Montana "heritage " elk/deer muzzleloader season

[Gutshot007]

Not sure if in right posting area ? Anyway , drawn for montana big game combo tag. Gonna try and hit archery /rifle seasons as much as possible. It looks like this will be the 2nd year for the heritage muzzleloader season. I have a muzzleloader that meets all the qualifications. Anyone hunt it last year ? Success? Crowds? What was your experience? Thanks

 

[Pony Soldier]

I hunted the season and got in 5-6 days. The first day I backtracked a drag to where someone had shot a little raghorn a day or two before season opened and likely with a conventional rifle. I saw them loading the elk at 10am opening day and found what was left of the gutpile (contents only) all meat was gone with only birds. Coyotes usually take a day or so. The kill site was about 3 miles and a hill from the road.

The wolves had slicked the elk out of my usual area so I was scouting the area north of me that I usually avoid because of the quads. Since I didn't know the country, I spent the day riding out the trails and roads trying to understand travel patterns of the elk and the verticle range. I had worked some of it before I retired so I knew pieces but not from horseback. The area was closed to vehicles after December.

After I found the upper limit of the verticle range then I started working west against the wind. Late in the day I was riding through a recently logged area and had 6 cows on top of the ridge at about 150 yards. A little farther than I had confidence. When they disappeared, I rode up the ridge and I broke over the top I found about 60 head of cows waiting for me but at about 200 yds. With 18 inches of slash and crusty snow I was looking for a deaf old cow with dementia. Slim chance.

The next exercise was trying to figure out the location of the gates on the grazing allotments as the elk had jumped the fence into the next drainage.

The next 2-3 days was an exercise in learning roads and unraveling allotments and the ins and outs. I didn't see elk but was cutting fresh tracks as they were feeding low and sleeping high.

I missed a couple days with pickup problems but got back to it on friday. I moved over two drainages a went back to unraveling roads. I again started unraveling the puzzle from the downwind side. I like north sides so I worked my way into a road I had seen on the map. When I got there I found a lot of downfall. I sawed the first 6-8 trees but when I came out of a corner I could see about 200 trees , waist high across the road. Since I had chosen to hunt not clear roads, I backed out and took the other fork of the road. Since it was on the west side, the snow was drifting pretty hard. When I came out of the trees I promptly sunk the horse in a neck deep drift. There were lots of elk tracks but the snow was too deep for me or the horse. I opted to chose a road out the bottom of a drainage I had worked in. That took me into another cutting exercise with a log every 50 ft. I broke out of the downfall and worked my way down the drainage. In a short distance I cut man tracks coming in from the upwind side. That explained why the elk were running in every direction. The gent's scent was reaching the elk with the 40mph wind long before he ever got there.

I reconned two more roads and went home around 2 - for the season. Wild elk, deep snow and idiots, it was a good time to take a break after being on a horse for 6 weeks.