Opening day is nearly here!
The biggest day of hunting season is a little more than two weeks away, opening day of general deer and elk season. This is the day that over 100,000 Montana residents and thousands of non-resident hunters will chamber a round into their rifles, slip the sling of their rifles over their shoulder and head into the mountains of Western Montana or plains of Eastern Montana in search of game.
This is a time-honored tradition that goes back hundreds of years, ever since European explorers and settlers first came to what we now call Montana. If you substitute a bow and arrows for the rifle, then this tradition goes back thousands of years, except there was no opening day.
Those early day hunters, essentially hunted year-round for survival and subsistence.
Besides having your rifle on your shoulder, most hunters will have a day pack or fanny pack with survival and hunting gear that includes a compass and matches or lighter to start a lunch, warming or survival fire. Given my cautious nature, I actually carry several ways to start a fire.
Keep in mind that starting a survival fire on a late October or November hunting trip is much
more difficult than building a campfire on a dry summer camping trip. Just be careful if it’s still very dry and warm, though.
Most day packs also include a knife or two, bone saw, extra ammo and a lunch or snack food. In recent years I’ve started carrying a pair of disposal latex gloves.
That makes the clean-up after field dressing a deer a lot easier.
My day pack is large enough that I can pack out a boned-out, remotely killed deer. That saves
a round-trip hike back to my truck to retrieve packing-out supplies. I also carry two pillow cases
in my day pack. I go to one of the local thrift stores and buy used pillow cases for a dollar. They
make great inexpensive game meat bags. A boned-out deer can easily fit into one or two pillow
cases. I also carry two kitchen-size plastic garbage bags.
One is used as my sitting bag, keeping my butt off the damp morning ground. I carry that one in a jacket pocket. The other garbage bag is used to prevent blood from my pillow case game bags from soaking into all my other gear in the day pack.
Most modern-day hunters will have a set of binoculars hanging from their neck. If you are hunting high alpine basins or the plains of Eastern Montana, an electronic range finder is almost
a necessity. Most modern hunting rifles are extremely flat shooting, so knowing the exact range
out to 200-250 yards is not overly important.
But if your target is out at 300 yards or more, knowing the exact range to compensate for bullet drop is essential to getting a clean kill.
If you are hunting in Eastern Montana, an essential item is the 2020 Hunting Access Guide published by FWP. FWP does a superb job with this hunting guide. It includes great maps that
show the general location of over 7 million acres of private land open for public hunting.
The guide also includes the name of the landowner, telephone numbers, size of the private land and game species available. Also, have a copy of Montana’s game regulations in your truck or camp.
This 135 page booklet has a detailed list of the 10,000 or more things you can’t do while
hunting!
Perhaps the most important preparation for hunting season is to sight in your rifle. Don’t trust
that your rifle is properly sighted in. Check it out by a trip to the rifle range.
Here is an example of what can happen. Recently, I was hunting with a young fella. He had a new 30-06 with a good scope. He spent lots of time sighting in his new rifle.
During his first day of hunting in Montana, we jumped three deer within 10 minutes of leaving the truck. One deer was a dandy buck. The deer bounded away, but as mule deer do, they stopped about 200 yards away and looked back.
My young hunter friend dropped to the ground, using his day pack as a rifle support. He shot.
The buck didn’t move. A second and third well aimed shot also missed. I grabbed his rifle, handed him my rifle and said, “try this.”
His fourth shot, with my rifle, dropped the deer.
After some picture taking, we hauled the deer back to camp and peeled off the hide. After lunch, I said, “let’s check your rifle.”
At 50 yards, the rifle couldn’t hit a two-foot wide target.
Then he admitted that he had dropped his rifle out of a tree stand three days earlier. Once we had the rifle properly sighted in, the next day he dropped a nice doe at 200 yards with one shot.
One of the most important items to take on your hunting trip is a good thermos bottle. The older I get, the more hunting time I spend sitting and looking while enjoying a cup of hot coffee.
After a few minutes of sitting still and not making any noise, a seemingly empty forest or prairie scene will frequently fill with game.
So, preparation and more preparation before hunting season will frequently lead to a more
successful hunt.
Enjoy the season!