Hunting Where the Deer and the Antelope Play (Southwest Montana near Butte)

Unseasonably warm weather prevailed through November, so it did not seem like the general hunting season. Still, both the pronghorn antelope and mule deer hunting were good.

Pronghorn Antelope

I hunt antelope on the vast sagebrush prairie of the lower Big Hole River valley in southwest Montana. Here's a view from a cliff where the river has carved its way into the rock:

In a rancher's hayfield along the river, several moose (including two bulls) posed:

While nearby another small bull crossed the river: 

Though the afternoons were warm, night brought freezing temperatures. Some rancher left the sprinklers on, creating an artificial snow field:

The upland terrain is dotted with interesting features both geological (I think this is a lava outcrop):

And historical (a cairn, probably built by sheepherders a century ago):

Some days, it seems impossible to stalk within shooting range of pronghorn antelope. They spot you a mile away and run to a high point two miles away... No matter, for it's a beautiful place at dawn:

And in the afternoon, which often brings interesting cloud formations imposed on an impossibly blue sky:

It's a always a pleasure when my old friend Dave Carter can join me for a day afield. He no longer hunts, but enjoys a good hike. Here he is, posing with an ancient, stunted juniper:

Perhaps because of our healthy wolf packs or because elk are still repopulating niches emptied out during an era when they were nearly exterminated, more and more elk seem to be living on the high prairie. For the third year in a row, I found a herd of elk with a big bull while I was antelope hunting. This photo is a little fuzzy (taken through my binoculars), but you can see the elk bull at center left:

With this warm weather, I tread carefully for the prairie rattlesnakes are out and about. On this day, however, I found only a rattler's skeleton (minus the head and rattles--perhaps taken by some depraved soul who killed the snake):

This pronghorn antelope skull shows the huge eye sockets that support the animal's incredible vision:

Hunting another day, I walked up over a ridge-line with the afternoon sun low behind my back. A herd of a dozen or so antelope fed and bedded on a hillside near the top of a coulee a half-mile distant. With the low sun, they did not see me so I backtracked, fell behind the ridge, circled round, and then crept on hands and knees (I wear hard shell knee-pads in this prickly pear cactus country) to get within easy shooting range. A set of shooting sticks is essential, since any sort of natural rifle rest is usually lacking. That night I savored the liver, and repeated my pledge to honor the pronghorn antelope's spirit and use this doe's flesh well:

It was a long mile back to the truck, and I wished Dave had joined me this day to help with the carry. It is said that the further you must pack a big game animal, the better it tastes. It is certainly true that you appreciate it more.

Mule Deer

Mule deer are found in the same open country as pronghorn antelope, but tend to concentrate in and prefer areas that are steeper and more rugged with hiding cover such as Douglas fir. Mountain mahogany -- a favorite deer food -- also grows here. For the first hunt of the season, I joined two colleagues, one of whom, though a veteran white-tailed deer hunter from Minnesota, had never hunted mule deer. I think Keith likes it:

I took a break one weekend to hunt elk with a former colleague now at another university. His wife is also an avid hunter. The three of us did not find any elk, but had a great hunt in the hills above the prairie spring where we saw a number of mule deer. Earlier that morning, Matt and Jenn had already killed two deer, including this mule deer buck:

Though I enjoy the fellowship of hunting with friends, I am more attuned to nature while hunting alone. I like taking time to appreciate things, ranging from the musical flocks of geese passing overhead (I believe these were snow geese):

Even the common sight of prickly pear cactus has a beauty all its own:

I'm careful where I step for other reasons, too. As I suspected while antelope hunting, the warm weather had brought the prairie rattlesnakes back out. I was sitting down glassing a hillside when this little one (pencil diameter) came slowly from a burrow (at right, near the end of the stick):

I have great respect for them, and deeply appreciate their beauty:

Moving along this ridge requires scrambling over the rocky outcrops, and -- fearing I might be in a den site -- was very careful where I put my hands. It's good to move slowly anyway, for every draw can hide deer. Peering from one steep ridge side into a a draw thick with mountain mahogany, I spotted four mule deer bucks together. I stalked as closely as a I could, and chose the buck with the smallest antlers. As a subsistence hunter, I find the larger antlered, more dominant bucks are often "ruttier" and not so good eating:

Again grateful for the bounty of this good earth, I struggle to get the buck a few hundred yards to the ridge-top, after which I had an easy half-mile drag to the truck.

