Royal Outfitters: Elk Hunting Guides

First thing out of the gate Sunday morning Ben and I were in pursuit of a big herd bull.  It was just breaking daylight, the wind was swirling a little and the cows that we didn’t know were on the meadow must have caught a whiff of our human smell and thundered off.  The bull, unaware that we were in the area, was bugling his head off as he followed his cows up the gulch.  We spent the morning unsuccessfully trying to catch up to the screaming herd bull but were led into a close encounter with a nice 6 x 6 satellite bull.  Unfortunately the wind gods weren’t on our side this time (our time would come).  This was just the beginning to what turned out to be the most memorable, exciting and educational experience of my hunting career.  Each morning and afternoon Ben and I set out on our quest to tame the wild wapiti, it seemed we were always fortunate enough to get up close and personnel with elk.  We were “close” to closing the deal several times but it just didn’t quite all come together.  Ben kept encouraging me that the best scenario would be to hunt hard all week long, gain priceless experience and then harvest an elk on the last day.  Lucky for me it worked out that way.  Friday morning, the last day of the hunt, we had no more than just started hunting before hearing a bull bugle way off in the dark.  Over the next hour and half we silently made our way up the mountain to where we felt like the bull was heading.  Just as we crept over the top of the mountain Ben stopped and whispered to me that the bull was probably somewhere close by.  Once again, as had already happened so many times that week, Ben’s sixth sense of detecting a presence of elk nearby kicked in.  He let out a soft bugle and to both of our surprise a bull answered probably 100 yards up the hill.  Without hesitation, Ben took off running down the hill with me following close behind to get the wind in our favor.  I got set up as Ben drifted another 60 yards behind me to call.  The bull bugled again and then stopped to rake his antlers over one last pine tree.  Ben lightly raked a pine himself with his walking stick and apparently that’s all the bull could stand.  He let out another big growling bugle and then charged down toward me.  At 15 yards the bull stopped and in a flash my arrow passed through both lungs.  Sure I was super excited and my heart was racing but I felt a sense of calmness come over me because I knew how hard I had worked to help make this dream come true.  There is no way to put an experience like I had into words.  You’ve just got to go try and live it. 

Ryan Carr

Well we are now heading into the last week of archery hunting.  We have no hunters booked for this part of the season due to the fact that the rut is now winding down and the bulls are more difficult to call in.  Oh, they are still bugling some, but the herd bulls have now established their dominance and the sattelite bulls have been put in their place enough times and have been reduced to following the herd at a distance and generally keeping thier mouths shut. 

 I have been out hunting a few times myself over the past week and while I have been in a couple of bugling matches the bulls have stayed just out of harm’s way.  I finally decided to try to just set up along a well used path leading into a meadow that I know the elk have been using on a nightly basis.  I arrived and was set up 2 hours before sundown and made my noise making shooting lanes and even hanging out some elk scent.  I had decided not to call except for maybe a soft cow call now and then. 

 I had sat silently for maybe a half hour or so and was settled in for the long haul when silently a spike bull appeared in an opening about 75 yards below me.  It is interesting to me how much more excited a guy gets when you are the one holding the bow and arrows.  I have been calling elk for several years now, and when you call for another hunter there is a comfort zone you fall into because you are calling from a distance and many times the caller does not even see the elk he is calling.  So day after day you are doing this dance with the elk and trying to get him within range of your hunter so he can make a good shot.  There are even times when a guide will get disgusted after working hard for an hour exchanging bugles, grunts, chuckles, cow calls, and raking trees in and effort to lure the bull closer, only to have a hunter miss a seemingly easy shot.  Well, It is good for the guide to go out and experience the pressure that comes when you are the closer.  Oh, sure the caller is making the great sales pitch to the elk, but when he finally decides to buy, it is the shooter who has to close the deal. 

 Well when this spike stepped into the opening and the wind was right, I began to see that his path would lead within 20 yards of my hiding spot.  I tried to make a soft cow call but found my mouth was too dry.  I then noticed that I was shaking and gripping my little recurve bow tightly in my fist.  I had to laugh at myself,  I have killed  several spikes, and been very close to a lot of elk, but there is something about closing the deal that makes the adrenaline valve turn wide open.  I once again am reminded why the guys who shoot the best archery equipment, that practice regularly, and can place arrows with surgical precision at 50 yards sometimes shoot over a 900 pound target at 20 yards.  They are then reduced to shaking masses that crumble to the ground and wait for the wobble to go out of their knees before they can stand again.  I was now the shaking mass on the ground.

