Well, right after work we start the 1700 mile drive to western Montana. The plan is to arrive by mid-evening Saturday so we can grab some sleep before driving the last hour to our staging parking lot. We'll hike 2 hours in the dark through an area of high grizzly concentration so that we are waiting at the first possible spot for elk when the sun rises Sunday morning. From there it is another hour in to where we'll camp below where I shot my elk last year. The plan is to focus on elk while opportunistically keeping an eye out for big muleys Sunday thru Wednesday. Last year I got nervous about not seeing much game and shot a small muley then saw 2 trophy-class ones the next day. If we do not tag out on bulls by Tuesday we would probably shoot at cows on Wednesday. Thursday will be for hauling meat or a last-ditch effort at a cow in an area with more elk and closer to the truck but where our tags do not allow bulls. Then we will go out for what should be a relatively short antelope hunt either Thursday or Friday morning before starting back.

I will be going centerfire in the backcountry but I will have my Omega when we hit the pairie. If I still have a deer tag this will let me go after a whitetail, but I really hope to take the antelope with it. I will only use the centerfire for antelope if we get short on time and I need to take an opportunity where I can't get in range for the ML.