One of our favorite things at montanaoutdoor.com is receiving stories from fellow sportsmen about their experiences. Here is one of those stories that makes us smile. This one was sent to us from Doug Glevanik:
My son-in-law Ryan Gibbs and I were lucky to draw “Either Sex” elk licenses (better known as Bull Tags”) in the Missouri River Breaks area that includes the Charles M Russell Wildlife Refuge. Since we had never been in that area, we took a long weekend scouting trip the beginning of October. We identified the places we wanted to hunt and to set up “Elk Camp.” The first day of the season I saw 12 elk including a monster bull around 360 class that eluded me because of a 180 degree wind shift while I was stalking him. The next morning, the first elk I saw was a “nice” bull facing me at 270 yds. I set up in a sitting position using a tripod rest and shot, the bull went down immediately. Ryan was close by and joined me before I reached the elk. You’ve probably heard of “ground shrinkage,” this time there was none, he was bigger than expected. I’ll be 70 next month, so I was elated to harvest such a fine bull. He was only about 1/2 mile form camp but down hill, so it took us most of the day to get him out. The next day Ryan and I watched a large bull (bigger than mine) bed down on the opposite ridge 480 yds away. Ryan decided to stalk him, about two hours later as Ryan closing in on the bedded bull, he stood up in the middle of a juniper thicket at about 50 yds; Ryan could only see his head and antlers, then he was gone. The big bull had apparently rebedded during Ryan’s stalk. Later that day Ryan spotted a good 6×6 bedded down, he was able to stalk to 325 yds, then watched the bull for over an hour, with darkness coming Ryan decided to cow call to get the bull to stand and it worked. Ryan then shot him. The first two pictures are of my bull and the last is Ryan’s. We obviously picked a great place to camp and to hunt since all of the elk sightings mentioned were within a mile and a half of camp.
My son-in-law Ryan Gibbs and I were lucky to draw “Either Sex” elk licenses (better known as Bull Tags”) in the Missouri River Breaks area that includes the Charles M Russell Wildlife Refuge. Since we had never been in that area, we took a long weekend scouting trip the beginning of October. We identified the places we wanted to hunt and to set up “Elk Camp.” The first day of the season I saw 12 elk including a monster bull around 360 class that eluded me because of a 180 degree wind shift while I was stalking him. The next morning, the first elk I saw was a “nice” bull facing me at 270 yds. I set up in a sitting position using a tripod rest and shot, the bull went down immediately. Ryan was close by and joined me before I reached the elk. You’ve probably heard of “ground shrinkage,” this time there was none, he was bigger than expected. I’ll be 70 next month, so I was elated to harvest such a fine bull. He was only about 1/2 mile form camp but down hill, so it took us most of the day to get him out. The next day Ryan and I watched a large bull (bigger than mine) bed down on the opposite ridge 480 yds away. Ryan decided to stalk him, about two hours later as Ryan closing in on the bedded bull, he stood up in the middle of a juniper thicket at about 50 yds; Ryan could only see his head and antlers, then he was gone. The big bull had apparently rebedded during Ryan’s stalk. Later that day Ryan spotted a good 6×6 bedded down, he was able to stalk to 325 yds, then watched the bull for over an hour, with darkness coming Ryan decided to cow call to get the bull to stand and it worked. Ryan then shot him. The first two pictures are of my bull and the last is Ryan’s.
We obviously picked a great place to camp and to hunt since all of the elk sightings mentioned were within a mile and a half of camp.
Thank you for sharing, and congratulations to both of you on some beauties!!
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