Valley Gold Video
Here is the latest of our hunting edits. Zack did an amazing job filming and editing the footage. Check it out! More awesome hunting edits in the near future!
-Travis
From the editing booth
Finishing up the final touches to our most recent video. We’ll be taking you along as we drop four coyotes in a few short hours on the last day of our 3 day hunt on the Hi-Line.
As you can see there are a lot of cuts to putting together an edit. I’ve put in a lot of hours on this along with working on finishing up our episodes from 2011. Be looking for this video sometime on Saturday.
-Zack
Valley Gold
We started up the truck and finished grabbing our gear. Camo on, calls ready, and a full clip of V-max bullets. It was day one of a three day trip to North Central Montana to become the hunted. We would be calling coyotes in open coulee country in hopes of capturing some sweet winter hunting.
- Silver and Gold
That first morning we got to our second stand only to spook a coyote just as we were pulling up to park adjacent to a deep coulee. We called that stand but drew a blank. Over the course of the next few stands we had one hang up at 700 yards that didn’t come in and another that we spooked walking into a promising stand. A little discouraged with the conditions we headed to a spot that has produced in the past. Sure enough after about 4 minutes of calling we saw a coyote charging to our left at about 400 yards. Before we could swing the camera and shooters into position we lost sight off him.
- Waiting for a shot
I knew as he would get closer he would catch our wind before popping back up into sight of Tyler and Travis. Sure enough about 2 minutes later we saw him running in the other direction. Running away over numerous finger shaped ridges left us no chances at a shot. We finished that evening with no luck and looked forward to the next day.
- End of Day 1
Well all I can say about day 2 is WIND. All caps because it was so damned windy we couldn’t even think about calling. Wind speeds were around 30mph and gusts of 50mph were common. Combine that with a windchill of 15-20 below and let’s just say we bought a case of beer and watched some football to pass the time. Forecasts for the following day were ideal. They were calling for no wind and a daytime temperature of 4 degrees.
- A great sunset
Day 3 found us up early and chomping at the bit. Conditions were ideal and we quickly got set up on our first stand. We called a long coulee full of dead cottonwoods and sage but never had any takers. Over the course of the next 6 stands we sat some beautiful spots but never saw a dog. We new something was up. Either the area had been hit hard by hunters on ATV’s or planes or the coyotes had moved down into the valley were the livestock and game was herded up. Sure enough our first stand back down in the valley was a winner. We set up to call at the end of a couple coulees that dumped into a prairie dog town. After 10 minutes and just as Tyler was about to shoot a rock, Travis made a good spot on a dog standing on a ridge at 260 yards. Travis was in search of his first coyote but couldn’t get repositioned quick enough. Tyler made a quick shot with his AR-15 and dropped our first coyote of the day.
- 1st yote down
The next stand we switched up the call after about 7 minutes. A few minutes later we stood up after not seeing anything and sure enough right behind us was a coyote. He quickly spotted us and took off. I turned the Nikon back on, switched to live view, and got focused. This took place over the course of literally a few seconds, and just as I said I was on him Travis lit off a round. The coyote dropped and Travis had his first coyote out of the way. He made a quick shot on a running coyote at around 150 yards to top it off.
- Trav’s 1st yote….ever
After checking out the second unlucky coyote of the day we walked another 800 yards and set up again. Again, after about 7-8 minutes of calling I spotted a coyote walking up the bottom of a draw. By the time I got the guys on him he disappeared into the sage. We looked and glassed for 5 minutes but couldn’t see him. We figured he had a den there and had went into it. We had Travis stand up to see if he was still down there and would spook. We saw nothing and of course as we all stood I spotted him begin to walk off in the same spot we thought he had disappeared in. Within seconds I was on him with the camera and Travis made another great moving shot at 300 yards.
- 3 in 3 stands all within a half mile
We followed this up with another stand just another 700 yards away. We had a coyote coming in at about 600 yards but he was spooked by a small herd of mule deer. We had spooked these deer on the way in and our chances at 4 in a row were gone. We headed back to the truck to relocate to a new location.
- Off to a new area
We gassed up the Ford, filled up our bellies with a hearty gas station meal, and left to finish our day off strong. After pulling off the highway we drove a half mile down into a vast open drainage spotted with sagebrush. We quickly got setup and started wailing on the distress call. Soon Travis had 3 coyotes spotted coming in from our right. As the coyotes neared us I had 2 of them in the frame on the Nikon, and I tried to communicate to both shooters which coyote to take. The coyotes wouldn’t stop running in and disappeared behind a small ridge. Soon one popped up at 150 yards and stopped. I was on him and Tyler squeezed off a round. A burst of dust and the coyote was charging away. Tyler narrowly missed him as he dodged and weaved his way out through the bottom. We all were amped up even though we were leaving empty handed.
