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John's Journal...
Entry 176,
Day 5
PREPARING FOR AN ELK HUNT
Choosing Hunting Locations
EDITOR'S
NOTE: Steve Puppe of Hamilton, Montana, promotions
director for Knight Rifles and longtime avid hunter, lives on the edge
of the Bitterroot National Forest with its abundant elk, mule deer and
white-tailed deer.
Question: We're in the Bitterroot National Forest and
hunting elk. What roads are we going on and why?
Answer: We're just taking a forest-service road here called Laird Creek.
It's one of the areas I hunt. Everybody has his own secret honey hole.
You hate to tell everybody exactly where you like to hunt, but this is
one of my spots I know really well. I know how I can access different
hills or mountains from this road. Basically, we'll take this road all
the way to the end. There are a couple of T's where we could turn off
and go into some different drainages. But we're going to take this road
all the way up to where it dead ends and see what we can see.
Question:
What are those other roads you're talking about?
Answer: There's Gilbert Creek and Bear Creek Saddle, which goes down into
Warm Spring's drainage. There are several options from this one road,
which is one of the reasons I do like it. I can cover lots of ground in
this one area. There's another drainage on the east fork of the Bitterroot
where we can go up in some of the creeks. To guide an elk hunt, you must
know the land. You need to know how to get from one place to the other
by the easiest access. Your clients may sometimes think they can't make
it. If you know the easiest routes to get to a certain mountain or a specific
saddle, that's the way a guide encourages his hunters. For instance, he
can say, "Hey, it's not a big deal. We can go right here. It's pretty
simple. We can just walk up this nice, easy ridge instead of going straight
up one of those mountains." Part of that is spending time out here and
knowing all of these different access points. Up above us we have Medicine
Point and Rocky Knob. A little bit to the north of that is Shook Mountain
where we are going to go. We'll hunt between Rocky Knob and Shook Mountain.
I have some spots in there I really like to look for elk. There are some
meadows on the backside.
To
learn more about Knight Rifles, call (641) 856-2626, write them at Knight
Rifles, Customer Service Dept., 21852 Hwy J46, Centerville, IA 52544,
or visit their Web site www.knightrifles.com.
You can contact Scott Boulanger, a dependable, expert elk guide in this
section of Montana by writing him at P.O. Box 733, Darby, Montana, 59289.
You can call him at (406) 821-0017, e-mail him at elkhunter@circlekbl.com,
or visit his Web site www.circlekbl.com.
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