Multiple other parties were present at the parking areas and walk in points. Long story short, the elk escaped to private land just as legal light arrived and no shots were fired by anyone. Strike one.

We made the decision to head to another spot I had marked as having potential and that promised less pressure for the afternoon hunt. It definitely had less pressure and had potential even though we didn't see any elk or any fresh sign. Three miles in and three miles out, plus the couple mile hike in the morning was a good jaunt for opening day and Olivia was ready to take the next day a bit easier.

Photo credits for the pics on this thread belong to Dave Crisp. Thanks Dave!

This one might require a bit of patience on the part of the reader....

Looking forward to it as I always enjoy your reads.

We decided to make Sunday and easy day and slept in a bit. I found some canned corned beef hash in my food bin and decided to try it. For some unknown reason, I've never eaten corned beef hash before. I didn't know what I was missing! Fried crispy with a couple of over easy eggs.... It was amazing!

After breakfast we headed into town to gas up the truck so we wouldn't have to make a trip later in the week. I was burning more gas than I had expected and didn't want to have to dip into my reserve jugs just yet.

We made a plan to check out a spot several miles away from where the elk had escaped to on opening morning. Our Sunday afternoon plan was to take a fairly short hike, glass as much as we could and if we didn't see anything, get back early for a big hunt on Monday.

We took a pretty easy mile and a half hike into some broken terrain. We sat down for a rest/glassing break and Oivia spotted several mule deer does bedded on the opposite ridge about 300 yards away. She took that opportunity to practice her dry-firing/shot sequence as the deer began to get up and feed.

We were relaxing, glassing, enjoying the sunshine and the scenery when I made the fatal mistake of glassing the farthest broken timber down drainage. Elk! A cow fed through an opening, then another cow, and another cow. Four cows and then another elk, this one definitely a decent sized bull.

The elk were at least a mile and probably closer to 1 1/2 miles away, and unfortunately, further from the truck. Never one to let reasonable obstacles like distance or terrain get in the way of an opportunity to kill a bull I was gung ho to get after the bull. Olivia and Dave didn't need any convincing either and as quickly as we could load our packs and pick out land marks we were in hot pursuit. We had about an hour of daylight to cover the distance and I was fairly certain we could get there in time.

I feel like the power went out in the middle of a good movie! Looking forward to the rest of this one!

The hike to the elk turned out to be more difficult than I had anticipated upon spotting them. Olivia was being a trooper, but I could tell she was struggling with exhaustion and the physicality of the stalk. We were racing the clock and couldn't afford the luxury of stopping to rest so we pushed on.

Since we were walking the bottom of the ravine, the elk had been out of eyesight for half an hour when we finally crested the hill that I had marked as a likely shooting position. Three hundred yards away a cow and calf were the only elk visible. We knew the other elk had to be close by, but a five minute wait only saw the shadows deepen as precious minutes of shooting light slipped away.

It was make or break time and I gambled that the only way to find the bull was to push right into where they had been feeding and hope to spot him before we lost legal light. Down we went as fast as we could and up the other side. As we began to climb yet one more steep ridge Olivia was lagging behind. I could tell that mentally she was letting the pain cause her to lose sight of the prize. We were down to having this all come together or all fall apart in just a few more minutes. When I told her we have to hurry, she said, "I don't think I can go anymore!"

Another gamble that she had more in her tank that she thought she did and I told her to get mad, get determined, shed a few tears and push on. She did all three, not necessarily in that order and was right back on my heels.

I don't think we had gone another hundred yards when all of the sudden the bull was right there. Sixty yards away, he was locked onto Dave who had been looking over another knob and was now twenty yards behind us.

What happened next was what we sometimes refer to as a "goat rodeo". The bull was looking at us, we couldn't move to a better spot. A juniper bush blocked her line of sight if she went down on the bipods. I bent over so she could use my shoulder and pack as a makeshift rest, trying to plug my ears and not get muzzle blasted. Then she couldn't find the bull in the scope and I realized the scope was still on nine power from the dry firing session with the mule deer. I got it turned down and was relieved to see the bull still standing with his attention on Dave.

Before the bull could turn, Olivia pulled the trigger and he staggered, hit hard. He made it about fifty yards and bedded down where she shot him again.

All of the pain, all of the exhaustion, all the frustration evaporated out of her eyes and the tears were tears of excitement and joy as she walked up and got to put her hands on her first bull elk. She might only be fourteen but she earned this bull by sticking it out on a stalk that was difficult for even Dave and I.

Some people put themselves under a lot of pressure when they draw a special elk tag, but at this point, I was completely satisfied with this hunt. I wanted to see Olivia kill her first elk and that was now accomplished. Whether or not I filled my tag or even saw another elk, this was the success I was hoping to achieve.

After pictures which are all courtesy of Dave due to both my camera batteries dying, (Thanks Dave!) we boned the bull and Dave and I shuttled the meat and head down to the ravine and hung the meat we couldn't carry out in a tree. Olivia carried a lot of our extra jackets and gear and Dave and I carried as much meat out as we could that night.

We made it to the truck at 3 a.m. and back to camp at 4:30. We slept until ten and then Dave and I headed back in to pack out the rest of the meat and the head.