Lets just say we were definitely heating up after a rough morning. To make a long story short, on our next stand we convinced a territorial female to come within range after 20+ minutes of calling. We used 2 distress calls, howls, barks, and pup distress. She even ate a field mouse seconds before Travis dropped her.
- A 4th yote
With 4 coyotes on the day we decided to wrap it up with one last stand. We were able to spot 2 coyotes out at 800 yards, but they just wouldn’t cooperate. We think they had spotted us walking in. We were able to coerce one into starting to circle downwind, but with light fading we couldn’t bring him in close enough. We had an awesome day though. Overall we saw 15 coyotes that day. We called 7 into range and killed 4. At the end of it all it turned into a very worthwhile trip. I was able to capture Tyler and Travis over the course of those 3 days and get all 4 kills on film so throw on the headphones, make sure it’s in HD and enjoy!!!
I hope you guys enjoyed the video and we look forward to creating more soon.
- Sunset on the last stand
Peace!
-Zack
Video Update – Hunting the Hi-Line
Check out the latest from Montana Wild. This is footage from our last trip to Havre, MT where we met up with our good friend Tyler McCann. Check out the post from that trip here. The trip didn’t go quite according to plan and we missed some pretty epic shots with the camera but overall we had a blast and got to see some coyotes drop. Be sure to check it out fullscreen in HD.
Travis and I are headed out tomorrow to go try to get on some wolves in the Western part of the state. We’ll have some more updates showing up soon so check back.
-Zack
Video Recap
Here’s an afternoon of coyote hunting from opening weekend. The deer hunting was tough so we decided to switch things up and call some predators.
Were currently back on the Hi-Line in search of shooter. Chances are we’ll be finding more coyotes roaming the vast open terrain of Northern Montana.
-Zack
Travis’s 2011 Velvet Mule Deer
Opening morning of rifle season started at 3am and consisted of a 4 hour drive to get to our hunting spot. Zack, Tyler, Cole, and myself were all looking to score on a big mule deer. At first light we came across a group of mule deer off in the distance, but no bucks to be seen. I spotted a nice mule buck climbing an adjacent coulee. We quickly geared up, and worked around a ridge, hoping we would be able to cut-off the buck. Unfortunately we somehow misjudged how close we were and ended up bumping the buck twice over a couple more coulees. Tyler and Cole decided they had seen enough and headed back to the truck, while Zack and myself wanted to get a better look at this buck. Zack was on the camera, while I carried the 6×284 over my shoulder. After reaching the top of the ridge, I spotted the deer at 300yards. I dropped to the ground and got a good rest on my backpack. The deer was in full velvet! Unfortunately, I still couldn’t decide if the deer was a shooter, and the deer quickly made his way behind another ridge.
- Weapon of choice 6-.284
We didn’t see many deer the remainder of the morning and decided to trek back into some deep coulees, where we thought the deer would be bedding with the 30mph wind gusts we were having that day. We hiked almost 2 miles up and down through the cactus and desert brush before getting to a nice outlook where we did some glassing. Zack spotted the same buck we had been chasing earlier just over 100yds away bedded down in some shade! We quickly put a plan together and I decided he was a very unique buck and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. The only problem was the deer was bedded down facing directly towards us. I was very confident with the shot at hand, but decided I needed to try and get the buck to stand in order to get a better view of his vitals. I setup in a somewhat uncomfortable position on the rock in front of me and got a steady rest. Tyler did a couple predator calls to get the buck to stand out of his bed. The buck stood directly facing me, his velvet glowing in the sun, I took my time settling the crosshairs on his chest and squeezed off the 108yd shot. Boom! The buck dumped right where he stood!
- Checking the velvet
I was all pumped up and quickly made my way down the rocky hillside. It felt great to get my hands on such a nice deer and was my first time putting a tag on any animal in velvet.
- Side view of the velvet
- All smiles
- Montana Wild Crew
It was time to do the dirty work and get the deer quartered and pack him back to the truck 2miles away. After packing out Zack’s elk just a couple weeks ago, this deer seemed like a breeze to carry out.
- Pointing out my shooting location in the rocks.
