Elk Hunting Advice

I've been visiting a Cabela's talk forum, and this is the time of year that many hunters begin dreaming about their trip to Montana. I've tried to offer some advice. I don't pretend to be an expert. I am just a guy who moved to Montana 17 years ago and worked very hard at knowing the lay of the land--including the elk.

My advice on the forum included some ethics (don't shoot at extreme distances, etc), which offended some forum participants. Sorry they were offended. But I'm fed up with the "kill an elk at all costs" mania that has infected the sport and resulted in a lot of wounded elk, poor relations with landowners, and even altercations with other hunters. I spent some time living in Germany, and learned a nice distinction between "hunting" and "shooting" wild animals. Hunting is more than shooting, and involves the ability to read sign, track, get close, etc. I've seen guys dust antelope at unbelievable distances shooting off the hood of their truck. Great shots. Lousy hunters.

Anyway, one hunter asked about a "do it yourself" hunt for him and his son. I stick pretty close to the Butte area of SW Montana, where I live. The Beaverhead-Deer Lodge National Forest has a LOT of elk. So many that FWP has made it "open season" on cows after the first week in most of the districts in the 300 region of SW Montana. I.e., you can shoot a cow on your regular elk tag after the first week of season.

BDL Forest has good public access. If you want to pack in (horses or backpack), there are plenty of roadless and wilderness areas too. Rifle season is 5-weeks long: from late October to end of November. Generally, early in the season, you'll find elk spread out pretty much everywhere. After the shooting begins, most elk will move up high and away from roads: in my area that means above 7,000 feet and 1 - 2 miles from the road. In the latter part of season, if we get the usual large snowfall, elk move back down and to winter range. The bulls usually stay in the high country until their bellies start dragging in the snow (two feet deep).

Generally, there are two methods of hunting: (1) ambush them in the parks (i.e. big open meadows) at first light; and (2) stalk them where they bed in the timber. The first method requires that you hike in the dark to reach the park. Then either sit tight in a place where you can see well or move VERY slowly around the edges, peeking out here and there. By 9 am, it's unlikely elk will be out in the open (at least after the first few days of season). The second method requires that you dress QUIETLY (all wool or fleece--including hat & backpack) and move VERY SLOWLY. Our elk usually bed on the north-facing benches at 7,000 - 9,000 feet, often in the whitebark pines or in dense stands of smaller stuff. Keep your nose into the wind. Usually, you can smell elk 200 yards or so away before you get to them. Snow conditions can make it impossible to hunt quietly enough, but when things are right it's exciting to walk up on a bedded bull at 30 yards.

Knowing the area you are hunting in is a huge advantage. If possible, visit Montana during the summer or early fall (when the fishing and backpacking are great!) and scout your area. I hunt where I hunt because it's close to home, but anywhere in the upper Beaverhead, Big Hole, or Ruby valleys will be good.

As for where to stay, if you have a nice camper-trailer then use it. You can just park at the end of a Forest road (there's usually a turn around area near the gate) etc. Or you can stay at a local motel and have a warm bed & hot shower. I've got a buddy who likes to put in a horse camp, but to tell the truth I prefer simply hunting from home. That way, I'm not tied to one area and can move around as conditions dictate. Also, you don't want to hunt an area hard for days on end: the elk will simply move over to the next valley (3 or 4 miles away).

Don't worry too much about griz unless you are hunting near Yellowstone or Glacier Natl Parks. Outside of these areas, grizz are scarce. If you are worried, carry pepper spray and know how to use it. For many reasons, it can be a better choice than a bullet. Ask the hunter who watched his buddy get munched after said buddy glanced a 7mm mag bullet off the side of a surprised bear's skull. If you end up shooting or killing a grizz, it will ruin your whole trip: there'll be lots of explaining to do to FWP and to the US Fish & Wildlife Service. The paperwork will make you wish that the bear had got you first.

