Hunting and Fishing News & Blog Articles

The era of the E-bike is here. Companies are coming out with viable, mountain bikes with electric motors and gearing that is sufficient for mountain trails. Yep, thats right, sufficient for mountains. With the combination of gearing and power, electric bikes are a feasible option for front and backcountry use (not wilderness). Not only do e-bikes provide transportation into non-motorized areas, they do it silently.

The FatKat, by Quietkat has a 750-watt electric drive motor which is geared into the pedal drive. E-bikes are generally built from an alloy frame, equipped with front and rear disk brakes in which the front can manually be locked into the fixed position for pavement use. Max speed on flat pavement with the electric motor is about 19 mph. The luggage rack on the back is nice to have for extra gear. Being a backcountry hunter, I’ve personally hunted with a mountain bike quite a bit and was skeptical how this bike would do going up hills. However, the motor and gearing seemed pretty dialed and traversing up a 25-degree slope for a hundred yards proved easily doable without burning out the legs in low gear. Quite frankly, it didn’t even strain my legs. So that was pretty cool.

However, you can’t just go and take the bike up extreme terrain or through deep creek crossings. As Brian Barney said in his EBJ 102 article “Pandora’s Gearbox”, “if you can’t ride your standard bike up it, don’t try and ride an e-bike up it.” Unless of course, you want to burn out your motor. The take away here is, don’t have unrealistic expectations. We’ve experienced 10-mile rides without using the whole battery. I pedal where it’s easy and use the assist when needed. If you do run out of battery be prepared to ride your e-bike out. This can be daunting. The bike alone weighs 79 pounds so you don’t want to have to pedal it up hill for very long. Do not let your electronic control panel mounted on your handlebars get rained on or wet. We’ve experienced the digital interface quit working when the electronics got too wet. Also, do not submerge the motor or more importantly, the battery.

For me in general, the most practical use for e-bikes are for some sort of developed, or once developed, gated road where you can maximize the use of battery without much strain.  A lot times old logging roads were built to follow contours with little grade for semi truck use, which means there aren’t many severe grades; absolutely perfect for an e-bike.

You get out of hunting what you put into it.  The harder you work, the more you ender, the better you will get. The better you get the more consistent results you will have.  When you get a chance at a big buck or big bull you have prepared for the moment the entire season or maybe multiple seasons. “Success is when preparation meets opportunity”.  You could not describe bowhunting any better.  If you want consistent success on public lands you have to work at it, you have to be driven!

Mental toughness

The past winter was hard on the deer herds. Snowfall in most areas was well above the average, and the storms made more difficult browsing for the deer. In response, each spring, Idaho Fish and Game captures and collars does and fawns across the state. This monitoring provides vital, real-time information allowing biologists to react to changing herd sizes quickly. Fawn mortality was expected to be extremely high in some areas.  In response, Fish and Game eliminated antlerless general season hunts in the following units: 48, 49, 52, 66A, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 73A, 74, 75, 76, 77 and 78.

Idaho Fish and Game seemed to fear the winterkill would devastate deer herds. These fears were well founded, as fawn survival rate was the second-lowest seen in 20 years. However, the mortality was much lower than early projections.

About 30% of radio-collared fawns and 90% of collared does survived the harsh conditions last winter with deep snow and frigid temperatures on low-elevation winter range.

In the past 19 years, the lowest survival rate was in the 2010-2011 winter, when only 26% of collared fawns survived. Over this period, the average survival rate has been 57%, almost double the survival from this past winter. Although not the worst season on record as some expected it to be, last winter definitely did some lasting damage to mule deer herds going forward.

This will be welcome news if you missed the May 1 trophy species application deadline. In years past, you would be out of luck and a year behind. However, with this change, hunters can purchase bonus points for any species that they did not apply for that year. The purchase window is July 3 to September 30.

This new feature at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks was set up by House Bill 623, introduced by Rep. Kerry White during the 2017 Legislature.

The legislation also does away with the expiration of bonus points. In the past, if a hunter failed to apply for more than two years, he would forfeit all his accumulated points. The new law eliminates point expiration, allowing hunters the flexibility to keep their points through sustained application gaps.

The fee to purchase a bonus point without applying for a license is $15 per species for residents. Nonresidents are charged $25 each for elk, deer and antelope and $75 each for moose, sheep and goat. If purchasing online, transaction fees will apply.

Every fall we have the great privilege of taking hunters from across the United States on once in a lifetime hunts. Many trophy bull elk call southern Colorado home. For one lucky Eastmans’ Bowhunting journal subscriber a hunt for rutting bulls in Colorado with Guy Eastman filming the whole experience for Eastmans’ Hunting TV is always one of our favorite hunts. This fall we have added an antelope hunt in Colorado for a lucky Digital Journal subscriber. This will be the first time that we have ever offered a hunt as a prize for subscribing to the Digital Journal.

For subscribers to the Hunting Journal, we take them to Eastern Montana to hunt rutting mule deer on the open prairie. We have had many hunters harvest quality bucks and made many new friends through the experience. Give this video a watch! We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed taking Mike Irwin to Montana for a trophy mule deer hunt with Sizzlin S Outfitters!

Yeti didn’t technically ask us to torture test their new One Gallon Jug but their marketing artwork more or less challenged us to do it. Not being people who like to shirk our responsibility as Yeti’s partners we thought that it was important to test the “we dare you.” That dare was enough to get a few of our appetites for destruction salivating. 

So we threw the jug out of a one ton Dodge Ram at 90 MPH into an asphalt paved emergency turn off. The double walled jug survived the fast tumble, not once but twice. The only damage to the jug was some scuffing and some road rash on the handle.

*** No interns were harmed while the water filled jug bounced down the pavement, but they were tested in advance for their dodging ability. Raises were also discussed after the event.***

Needing to up the stakes it was decided that Ken Griffey Jr. imitations were needed to see if the side walls would hold their quarry and if the bottom could stand up to blunt force impact. Yeti’s latest offering held and held the water. Which brought us to the final two integrity tests for the Yeti Rambler One Gallon Jug: The bow and arrow and shotgun tests.

To see how the jug faired you will need to press play on the video below and give it a watch. Hopefully you have as much fun watching as we did putting the Yeti One Gallon Jug through the paces.