 Well as it often does the wind shifted and the spike caught a sniff of me, lifted his head and walked off in the direction from which he had come.  I saw other elk that night but none as close as the spike.  It was a good reminder for me of why as elk hunters we do what we do.  It is not simply for the kill.  Not a thrill that comes from the taking the life of an animal.  It is rather the experience of getting close.  The hours of wandering in silent woods that are punctuated with brief encounters with creatures that move like ghosts through timber and meadow.  They are as cautious and wary as any creature you can hunt and in my opinion more majestic than any other creature in the forest. 

These are the type of experiences that keep me going back to the woods in pursuit of elk. 

Darren

Ryans bull 005      Originally uploaded by royal.outfitters   Hey,   Ryan you need to jump on here and tell your story.  Ben, our guide of 20 plus years, told Ryan early in the week that the best case was to hunt hard all week long in the best Montana Elk Hunting country there is and  see a lot of elk and  to then finally kill one on the last day of your hunt. Ryan took it to heart and made a great shot on this nice 5 pt on his final morning out. Congratulations Ryan

principieelkOriginally uploaded by royal.outfitters

 Montana Elk Hunting:     Sunday was a slow day, saw sign but heard nothing. When we got back to camp our hopes were renewed with the news of bugling bulls.

Darren and I decided to give their spot a try the next morning but it did not produce a bugling bull. That afternoon we tired another spot, we got into a bull and had some fun calling him but he was not ready to come in. The following morning Ben and I started out to the same area that we had heard the bugling bull elk the previous evening. But before reaching our destination we stopped and bugled in a different drainage. Immediately, we heard a good bull bugling to the drainage right below us. Ben said, “ I think we have got ourselves a bull.” So we quickly circled below him to get the wind in our favor, upon reaching the bottom of the drainage we snuck in as close as we dared. During our approach the bull had bugled 3 different times. We decided to get set up and Ben went behind me and started bugling. The bull bugled back one final time, he was very aggressive, he was racking the trees. Ben bugled again and the bull elk appeared. I waited until he was in range and I let my arrow go as it sliced him right through the heart. Then we waited for a time and for a moment we pondered on the mornings events and we stood up to start tracking the bull and realized that the 6×6 bull was only 30 yards away. As Ben and I gazed at my 6×6 Bull Elk, we heard another bull bugling in the distance. It was a morning to remember.

Mike Principie

albertelkOriginally uploaded by royal.outfitters

  Montana Elk Hunting : 

We arrived from PA with realistic expectations for our 2007 Archery Hunt. This was not our first trip to Montana to hunt elk so we knew well the challenge that lay before us. Never did we expect the hunt to go the way it did.

We arrived on Saturday and met the new owners and got reacquainted with our old friend and guide, Ben. We shot our bows and prepared for the morning hunt.

Day 1: We each headed out with our guide to different areas. Ben and I saw nothing the first morning out but Mike & Darren bumped into a bull  elk but there was nothing talking. That evening Mike and Darren heard nothing and Ben and I had a bull elk bugling good for an hour or so but did not get him to come in.

Day 2: Mike and Darren saw a lot of sign in the beautiful mountains of Montana but again heard nothing. Ben and I decided to change areas and were in some perfect elk habitat at day break. As we worked our way to the top of the ridge, Ben decided on a whim to give a lazy locator bugle. To our surprise, a bull  elk answered immediately. It was so great to hear that bull so close. But Ben and I had to ran downhill to get below the bull to keep the wind in our favor and close the gap. We crossed a small creek and I set up. Ben backtracked and began calling the bull. Within a few minutes the bull trotted in my direction and presented himself walking slowly broadside at 8 yards. My heart was racing and I was already at full draw when I let the arrow fly. The bull elk turned and took off but the bull was dead and on the ground within 20 yards. My arrow had past through his chest grazing the top of his heart. It was the best feeling to have my elk already harvested on the 2nd day of my hunt. My Montana Elk Hunt was complete.

Dean

Just a quick note on the fires in the area.  They are continuing to burn of course, and probably will until the weather turns cool and wet this fall.  We have had some showers in the past couple of days but not enough to put out any flames.   At this point there is one fire that is about 2 or 3 miles away from the westernmost edge of the area we hunt for elk and deer.  This is the Fisher point fire.  It has crossed into Upper Willow Creek and the residents there have been evacuated.  Obviously our prayers and thoughts are focused on the safety of the displaced residents and their property.  We are also hoping obviously that the fire does not spread into the areas we hunt. 