- Enjoying the beauty of eastern Montana
Big thanks to Tyler, Cole, and Zack. Zack filmed the entire hunt, and I can’t wait to show the amazing footage we captured this weekend. I’m in the process of Euro mounting the buck and will post pictures as soon as I finish. Big things to come from Montana Wild!
-Travis
Opening weekend on the Hi-Line
The weekend of rifle season was finally upon us. Our guns lead us to northeastern Montana, in search of big mule deer. Zack and I were going to meet Tyler and Cole McCann for a three day hunt, with some coyote hunting in the mix. It was bound to be an exciting weekend, for the McCann’s always seem to bring about some sort of unforgettable hunting experience.
- Rough country
We headed out Friday morning, giving ourselves enough time to try our luck at some fly fishing on some new waters. We stopped at a little known river that spanned across rolling meadows.
- Searching for brownies
The river gave up some high energy fish right away. Zack missed the biggest fish of the day, which was about 18″. I tried my luck with some streamers and had some nice browns take a taste or two, but didn’t quite get hooked. After an hour of getting our lines wet, we hit the flat highways of central Montana once again. I happened to catch a snooze or two, which Zack had fun with by scaring the sh** out of me by swerving, emergency breaking, and yelling. Ya he’s that guy.
- Getting a snooze
We arrived safely and headed out for a couple hours of scouting and tried a couple coyote stands. We managed to get one coyote to howl for literally a half hour straight, but couldn’t get him to get within eyesight.
- Glassing for coyotes
We headed back to Tyler McCann’s house where we prepared for our opening day hunt. The next morning we had little sleep and awakened at 3am, ya I didn’t typo, 3am! We had a 3 hour drive ahead of us to some public land that was suggested by the old farmer McCann. Not to say the drive wasn’t entertaining. We got pulled over by some reservation cops, which were super unhelpful and gave us the wrong directions to our hunting spot (video to prove it). After driving 18 miles out of our way, we finally found our hunting spot. The sun was just rising over the mountains when we spotted our first set of mule does.
- Glassing for mulies
Shortly thereafter we spotted a nice mule buck. I’m going to make this short and sweet, but we managed to get within 108yds of the buck and I decided that the unique 4×6 mule buck in velvet was too good to pass up. (full story will be posted soon) I dumped the buck in his tracks. It was a very exciting moment for myself and a huge relief after having such a rough bow season.
- Travis with his unique velvet buck
- Packing out the buck
We had the deer gutted, quartered, and back to the truck by 2:30pm. The rest of the day we searched for more deer, but only crossed paths with a couple does. The next day we decided to hunt some new land near the Harlem area. The morning started very slow, and it was apparent that the mule deer, whitetail, and antelope population were extremely low from winter kill along with blue tongue. That morning we didn’t see a single deer, and decided our best bet for the day was to attempt a couple coyote stands. There is no shortage of coyotes in this area and we spotted about 5-6 that morning. Tyler put the smack down on a young female coyote that we found eating on a dead cow. It was a very well placed 300yd+ shot.
- Tyler with his coyote
The remainder of the day consisted of long range bow shooting competitions between Tyler and myself. The shots were mostly taken around 70-80yds with a 20mph crosswind/backwind. We both were surprisingly very accurate for the conditions. Around 3:30pm we took one of the McCann’s small boats up the Milk River in search of more coyotes.
- Cruising the Milk River
We managed to put together a couple stands before the boat broke down on us. We had no choice but to bushwack back to the house. Along the way Zack managed to smoke a coyote, with an impressive headshot (video to come soon).
- Zack’s coyote
- Milk River
We attempted a couple more stands, with no success. The sunsets in eastern Montana were a sight for sore eyes, as the second day of rifle season came to closure.
- Harlem sunset
Our final day of our hunt was located just south of Havre, Montana. My brother Zack and I traveled about 2.5miles into some foothills before spotting some mule bucks. We came across a bachelor herd of 5 bucks, 2 of them being sizeable animals. Zack spent a good amount of time sizing them up, before deciding they just weren’t what he was after. We ended the morning hunt after spotting 3 more bucks.
- Bachelor bucks
Zack is still in search of filling his deer tag this year, and is hoping that he will be able to tag a big one during the rut. On our way back, we stopped once again to get a little fly fishing under our belts. We pulled in some smaller fish that were still exciting to catch.
- Beautiful river
- Zack’s brown trout
The trip was a success and I couldn’t be happier with the buck I put down opening day. We filmed the entire hunt and will have it posted as soon as I have the footage edited. All I can say is the footage is A+ quality and I can’t wait to post the episode. I still have an elk tag to fill and am hoping to seal the deal on a nice bull over the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned and hunt hard!