Check out some of my posts from hunting season (Oct-Nov-Dec) here on the EcoRover blog.

Hunting together is a priceless gift to your children. And hopefully it will be something the two of you do together for many years to come.

Good luck to you!

The Moulton Journal: new snow, frosty day

Well, it's not much, but we did get about one inch of new snow in a lazy little front that moved through overnight. But on top of Paul's good grooming job last weekend, even an inch is sweet.

Skied alone this morning, although RTD is back home. She's on antibiotics, gut soothing meds, and some special food for dogs in "GI distress." Vet suggested she rest a day or two, though RTD did not agree with the suggestion.

Though it was cold this morning -- about 0 deg F -- the Moulton Road was slick with that new snow over the packed snow & ice. Rick Rossi drove up just ahead of me, and we both paused near the parking lot to watch the moose calf. I haven't seen the mother moose for some weeks, and suspect that she drove the calf off to be on its own and she is in some lower, better habitat. The calf seems a little forlorn, and not at all bothered by being watched and photographed from two hundred feet away. Unlike many moose, which are uncomfortable at being watched until they find ridiculous security by hiding their head in some willows (even though the large body is plainly visible).

Too cold for much speed this morning. Should have had green wax, but the extra blue that was already on just had to do. With a little fresh snow and new, warm choppers & liners, life was good even at a slow pace. And it was nice to have the extra grip for climbing Buzzy.

Out from Buzzy, around Yankee Boy, and down Big Nipper/Widow Maker. The bottom of this latter run is in a hole. It is very sheltered from wind, but the cold air settles in and it can be 10 deg F colder than the rest of the hill. I paused to drink some Gatorade and study the tendrils of frost growing from my wool sweater as perspiration meets frigid air.

Crosscountry skiers fall in love with the physics of snow: the way it grabs and slows a ski as the temperature approaches 0 deg F; the way snow friction decreases to a minimum at about 28 deg F; and even the way snow at 32 deg F, in contact with warmer air, it sticks and clings horribly to everything but the most dreaded klister. I like the feel of frost on my beard and -- when it's very cold, say -20 deg F or so -- the way a thin layer of ice coats your eyes especially on the downhill runs.

On the way out, I stopped to admire the original little cabin that was part of The Moulton Dairy. Paul Sawyer owned and used it until recently, when it passed to the hands of a local physician. Sure hope some restoration is planned. It would be a shame to lose this historical monument.

And, another pic of the Pintler Wilderness, a view I never tire of. From East & West Goat Peaks on the far left to Mt Haggin on the right, as I view the Pintler peaks they conjure memories of backpacking trips past and hopes of new ones to come.

The Moulton Journal: slick roads & getting stuck

It felt odd to ski alone this morning. RTD is at the vet--hopefully just for a day or two while they make sure she has no bowel obstruction or internal infection. Not holding down food and a high white bloodcell count are a worry. She's been on an IV and gets to try real food this afternoon.

On Moulton Road I came across a middle-aged guy whose mid-size Chevy was stuck in a snowbank. He was running all season radials on the front wheel drive car, and it looked as though he had gone into a downhill turn a bit fast and lost it.

I pulled the chain out, locked in the hubs for 4WD, gave a couple of jerks and had him free. It was a little tough pulling him uphill. But I've had a car or two slide into my vehicle when pulling them downhill to get free, and I'd like that not to happen anymore.

I think this guy lives up The Moulton, but why anyone would live up there without 4WD or AWD is beyond me. It's a snowy rural road, narrow with lots of turns, and it can be very snowpacked and icy. Naturally, it's not a high priority for the county gravel truck. You can "sort of" get by with a regular car, but it requires caution and some days when you just stay home.

There are generally two forms of being stuck. In the one, you just need to step out and engage the hubs, or maybe take a few swipes with a shovel, or maybe someone comes by with a chain. In the other, you are really stuck: the mud & water are coming in through the doors, or the frame is high-centered on a rock, or you tried to punch your way through a snowdrift and the bottom fell out. Either way, be prepared: this is Montana.

