- Joined
- Aug 25, 2001
- Messages
- 3,767
- City & State/Province
- Pamelot, TN, Ghost Ranch, MT, Palmilla, Los Cabos
It felt good to draw tags in Montana. 2024 was a bust in getting into the backcountry. At 71, I count the years I have left to get after it. The number is not growing.
Big game tag prices are only going higher across all the states. It's not "cheap" to hunt the West. Whether you engage an outfitter or do it yourself, costs seem to go only one way. Care to guess which way prices are going? Hunting costs are like the stock market; long-term prices only go one way.
I was not able to draw a tag in Colorado this year, so my points are again subject to point creep happening in so many states. Pulling a general elk-deer combination in Montana was a saving grace. Lucky me. I firmly believe that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity
I have owned property in Montana since 2014. It was a lifetime dream that came true. I grew up in eastern Montana during my high school summers, working on a large ranch. It was my first job away from home, and I couldn't have had a better ranch family to work with and for. That experience solidified that college was in my future and that working with my brain was better than spending time on the wooden end of a pitchfork. I was not afraid of hard work and believe the adage of luck being at the intersection of "grinding hard" and "never quit" rings true. I don't like being called lucky because my whole life I never had a 9 to 5 job on a straight salary. I was in sales, ate what I cooked and ran a company for 20 years. There is a good chance I failed more times than you ever tried. Luck, I'll take it. Any day of the year.
I have been a rather interested observer in deer behaviour my entire life. Muleys and whitetails, and have chased them from coast-to-coast, from tiny muleys on the vast expanse of Camp Pendleton overlooking the Pacific to barrier island whitetails off the coast of Georgia. I am still learning.
In reflection, there was a post entry on January 14, 2025 on TNDEER that might have been a precursor to this fall. Here it is.
Who has already killed your best buck?
I think the best is yet to come.
With a bad shoulder, I don't bow hunt. In September, my ranch was hit with "blue-tongue" or EHD and I found about 20 dead deer, two which were bucks. It's a cruel disease; the majority of dead deer were fawns.
Every year we put out more trail camera's to watch the parade of wildlife on our cell phones. Every day is a new day.
This buck grew up a couple miles away on a friends property. He walked off the property a couple weeks ago and the next thing you know he was on Facebook in the TrophyBucksandBullsofMT. Social media at it's finest! My friends are rather discouraged but that's life. We don't have a leash on these deer and testostrone makes male deer do some strange traveling to get themselves killed.
I have been leasing a ranch for many years that is about 85 miles from my ranch to hunt elk. The ranch owner is a great guy and enjoys his time every year on the property where he hunts with friends. They set a record this year on elk going 8 bulls for 8 hunters. They also set a record for only harvesting two mule deer. Elk are moving in and mule deer are disappearing. Kind of like how coyotes have eradicated red and grey fox across much of their range.
Whitetail deer numbers are in excellent shape in eastern Montana. Mule deer, not so much. It is a sad state of affairs. The politics, the money, the long-standing traditions, the ramifications of declining mule deer numbers, the entire situation is a mess. I am just a Montana non-resident who thinks there should be ZERO doe mule deer hunting, there should be no mule deer hunting in November, only October, and that whitetails should be hunted, along with elk in November. The cow elk population in Montana will be a major issue for landowners for years to come. At my ranch I have a different set of problems than most as you can see on this fence post. The last couple of winters have been mild and the whitetail population is excellent. We counted over 100 fawns in one of my hay fields this summer which was a spectacular number.
After getting 8 bulls in a week I didn't think I would be in high cotton on getting a good bull. My son thought otherwise. Here is how my elk hunt went. I had spotted a very nice muley buck with 6 does about 10 yards on the other side of a fence. That fence was a boundary line on land that I had no permission to hunt and was outfitted. I was hiding in some sage brush biding my time, when all the girls jumped the fence and came at me. What did Mr. Big Daddy do? He did not follow them and did a 180 into the canyon. He was tall and had some great character. He was killed a week later and the outfitter said he scored 170. Just my luck. Got the girls coming my way but the big guy didn't buy in and follow. Lucky buck but it didn't last long. In that same canyon, I crawled into position to peer into the bottom and low and behold a bull was laying across the canyon. One shot in his bed and it was history.
