November's over (or nearly so), the calendar is telling me?

Seems odd, although several other seemingly arbitrary deadlines agree, like hunting season ending yesterday. Fatigue aside, I'm kinda glad they're not offering any season extensions, and I'm still sitting on an elk tag! So I should be all for extending the seasons, but somehow... no.

It's largely my own dang fault, very limited "free" time, & I didn't do hunting anywhere near justice.

Except wait, that's not quite true. Granted, I only went hunting five times, but two of those were overnight backpack trips. And even the "day" hunts involved hikes of eight or ten miles, into some fairly high trophy potential country.

Plus of course I could of shot an elk opening day, and am quite glad I didn't! I've come to see that retrieval from that spot is going to be a project.

Ever since we started eating bison on a regular basis (which is getting to be quite a while now, ~8 years), I've joked that it's enabled me to become a trophy hunter. Plus of course my son nails an elk every year, but still... I'm getting to be seriously overdue to run into Mr. Big.

Except, I'm pretty sure I came SO close a couple of times this year... Always at the furthest point of my planned explorations, we're talking out there. In the one case, at the very apex, the pinnacle as it were, jumped a lone elk out of its bed in the absolute primo hiding spot in the whole neighborhood. A lone elk like that, in that spot... Just about has to have noteworthy antlers. Except I staggered in there in a state of exhaustion, hadn't seen any elk sign for a bit, and I tell you what... I'll never approach that spot again except in absolute stealth mode. And I will be back.

Another time it was two sets of fresh tracks, going down a steep, remote ridge that I was going up. Should have followed 'em, but no, I thought all their buddies would be up top. Tsk...

And yesterday, I got into elk sign galore, not to mention a wolf track or two. Ran into a few other folks there, though, a first for the season. Reports were the elk had pulled out the day before, or at least crossed the fence onto private. I've always said that's one of my areas of particular expertise; going hunting where there used to be elk!

But somehow, I just don't feel all that gypped. Managed to explore some "new" country, as well as visited old haunts. In fact yesterday I made it up to a spot where you can see over into some of the more remote stuff around these parts. We call it "Murkwood", and I'm not necessarily joking when I say that it's haunted, up there.

In spite of having a tag for the Missouri Breaks (798-20, not one of the "primo" ones), I have no regrets about doing my hunting closer to home. Aside from the one trip Cody and I took to the Breaks, I did my "scouting" by picking people's brains. Eventually this led to hands-down the most knowledgeable contact extant for that area. He had this tag also, but I don't think that's the only reason he wasn't very encouraging. Elk were few & far between, and if he wound up whacking Mr. Big right at the end, I haven't heard about it yet.

But then that seems to be the general consensus with most of the folks I've talked to. Game processor and taxidermist business is off, although the economy might have something to do with that. Hunter success is definitely down, though.

My "data" isn't based on the surprisingly large numbers of trucks pulling ATV trailers I see going up & down the road anymore. You almost never see antlers on one of those, but that's been the case as long as I can remember. No, I'm talking to people who hike way in the heck in there, or out there as the case may be. And their reports kinda match mine. They're not getting into near as many elk as just a couple of years ago, and when they do it's often just one or two.

Wolves, is the simple answer. And simple answers are often wrong, I know, and there's a whole lot more to the situation than that. But in this case it might about catch it...

In spite of the way this has read so far, hunting actually comprised a very minor part of the things that went on in November around here. Mostly we skinned buffalo, or Cody did anyway. Just being his secretary/receptionist is almost a full time thing in itself! And even though at the moment it seems like it must have been in a prior existence or something, we even managed to fit in a bit of farming. Harvesting flax, anyway, which I have to admit I'm getting tired of doing in November! That's been the pattern the last two years... And luckily our winter wheat came up nice, in spite of temps going near-zero just a few days after I'd seeded it. And now it's gone under the blanket, along with everything else! Oddly enough, the Gallatin found itself in the storm crosshairs, and we "enjoyed" an 18-24" dump of heavy, wet snow back about the middle of the month.

Now that hunting season is over, maybe I'll have to break out the skinny skis for a tour around the neighborhood, as we certainly have the impenetrable base in place this year. Cody's already been up to Bridger Bowl once, and I might even have to break out the backcountry Alpine Touring gear and visit my private ski resort here in the backyard one of these days. Once the stiff & sore syndrome from hunting goes away...