There are generally two driver problems that lead to getting stuck. With the one, you have inadequate tires and/or are driving a 2WD rig when you need 4WD/AWD. I've come to be a great fan of studded winter tires on my Toy p.up. They are wonderful on ice or snowpack, and have saved messing around with chains a few times. Yes, if you drive the backcountry, carry chains--even with 4WD. With the other problem, it's plain old driver error: taking turns too fast, driving too close to the edge of the road and getting sucked into the deep snow, misjudging the clearance of your vehicle.

Luckily, Montanans above all people in the world are very friendly & helpful when it comes to getting fellow drivers unstuck. And most are prepared, with a tow chain or strap, a shovel, a heavy duty jack, and oftentimes a winch or (at least) a come-along. Thank you to all the fellow drivers who have helped me out!

Back to skiing, I headed out along Big Flat again today and made a nice loop of it. We sorely need more snow. The loggers seem to be finished at The Moulton, so once (if?) we get snow it'll cover up the bare road and let us ski from the parking lot.

The Moulton Journal: a day with a view

Saturday morning dawned cool, crisp, and clear. The warmer temps along with the lack of new snow have made a lot of the Moulton trails a little icy. Saturday morning it was a below zero at dawn, and early on I thought I'd pass on skiing. Given the gorgeous clear sky, though, it was a good morning for a ski out to "Big Flat" (aka Moonlight Flat)--a long open park along a southwest flat-topped finger ridge.

RTD is ill--not holding food down. She is an inveterate garbage picker--the one bad trait we've never been able to break her of. This morning (Monday) I brought her to the vet, but Saturday she was still chipper and took a moment to bask in the sun at the bottom of a Sluice Box run.

Below Sluice Box, Neversweat runs through a piece of private land. It was logged about ten years ago, and has cropped up into a nice growth of young lodgepole pines. Whether from fire or logging, lodgepole forests seem to regrow quickly. You can see lots of 2 to 5 foot tall trees.

Also in this area, on the Forest Service land along Sluice Box west of the clear cut/private land, is a "bearing tree"--a tree used to mark a survey corner.

Neversweat and Sluice Box run more or less parallel to Big Flat, down in the woods on the east side. Up on Big Flat, the views were gorgeous though not quite what I hoped they would be. The night was calm and cold, and so the wood smoke and other pollution was trapped in a broad haze over Butte's flats/upper Silver Bow Creek valley (sometimes called Summit Valley). In the pic below, I stitched together the view from east toward the East Ridge & Yankee Doodle tailings ponds to south toward the Highland Mountains.

And in the pics below is the view from west toward the Pintler Wilderness and northwest toward the Deer Lodge Valley and Mt Powell. Note how much clearer the air is in that direction.

The Moulton Journal: a double day

Well, gee. I was on the snow early for a quick Yankee Boy/Big Nipper run so I could be waiting in the parking lot by 9:30 am. This morning was PTC ski day--fellowship time for faculty and grad candidates in my dept. But only Lori (my grad candidate who is working on a web-based hospital emergency room rape evidence certification course) showed up. She is an accomplished skier, so we did the Yankee/Nipper run with a Sluice Box chaser.
[photo above: Lori zooming down Widow Maker; RTD trying to keep up]

Afterwards, sitting down over a coffee and bagel at the Blue Venus, it felt like the good morning it was. Poor old RTD can barely move. Lori has a young Kelpie that she calls a "50 click" dog--aptly termed for its ability to herd sheep all day long over 50 kilometers of trail. Kelpie ran five K for every one of ours, and she was still rearing to go when we got back to the Rover. RTD is now about 9 years old, and I'd forgotten what young dogs are like. She was one, once. And so was I...

