Well, sounds like you are eliminating a ton of headache. Maybe you should take a treestand and whack one with your bow on its way in or out of the field.
Staying in a cabin, take tons of good food and hunt and eat!!!!

Good Luck

Good advice given to you but I would not go if I had only one week. Last year I hunted elk in montana ,it took 2 days of driving each way ,two days to pack in a spike camp ,3 days to pack out a bull and one day to pull spike camp. That adds up to 10 days with out a day to hunt .If I have to wait 3 years to get a tag again I would take 21 days [and I do]for the hunt . Unless your going for fun take the time off to up your odds .goodluck to you.


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I don't think I am going to take my bow......With only five days to hunt I will need to make my chances as good as I can get it.

Thanks for the advice....We will have to do what we can do in five days....The way it is going to be set up is the owner of the property is having a problem with elk and mulie browsing in his fields and would like us to take care of it (at least what we have tags for ) I don't think packing them out will pose much of a problem. We will have two four-wheelers there for assistance. Hopefully we will not run into many snags. If we do it will be nice to know of all of the "could happens" that I am getting from all of y'all that has experience in the western hunting.....All of the information from all of you is very much appreciated!

Thanks again

well, i fyou are hunting private property, the game is different...but if that landowner allows other hunters on the property...you can bank onthose elk not being there during the hunt, unless it is a MASSIVE property...

Elk tend to get smart VERY quickly once the first shot is fired...I am glad you are choosing to leave your bow at home...Elk are not as easy as picking one out...

we generally spend 2-3 dys just locating them....then 1-4 days getting close to them...and this is all in remote back country stuff...

Would suggest spending a LOT of time on google earth researching what look like natural exit corridors, and paths...locate water, food is everywhere for elk, so that is not your normal thing to look for...

everything I hear is that eastern MT is better than western MT for trophy elk.....lower altitude I assume too.

I'm IL, I wanna go!

well deer predator today you should know if you got drawn i checked on line and we did I have hunted elk i Idaho and eastern Oregon but have wanted to go to Montana for a long time with the elk deer combo tags are the best we will be hunting in the north west of the state lots of deer mole and whitetail my buddy that live there has said last two weeks of the season are the best the deer are in the rut he saysthe elk have splitup by then and not talking much but last year they harvested 9 bullsthey have had a lot of snow that been on the ground for a long time so a real good spring lots of food he tells me don't worry we will come back with deer but BE READY TO HIKE A LOT AND BE IN SHAPE ......HUNTING SHAPE I agreereading a lot about elkI hope you got tags and good luck oh more thing my friend says rifle season all the locals do a lot of roadhunting thats why he says be in shape there are a lot of bow hunters that are not so serious about BIG GUNSI guess

Good info guys. I'lll be following this one closely. I drew Elk/Deer combo. Whoo Hoo..

Hey, Deer Predator
Just curious if ya'll drew on your combo or not?
We drew for unit 291 and are gearing up.
What direction out of Drummond will you be going. ?

And all us Western Montana folk would be happy to have that rumor continue to perpetuate itself

but seriously, there are nowhere near the numbers of elk taken eastern as western...Western Montana is an elk hunters paradise...

Most eastern Montana locales (east of Billings)require special permit (highly limited tags for gun hunters) while most western locales do not require...

but Eastern Montanais preferred by easterners (anywhere east of Montana)wanting to avoid the elevation ofmountains...