Hello all. The Missouri breaks trip has come to an end. With seventeen hours of driving under our belts getting there and back, plus five days of tough hunting, we're spent. We had high hopes that we'd be bringing back a couple cow elk and some dandy mule deer bucks. In the end, we didn't fill any of our tags, but we had a great experience with family and friends and will plan on returning next year as we always do. We explored country that we hadn't hunted previous to this trip for the last three days of our hunt. Although we came home empty handed in terms of meat for the freezers, we found country that we'll no doubt hunt in the future.
A stark reminder of a tag we will hopefully draw someday... the coveted Montana Breaks Rocky Mountain Bighorn tag. Someday!!!
After some long drives and lots of time spent looking at maps we're finally in position (with plenty of elk spotted) to have a really good chance at scoring on a couple cows tomorrow morning. We're hunting BLM lands here in Montana and armed with our GPS and a BLM map we're scouring the countryside!!! We spoke with a Montana Fish and Game warden this evening who helped us to pinpoint an access that would put us right on top of a pile of elk! We scouted out the area this evening and found over 300 elk spread between five different herds. From on butte this evening we glassed 30 different branch antlered bulls, biggest being in the 340" class... wow what a glassing point! We also found a great mule deer buck that was on a section of private ground we couldn't access, but it was great to see a buck like that living in the area.
The drive took well over nine hours. We had to stop to fill up on supplies and food before reaching our destination. By the time the Tundra was finally parked for the night, it was late and the sun had set hours ago. To our delight, the night was clear, so we set up our cots under the stars and shut our eyes in anticipation for a morning filled with mule deer...and possibly some elk.