More RECOLLECTIONS OF A MONTANA TREKKER

More RECOLLECTIONS OF A MONTANA TREKKER

20th October, 2001

Let's see. Around noon, me and Mathew Denison took off to hike in about 3 miles to our hunting camp. Mike Tomell was going to meet us up there later on in the afternoon to stay up there in our little hunting shack

for opening day of big game season. We got there about 2:00 after a nice leisurely hike in and worked on starting a fire and bringing in some firewood. Then, about a half hour later Mike showed up. A few weeks earlier, we had hiked into this isolated drainage to build a three sided shelter for a deer hunting base camp. It was carefully hidden from view and built like shelters used by earlier hunters, made from deadfall, standing dead trees and bark from stumps and logs. Since rock was not a problem, we made a nice rock hearth out in front of the shelter for cooking and heat.

After we all got to camp and collected enough firewood, we decided to go scout around a bit. We saw a good bit of recent deer and elk sign. We all met back in camp to cook supper and cast rifle balls

for the hunt the next day. After some joking

and story telling, we all decided to turn in and hope for good luck in the morning.

Sometime before daybreak, we got up and boiled coffee. After finishing our coffee, and as the sky lightened, we split up and went hunting. Mike saw a couple of does. Me and Mathew didn't see any deer. Around 10:00, we met back at camp for a breakfast of saltpork, johnnycake,

and coffee. Gathering our gear up, we split up with Mathew and Mike going one direction and I going off to hunt on my own. We slowly hunted our way back to my house without seeing any more deer. I arrived back at home and waited a bit for the boys. Mat and Mike stopped by a well known stump for a bit of tea. Since they had left camp before me, I took my horse out to find them in case they had a deer down. Meeting them on the trail, we all proceeded back to the house. That was pretty much the whole tale.

Marvin