[photo above: Lori gliding across the meadow between Amalgamation Junction and Sluice Box; Kelpie in the lead (she had already ran down ahead of me, and then ran back up to escort Lori)]

The Moulton Journal: a lovely Spring day (in January)

Beautiful warm and sunny day in the 40s F by early afternoon. Wow. In January. In the northern Rockies at 6,000 feet.

Glad I clicked into the E99s and got on the snow early for a lovely tour up and over Buzzy, around Big Nipper, on Yankee Boy to the deer-leg Motherlode cutoff, then across Motherlode and down Sluicebox. Saw Rick Rossi out for his morning ski, he had been out taking in the big sky view of Silver Bow Valley from Big Flat. We met on Mlode just above Sbox, stopped to commiserate about college politics, global warming, and our idiot President. Rick is pretty social for a math guy (ouch!).

Back home basking in the morning sun on the front porch with RTD sprawled at my feet and PhoebeTheCat on my lap while hydrating/fueling up/taking in some electolytes (i.e. having a beer), it was hard to see much wrong with the world. Well, except for that pesky leak in my right rear tire--a slow leak where one of the studs is inserted. That's not supposed to happen. Oh well, so it goes.

Managing Warm Springs Ponds: a public meeting

Yesterday afternoon I attended a presentation about ongoing water quality problems with the effluent from Warm Springs Ponds. The ponds are used to treat the polluted water of Silver Bow Creek flowing down from the Butte Superfund site. Just below the ponds, Silver Bow Creek joins with Mill-Willow Creek and Warm Springs Creek to form the Clark Fork River. To the naieve and cursory eye, the ponds look like a natural wetlands. The are not. They are a sophisticated and intensively managed pollution treatment system. Yes, the ponds and associated wetlands support a range of wildlife from the exotic rainbow trout that cruise the depths to the abundance of ospreys that rule the air.

The natural resource amenities of Warm Spring Ponds are difficult to ponder with classical thinking. Birdwatchers and anglers appreciate the area, and on any given day there is likely to be a crowd of anglers fishing the outflow from the ponds, hoping to catch a five pound rainbow shaped like a football. I think of this as a postmodern trout fishery: supported by the stocking of exotic fish, by the heavy additions of lime that precipitate copper and other heavy metals, and by the network of pumps, piping, water quality testing, maintenance, and human operators that make the system work.

And so a meeting about the management of the ponds should be no easier to ponder than the thing in itself that is being managed.

When I first called the local Environmental Protection Agency office to inquire about this meeting, they did not know about it. Then the kindly EPA staff person made some inquiries, and told me where and when the meeting would be held, but they also warned me that it was probably not a public meeting. You see, the meeting was to be held at Arco-British Petroleum's local office. This office is in a sort of gated community, an industrial park with a big fence around it and a guardhouse at the entrance. At the very least, it would probably be necessary for me to stop at the guardhouse, seek permission to enter, and sign in should I be granted entry. The kindly EPA staffer told me, "Heck, I can't even get in there half the time."

A few minutes later the kindly staffer called back and said, well yes, that it was indeed a public meeting. Finding the place, however, was a little like figuring out directions in the rural Northern Kingdom of Vermont where you might be told, "You can't get there from here."

In the case of the Arco-British Petroleum office, maybe it's more like the federal government's notorious Area 51--an area that officially does not exist. For when I looked in the phone book, there was no listing for Arco. There was no listing for Atlantic Richfield. And there was no listing for British Petroleum. Hmmm.... we're dealing with a major global corporation that is on the hook for more than a billion dollars in local damages to the environment, and the corporation's local office is not even in the phone book?

Wow. I was well on my way to a fantastic conspiracy theory. But, as the French say, some stories are so good that they "must" be true (even if they are not).

My mistake, as it turned out. A local Arco-BP office has only recently been established in Butte, and so I found the address when I looked in a recently-minted 2007 phone book. The Arco-BP office is located in the old Kelly Mine yard along Anaconda Road--near the site of the "Bloody Wednesday" massacre, in which 14 striking miners were shot (two died) by Anaconda Company thugs. Today, this area is Arco-BP's gated industrial park--truly a fitting monument to Butte's labor history!

