Pite0007 and I scored in Montana!

[notsure]

I'll contribute a story and pictures as soon as I find some free time.   

[lacire]

  congratulations, looking forward to the pictures.

[JeffC]

Congrats to you both, looking forward to seeing those white feathered beauties with snow covered mountains in background. Safe travels, looks like Montana was getting a snowstorm.

[backforty]

Awesome, congrats

[notsure]

I'm finally getting around to writing this summary of personal firsts: A Merriams turkey hunt and crossing into the great state of Montana. We booked our unguided hunt through Center of the Nation Hunting (CNH), which is based out of Colony, Wyoming, but has agreements with landowners in the Black Hills area of South Dakota, as well as in Eastern Montana. We decided to go with the Montana hunt primarily because according to CNH co-owner Shanna the chances of us filling our tags were better than we could expect in the Black Hills. We only had two and half days to hunt and a combined zero experience targeting Merriams, so putting the best odds in our favor made sense. Before I go on, I need to mention that Shanna and the owners of the ranch we hunted on treated us like we were family. In particular, Shanna was professional yet exceptionally courteous, and you felt an immediate sense that she genuinely wanted all of us to have a great time. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend booking a hunt through CNH.

The working sheep and cattle ranch we had access to encompasses an approximately two mile stretch of land bordering a creek bottom, flanked by large flat areas of grazing acreage that offered little cover. So, we drove around in the evening looking for birds roosted in stands of large cotton wood trees growing all along the creek bottom and used the cover of darkness to approach these areas in the morning, either setting up in the creek bottom itself or pitching a blind in the open grazing land within 200 yards or so of the roost trees. If we didn't score when the birds flew off the roost, we would "run and gun" through the creek bottom during the latter part of the morning and into the afternoon. This sounded like a good plan, but after two days of poor weather and a few close calls, we still had three empty tags coming into Sunday morning, and we had to break camp and head back to Minnesota that afternoon.

Well, we decided the best plan for the Sunday morning hunt was to get in as close as possible to the roosted birds without bumping them. Using the creek bottom as a barrier to the East, one hunter covered the other directions relative to the tree we roosted most of the birds on Saturday evening. We figured we may not get within shooting distance of a gobbler, but the birds would have to walk by at least one of us after fly-down. Well, weather and providence shined upon us, because by 9 AM, two beautiful Merriams gobblers were in the truck and I'm certain had we been able to hunt Sunday afternoon, we'd have filled our third tag. The gobblers were on fire.

All in all, this was a heck of trip. First Merriam gobbler, first time in Montana, and I almost forgot to mention, this was the first time I ever successfully participated in a "run and gun" turkey hunt. I've attempted to sneak up on turkeys several times in the past, but until this past Sunday, all those attempts were in vain. Additionally, we met some great people, a very friendly (and huge) sheep dog, and managed to get home safely without incident. That's a lot to be thankful for. If you have yet to hunt for Merriams in the Dakota area of the country jump at the chance if you can swing it. You will not regret it.

BTW, did you know prickly pear cactus is native to Montana? Watch out where you sit! And check out the "2" spur" a buddy of ours made from an old sprinkler head as a trophy for the first gobbler tagged on the hunt.

[notsure]

Sheep dog, cactus, and sheep admiring my decoy.

[notsure]

Two inch spurs!

[lacire]

Two inch spurs!

That looks like something the Goats would try to pull off...    

[JeffC]

Congrats again to the both of you, great pictures and write up. I am sure that dog has had some run ins with coyotes out there, sure he has a mean side. 

[notsure]

Yes, I do believe Gregor has a few coyote skins in his trophy room. However, on Saturday afternoon, Gregor was trailing his herd of sheep and spotted me and a buddy sitting inside a make-shift blind compromised of downed trees and some brush. He immediately came bounding over and sat down with us and really didn't want to leave. Interestingly, the older sheep dog (a Great Pyrenes) wanted nothing to do with any of us. He wouldn't attack us, but he'd make his presence known anytime he believed we were encroaching upon his herd of sheep.

[GobbleNut]

Two inch spurs!

That looks like something the Goats would try to pull off...    

Anything to fool the Flockers...  

...Great story and pics, notsure...and congrats on your success. (I'm headed up to Montana in two weeks myself)