Mule Deer Hunt '09

A friend of mine, Rob, and I wanted to go hunting Mule deer on November 11th which was also Veteran’s Day, so we both had the day off. He is new to the area and wanted to see some of the fine deer country that NE Montana has to offer. He had already filled his tag with a nice Mule deer buck a few weeks ago, but wanted to tag along and help me anyway. I picked him up around 7 am, as we thought we wouldn’t have a ton of competition where we were headed. I have hunted an area the last few years that hasn’t been overly pressured by hunters and I have seen some nice bucks in the area as a result during scouting trips. I had packed a big lunch to take with us along with a thermos of strong coffee for the long day ahead of us, and we headed for our hunting spot.

On the drive we passed some areas that are usually overrun with hunters as they are not far from town and the land owners will usually let anyone in that will respect their land. We were passing one of the last private ranches in the area before we would enter public access BLM lands. We slowed at a cattle guard and 200 yards away was a great buck with about 20 does feeding on a hay stack, when we slowed down further all the deer became spooked and ran down to some cover a ½ mile away that had some water and tall Cottonwood trees. We drove up the road a ways and stopped and glassed this buck, as I was stunned to see a buck of this magnitude in this location, as it is known to have great pressure just over the fence from where the buck was on BLM land. I was pretty sure that I knew who the land owners were so we watched the buck a little more to see if he would settle down in a pattern and go back to feeding or lay down. We watched the deer a little more, they seemed to be happy to be feeding in a big area that had two reservoirs with no cover for hunters or predators to sneak up on them. I went to talk to the land owners and they confirmed that that piece of land indeed was theirs and that we were free to hunt it. What great news!! Usually my luck would be that buck was on some ground that was closed to any hunting. The only problem was, like I said, the deer had settled down and were feeding on some land that was completely in accessible without being spotted for 600 yards any direction. I was about to recommend that we skip this buck and head for our intended destination when the deer started to feed for a big coulee that was still on the same ranch. We watched these deer for another half hour until they bedded down and then we took off for the coulee formulating a plan as we went. We left the pickup behind and two dogs immediately started following us!! Dogs are not great companions when you are trying to sneak up on deer. We had to walk back and try to loose the dogs back at the ranch house.

Once we got rid of the dogs we continued on to within about a half mile of the deer and were stuck with the terrain and 20 sets of eyes on the lookout. So, we back tracked a little bit and made a big circle down through the creek bottom and slowly crested a couple small ridges that were between us and the deer. After a mile sneak we were starting to see ears and horns sticking above the next ridge. We were doing so good and had the perfect wind for doing a stock on these deer. Crawling on our knees thru the cactus and sagebrush was the only way for us to close the next 200 yards for me to hopefully get a shot when the buck stood up. After we had gone another 150 yards, one of the does stood up and looked straight at us. I thought we were busted dead in our tracks. I still couldn’t see that buck as he was still bedded down. We laid completely still until the doe decided we were a mirage or something and she fed off down the hill out of our view. After that scare we decided that this was as far as we could go, if I got on my knees I could see that top foot of the buck’s rack, I was thinking that if he stood up I would have a pretty good neck shot or right behind the neck in the shoulder to anchor him down. We laid there for about an hour as different does would get up and feed for a while and then lay back down out of view. As we laid there out in the middle of this flat open field, we could see vehicles going by on the county road. No vehicles ever stopped, but if they had, they would have had a clear view of the story unfolding out on the prairie.

When finally the buck stood up I was turned around on my knees to try to relieve myself!! I got back to my gun as slowly as I could and got a good steady rest, but I could only see the buck’s head and Rob had ranged him at 150 yards. There was no way to take a shot, so we let them settle down again, and tried to hatch another plan to get closer. It was decided that I would crawl ahead another 50 yards into the next coulee and try to get in a better position. Rob, being in a good spotting position, would stay behind and give me hand signals on the buck’s whereabouts. I took off for the next coulee and I could see some does were getting antsy, but they were focused on Rob instead of me. I got to just the underside of the top of the next ridge with the just on the other side, but all I could see were does. I looked back at Rob through my binoculars and he was trying to tell me to hurry up and get on top of the ridge to get a shot at the buck before they took off. I went a liitle higher up the ridge and could finally see the buck was standing up looking back towards Rob. I hurried a few extra yards to the top and the buck was just getting ready to turn and run, when I shot him, he went down and rolled into the bottom of the next coulee. Without Rob along I don’t think I would have been able to harvest this animal, as he was able to guide me in the last few yards, where I wouldn’t have been able to see by myself. That was a great hunt and a great stalk, where I didn’t think I would be hunting that day. We had a short drag to where we could could pick the deer up along a road. We headed for town and ate our lunch and drank our coffee while trying to remove cactus thorns from elbows and knees.

