| Camouflaged, Still and In Plain Sight By Rocky Ferraro This morning was a nippy September morning in Northern Montana. As I rose I could smell the coffee, eggs and ham cooking. I dressed and splashed some cool water on my face, man I could get used to this! All there was to worry about was to hunt and that was no worry at all. Today I was going out with Len’s son Zack. Zack was born and raised in Libby and has done quite a bit of hunting throughout his life. You could say he was raised in the Cabinet Mountains. He is a great guide and has plenty of energy that never runs out. He’s like the energizer rabbit. Zack brought me to one of the places that we had been earlier in the week. Earlier in the week there were plenty of elk sign in the wallows at this location but we had not seen an elk here. That day we had heard a bull call from this area and this was an area that in years gone past had produced many great bulls. Today was a new day and we were ready to hunt early this morning. As we climbed to our destination we could hear a couple of bulls bugling. I could feel the electricity in the air. As some of you know when these bulls are rutting there is quite a lot of excitement among the herd. The herd bull gets challenged by both satellite bulls that hang out with the herd and sometimes from rouge bulls that want to come into a herd and take the cows. It is a common everyday struggle for these elk. As we came over the ridge we could hear the bugling back and fourth from these bulls. We saw a four by four bull well within rifle range across a small canyon. He was hanging out with a cow also across the ridge. We also could hear cows in the forested canyon below us and at least 2 bulls in the wallows. At that point Zack saw the antlers of the herd bull in the wallows. We set up with me in the front and Zack about ten yards behind me calling. This was a big thrill as Zack was calling both the herd bull, a satellite bull and a few cows were all involved in a conversation. With my arrow knocked and at the ready I waited for a bull to come charging in. To my surprise what came in was a calf. A cute little thing, it came in calling and gangly walking over the terrain as if it were walking down the sidewalk on a stroll. I stayed perfectly still so as not to alarm the rest of the herd. This calf ended up coming to within about 2 yards of me. I could have reached out and touched it. It never smelled me or even new I was there. After what seemed an eternity the calf walked off on its way. Eventually the bulls quieted down and we decided to put a stalk on them but try as we might we encountered swirling winds and the bulls moved out. We later saw some sign of the bulls but we did not hear them again the rest of the day. On our way out from another stalk we busted two cows that were walking across a ridge. They were gone in a flash and we knew it was time for us to also head out. |
| Montana Elk Archery Hunt |
| Almost Busted |
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