So, last night I go out hunting, and it is still archery season here in Montana, and from about 700 yards across a HUGE ravine full of deep dark timber, up on the open hillside, I spot some cows. COOL! I start looking them over with the binos, looking for a bull, and there he is! A HUGE 6x6 bull! Right up on top of the ridge, about 100 yards from the cows. As I watch him, he lays down, and then up from behind him walks a 5x5 bull, walking right toward the 6x6. The 6x6 gets up and runs his cows off. So my question is, could I have missed the full all out rut earlier in the season? Or is the "round 2" I have heard of? I am pretty new to elk hunting, so I am not sure. Oh, I couldn't get anywhere near the elk, since there was less than an hour of daylight left.

There is no way on this earth what you witnessed was the first rut! Plain and simple the "main" rut will occur every Sept every year no matter the temp, moon, or what have you. What you witnessed is nothing more than a heard of elk still doing what they do when the rut starts to wined down, or what some call the second rut. This late in the game the bulls will start to leave the cows in a week or two. I also witnessed something close to this on the 4th of Oct. Also some smaller bulls will still bugle into the early part of rifle season so listen for that too.

First rut was very early this year....Last week of August/first week of September...

2nd rut is in full swing here now......

Was a weird season, what you are seeing is exacly what I have observed in BC.....I started on Sep. 1 and hunted my arse off til Oct. 11, when I finally scored a bull..

Good luck, go get em...

Dead on rocksteady - there's still plenty of rut-like activity going on, at least the vocal, raking, and sparring part of it. I shot a 4x4 bull on the morning of the Montana season opener. My son and I climbed for nearly 2 hours in the dark through some thick tangled timber to get to a key spot at first light. Just as the first hints of light were arriving, bugles and cow talk erupted from the edge of the timber. 3 bulls were making a huge ruckus...raking saplings, fighting, and a group of 8-10 cows were mewing and chirping like crazy. A couple of them throwing out hot estrous calls...it was non-stop vocalization and awesome to be in the middle of...we were only 50 yards from the bulls.

It was within the first minutes of my son's career as a legal Montana hunter...he'd just turned of age and finished hunter education two weeks earlier. The 4x4 I shot was with two larger bulls, a fresh 6x6 and a mature 6x6...I couldn't get the shot on the larger bulls from where I was, I signaled to my son to get into position to take a shot, and I looked in his eyes seeing that he was mesmerized by all of the activity. It was the first few minutes of his life that he had the tool in hand to make a shot, and all this was going on. He choked abit and the bigger bulls moved over the horizon and I took the 4x4...I told him that hunters with decades more elk hunting experience have done the same thing in that scenario. We were both super stoked to have experienced it together.

I hadn't been into elk that have been that vocal and rut-like during a Montana rifle opener before...it was awesome. Alot more fun than chasing quiet, nocturnal elk! A lifetime elk hunting nut was born last Sunday who's glad and super motivated to seal the deal during the remainder of the general rifle season. Best of luck to everyone still looking to fill their tag!

2008 Elk

Son with 2008 Elk

Around here they were going like crazy up till about a week and a half ago - as late as I've ever seen rutting action, but in theory the "rut" is supposed to last as late as to the end of October. I'd never witnessed it anywhere near there until this year, though.