in my 5 years of hunting on the north side of Fort Peck i have never run across so many bull elk..............course the only elk tags we. a friend and my father in law had the elk tags) had were two cow tags and we couldnt find any of those. had we had a bull tag we would have been set.......dont know howmany times we sat and watched a definate shooter lazily eat within 300 yards of us. no big mulies either but we looked over well over a 100 different does and a couple dozen small 4 point and under bucks...................
anyways all the way around the lake there are ridges running down to the water, the Pines Recreation area where my father-in-law has his cabin is on fifth ridge, the first morning found us out on sixth ridge hunting. we saw a heck of a bull that had 2 cows with him bout a half mile off down in the coulee between 5th and 6th ridge, so i hauled my friend who had a cow tag with me as we tried to head them off, this is her first time hunting elk.
so we think we get ahead of them about a mile out and cut south twords the lake to try and intersept them, i stopped her at a spot and took off walking farther south about 1/4 mile farther down and waved for her to start heading back to the road figuing if the elk were farther below here than i figured they were i might scare them up her way. well we never found the elk again but somewhere down in there in the timber i must have gotten turned around. i had lost sight of my friend but that didnt worry me given the terrain cause i sent her in the right direction to intersect the road. anyways most of the roads going through this country are lil two rut goat trail kinda roads which is what the road down sixth ridge is. when i get to the top of the ridge, out of the timber and find a hard packed more or less 2 lane dirt road im a bit dumb struck...........than it dawns on me, im on the Pines road...........AWH S#!%!!!..........i turn around and sure enough on the other ridge bout 2 and a half miles away are our 2 trucks. so i shrug my shoulders and head down the road to where the road we took that morning is, bout 3 miles down the road from where i came out. well i get about a half mile into the walk and some guys who were out glassing for deer happened to drive byand ask if i needed help, i gave them a quick run down of the situation and asked if they had a cell phone, sure enough they did and i gave my wife a call who was sitting in one of the trucks and told her what happend and if she would meet me somewhere along the road. she said sure and she was off..........the two guys in the truck asked which direction i was headed, i said to the road just above the cow camp..........after some discussion we decided we were talking about the same place......they said they werent seeing much and would i like a ride to the start of the road.........i said sure and hopped in figuring saving myself a extra 3 mile walk at this point was a good thing........after a short talk turns out the one guy has a cabin a lil ways from my father in laws. so they drop me off 3 miles down the road and i start following one of the better goat trails into the coulee between the two ridges.........course the wife got distracted by some does and i had walked about half way in by the time she got to me...........
all in all it was a good weekend.......alot of walking, alot of driving...........alot of critters seen but none shot...........my knee held up pretty well.....my leg muscles were screaming more than my knees which i took as a good thing :grin:
here are some pics of the areas we were hunting.......... no pictures of critters cause we were to busy glassing for something to shoot and most were two far away for my lil digital anyways..........going to have to bring the big one with the telephoto from the shop one of these weekends......
course had 2 days of hunting more or less in t shirts and woke up this morning to this
gotta love Montana
anyways all the way around the lake there are ridges running down to the water, the Pines Recreation area where my father-in-law has his cabin is on fifth ridge, the first morning found us out on sixth ridge hunting. we saw a heck of a bull that had 2 cows with him bout a half mile off down in the coulee between 5th and 6th ridge, so i hauled my friend who had a cow tag with me as we tried to head them off, this is her first time hunting elk.
so we think we get ahead of them about a mile out and cut south twords the lake to try and intersept them, i stopped her at a spot and took off walking farther south about 1/4 mile farther down and waved for her to start heading back to the road figuing if the elk were farther below here than i figured they were i might scare them up her way. well we never found the elk again but somewhere down in there in the timber i must have gotten turned around. i had lost sight of my friend but that didnt worry me given the terrain cause i sent her in the right direction to intersect the road. anyways most of the roads going through this country are lil two rut goat trail kinda roads which is what the road down sixth ridge is. when i get to the top of the ridge, out of the timber and find a hard packed more or less 2 lane dirt road im a bit dumb struck...........than it dawns on me, im on the Pines road...........AWH S#!%!!!..........i turn around and sure enough on the other ridge bout 2 and a half miles away are our 2 trucks. so i shrug my shoulders and head down the road to where the road we took that morning is, bout 3 miles down the road from where i came out. well i get about a half mile into the walk and some guys who were out glassing for deer happened to drive byand ask if i needed help, i gave them a quick run down of the situation and asked if they had a cell phone, sure enough they did and i gave my wife a call who was sitting in one of the trucks and told her what happend and if she would meet me somewhere along the road. she said sure and she was off..........the two guys in the truck asked which direction i was headed, i said to the road just above the cow camp..........after some discussion we decided we were talking about the same place......they said they werent seeing much and would i like a ride to the start of the road.........i said sure and hopped in figuring saving myself a extra 3 mile walk at this point was a good thing........after a short talk turns out the one guy has a cabin a lil ways from my father in laws. so they drop me off 3 miles down the road and i start following one of the better goat trails into the coulee between the two ridges.........course the wife got distracted by some does and i had walked about half way in by the time she got to me...........
all in all it was a good weekend.......alot of walking, alot of driving...........alot of critters seen but none shot...........my knee held up pretty well.....my leg muscles were screaming more than my knees which i took as a good thing :grin:
here are some pics of the areas we were hunting.......... no pictures of critters cause we were to busy glassing for something to shoot and most were two far away for my lil digital anyways..........going to have to bring the big one with the telephoto from the shop one of these weekends......
course had 2 days of hunting more or less in t shirts and woke up this morning to this
gotta love Montana
