Fall Days Afield 18/19

[2FUNKY]

^Very nice!

[Phall]

Got out for a limit of Teal +one hen pintail Sunday, another jump shoot last night brought in my 3rd wood duck ever, 1st of this season. Pretty rare here in Utah.

[MiddleOfNight]

Very thankful for the harvest. So sorry old girl.

Head shot, photo respectfully edited as such.

[Phall]

Congrats. Many good meals to come!

[yeahman]

^^Congrats MoN!

Sad news in Helena today, a local doctor was killed when a gun discharged as he retrieved it from the back of a truck after a hunting trip. We were not friends, but I did get treated by him initially when I tore my ACL a few years ago, and this summer I took my daughter to see him when she broke her elbow. My wife knows his wife, and they have kids the same age as ours at school, and many mutual friends. It really, really sucks.

Don't have the full details of what happened yet, but it bears repeating we should all keep gun safety foremost in our minds whenever we go afield, and never travel with a round in the chamber.

[2FUNKY]

Wow, sorry man. Echo your last paragraph.

[evdog]

Was out camping/fishing on lower Yellowstone this weekend and as I'm sitting on the bank early morning and a guys comes blasting by in full camo and a pack with his bow.........on a 1980s jetski! It was fucking awesome! Woulda loved to see how he packed out an elk on that thing.

Around Socal its just a bunch of extra serious looking dudes all camo'd up, patrolling forest roads. Not sure how they ever kill anything without getting out of the truck. The few that do get out haven't figured out that trails used heavily by hikers, runners and bikes probably aren't going to be productive. At least they're not far from the cooler.

[The Reverend Floater]

Around Socal its just a bunch of extra serious looking dudes all camo'd up, patrolling forest roads. Not sure how they ever kill anything without getting out of the truck. The few that do get out haven't figured out that trails used heavily by hikers, runners and bikes probably aren't going to be productive. At least they're not far from the cooler.

This is true everywhere.

[snapt]

It's been a hell of a Fall, both good and bad.

My mutt is in her prime at 6, and super dialed on the upland game. I'm commuting back and forth to Boise which drops me in some interesting bird habitat.















Unfortunately my friend and hunting partner lost his 2 dogs in an accident last week where they jumped into what was thought to be a pond in S. ID and ended up being a scalding hot springs.
I had the privileged to shoot some birds over his Setter Muggs, she will be missed.



And with ID's new trespass law I've been harassed by property owners having the cajones to post and try to claim they own PUBLIC lands adjacent to theirs. I grew tired of two in particular and they found themselves visited by the local sheriff and Fish and Game, kudos to those agencies for looking out.





Happy Fall y'all.

[2FUNKY]

1: well done man!
2: omg I’m so sorry for your buddies loss and what a terrible thing to have happen and I’m guessing he witnessed. Makes my heart heavy.
3: FUCK those guys! ONX for the win in these scenarios. Glad the LEO set them straight. Bet those signs are back up in a couple weeks. One more FUCK those guys.

[The Reverend Floater]

And with ID's new trespass law I've been harassed by property owners having the cajones to post and try to claim they own PUBLIC lands adjacent to theirs. I grew tired of two in particular and they found themselves visited by the local sheriff and Fish and Game, kudos to those agencies for looking out.





Happy Fall y'all.

Goddamn... Good on you, buddy.

[neufox47]

Snapt, that’s terrible about your friends dogs. I can’t even imagine.

[snapt]

The setter was killed instantly, he hiked his Chessie pup out and drove it 2 hours to Boise where it succumbed to its injuries at the vet. He called me, obviously a total wreck, as he had to leave Muggs and a gun with sentimental value behind. I called the Boise BLM office and within 10 mins they had me hooked up with an officer who knew the area and went down the next day, on a Saturday, and recovered them for him. So a major thanks to the BLM for making a terrible situation just a little less so. A big thanks to Rev's Boss at Picabo Angler as well who messaged me willing to go down in the morning to help if we couldn't get something else sorted out.

We had a beer tonight, he's hanging in there but jesus H, so shitty.

[wyeaster]

sucks, man

[Grange]

This has been a trying year for me. First grouse numbers are terrible so putting my young brittany on them has been tough. At least we're finding decent numbers of woodcock for him to work with, but they will likely have mostly moved south by this weekend. My setter however is now mostly blind so she can't hunt anywhere close to what she did in the past. She still has her nose though, which means she will still find more birds than most dogs.

