The First Hunt

The first hunt I guided this season was with long time client Easy E. This was E’s seventh trip with me. We have had some great hunts together! Our hunts have not always been smooth. Easy has some bad luck in regards to weather. He has hunted some terrible arctic cold front that have left him stranded. E’s hunts have been earlier every year, in hopes of better weather. This year wouldn’t you know, it rained one and a half inches on his second day. Some of you may know that rain is worst scenario in eastern Montana, do to the gumbo mud that we have in the soil.

It rained so hard we stayed in all day and glassed from the house. The next day it dawned nice and clear. The roads were too wet to drive on. We took off on a walk from the house. Once on top, we had a view of many deer leaving the barley fields. We immediately glassed up 2 bucks. One buck was a good up and comer that I wanted to let live another year! The other buck was a big mature dude! He had a good 4x4 frame with deep forks.

We had to watch from our open location as the deer fed down into some canyons. I watched the big guy go down and marked him with an old telephone pole. We made our stalk to perfection! As we rounded the last hill there he was laying facing us. I looked him over as he lay there in an alert position. He was a beauty but he had no eye guards. E got a good look at him with his Lieca binoculars, he looked real big at 60 yards with that kind of glass!

As I pulled us away from the buck, I told Easy that he didn’t have eye guards. Easy E. had the best ever response! He said eye guards are not a prerequisite for me! That is a big buck! I almost went back to shoot the old boy but cooler heads prevailed. I maintained we had 3 more days and if it didn’t work out we could find that buck again. From there we walked in the opposite direction. We skirted around many coulees, glassing and stalking as we went.

We finally made it to a big coulee that the rancher told me was a wicked coulee, yes he called it wicked! I’ve never been the guy to pass up a wicked coulee. We started to glass and after a while I laid eyes on some whitetail deer. They were on their feet and coming in and out of the shade. At a mile away I could make out horns on one deer, I thought maybe we should check it out.

We trekked across some open country to get to the side the deer were on. As we started to get close to where I had the deer marked, we came upon a coyote. The coyote was stretched out on the ground and looked dead. At 40 yards I looked through my binos to see if it was breathing. I determined it was dead! A few steps closer and up jumps the coyote! The old boy had been napping and was caught off guard. He ran out 40 yards and stopped. I told E to shoot him, he didn’t want to blow our stalk on the deer. Cooler heads prevailed for the second time that day!

When we reached the last little hill, I peeked over to find a rather large buck within bow range. Four does were even closer and I knew it had to happen quick. Easy pulled up with his 300urm and made quick work of the buck. E’s first whitetail was a good one!