Krag hunt again

[jon_norstog]

Well, I may have mentioned that the area above Lolo where my brother and I have hunted for years has become an elk-free zone, courtesy of winterkill and the Fish Creek wolfpack. WE decided to try another area and settled on the Island park zone, along the continental divide between Yellowstone and I-15.

I took chuck-in-idaho's advice and got maps, maps, maps. Downloaded them for free and used a GIS program to get a bird's-eye view of that area and a couple others.

We went up scouting last weekend, covered the area from Spencer to Kilgore and up to the divide. It isn't a high success area, but we might score. We hunt on foot. That might help up in road-hunter land.

Good news, a lot of the area is suitable for using the Krag. Wooded, up-and-down, 100 yards would be a long shot. Part of the area, where the mountains stop and the Snake River Plain begins, is wide-open. I bought that 7-mag custom Mauser for this hunt, but so far it is no threat to anything smaller than a bus. Either I'll get it sorted or I'll use my 6.5 Swede. It's a spike-only hunt this year. Always a surprise from Idaho F&G!

Actually I was already missing the Krag, and season is still 8 weeks away. I might drop back to a 180 gr. bullet for the smaller animal. Gotta think about that one.

We did see one wolf-killed cow elk up on the divide. She had been gutted but had plenty of meat left. Maybe 2 weeks dead - just getting good!

jn

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[chuck in idaho]

Jon,
I hope you and your brother are successful in your hunt. I always enjoyed trying out a new area.
Good luck
Chuck

[jon_norstog]

Thanks, Chuck.

For your good wishes. I, too like new territory; my brother Paul is a little more set in his ways and will keep going back to the same area he knows, year after year. Paul seems to like this new area, and he's the one with the outfit. It's kind of a leap of faith for him. As to the hunt, I hope I made it clear in my last post, the two radically different types of terrain in involved in this one hunt. So you need a woods rifle and a long-range rifle both. My solution is to have one of each. others might just get a .300 Win Mag and carry that iron everywhere.

I really do think that the Krag, or its civilian cousin the .300 Savage, are just about right for this kind of hunting. No scope necessary, but a fast action helps if you need to get off a second shot. A lot of hunters I see are lugging more iron than they need - if they had any sense they'd get a Krag!

jn

[Nick Adams]

Good luck on your hunt.