After a discouraging opening day on an eastern Montana Block Management ranch that I had hunted numerous previous years, I completely changed areas and finally got a little meat for the freezer from some BLM land.
Here's the beautiful eastern Montana sunrise on my third morning,
The first hour of glassing wasn't very promising with only seeing a few distant does. Then as I was driving out to the county road I saw a small herd with at least one buck in it going over a hill about 1/2 mile from me.
I stalked to 258 yards from them and as I was tying my hunting partner to a sage brush, a couple of does saw us and got the whole herd running. I normally don't take a running shot, but I felt comfortable on my shooting sticks, led one of the bucks, and heard the WACK of my bullet hitting him.
He slowed to the back of the herd and they all disappeared around another hill a half mile away.
When I got around that hill all I could see was miles of open prairie. I knew they didn't run to my left, so I went to the right and hadn't gone 200 yards when he jumped up, ran a few yards and looked back. My next shot folded him.
This was my first hunt with this pair of trigger sticks and I forgot that I had a camera attachment for them, so I just got this pic of him and my hunting partner, Zoe.
On the walk back to my truck to get my game carrier, Zoe flushed 3 bunches of Prairie Chickens. Luckily, I didn't have my shotgun as they're fun to shoot but taste terrible.
I have a homemade one wheel game carrier and luckily the 1 1/2 mile pack out was pretty flat, and a cold Coors Light shure tasted good when we got back to my truck.
In 1978 I put a Mauser Mark X barreled action chambered in .257 Ackley Improved in a Fajen stock blank for my deer and antelope rifle. A few years ago I put a Leupold VX 3 4.5-14x40 scope with their B&C reticle on this rifle. Over the years, this rifle and my 117 gr Sierra GameKing handloads have put many deer, antelope, sheep, and elk in my freezer and on my Trophy Room walls.
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