Olivia stayed back at camp to sleep and recuperate. She got to go on a deer hunt that afternoon with a friend of ours and his daughter who were camped a couple miles away.

We were both pretty beat down from the pack out and lack of sleep when we got back to the parking area. Olivia's bull was three miles from the truck and while it wasn't extremely difficult terrain, it wasn't like walking on a road either. I lightened my pack of all non-essentials for the second trip and was seriously contemplating not carrying my rifle. We weren't in bear country and the likelihood of seeing another bull seemed pretty slim to me. I mentioned that I was probably not going to carry my gun to Dave and he gave that, "You can't be serious?" look. After telling me I have to take my gun, (Thanks Dave!) I agreed that it would be pretty foolish to drive all this way and go to all this trouble and then not have a gun in elk country during legal hunting hours.

We made it back to the meat and loaded up without incident. Thankfully, Olivia's bull was not very large in body size and we were able to get the rest of the meat and the head in one trip.

On the way into the meat, we found a sandstone cliff where Ed and JK had carved their initials in 1871 and 1919.

Very cool country and congrats!! That sandstone rock carving is pretty awesome as well!

It was around 5 pm when we got our packs loaded and started up the trail. We had made it about 200 yards when I finally got tired of the elk skull hitting me in the back of the head every time I took a step. I told Dave I had to sit down and re-situate my pack.

We were adjusting our packs facing in different directions when we clearly heard a bull bugle in the distance. Dave pointed left, I pointed right, both of us sure the direction we were facing was where the bugle came from.

I wasn't even sure if we had any business chasing another bull in here tonight. We were three miles to the truck with half an elk to pack, no game bags, and we were already worn out. I asked Dave what he thought we should do.

His reply was, "I think we should go kill that bull!"

I figured what could it hurt to climb up on top of the ridge and see if we could see anything, so I grabbed my rifle, binos, and rangefinder and we climbed the ridge. Three quarters of a mile further from the truck were five cows and a spike. My mild disappointment and somewhat relief that it was only a spike was short lived when we heard a bull bugle to the left of the feeding cows and another bull answer from the right . Two more bulls for sure. Time to go see what is making the noise!

We ran back to our packs, pulled the meat and head out and headed toward the sound of the bugles. All the way down the trail, I was wrestling with the question of whether this was the responsible thing to do or whether we were being idiots. I told Dave that I probably wasn't going to shoot an average bull under these circumstances.

When we popped out on top of the hill at 400 yards from where we had last seen the cows, the first elk I saw was definitely a bull and looked to be a good one at that. A quick look through my binoculars confirmed six long points, and a good spread. At first glance I was pretty sure I wanted to shoot this bull. I handed Dave my binoculars and asked him if the bull was worth shooting. He gave me a strange look and said, "Well, Yeah!"

The wind was blowing pretty strongly but into our faces and the bull had no clue we were there. I wasn't comfortable shooting that far and it looked like we could get closer by climbing the next knob. We made it to the top and were seen by a cow and calf that were about 150 yards in front of us. The bull was feeding broadside at 336 yards so I wasted no time getting comfortable across my pack and making the shot. As soon as I shot he jumped and ran toward the junipers. I knew I had hit him. He paused just before disappearing and I shot once more trying to get one down into his back but missed. He took a few steps, staggered and tipped over. I was pretty sure he was down, but couldn't be certain he didn't go down a side coulee.

Time to catch my breath and process what just took place! I think I might have just killed my biggest bull!

As Dave and I lay there and let what happened sink in one bugle after another started out in front of us as unseen bulls and cows came out of folds in the terrain. When it was said and done, six more bulls and about 20 cows were milling around within 300 yards of us. Two of the bulls were nice 6 points in the 300" class and the others were smaller. After about 15 minutes we decided it was time to go see what happened with the bull I shot and we let them see us. They filed up and out of the drainage, alert and moving away, but not in a panic.

When we made it up to where the bull had disappeared we found him right where we thought he had tipped over. I'm not usually one who is at a loss for words, but I didn't know what to say when I walked up to him.

I was in a bit of a shock over what had transpired in the last 30 minutes and how much work we were going to have to do and how big this bull was. It was hard to find words, but it wasn't hard to smile.

The body size on this bull was not small.

We quartered the bull and hung the shoulders, loins, and hindquarters in a nearby tree. I piled juniper branches on top to keep the magpies off until we could get in the next day. We then headed back down to pick up the meat from Olivia's bull and packed it out. We got back to the truck at 1 a.m. and in camp at 2.

Back up again at 8:30 and we headed a few miles up the road to where Travis (Theat) and a few other friends were camped. We were hoping to recruit some more help that day and get my bull out in one trip. The guys were up for packing meat, unfortunately for Dave and I they were heading out to pack in the cow that Travis had shot the day before. It was going to just be Dave, Olivia and I for one more day.

Day three of meat packing, here we come! We made it back into camp around 9pm. Even though we were tired, we had enough energy to eat some fresh tenderloin for dinner.

After a full belly of tenderloin and a good night of sleep we were up early again. Travis, Mike and Reuben were going to help get out the last of the meat. Olivia headed home with Travis's girlfriend Jenny and Reuben's daughter Lindsey.

Because of the extra help I carried my camera today.

More last day pack out pics.

undercut cliff