Whitetails from the ground blind

I had decided to pick my son Jack up from school, so that we could make it into the ground blind with about an hour of shooting light to spare. It was an awesome time!! We chatted about what his day was like at school, what all the different bugs were that were crawling around inside and outside of our ground blind and just having a good chat. He did really good for about 30 minutes keeping his wiggles and giggles in check. Sunset this time of year was listed at 4:36 pm, at 4:15we really hadn't seen anything except deer in adjacent fields that we weren't allowed to shoot, so we decided to pack things up.


After I had stowed everything in my backpack, we had taken along some munchies, water and hunting magazines, we stepped out of the blind. As I turned to close up the entrance flap, I saw a Whitetail Doe standing in the exact spot we had just been staring at for the last hour. I told Jack to stay right where he was, I slipped around the ground blind and made a good shot on the doe. Jack was so excited that we had actually seen a deer within shooting limits and had harvested it as well. We walked up to the doe, in order to field dress her & take some necessary pictures. My camera battery was dead by this time, so I really hope the picture I took with my phone camera will turn out OK.


I field dressed the deer, while Jack was asking all the questions, as this was his first deer to be seen dressed out. He did really good right until the very end and then he got really quiet and wouldn't talk to me. He said that he was just really sad about the whole process as he had just seen the deer walking and now her entrails were laying in the field. That's alot for a little boy to try to process in his brain that usually only thinks about sports, Star Wars & the occasional girl. I tried to explain to him that this is how we get our food for the table, and that this was our way of helping Mother Nature balance herself out. Without hunters there would be an over abundance of deer and alot of them would die from starvation or disease if they are not managed in an appropriate way. He seemed to be able to grasp that it was better for this deer to end up on our table than to starve and suffer this winter. Hopefully he will accompany me again this fall, but I will not push the point. I am just glad he went with me this time, we had a blast.

Rattlesnake Hunt

A very interesting pasttime that I have developed over the last few years is hunting Rattlesnakes. I can’t seem to explain it to myself or anyone else (mostly my wife), other than I am intrigued & mortified at the same time by these cold blooded reptiles. The best time I have found to find the Prairie Rattlesnakes (Crotalus Viridis) among other snakes that inhabit this area is in the fall when the temperatures are dropping and the days are getting shorter. I have visited snake dens in the spring, but I just have never seen the numbers of snakes in the spring that I do in the fall. There is one den, or as a herpetologist would say, a Hibernaculum in particular in this area that is host to many different kinds of snakes.



On a warm fall day you will see Garter Snakes, Eastern Racers, Blue Racers, Bull Snakes, Prairie Rattlesnakes and the occasional Hog Nose Snake. This particular den is being hosted by a southerly facing cut bank that has slowly eroded away from thousands of years of spring snow run off & summer rains. The southerly facing slope is ideal, as it will catch the suns warmth and hold the heat much longer.



A couple of friends and myself chose a beautiful fall day in the middle of October to visit this denning site. My friend Andrew has heard me talk of this den, but could never really imagine what it was I was telling him. I had told him from trips past that I would see Bull Snakes that would stretch past 6’ & Prairie Rattlesnakes that would easily go well over 4’ in length. He decided to take the time and go along on this trip, he was not disappointed.



On our drive in to the den I shot the biggest Rattlesnake I have ever seen in this area, as it stretched to well over 5’ long and was 10” in circumference. When we got to the site, we pulled up on top of the cut bank to take in the view of the surrounding area, and were immediately greeted with rattles buzzing at the bottom of our doors. After dispatching these few snakes, we walked to the edge of the cut bank to peer over the edge to see what kind of snakes were out of the den soaking up some sun. We initially saw a few snakes, but as we stood there letting our eyes become accustomed to the sun and surroundings, we would see snakes come out of every little nook and cranny. My friends both packing good snake firearms killed a few from up top. Andrew had on a good pair of snake boots, but Josh & I both just had leather hiking boots on. Josh & Andrew decided to venture down towards the den, taking along a fiberglass pole with a hook that I brought along, while I stayed up top and tried to spot snakes for them.



When they had come back up top they dumped out a 5 gallon bucket they had taken with them. There were 15 snakes in that bucket and none were shorter than 4’ long. As the day was winding down, I kept thinking that I wanted to skin the largest snake that I had shot & try to tan the skin, as I have never attempted this before. As I was skinning the snake, I asked Josh & Andrew to keep an eye out for snakes coming into the denning site from behind us. They had to shoot another 5 snakes in just the time it took us to skin out 3 snakes. We all would have liked to stay longer, but our nerves were frayed from walking around so many snakes.

In this picture Andrew takes a turn skinning a big Rattler, and I stand guard.


I have done a little research since this last trip. The longest Prairie Rattlesnake ever recorded in Montana is 59.64 inches. So I think we found a real Booner on our trip!!