Montana Hunt

[jryoung]

Went to Montana with my buddy R.J. (yes, it was R.J. and J.R. hunting together) he had never hunted elk before and had an opening in his schedule to take advantage of. R.J.’s day job is an outfitter here in CA primarily for salmon in spring, summer and early fall then waterfowl through the winter. He sprinkles in a little hog and turkey hunting as well. The pictures you may recall of my wife holding up large salmon, striped bass and or ling cod are all from the boat R.J. is the captain of. I was glad to not make this trip solo and felt a little extra pressure due to the “role reversal” if only on a casual level as I read the tax code for a living.

So we headed off into elk country.



An hour into it, I think there may have been a moment where he was reconsidering his decision as we climbed.



We saw promising sign



When we got to the top it was past bedtime for the elk so we made coffee.



And relaxed in the sunshine



And took obligatory gun pics.



As the sun reached closer to the horizon we dropped off the hillside and waited like lionesses on the Serengeti…but our prey never showed.



So we walked off the mountainside.



Day two looked more like elk season, but our prey did not show.




R.J. noted he was hoping for some fine table fare, so I said “do you want to shoot a cow”, he said yes, so I called an audible and we moved units.
It looked elky…and with the temp down 30 degrees from the first day, he may have rethought his decision once again.



As we stalked through the thick timber, crossing elk tracks less than 12 hours old he said, “I think we’re in the right spot at the wrong time. Then, seconds later, this happened.



Which led to this.



We headed to his buddies house in Divide and things got really offal.



Our backs were strapped and we ate our hearts content



The final day we headed back to our original location and it looked elky.



We spotted two respectable raghorns (at least for us out of state hunters on a 4 day bender in Montana) at 27,360 inches away (that’s 760 yards for you playing along at home) and while we mocked TV shows that would have started shooting we decided I would fly home with an elk tag.

R.J.’s buddy called asked if we wanted to fill our deer tags. We said yes, dressed in our most rugged, technical, ultralight, high performance, overpriced state of the art camouflage and sat over an alfalfa field.….and I shot my biggest whitetail buck to date. He scored, 0. I think it was a transvestite buck, no antlers identifying it’s sex, but he had hardware between his legs. I felt a little like Crocodile Dundee when he met Gwendolyn at the bar in NYC. It’s okay, he’ll eat fine and that’s what I was after.



We loaded up the truck and called it good.



We finished strong with a light meal in Missoula and met the Great White Goat Hunter.



And now we’re back in CA. I’m doing taxes and R.J. had his clients a limit of ducks before I finished my morning coffee. See you next year Montana
.

[E.J.]

Nice! Thanks for sharing!

[eeven73]

Pretty sure there is something subliminal going on in that last photo.

[Okie Boarder]

Nice...looks like it was a good trip. I'm definitely thinking about an elk hunt in the next few years.

[churchy]

Nice work, JR.

Why are you packing the legs?

You need to make it over to Gardiner, MT (where I was raised). "Elk capitol of the world"...

[jryoung]