# Montana adventure travel & day 1



## buckykm1 (Dec 19, 2011)

My typing skills sucks, so I won't draw this out too much. lol
We left at 3am Oct 16, & had thunder storms most of the way across IL. then heavy fog all the way across Iowa & heavy winds across SD, Finally got to Spearfish, SD. after 17 1/2 hours, I usually do it in about 16 hours, got a Motel, & was back on the road at 4am Monday.
we got to the area that I normally camp, and could see the snow level was down to about 4000' , I knew that we would spend most of our time in a somewhat new area, so I decided to go around to the south side of the mountain range and come up that way and camp closer to where we would be hunting. there was less snow on the south side, so we headed up the two track it was pretty wet but ok, until we got about 1/2 way up, where it got steeper and turned to clay. put the truck into 4 wheel drive drive, that didn't help, we we stuck on a road 15' wide with no way of turning around a 30' trailer, I backed up a little, and told my buddy we need to chain up, so we put them on all 4 tires, tried again, and ran out of power, backed up again, put it in low range, & up the mountain we went, throwing mud every where for the next mile, got to a spot to where I could get turned around, & decided to get the H out of there, so back down we went, then to the car wash to clean things up a little, then headed to my normal camp site, we got there with no issues, it took about 2 hours to totally get camp setup in a lite rain.
to be continued .


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## The Doob (Mar 4, 2007)

Looks good Bucky!!!
Have a great hunt


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## slabstar (Feb 25, 2009)

Elk camp with disco flooring, this should be good!lol 
Get on em!


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## buckykm1 (Dec 19, 2011)

slabstar said:


> Elk camp with disco flooring, this should be good!lol
> Get on em!


Not really disco flooring, I am also a Race fan, I love going to Dirt Track Races, actually all my test runs with the new Elk trailer was to Race Tracks over the summer. 2 trips to Eldora Speedway in New Weston, OH. and 1 to Merritt Speedway by Lake City, MI. so I had to have a checkered Flag floor mat. lol

Kevin


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## kbb3358 (Feb 24, 2005)

Nice setup. Waiting for more on your trip.


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## slowpoke (Jan 30, 2001)

Looks good. Took a lot longer to set up the tent, that has to be a big+


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## buckykm1 (Dec 19, 2011)

Days 2 to 5 were spent scouting & adjusting to the altitude. First thing on day 2 I headed to one of my favorite spots, got there well before daylight, got out of the Truck to hear Wolves howling, sounded like 10 to 12 of them, not what I wanted to hear.
I headed part way up the mountain, and then waited for it to get light, saw about 12 Muleys as it was getting light, which is unusual, I normally don't see many Muleys there, but 2 of them were decent bucks, not big but 130ish.
I walked back in several miles, saw some more Muleys, probably 2 dozen total,
Came around a corner and there is a Bull at about 80 yards feeding under a tree, after watching for about 10 minutes there was actually 4 Bulls, they were all legal shooters, with the biggest one being about 280ish. but it was fun to watch them.
after they moved on I walked in another mile or so.
with the snow we had, the 2 tracks on the mountain were really icy, had chains on most of the time.
days 3 & 4 went back to the same general area, but went in latter in the morning so not to spook anything, but I saw lots of sign and a few more Muleys.
by the end of the day 4 most of the snow was gone.
day 5 I went to another one of my spots and took a 12 mile ATV ride back in to check it out, looked ok, but not as good as my other area. 
a few pictures, but I just took the with my phone so you can't see the bulls very well. there are 2 in the pics.

to be continued. lol


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## buckykm1 (Dec 19, 2011)

Days 6 & 7.
Saturday the 22nd. was opening day, I heading back into a spot well before daylight, past where we had seen the 4 Bulls on Tuesday. where I could watch 2 drawls they like to come up, stayed there for about the first hour of light, then went into spot & stalk mode. saw a couple of Muley's, but that was it, got back to camp about 3ish, that was it for first day of the hunt, 
Sunday I was back in the same general area, well before light, sitting on a point overlooking a drawl. I was there 5 minutes and I heard a Bull bugle way off to the east of me, it is still total black out. in a few minutes I hear him again.
time to try and close the distance, I go close to a 1/2 mile and it's just breaking light, I can see a herd of at-least 30 Elk with 4 nice Bulls and some smaller shooters. but they are still over a 1/2 mile away, I head for them down 1 drawl about 400 yards and back up, make it up and down 2 more deep drawls like that, and it has about kicked my butt, but I can still see them just feeding along, 1 more real deep drawl to get across and I think I will be in my shooting range, I cover the up and down as fast as I can, but when I get back up on top, they are gone, and I have no idea where they went, and they went totally silent. Elk 1 Kevin zero.
then I slowly worked my way up a drawl hoping to push something towards my buddy.
we got back to camp about 4 that day.
to be continued.