Thompson

Originally uploaded by royal.outfitters

I recently went on a couple of brief camping trips into some of the more remote reaches of our hunting area. I was fortunate to have some good friends who enjoy some wilderness adventure along for the trip. We shared some new experiences and vistas and saw some familiar sights from a different angle. We took along our fishing gear and a little cook stove and left the security of the 4×4 at the trail head. The primary focus of the trip was to visit some of the back country lakes and try to catch some trout, which we were able to do on some lakes and not on others. It was a great opportunity in the late summer for me to do some preliminary scouting for elk and deer. The weather was summertime warm so I didn’t expect to see a lot of acivity in the open areas other than in the late evening or early morning.

Anyway, we did see severaly elk including one bull in the heavier timber and saw one grazing on the edge of a large meadow in the high country in the late afternoon. On both of the campouts we did not see another person in five days in the woods.

On the first trip my good friend Tim and his son Levi accompanied my son Dawson and I to a pair of lakes in the Flints. It was a hot hike with some smoke in the air from fires west of our area and by the time we got to the first lake it was 5 o’clock and we were hot and tired.

We all dicided to take a quick dip in the cool clear water of the lake. Actually the water was a tolerable temperature. As we were drip drying on the shore and begining to contemplate what we would prepare for supper, we were blessed to see a really nice sized rainbow trout cruise by the shore, his bright red stripe and hooked jaw easily visible in the clear water. Of course there was a mad scramble of half dressed hikers making the quick conversion from swimmer to fisherman in which there were no injuries or incidents other than a fish hook puncture to a finger or a tangle line or two. By the time we had rods ready and flys or lures in the water the fish was moving steadily away down the shoreline and we were unable to catch him or even his interest.

We did later catch a few cutthroats on both lakes and were able to keep a couple of the small fish to flavor our ramen noodles in the morning for breakfast.

We did not see any elk on this hike but did get into an area with several springs and cool dark timber in which there was fresh sign as we walked in and again on the way out. Another great thing about this area is the productive spring we found bubbling from between the rocks. We took the opportunity to refill our bellies and our bottles with the icey cold water.

On the hike out we paused to watch a couple of trout in a pool at a creek crossing. They were hiding under some low hanging branches that acually were partially under water, then zipping out and surfacing to suck moths off of the surface of the little pool. In the end we were content to watch them feed and left our rods packed.

The second trip incolved a bone-jarring ride in the land cruiser to a remote trail head where we hiked into a couple of other lakes. On this trip I was accompanied by Dan and Dustin, more good friends from North Dakota.

We arrived at the first lake in the early evening and decided to camp for the night. After settling in we set up the fly rods and scattered to different parts of the lake and began casting to the numerous rising fish. It didnt take long and Dustin had landed a small brookie, then Dan and then myself. The fishing was steady and good with no fish of extraordinary size, mostly just 6 to 10″ trout. We fished till dark and the highlight of the evening for me was four casts in a row with a landed fish, albeit small fish. We had a quick snack of cheese sausage and crackers and stowed the food away from camp out of the reach of bears. We had a brief discussion of the stars as they appeared in the clear sky and drifted off to sleep one by one.

After sleeping a short while Dustin and I were awakened by a sharp angry and repeating deep growl. As it turned out it was not a curious bear but Dan’s snoring. We both did our best to sleep with the rhythmic roar of Dan’s snoring keeping us on the edge of sleep for what seemed like a good share of the night. We probably would have slept better had the noise been a bear because at least we could have chased the bear away. Dustin and I did discuss having Dan sleep fifty or 100 yards from camp by in the end decided that even that distance may not be sufficient and he was allowed to stay.

Dan, as it became apparent after only a few miles of hard hiking, has the uncanny ability in the span of only a few minutes to not only sleep but snore. When informed of this impressive skill, Dan still humbly denies that he even snores.

Well we fished the next morning at sunup since we were awake anyway and caught and released several more brookies. After breakfast we loaded up the packs and headed out to explore another basin and several other lakes. Our trek took us over a 9000+ foot ridge and dropped us into another basin that has several lakes and some impressive rock peaks surrounding it. The hike was steep and hard and it took us nearly 5 hours of hiking to reach the lake we would camp on the next night. Well the scenerey was incredible and the lakes pristine and beutiful but we were only able to catch one small rainbow that evening.