-Travis
Pre-Season
The month of July is usually a great month for fishing here in Missoula, Montana. This year has been historic and most every river is still very high. Just this week the fishing looks to become substantially better. With the water high we decided to search down some coyotes and get back into the elk woods to do a little pre-season elk scouting. The day started early as we exited the interstate and started thinking about seeing some coyotes in the crosshairs.
- Getting ready for the 1st stand
On our first stand we didn’t see any coyotes but we did get to spot some cow elk feeding up the draw. We rallied the Subaru further up the road which was suffering the effects of some winter runoff. We crested the road into a large basin and set up again. Immediately we spotted 3 coyotes roaming the middle of the basin. The howler got them interested, but they hung up around 600 yards and the distress calls never got them closer than 450. We then hit the road and soon enough got a nice look at a good sized mule buck.
- A nice muley
- Him and his girlfriend
We then set up on a 3rd stand. We got a good response from the howler immediately but they seemed a ways off. We figured they were just over the ridge but as we crossed it and set up again we spotted 2 coyotes about 1/2 mile up the hill on the treeline.
- Travis scanning for coyotes
We mis-judged their position and they had spotted us crossing the ridge so our hunt was done. We figured if we weren’t getting a coyote that day then we sure had to get a gopher.
- Catch of the Day
On the way down we found a dead cow elk. She unbelievably got her back leg stuck in the very bottom strand of barb wire in the process of jumping the fence. How she did it amazes me but she spent her last day stuck in that fence.
Leg stuck in fence
Afterward we loaded up and drove to another spot where we did a little elk scouting.
- Heading up the first ridge
- Travis scoping the woods
The 1st ridge we hiked up we found a small wallow and a good trail with a decent number of rubs along it. It isn’t the best spot ever but it was a spot that we could definitely hunt.
- An elk rub
- Headed back to the car
We got done with that around 4 and decided to try some fishing on the way back to Missoula. We headed to Rock Creek which was loaded with cars at every fishing access. Definitely reminded me to never fish the Creek on the weekends again. We stopped at a few spots and Travis landed a couple small trout on a Parachute Adams. Overall it was a great day to get out and do some stuff your passionate about.
-Zack
Havre Trip – Numero Uno
Ok. So for 2011 we decided to enjoy the great outdoors for our spring break. We headed East where the McCann family graciously hosted us for the weekend. The drive greeted us with fresh snow and the Honda barely made it. On the way we got a native pulled over and had a lot of dumb but funny moments road tripping. When we finally made it to Harve it was sunny and warm.
The Chamberlain
We had been hoping to do some coyote hunting all late winter and early spring but the Highline had seen some record snow and conditions seemed to never match up with our schedule. This time we made the journey and again the conditions weren’t quite ideal. By the time we made it there most of the snow had melted which allowed a lot of the animals (coyotes especially) to move back up into the hills. This along with lots of winter kill and temperatures in the mid 50s created some poor coyote hunting conditions. The damned yotes were not vocal and responses to calls were at an all time low. It was mainly a spot from the road game. We did get a chance, if you call a 400 yard shot from the road a chance, at a couple coyotes but the sparsity of the critters left us not wanting to blow through hundreds of dollars in gas just in hopes of spotting a few. This left us with gophers and prairie dogs.
- Targets
Those gophers are great practice with a bow, let me tell ya. Pick yourself up a 30 rack and hit the fields and your bound to have a good time. Prairie dogs on the other hand really won’t let you get to close so bow shots were limited to our patience and that seemed to hang up around 60 yards. We settled that problem with a little thing called a fire stick. They didn’t like that much.
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- Another one bites the dust
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- Ouch
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- 6×284
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- Tyler lining up
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- The Chamberlain
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- Dead
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- Turbohawk
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- Doubles
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- Targets
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- 8AM
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- The home wreckers
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- The Chamberlain’s field
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- Tyler getting down with the Hoyt
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- Tying one on
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- Upper Blackfoot
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- A great sunset
We ended up having a great time despite not killing any coyotes and we did get some fishing in on the way home. It was windy as hell everywhere but we managed to catch some fish and make it home by dark on Sunday. Below is Part 2 of our video from our spring break trip. Part one was a little graphic for most people and especially those that don’t hunt or haven’t been around cattle. If you want to see the video send me an email @ montanawildoutdoors.gmail.com and I’ll give you the link. Part 2 is below and does show gophers blowing up.
-Zack