I saw 6 on a side and after he was hit he made a long slide into the bottom of the canyon. Thankfully, it was an easy retrieve. I have no clue how to do "selfie" pictures with myself and bull elk but maybe I can work on that. I'm sure I won't draw a tag in Montana next year!
I did concentrate on getting a good buck and had a heck of a surprise. A few days later I was sitting in my 4 wheeler waiting to watch some adjoining "shooters" (they aren't hunters, they shoot deer that jump my fence into a hay field) when I saw a buck I hadn't seen before showed up. I had no gun, no license, no orange, no knife, only binoculars. I gunned the 4 wheeler home and retrieved the above, ran out of the garage around the house and headed down into the trees by my barn to see if that buck I had seen might still be in the county. He was. I had forgotten to grab the shooting sticks so I knew this was going to be a shot off my knee.
It turned out that the day I shot the buck was the first day he had ever set foot on my ranch. The big ones just show up. No clue if the neighbors had ever laid eyes on him or had him on camera. He had been fighting a big 6 x 5 buck and seemed to have whipped him. Here is trail camera pictures of the deer I tagged.
It is an 8 x 7 and should make a great mount. He is at the taxidermist now. I don't do antler scoring and have never scored any animal in my life. At 71, not starting now.
Mature, beautiful, buck. I don't do selfies with whitetails either!
My son and I have shared some great moments together over the years. Here was his first deer!
He is a good hunter, bow and rifle, and has a rather unique quality he picked up from his mom or dad. He is relentless. He doesn't quit.
We were able to locate a big herd of elk last weekend and stay on them. There were 130 animals in the herd and that is alot of eyes and noses to overcome. There was luck involved. He was 10 yards inside the fence!!! He was the biggest bull in the group. At the "whop" of the 6.5 x .300 Weatherby the bull dropped like Bill Clinton on Epstein Island.
There is a lot of gratitude in our family. There were years of dreaming about these magnificent animals. And yes, there was some luck.
Happy Thanksgiving. May 2026 bring you what you want and dream about. And most of all, remember, love is in our children!
Big game tag prices are only going higher across all the states. It's not "cheap" to hunt the West. Whether you engage an outfitter or do it yourself, costs seem to go only one way. Care to guess which way prices are going? Hunting costs are like the stock market; long-term prices only go one way.
I was not able to draw a tag in Colorado this year, so my points are again subject to point creep happening in so many states. Pulling a general elk-deer combination in Montana was a saving grace. Lucky me. I firmly believe that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity
I have owned property in Montana since 2014. It was a lifetime dream that came true. I grew up in eastern Montana during my high school summers, working on a large ranch. It was my first job away from home, and I couldn't have had a better ranch family to work with and for. That experience solidified that college was in my future and that working with my brain was better than spending time on the wooden end of a pitchfork. I was not afraid of hard work and believe the adage of luck being at the intersection of "grinding hard" and "never quit" rings true. I don't like being called lucky because my whole life I never had a 9 to 5 job on a straight salary. I was in sales, ate what I cooked and ran a company for 20 years. There is a good chance I failed more times than you ever tried. Luck, I'll take it. Any day of the year.
I have been a rather interested observer in deer behaviour my entire life. Muleys and whitetails, and have chased them from coast-to-coast, from tiny muleys on the vast expanse of Camp Pendleton overlooking the Pacific to barrier island whitetails off the coast of Georgia. I am still learning.
In reflection, there was a post entry on January 14, 2025 on TNDEER that might have been a precursor to this fall. Here it is.
Who has already killed your best buck?
I think the best is yet to come.
- Dean Parisian
- Post #88
- Jan 14, 2025
- Forum: Deer Hunting Forum
With a bad shoulder, I don't bow hunt. In September, my ranch was hit with "blue-tongue" or EHD and I found about 20 dead deer, two which were bucks. It's a cruel disease; the majority of dead deer were fawns.
Every year we put out more trail camera's to watch the parade of wildlife on our cell phones. Every day is a new day.
