Date: October 25th, 2023
Opening weekend here at Montana Whitetails, and it was BANGIN". The hunters made the most of their opportunities this year on opening weekend. Our morning started out getting into a area before daylight. We could hear some bulls bugling off in the distance and had to wait until daybreak to not walk through any. We started walking and the first couple elk with 2 shooter bulls where already past our spot a few minutes before legal shooting time started. We waited about 20 minutes and saw a couple more bulls headed up our way. They skirted a ridge and popped out just under 700 yards. One of my hunters and I sprinted to the next ridgetop and quickly prepared for a shot. The range was 585 yards when the 6x6 bull stopped looking back over it's shoulder at another smaller bull bringing up tail end of the group. At the sound of the .300 the bull dropped in it's tracks, the hunters biggest bull to date!
I could hear shooting over on another one of our properties and sure enough, 2 more bulls down there. One hunter had several bigger bulls walk by at 500 yards and then had a big group of elk walk 50 yards behind his blind. He made that shot work which was the closest shot of the weekend. Another bull was down about 80-90 yards from one of the other blinds. A very busy opening morning but that's the way you want it to go down.
The rest of the weekend was filled with nice weather, actually, and some more animals hitting the dirt. Overall it was probably one of our most successful opening weekends in a long time. We've had more shooting on opening weekends but there where definately more dead animals laying on the ground this time on opening weekend, 2023!
Congratulations to all the hunters so far. The weather changed today with a large snow storm blanketing the area and will last a few days bringing up to 18" of snow. Things will change for sure as up until this morning it's been a very mild Fall with some leaves still on the trees. All that will change after this storm and the animals that where not visible under the unseasonal wet and mild conditions early in the year will now be forced to show themselves. Should be a good few weeks coming up once this storm passes.