We had hiked a mile or so to another lake and dicided to fish there until dark and then return to our camp sight at the bigger lake. After dark as we were hiking back we began to see distant flashes of lightning and the roll of thunder that follows. It wasn’t long before it started to sprinkle and shortly thereafter it was a nice steady rain. With the lightning flashin and rain soaking we turned back and headed for a small creek crossing in which there were some mature fir trees that provided good shelter from the rain. The downpour continued for nearly an hour, there was water running down the hiking trail, it then tapered off to a steady drizzle for the next hour or so. It was during this time that we realizec that we would be better off dry under the shelter of the trees than to try to go sleep in our now saoked sleeping bags. So there we sat for a long almost sleepless night. by 4 am each of us had drifted off to sleep briefly even in our chilly discomfort. Dan had even snored for a while. by sunrise the skiy was clear and blue and the temperature was around 40 degrees. The mile hike back to camp helped us to shake the chill off and when the sun finally peeked over the mountains and soaked our part of the valley with its light the warmth completely erased the chill of a damp night spent in the woods.

We made a really stiff pot of coffee on the cookstove, had a quick breakfast, packed up and headed down the trail. It was about a 9 mile hike back to the parking spot and we took numerous brakes to pick berries and refill water bottles from springs. Dustin even caught a couple more trout in the stream along the trail.

At one point I wandered up the trail ahead of Dan and Dustin as Dustin was catching and releasing several fish. A mile or so down the trail I was begining to look for a place to sit and wait for the others when I saw a large black bear coming down the trail toward me. We saw each other at virtually the same time and I watched closely the bears response in an effort to decide if I should reach for the camera or the .44. The bear turned and lumbered up into the timber above the narrow trail and I dropped my pack to the ground and clawed my way into the side pocket that held my video camera.
With the camera in hand I crept a few yards above the trail and caught a glimpse of the cinnamon colored bear looping around me above the trail. It was warm and nearly mid-day and the bear did not seem to have any desire to run or climb the steep incline above. He simply took a detour that allowed him to circumnavigate my position by about 30 yards. I was able to get some video of him abling by at close range before he dissappeared into the woods.

A few minutes later Dan and Dustin come up the trail and had no bear sightings to report but were happy to see the video. I kinda kick myself now for going on ahead, it would have been nice for them to see the bear.

Well we got back to the cruiser ok and bounced our way back to the lodge where we could not decide whether to eat, shower or rest first. In the end all three got done.

Thanks Dan and Dusty for a memorable trip.

This week I took an early morning hike into our western hunting area.  On the drive in I saw a big black bear.  He was standing on the road when I first saw him and once he saw the vehicle he galloped down off the road and crossed a couple hundred yards of meadow and the creek.  He didn’t stop running until he hit the timber on the other side of the creek and was out of sight, so I was unable to get any video or photographs.

 I was pleased to see that the storm clouds that had passed the previous night had dropped significant rain.  I could see that water had run down the road washing gravel and pine cones out of the way.  This is a real blessing because it has been hot and dry for the past several weeks.  There is a lot of grass in the mountains thanks to good spring snow and rain but it has been drying up quickly.  At least the fire danger in this particular area may be tempered if only for a short while. 

 Any way by the time I got hiking the sun was up and was begining to warm things up so I didn’t see a lot of game.  I did however run across a couple of nice huckleberry patches.  They are a few weeks away from being ready but they have been duly noted on my map and definitely will be revisited.   There is nothing like filling your face with fresh picked huckleberries. 

According to Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks the Montan elk population has grown from approximately 55,000 animals in the late 1970s to 150,000 animals today.  I think it is a credit to the Mt FWP that they have done a good job managing the herd and we are now enjoying great hunting opportunities.  Some management units have even exceeded population goals and the state is looking at new ways to manage this new issue. 

Anyway, from the elk hunters point of view there has probably never been a better time to plan a Montana elk hunt.   We would love to help you plan your Montana elk hunt.  Our experienced staff is looking forward to providing you with the  elk hunting experience of a lifetime. 

I took my son fishing last night on Flint Creek near the lodge and had a great evening.  Dex loves to fish and we had a ball catching and releasing several browns, a rainbow, and some cutthroats.  Dex caught a few with a spinnng rod,  but at sunset we pulled out the fly rod and really had a ball catching them on top of the water.