Arriving back in town I was greeted by the sight of one of our frequent rainbows during the warm, rainy November:

 

Near the end of November, the weather changed. Little Brother "A.J." came home from the University of Montana for a long weekend and I joined him for a hunt on a blustery, snowy morning with temperatures in the low teens. The wind created some drifts near the ridge-top, and it took some effort to plow our way to the top:

I am very proud of A.J. He has become a slow, patient, and ethical hunter. From a vantage point overlooking a steep coulee, we watched several herds of mule deer does feed and mill about (deer at upper right):

His patience (and endurance) paid off as, in carefully glassing the thick mountain mahogany, he spotted this fat buck and made a clean kill:

As A.J. field dressed the deer, I watched several more dozen deer pass by, including several small bucks. A golden eagle heard the shot and glided past, checking out the kill. They are often the first scavenger on a gut pile, and even the ravens respect their presence and do not press their luck:

We use copper bullets for this reason, because raptors are very sensitive to and many die from the lead fragments left by conventional bullets. This lead is also unhealthy for hunters who eat a lot of wild game. An added bonus, the Barnes copper bullets perform perfectly every time, mushrooming to about double their original diameter (this one came from the mule deer I killed this year):

As A.J. began the drag back to the truck, a flock of migrating tundra swans passed over (with a few unidentified, darker species mixed in). What an outstanding sight:

Although it was a bit of a struggle getting A.J.'s buck to the top of the ridge, from there is was a long, easy downhill drag to the truck. Many Montana hunters "road hunt" for mule deer--that is, they drive around on the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service roads until they see deer and then shoot them from the road--often without even getting out of their truck. This is really just shooting, and not hunting. Also, these so-called hunters miss out on experiencing and knowing the amazing habitat that mule deer call home:

Along with the incredible views found in such places:

While I'm ready for the skiing to begin, it has been a pleasant autumn and the freezer is full.

Blades: Practical Tools for Outdoors People

I lost a dear friend a few years ago: it was a Case XX "Stockman" pocketknife that my grandfather carried in the years before he died in 1979. There was nothing remarkable about the knife: dark bone handle and blades of carbon steel (a patent Case variation called "chrome vanadium steel") stained dark by deer blood and other strong oxidizers such as apple and peach juice. It was hard but tough steel, easily kept razor sharp with a small pocket whetstone:

Having carried this knife for 30 years, I used the sheepfoot blade to scrape carbon from the spark plugs of my old Land Rover (1972 Series III). I think I left it on the radiator before setting the points,  shutting the bonnet and driving off. I never saw the knife again.

I grew up in Bradford, Pennsylvania, where Case knives were made. Everyone, it seems, had a relative who worked at Case Cutlery. And in those days, every boy above the age of 10 and every man carried a pocket knife. Carry a Schrade, Buck or Gerber? Heresy! So, after I lost my old knife, dear Mrs Rover didn't have to think too hard when it came to my Christmas gift. Though my new friend is made of stainless steel, it has most of the qualities I like about Case XX knives (2.5" main blade):

For day-to-day chores such as cleaning fish, field-dressing deer, or cutting apples, a pocketknife is all you need. On the few occasions when I have killed an elk while hunting mule deer, my pocketknife could do that job as well. Shortly after moving to Butte, Montana, I realized a larger knife would be a good thing for field dressing elk. A local knife maker, Harold Podgorski, used L6 (a very tough low alloy carbon steel) from old circular sawmill blades to make his knives. I like the sense of craft and common sense he brought to knife making (no pretentious B.S. about exotic stainless steel alloys, high-tech "Damascus" steel etc). After field dressing, quartering, and skinning about two dozen elk, I'd say Harold's knife has given a pretty good account of itself (4.75" blade):

You can quarter an elk or make do around camp with just a knife, but a hatchet is a good tool for snicker-snacking (as does the vorpal blade in the Lewis Carroll poem Jabberwocky) the ribs away from the spine and for other heavy butchering work, as well as for cutting branches or small firewood. I bought a Norlund hand ax when I was in college, about the same time I bought my first aluminum-frame backpack. Ten years later I replaced the original handle (after it broke) with a shorter, sturdier one made of white oak and shaped to fit my hand (3.25" blade):