[MiddleOfNight]

1: well done man!
2: omg I’m so sorry for your buddies loss and what a terrible thing to have happen and I’m guessing he witnessed. Makes my heart heavy.
3: FUCK those guys! ONX for the win in these scenarios. Glad the LEO set them straight. Bet those signs are back up in a couple weeks. One more FUCK those guys.

+1

[thebirdhunter]

Unfortunately my friend and hunting partner lost his 2 dogs in an accident last week where they jumped into what was thought to be a pond in S. ID and ended up being a scalding hot springs.
I had the privileged to shoot some birds over his Setter Muggs, she will be missed.

Holy shit!! That's the most terrible thing I've heard. I couldn't even imagine.
Vibes to your buddy.
RIP Muggs and the Chessie pup. The next 2 roosters I drop will be in their honor.

[flyandski365]

Damn, I can't even imagine how horrible that would be. I hope he's not being too hard on himself over it, but I know I would be if it was me.

Had a great antelope trip in WY the weekend before last and all three of us punched our doe/fawn tags. Two were dropped in an ambush that could not have played out more perfectly. I'm not used to animals showing up exactly when and where they're supposed to so it was a real treat to see that work out. I got mine the next morning after a short stalk. Forgot to take any pictures of course.

Tough elk hunt this past weekend - didn't see anything with four legs besides squirrels and chipmunks but the woods were nice. My brother in law did shoot a monster with a somewhat atypical 8x9 rack but he and is buddy were on the other side of the basin in heavy timber so I didn't get to see it until it was in pieces. Impressive still. Had a pair of pitchfork shaped drop tines on each side that added two and three points respectively. Pretty cool looking - I'll see if I can get a picture.

[Whiteroom_Guardian]

Looks like everyone had been slaying it the last few weeks! Nice work! I need to get me a shotgun and go bird hunting soon. Friend of mine got permission on some good local duck and geese land.


So, I'm back in 100%. Been watching nothing but hunting videos since my mulie hunt last month. Been eating alot of great meals. Maybe went through 8 pounds of meat already. I think I got about 80-85 pounds of cut/packaged meat from this animal. Wondering if I am gonna run out before next year at this rate. I would like to attempt to not purchase any store bought meat anymore.

So, I am thinking I try to get another animal. 1 month left of the season. Total noob to MT hunting (besides the mule deer hunt I did here 20+ years ago in the crazies). Luckily I am resident now, but the tag system here confuses the fuck out of me. I can only shoot antlerless in some units? I need an antlerless permit?

From my understanding I can get a general deer tag and pretty much hunt anywhere besides the few lottery draw units?

Figure if I have 4 or 5 days I can hunt that heading east is the way to go. Been looking on OnXHunt out south of Miles City area. Would be nice to hunt closer to me though.

[yeahman]

Each unit is different, you just need to get the regulation book from the sporting goods store rather than relying on the website, which you may or may not have access to in the field. I always double check the regs for whatever unit I'm hunting that day because you are correct, they are all a little different and it would suck to make a mistake. If you have any specific questions feel free to PM me, I have a pretty good handle on the various options.

[2FUNKY]

Look into the BMA program. It’s been a loooong time since I lived there but I hunted the shit out of BMA. It used to have great access to awesome property. Maybe that has changed. I had a three ring binder full of kickass property’s with all the paperwork for big game, upland and waterfowl. Maybe start there and look closer to Bozeman. White Sulfer springs had some great BMA as well as some sleeper state land chunks that I used to whack mule deer and white tail on.

[Norseman]

Some nice lands for antelope, too.

I used to hunt the block management lands out between Hysham and Ingomar with fam and friends.

[John_B]

Any advice on non-tox loads for a 12 gauge for pheasant hunting? I'm hoping to try it out for the first time and am not really looking to drop a buck a shell for Hevi-shot or similar. Is #4 in steel my best bet?

[Grange]

I was hunting pheasant today and bagged one with 6 shot steel. My brother-in-law bagged another one with either 5 or 6 shot steel.

[2FUNKY]

When I hunt combo waterfowl/ pheasant or wma areas I use 4 shot steel in 1550fps. I also run a .705 choke tube. My pattern board has 100% in the circle at 30yds, nice and dense.