Even without knowing this history, it was a distinctly odd feeling to enter Arco-BP's fenced, private space in order to attend a public meeting. Like the tone of a person's voice or their body language, space carries a rhetorical weight all its own. The rhetorical weight of an Arco-BP conference room is very corporate. Had EPA asked, perhaps CFRTAC could have found a truly public space in order to hold a public meeting. And then there was that rhetorical use of the royal "We" by EPA administrators--the "we" in this case being Arco-BP, EPA, and the various consultants.

Now, don't get me wrong. The EPA administrator that chaired the meeting was very polite, professional, and even pleasant. The public attendees were not patronized or treated with any disrespect. At the same time, however, public communication clearly was not the chief purpose of the meeting.

So there I was, in a little corporate conference room crowded with about 21 people. About half were bonafide members of the public, including a Clark Fork River Technical Assistance Committee (CFRTAC*) contingent led by technical consultant and enviro-hero Jim Kuipers.

The meeting -- which largely consisted of several technical presentations by consultants -- went well. Dan MacGuire led off with his 2006 macroinvertebrate biomonitoring report on the Upper Clark Fork River Basin. In most respects, benthic macroinvertebrates (mayflies, caddisflies, and other bottom-dwelling stream critters) indicate that water quality has improved greatly since c. 1990. The first improvement came with the construction of the Mill-Willow Creeks bypass and associated cleanup work that removed contaminated material from the flood plain along the Warm Springs Ponds in the early 1990s. The second improvement came c. 1997, when large amounts of water were flushed down Warm Springs Creek from pristine Silver Lake, thus adding a slug of clean water to the upper Clark Fork River.

There was one disturbing data point, however. The ecology of Silver Bow Creek immediately below the ponds has suffered a noticeable decline. This could indicate a significant problem and might be attributable to the increasing levels of arsenic in water released from the ponds. Or, it could simply be an anomalous and unexplainable fluctuation. We can't really know, since the EPA dropped the ball and there is no data from the past several years.**

Arsenic is a problem. Water discharged from the Warm Springs Pond treatment facility exceeds water quality standards for arsenic about seven months of the year--typically June through December. This is also the time of the year when stream flows are generally low and the pH of water in the ponds is very high (10+). The high pH is caused by plant photosynthesis as well as by the addition of lime. Although high pH is great for precipitating the toxic metals that enter the pond, high pH also mobilizes arsenic. Though the increasingly good technical management of the ponds has been very effective in preventing downstream pollution by metals, it is a classic case of unintended consequences. It's a bedrock principle of ecology: YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE JUST ONE THING.

Of course, Arco-BP apologists will argue that arsenic is not so bad. After all, the Madison River has high arsenic levels and it is a productive ecosystem and a great trout stream. But the Madison's arsenic is from hot springs and other natural geological sources. The Clark Fork's arsenic is from mine waste, and Arco-BP is responsible for that pollution.

Furthermore, when we go back to America's Clean Water Act, the intent is clear: America's waters should be swimmable, fishable, and drinkable. Discharge from the ponds violate current drinking water standards for arsenic by a large margin much of the year. When standards drop to 10 parts per billion, the Warm Springs Pond water treatement system will be in violation virtually all of the time. To make matters worse, water from the ponds also moves through the ground water aquifer and enters the Clark Fork River via the Mill-Willow Bypass and other downgradient sites.

Currently, methods for removing arsenic from water and the effect of arsenic on aquatic life are not well understood. If arsenic and ecosytems turns out to be like arsenic and human health, then every study will tend to increae the hazardous consequences of arsenic exposure. Though one might wish more resources were allocated to this effort, the EPA is concerned about and making some effort to study the arsenic problem.

