What a difference a day makes!

It's been just gorgeous out, perfect weather for harvest among numerous other things. In fact I don't exactly remember the last time it rained here in the Valley of the Flowers. Probably back in July, although we might have had a sprinkle or two in August. Not more than a trace of precip, though. Thanks to the National Weather Service, though, we had pretty good odds that a storm was on the way, so I ignored a policy I'd set years ago and seeded some winter wheat into absolute dust. And now, it's getting a nice soaking, and what's not to like...?

I still have some harvesting to do, but fortunately not too much acreage, a bit of wheat and barley, plus some golden flax and lentils. They were all seeded into freshly broken hayfields on the Saddle Peak Ranch, and now another entry into the knowledge base is that crops seeded into fresh breaking take longer than "normal" to mature. The rest of our barley, seeded into summerfallow (that had a great stand of red clover plowed down last year, resulting in a nice shot of nitrogen) matured nice and even, and thanks to those frequent summer rain showers that are seeming like a distant memory, the kernels are nice, plump and heavy. I need to get a sample sent into the State Grain Lab, but it looks to me like primo, organic malting barley.

The stuff seeded into fresh breaking, though, still had a noticeable amount of green in it, although it had ripened quite a bit in recent days. If the Weather Service is right, we're supposed to get a fairly hard frost tomorrow night, and then after a few nice days the rest of the stuff will be ready to cut.

In theory, there's an El Nino winter in the works, meaning relatively mild conditions, and I suspect we're due for some nice Indian Summer first, so I'll get the rest of the harvesting done in good shape <knock wood...>

Generally speaking, though, my faith in predictions isn't super high anymore. At least that was one of the primary reactions I came out of a meeting of the Madison Elk Working Group with yesterday. I'd been involved with the Wildlife Committee of the Madison Ranchlands Group for quite a while now, four or five years. It had sort of morphed into the Elk Working Group during the summer of '08.

Many of the local landowners were upset with changing elk distribution patterns in the Madison. Thousands of elk were hanging out down on the flats, primarily on private land, almost year round. Used to be they summered up in the Lee Metcalf Wilderness, but perhaps due to weather, wolves and who knows what else they'd been showing up on the flats earlier, leaving later, and in some cases staying basically year-round. Of course this has a notable impact on fencing and forage, among other things. We're talking between six and ten thousand elk, more than Yellowstone Park anymore! Or at least we were...

In fact so few elk were summering up in their old stomping grounds in the upper Gallatin, the Taylor Fork and vicinity, that FWP was actually considering closing that area to hunting. That was significant, as the area had historically been one of the best elk hunting areas in the State, clear back to the early 1900's! Anymore, though, it was all but devoid of elk.

Not so across the range in the Madison, though. The big herds of almost completely cow elk were wearing out their welcome, at least with the landowners. There is of course some irony there, as most of them outfit, but of course their clients are after antlers, the bigger the better.

As am I. I'd been hunting the Madison hard for years, and was slowly coming to see that the numbers of bona-fide trophy bulls was astoundingly low, in fact out of ~6000 elk (on the east side of the valley) the trophy bulls could just about be counted on your fingers. That's why I was advocating going to a six-point rule, where a bull would have to have at least six points on one side to be legal. And no, that's not a perfect solution either, but I'm told it was gaining traction. At least the Working Group did come to agreement on a greatly extended season (8/15 to 2/15, only open to participants who'd registered for the damage hunt roster on both extreme ends), with access facilitated by a hunt coordinator, paid for by the landowners.

That worked reasonably well last year, and we've streamlined it a bit for this coming season.

Except, in a way, our efforts might be nearly moot. I think Mother Nature sits up there and laughs at human "management" efforts sometimes! Last fall, there weren't near (what had become) the normal numbers of elk down on the flats. It was a very mild fall, and they stayed up on the mountains, it seemed.

And now... everyone is wondering where the heck all the elk went! No one seems to know for sure, but it appears they've decided to re-occupy their old haunts up in the Gallatin. In fact I'm hearing reports of fairly abundant elk in upper Sage Creek and the Taylor Fork, where they'd all but become extinct! Also favorable reports are coming from the east side of the Gallatin.

So, we'll see. Again, forecasts are for a fairly mild winter, and somehow I don't foresee mass migrations out onto the flats, although who knows...?

We've signed up for the damage hunt roster, so we may get called to come blast a cow elk or two if indeed they do show up. In my case, it may not matter, though, as I drew one of the highly coveted rifle tags for the Missouri Breaks. In further ironies, it was a mistake!! I was applying for southeast Montana, or so I thought, but must have made a typo. I know right where to go for trophy bulls in SE MT, but am relatively clueless about the Breaks. But, I've been picking everyone's brain I know who might be able to offer advice, and even fell into some possibly very knowledgeable contacts at the Elk Working Group meeting yesterday, so we'll see... At least the wolves aren't having an impact up there like many other areas of the State, and I'm seriously overdue to run into a truly giant bull, so wish luck, eh?

My main constraint may be a lack of free time, as usual. Buffalo skinning season fires up here in about a week (and Cody already did a couple of early ones). Fortunately, since he's moved out he's seriously motivated to make money, and since buffalo skinning pays New West wages, maybe Dad can break loose...