“In what seemed like slow motion, I immediately could see the way my bullet hammered his ribs behind his shoulder and knew that I had finally connected with an old Montana bull.”

Hunting season started out very quiet with not much activity throughout our archery hunts during the rut.  We were hunting in a new area closer to home and spent a lot of time learning new terrain, including an early season backcountry rifle hunt in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.  It was unusually warm out and the bulls were not interested in bugling back to help lead us to their location.  Without seeing much sign and not having much success in this new area, we decided to shift our focus back to where we had spent many previous years hunting elk on public land in southwestern Montana for the opening weekend of the general rifle season with our over-the-counter tags.  If we only knew that we were about to have a hunting season that we would never forget.

In late October, we arrived at base camp at 7000 feet, right before the first snowstorm of the year was coming into the state.  Quite a few of our friends didn’t even make the trip because the conditions were scheduled to be below zero and snowy for opening weekend.  We had a plan to hunt for five days and were well prepared since we had learned in the past how frigid the temperatures can get at higher elevations in this area.  We were all hoping this cold front would get the elk moving to give us an opportunity.