In the bigger picture of the Upper Clark Fork River basin Superfund megasite, there is not much to be done about Warm Springs Ponds. The Record of Decision (ROD) for the ponds was made final nearly 20 years ago. Once the ROD is final, there is very little the public can do to alter -- let alone reopen -- that decision.

In the next decade or so, as Silver Bow Creek is restored, we'll need to decide what to do with Warm Springs Ponds. Beneath the ponds are tens of millions of cubic yards of mine waste and treated sludge. The ponds are, in effect, a huge waste repository. At the same time, they are a weirdly postmodern natural area with natural resource amenities that many people appreciate (see http://fwp.mt.gov/lands/site_280262.aspx). Like Butte, the ponds are probably a Superfund site that will be maintained in perpetuity.

* CFRTAC is a grassroots environmental group funded by the EPA under its mandate to promote public involvement. See www.cfrtac.org.

** Actually, bugs were collected in 2004, though they were stored away without being analysed. EPA hopes to have this analysis completed in the next few months.

The Moulton Journal: semiotics & first tracks

Crossing the old dairy meadow at dawn this morning I paused to marvel at an epic sunrise worthy of Homer. The colors built to a marvelous crescendo of reds and orange and deep gray, then faded gradually as bright sunlight spilled over the ridge and poured down upon the hills. No, of course I didn't have my camera.

Skied Yankee Boy and Little Nipper and was surprised that someone else had been on part of Yankee since Paul groomed Saturday. For some reason not many folks ski this trail . But no one had skied Big Nipper/Widow Maker, and I had the pleasure of first tracks.

Tracks: In semiotics, Pierce's representamen, "the form which the sign takes" (Daniel Chandler). Tracks are an indexical mode of the sign, they connect directly the signifier (form) and the referent (object/concept).

When RTD puts her nose to a certain track she knows that it was left by a fox. The semiotics of tracks have left the referent immune to postmodernity's "death of the author"

From where stems the deep satisfaction of making first tracks down a hidden cirque in the backcountry or even along a groomed trail dusted with fresh snow? First tracks embrace all the hopes and dreams of beginning an essay on a fresh new sheet of paper, or (I suppose) of making the first brush strokes on a clean canvas. Or maybe it is more like performance art? We inscribe the world, mark it so as to define its meaning even if that inscription lasts only until the next snowfall, or only until the music's echo fades. Not an act of possession. It is an act of marking time, pressing our not-so-indelible meaning onto the world. If the mark is beautiful, we appreciate in and for the moment. If not, then the world will forgive our imperfections and give us another chance.

As a last sentence and scatological period on the morning's performance, a moose ran through the willows below the Moulton Reservoir then paused to eye RTD & I with disdain as she dropped a load of pellets.

The Moulton Journal: a good skinny day

Paul finished grooming Saturday and yesterday brought an inch of fresh snow and the predawn morning temperature was in the high teens: all in all, good portents for a fine skinny ski day. Most days, I step into a pair of Fischer E-99s: a not-too-heavy back country ski, traditional 210 cm length but a bit on the wide side with some side-cut and steel edges. They are the 30-06 rifle of cross-country skis, able to do about anything I can do and a lot that I can't. [And on days when I'm sure I won't scuff the pine-tar off, I'll be on a beautiful old pair of wooden Head BC that I picked up "brand new" (never had bindings installed) for $10 at a Butte pawn shop. ]

But today was a day for the classic skinny Madshus. They are a lot faster than the E-99s, of course, and with my mediocre sense of balance I can barely stand up in them. Light but stiff, they hold wax well and conjure sweet visions of racers of yore. They are lovely on a groomed track, and the closest I ever come to enying those who skate ski.

Lots of work to do today, so I was on the snow at first light and kept it fairly short--a couple of loops around Nugget and then back down to the truck. Saw Rick Rossi's rig, he's back into his daily ski rhythm by the looks of things. And oh yes, the moose was out too.

EcoRover

Explore Cross-Country: Go, National Weather Service, Go!