One of the things I like to do with my trail cams is hike them into some remote basins and set them up on wallows and springs. Obviously I get some pretty neat elk pictures and bear pictures, but I am more surprised at what I don’t get. Not one picture of a lion, lynx, wolverine, or other small carnivores like weasels or martens.

Like I said, I get lots of elk, and two bulls stirred my interest in the summer of 2007, one I dubbed “toad sticker” and the other “thirds”. The “toad sticker” bull had a freakishly long left second tine, it stuck out to the side like a sword. Overall he was a nice six, long main beams but very narrow, not being 36 inches wide. “Thirds” was a nice bull, the big dog in the basin; his third tines were much longer than any other bull I had ever seen in this country. They never showed up together, but “thirds” had a little tag-along rag horn that was always with him. Both bulls played into archery season 2007, but “toad sticker” is the most interesting story.

My buddies and I were on the second day of one of our usual weekend over-nighters. We were hunting two basins to the south of where I had the bulls on camera and were heading back toward our trucks pretty much beaten. Sitting down, filling our water bottles, bugles started ringing out above us, two bulls, bugling right on top of each other. I had obligations back home to get to, so I told me buddies, good luck, let me know if we need to pack them out tomorrow, and I headed up the packers trail. They were going to keep the wind and bushwhack straight to the bulls.

Well, as luck would have it, the packers trail looped up and back right under the two screamers. I can’t see them as I am stuck in an alder patch, but they couldn’t be 80 yards up the hillside. I hopped up on a root wad of a wind-thrown tree to see over the alder and asses the situation. There they are, 5 feet apart, screaming in each other’s face. What a sight. One turned his head, and WHOA, it’s “toad sticker”!

I fumble around in my pockets for my little camera to get a picture. Just then they start fighting! Major rumble, not just pushing and shoving. I get a couple pictures taken, jump down, and knocked an arrow. This is my chance to move in, right?

Let me tell you, next time you try to get close to two fighting elk, know that you are risking your life. I started up that packers trail trying to get to the end of this idiotic alder to where I could see them. They wouldn’t be more than 40 yards away from there. You could feel the ground shaking from those two behemoths throwing each other around the hillside. I was ten yards from the end of the alder, ten yards from glory. Then I heard them come apart and one is running. Coming like a train right at me. I had to enough time to kneel down and see this bull blast into the alders, head down, legs and feet flailing, dirt flying. Right past me, nearly over the top of me, that left second sword missed my shoulder by mere inches. I literally ate dirt coming off that elk. Down the trail and over hill he went. Crushing trees and brush all the way, I could hear him going clear down toward the creek. Now the other bull, a descent six, is trotting down the hill to, just to make sure “toad sticker” is gone, I guess. He pops his head into the alder, but won’t show me any vitals. I am shaking like a leaf now, he zeroes in on me and then bolts. It was all over in a flash.

I didn’t see him ever again that year, or on my cameras during the summer of 2008. “Thirds” had disappeared as well. That is the worst part of trail cameras. I always wonder what happens to them. I want to know if someone harvested them, did a lion or wolves kill them, did they succumb to winter on a snowy ridge somewhere, or did they just move off to new country.

As luck would have it, at the end of this past rifle season, I was talking with a guy who was uncharacteristically forthcoming about where he was hunting. He was hunting 3 basins to the north of where I keep my cameras. I knew it well as I had hunted there occasionally. He told me he saw a giant bull way up in a slide. He got a quick look at it through binocs and said it had a third main beam sticking out the left side. I just grinned, because I knew what he saw.

Big Coyote…

This one AIN”T a Coyote though…Yep that’s a wolf.

There is more than one…

The predators aren’t JUST Canines in the winter

Scouting cameras have been widely adopted by Midwest Whitetail hunters, but see limited use in the West in the vast tracts of public land. When I asked DJ how and why he got started he replied:

“I hunted this brushy country since I was 12. Spent lots of time scouting, out hiking, all that. Two kids come along and that changes a guy’s priorites. They are the most important thing in my life, along with my wife of course. So I started thinking I needed something to help me scout.”

DJ’s early experiments with Game cameras were a learning experience. He finally began building his own “homebrew” cameras.

“My friend bought a Leaf River cam, we played around with it, got some pics, but it was just so slow on the trigger, and bulky. Started surfing the internet, found some homebrew websites and got hooked. I have built about 25-30 cams, I run about 13-15 during the spring and summer. It is so fun to see what is there when I am not. ”

Where DJ hunts is thick and brushy and that part of the state is not as conducive to long range glassing as other more open parts of the West.

“Northwest Montana is tough to scout anyway, you can see the sign, but just don’t see the game like in other parts of the state and country, you can be 20 yards away from an elk, and not see it! Even glassing, you get a glimpse of game but never a good look before it’s into the next patch of alder. ”

DJ has captured some unbelievable pictures from his cameras. Some of the most memorable have been of the predators that share his hunting area.

In November of 2007 he found a mule deer carcass and set up a camera, hoping to catch pictures of scavengers such as coyotes. When he downloaded the pictures he was surprised to find these BIG toothy buggers in his hunting area:

He even kept tabs on them when spring rolled around. He set up a camera on a logging deck where the grass came early (Probably to catch Deer and Elk). The family unit of Grizzlies was back.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll give you folks a taste of DJ’s remote scouting. Perhaps it will encourage folks to get out into their hunting areas and see what’s happening when they are not there….

“As it got closer and closer, I saw it much too low to the ground,” Lemon said. “Steve was behind me cow calling. When it got about 25 yards away, I saw that it was mountain lion.”

It was coming right at the camouflage-clad hunter.

“Maybe 15 yards away, it crouched down low and it was flipping its tail,” he said. “It was looking beyond me. Its eyes were glued on Steve.”

The big cat stopped, slowly turned and began walking away.

“I thought, ‘That’s a good sign,’ ” Lemon said. “I thought I’d just let it walk away.”

Suddenly, the mountain lion turned and began creeping right toward Tintzman, who had no idea the animal was anywhere near. Lemon began to inch backwards. He already had an arrow nocked in the string of his traditional longbow.

“It was crouched down low and heading right at Steve,” Lemon said. “My mind was racing. All my experience in the outdoors told me the lion could cover 15 yards to zero in a matter of seconds. It was moving fast.”

The Full Story in the Missoulan