Kevin


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## kbb3358 (Feb 24, 2005)

Good story so far Kevin. Keep them coming.


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## buckykm1 (Dec 19, 2011)

Days 7 & 8.
day 7 found me back on the mountain well before daylight again, to where I could watch a logged off hill side for a while at first light. I spotted a herd of 20 plus Elk about 3/4s of a mile north of me, with a few decent Bulls.
Gary was closer to it than I was, so I sent him a text telling him what I saw, and where to head, when he got there he spotted them, but rather than just belly crawling into range, he tried to circle around into range, wrong move, they were gone before he could. those were the only Elk I saw that day, but I did see a couple of Muleys. we got back to camp 3ish that day.
day 8 back in well before light again, close to where I was the day before, just as it was breaking light, I had a herd of 20 or so Elk trot by me in the timber at about 70 yards, I could see a couple were shooters, but between the low light & timber, I just didn't have a decent shot. so I didn't force a bad shot.
on the way out we saw a decent Muley Buck with a doe, about a 140" or so, he seemed to care more about her than us.
then back to camp to do chores get a shower and some Dinner.
the end is getting close, to be continued.


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## buckykm1 (Dec 19, 2011)

Wednesday Day 9, I was up at 5am our time as usual, turned on a little light and the coffee pot, I didn't want to wake Gary up yet, and had a couple of cups of coffee, we had planned on packing up on Thursday when we were done hunting if we didn't get anything that morning, rather than taking things down in the dark Friday morning.
well Gary woke up a while later, and pretty much looked like death warmed over. he had some coffee & a couple of english muffins, and then we head to our spot. we hunted till about 2, and then headed back to camp.
I could tell looking at him he was whipped, I asked him if he had one more day left in him ?, he was pretty much done, we had pushed hard for 9 days, I asked him if he wanted to pack up and head home a day early, and he did. so we packed up and took a extra day to get home.
no Elk coming home with us this trip, but we had a awesome time. and saw well over a 100 Elk.
the new Elk Camp Trailer worked out Great, I made one change to it when I got home, and that was just add another 8' of shelving, to put bread, paper plates and that sort of thing on.

I Still haven't totally settled on a partner for 2017, but am working on it. a couple of people are interested. but I need to figure it out soon.

Kevin


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## SHOOTN4FUN (Sep 1, 2006)

Thanks for sharing and good luck with finding next year's hunting partner


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## bassman00 (Feb 6, 2007)

Glad all went well Kevin.


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## slowpoke (Jan 30, 2001)

Happy u made it back in good health. Thanks on making the posting on your hunt. Enjoyed them a lot. If i was 10 years younger you would.not be looking for a hunting partner. Gllad the trailer worked out so well. Later. Jim.


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## buckykm1 (Dec 19, 2011)

slowpoke said:


> Happy u made it back in good health. Thanks on making the posting on your hunt. Enjoyed them a lot. If i was 10 years younger you would.not be looking for a hunting partner. Gllad the trailer worked out so well. Later. Jim.



Thanks Jim.
I wish that we could do another hunt together too, I have learned the area a lot better since 2012.
maybe when my business slows down this winter I can buzz over and we can go to breakfast one morning and shoot the breeze.

Kevin


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## slowpoke (Jan 30, 2001)

buckykm1 said:


> Thanks Jim.
> I wish that we could do another hunt together too, I have learned the area a lot better since 2012.
> maybe when my business slows down this winter I can buzz over and we can go to breakfast one morning and shoot the breeze.
> 
> Kevin


sounds good but that's a long drive to eat breakfast.


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## The Doob (Mar 4, 2007)

Thanks for sharing - sounds like a great time. I hope to get out to the Bozeman area next year for archery elk season.


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## dlawrence1 (Jan 5, 2014)

Which unit do you hunt? I have been out there a few times and am planning on going back in the near future.


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## buckykm1 (Dec 19, 2011)

dlawrence1 said:


> Which unit do you hunt? I have been out there a few times and am planning on going back in the near future.



I don't mean to be rude, but I have spent thousands of hours studying State statistics, Google Earth, Maps and a lot of foot leather in the units I hunt.
and I am not willing to share that info with someone I don't know.
that is about like asking for someone's favorite fishing spot or where they got that big 10 point.

Sorry.
Kevin


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## dlawrence1 (Jan 5, 2014)

Not really like asking for that at all. The units are monstrous and I was just curious really. I've hunted many of the Western units such as 240, 260, 261 and 270. Good luck next time.


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## kbb3358 (Feb 24, 2005)

Agree with Kevin. With todays technology you can just about find any spot with Google earth. We are going on a moose hunt next fall and I wanted to locate the lake that we are hunting and it took 10 minutes or so to look and find the cabin on the lake in Ont. When asked what unit we hunt in Colorado my answer is always near Boulder. Sorry but that's my opinion.


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