This buck grew up a couple miles away on a friends property. He walked off the property a couple weeks ago and the next thing you know he was on Facebook in the TrophyBucksandBullsofMT. Social media at it's finest! My friends are rather discouraged but that's life. We don't have a leash on these deer and testostrone makes male deer do some strange traveling to get themselves killed.
I have been leasing a ranch for many years that is about 85 miles from my ranch to hunt elk. The ranch owner is a great guy and enjoys his time every year on the property where he hunts with friends. They set a record this year on elk going 8 bulls for 8 hunters. They also set a record for only harvesting two mule deer. Elk are moving in and mule deer are disappearing. Kind of like how coyotes have eradicated red and grey fox across much of their range.
Whitetail deer numbers are in excellent shape in eastern Montana. Mule deer, not so much. It is a sad state of affairs. The politics, the money, the long-standing traditions, the ramifications of declining mule deer numbers, the entire situation is a mess. I am just a Montana non-resident who thinks there should be ZERO doe mule deer hunting, there should be no mule deer hunting in November, only October, and that whitetails should be hunted, along with elk in November. The cow elk population in Montana will be a major issue for landowners for years to come. At my ranch I have a different set of problems than most as you can see on this fence post. The last couple of winters have been mild and the whitetail population is excellent. We counted over 100 fawns in one of my hay fields this summer which was a spectacular number.
After getting 8 bulls in a week I didn't think I would be in high cotton on getting a good bull. My son thought otherwise. Here is how my elk hunt went. I had spotted a very nice muley buck with 6 does about 10 yards on the other side of a fence. That fence was a boundary line on land that I had no permission to hunt and was outfitted. I was hiding in some sage brush biding my time, when all the girls jumped the fence and came at me. What did Mr. Big Daddy do? He did not follow them and did a 180 into the canyon. He was tall and had some great character. He was killed a week later and the outfitter said he scored 170. Just my luck. Got the girls coming my way but the big guy didn't buy in and follow. Lucky buck but it didn't last long. In that same canyon, I crawled into position to peer into the bottom and low and behold a bull was laying across the canyon. One shot in his bed and it was history.
I saw 6 on a side and after he was hit he made a long slide into the bottom of the canyon. Thankfully, it was an easy retrieve. I have no clue how to do "selfie" pictures with myself and bull elk but maybe I can work on that. I'm sure I won't draw a tag in Montana next year!
I did concentrate on getting a good buck and had a heck of a surprise. A few days later I was sitting in my 4 wheeler waiting to watch some adjoining "shooters" (they aren't hunters, they shoot deer that jump my fence into a hay field) when I saw a buck I hadn't seen before showed up. I had no gun, no license, no orange, no knife, only binoculars. I gunned the 4 wheeler home and retrieved the above, ran out of the garage around the house and headed down into the trees by my barn to see if that buck I had seen might still be in the county. He was. I had forgotten to grab the shooting sticks so I knew this was going to be a shot off my knee.
It turned out that the day I shot the buck was the first day he had ever set foot on my ranch. The big ones just show up. No clue if the neighbors had ever laid eyes on him or had him on camera. He had been fighting a big 6 x 5 buck and seemed to have whipped him. Here is trail camera pictures of the deer I tagged.
It is an 8 x 7 and should make a great mount. He is at the taxidermist now. I don't do antler scoring and have never scored any animal in my life. At 71, not starting now.
Mature, beautiful, buck. I don't do selfies with whitetails either!
My son and I have shared some great moments together over the years. Here was his first deer!
He is a good hunter, bow and rifle, and has a rather unique quality he picked up from his mom or dad. He is relentless. He doesn't quit.
We were able to locate a big herd of elk last weekend and stay on them. There were 130 animals in the herd and that is alot of eyes and noses to overcome. There was luck involved. He was 10 yards inside the fence!!! He was the biggest bull in the group. At the "whop" of the 6.5 x .300 Weatherby the bull dropped like Bill Clinton on Epstein Island.
There is a lot of gratitude in our family. There were years of dreaming about these magnificent animals. And yes, there was some luck.
Happy Thanksgiving. May 2026 bring you what you want and dream about. And most of all, remember, love is in our children!
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