Two other knives in my more-or-less random collection deserve special mention. One is a Russell "Green River" blade--my favorite skinning and thin-bladed, light-duty kitchen knife. Again, the blade material is nothing special--just good old carbon steel. The handle, though, is very special--a fine piece of local Mountain Mahogany (a dense, hard wood) fitted to the blade by my friend Dave Carter (4.75" blade):

The other special knife is my most recent acquisition. My graduate student and friend Oliver gave it to me while I was in China (3.25" blade):

Oliver is a Uyghur, a Caucasian Muslim minority in China, with the population centered around Kashgar in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Thousands of years ago, the Uyghur people spread along what became known as the Silk Road. They were famed for making (and carrying, and using) weapons -- including knives -- and closely allied with the Khan Dynasty in the early middle ages. To carry a Uyghur knife is to be part of this tradition, and I honor this culture and hope the Uyghur people are granted greater freedom from the Chinese, Russia, and other countries that have subjugated them. Here's Oliver, "driving" a Willy's Army Jeep at the Stilwell Museum in Chongqing:

In a world where we often become obsessed with "high tech" -- whether cellphones, sneakers, or boutique cutlery -- it's nice to know that traditional craftsmanship and materials will still do the job. Better yet, in using such tools we connect with culture in ways that give meaning to our lives.

Elk's in the Freezer, Let's go Hiking (and Partying!)

------ warning: dead animal photos ahead --------- 

Hunting Elk with a Longbow

Whatever I do, I pursue it with "Knowledge and Thoroughness," as the motto of my Alma Mater Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (MS 1981) puts it. This makes elk hunting a bit like moonlighting at a second job. Parties, hiking, and some other social activities get put on hold.

In addition to what I have posted earlier, there have been some great moments at my elk hunting blind. This young coyote came in one afternoon and seemed more interested in exploring than in hunting Brer' Rabbit:

Like the many elk that avoided the spring when I was nearby, this mule deer doe clearly knew something was not right:

A trail camera consistently showed elk coming to the spring. Look carefully at this young 4X4 bull, as you will see him again:

The elk just did not come when I sat near the spring. I had two well-hidden spots, but finally abandoned them and went back to the old Indian hunting pit that friend Dave Carter has found. It did not seem like a good spot: too far from the spring and crowded into the base of a sagebrush hillside leaving little visibility. But it was the right place:

This young bull came by chasing a young cow, and he and the cow practically leaped over me. Several other cows watched the show, though they were just out of longbow range (c. 30 yards). But I made a soft cow call, he walked past at less than 20 yards, and then walked slowly away until falling over dead after 200 yards. At such times, it is good to have a friend like Dave--big, strong, and willing to help me load an elk at short notice:

I am thankful for this gift, honor the elk's spirit, and will use his flesh well. I also cherish a tradition of hunting that goes back to the Native Americans who dug and hunted from "my" pit. This photo shows my arrowhead, the bull elk's ivories, and a jasper tool flake I found in the pit:

Let the Fall Full Moon Festivals Begin

This past weekend was marked by the full moon, which heralded two major holidays that are dear to me:

My little city of Butte, Montana, has put on a good and growing Oktoberfest the past few years. The warm weather brought out a good crowd this year:

Several bands took the stage, playing everything from contemporary folk and country to traditional oom-pah-pah. Got tuba?

Beer races drew out competitive natures:

And others took the opportunity to dress up:

A brief shower found my friend (and gifted writer and geologist) Richard Gibson celebrating the first rain we have seen in many weeks:

After the Oktoberfest, we joined our Chinese-American friends at a dinner celebrating the mid-autumn or full moon festival.  There is nothing like a 12-course Chinese banquet to cap off the day. The dinner ends with the lucky egg yolk food of the day, moon cake (this photo is from http://scienceray.com/astronomy/chinese-moon-cake-festival-or-mid-autumn-festival-is-near/ ):

Golden Time

The following day, to work off all those brats and moon cake, we hiked into some high mountain lakes to see the Alpine larches. Unlike other conifers and like hardwoods, the needles turn yellow and fall off in the autumn. "Golden Time" peaked a week or two ago, but the trees still had good color:

I carried my pocket-sized grouse gun, and this grouse made a tasty dinner:

The lakes are very scenic, and we all wished we had come to camp instead of for a day trip:

Our weather is predicted to turn colder with rain and snow later this week. It's been a gorgeous summer, even though I got off to a late start. Happy autumn, everyone!