Montana Archery Deer Hunt
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| Hunt Introduction This hunt takes place in southeast Montana, near the Wyoming border. We are hunting with outfitter Tracy Weyer on an 18,000 acre private ranch in the Little Missouri River bottom. There are lots of Whitetail on the ranch, and good numbers of Mule Deer as well. Our Archery tags are good for either species. There is also an abundance of Pronghorn Antelope and Merriam Turkeys on the ranch. For Whitetail we will be hunting the bottoms in the mornings and the Alfalfa fields in the evenings, from treestands and ground blinds. The Alfalfa fields are THE ticket for deer in this area. The evening before the hunt started, we saw probably close to 200 Whitetails while scouting. This area has some very good bucks, probably a few of which will still be in velvet right now. One of the neat things about hunting this time period is that the bucks are still in their summer routines and somewhat predictable in their patterns. Accompanying me on this hunt is my good friend Justin Trail, and his uncle Larry Davis, both from Texas. The Live Hunt will be covering my hunts mostly (since I'm the one with the digital camera!) but I will also be writing about their hunts as well. Saturday A.M.  Dawn breaks on Saturday morning This morning I hunted from a 15 ft. ladder stand overlooking an unbelievable trail in the river bottom. This bottom is about 1 1/2 miles from a very large Alfalfa field, and we were expecting any action to take place in the early morning as deer leave the Alfalfa and head to cover. About 6:45 a.m. I saw a group of 5 bucks appear at the rim that leads into the bottom. Problem was, they were about 75 yards away, headed towards a different trail. They jumped the fence and bailed off the rim into the bottom. I got a good look at them through my binoculars. There were two small 8-points, a nice 8-point in the 125" range, a nice 10-point in velvet in the 135" range, and beautiful 10-point probably in the high 140" range. He was probably 20-22" wide, had real long main beams, long brow tines and lots of symmetry. I saw the trail they used heading into the bottom, and so after lunch we're going to set up my Double Bull ground blind watching the trail to hunt it tomorrow morning.  The trail I watched this morning  Where I saw the group of good bucks Larry saw a lot of deer but didn't have a shot at a good Whitetail buck. Justin, who is hunting Mule Deer, saw a number of bucks but no mature bucks.  A lonely Pronghorn buck we saw Saturday P.M. This evening I sat in a Double Bull T5 blind out in the middle of a very large Alfalfa field. I was extremely skeptical about how the deer would react to the blind out there, but Tracy assured me that he had been watching them for several evenings and they weren't paying the blind any mind.  My blind set-up this evening  The field starts filling up with deer I got settled into my blind at about 3:30 p.m. and within 15 minutes I had deer start filtering into the field. There was an intermittent stream of deer that filtered into the field throughout the evening, and they were frequently within 10-50 yards of the blind. My biggest problem was that I had 30-40 deer all around the blind and I had a hard time moving inside, looking for bucks, for fear some deer would see my movement. That did happen a few times, but not enough to completely spook them. They just trotted to another area of the field and continued to eat.   A nice 8-point that came out early  Another nice 8-point  10 Merriam Turkey Toms There was a really nice, massive 8-point that came out around 4:00 p.m. but never came close enough for a shot. At about 7:00 p.m. a younger 8-point in the 115-120" range came out. He'll be a super buck next year. He fed at about 50 yards from my blind until dark. Also about 7:00 p.m. a 9-point with almost white horns came out, but he was several hundred yards away. Also making an appearance during the evening were Merriam Turkeys and Pronghorn Antelope. The turkeys came within 15 feet of my blind, paying it no attention at all. A decent Pronghorn buck came in chasing a doe past my blind.   They came very close to my blind About 7:45 p.m. a nice, tall 8-point made an appearance a few hundred yards away, but moving steadily in my direction. As he came closer I was looking at him through my binoculars and could tell that he was a very nice buck, and I determined to take him if he got close enough. He steadily worked his way in my direction feeding, until he was at about 30 yards. I wanted him to be a little closer, so I waited. He got to 25 yards and I couldn't wait any longer. He was perfectly broadside, and when he put his left leg forward, I drew, aimed a little high with my 20 yard pin, and released. The arrow hit him low and tight behind the shoulder, right where the heart should be. On impact, he ran about 15 yards and then stopped, looking around. He trotted off a little further and started wobbling a bit. He made it out to about 100 yards and then started wobbling a lot, then he fell and lay still. That was the first deer I've shot with my bow that didn't do an all-out death run upon arrow impact. It was almost like he didn't know what had happened. Upon field-dressing we discovered that my broadhead went right through the heart. It was a complete pass-through. I shot him with a Simmons LandShark 160 grain 2-blade broadhead, which flies really great with my set-up. It wasn't necessary to follow the blood trail since I saw where he fell, but there was quite a bit of blood on the ground within 20 yards or so of where he fell, so I am very happy with the performance of the broadhead.  My buck, shortly before I shot him  My buck, shortly after he went down My buck has a 16 1/2" spread and is a beautiful 8-point with good mass. We aged him at 4 1/2 years old. He would gross score probably about 130" P&Y.  Photo taken the next morning  Another photo taken the next morning Well, my hunt is over, but Justin and Larry still are hunting, so tune in over the next several days as we follow their hunts as well!
Joshua Flournoy owns and manages the Livehunts.com web site. He also arranges exciting hunts through his business Longleaf Hunting Adventures. Joshua resides in east Texas with his wife and four children. |
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