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About this hunt

This bowhunt takes place at Rhynard Ranch located within the Castle Mountain Range in Central Montana. This is an unguided, do-it-yourself hunt on both private and forest service property. We have access to the entire ranch, along with tens of thousands of acres of adjacent federal lands within the Lewis and Clark National Forest. Jerry Leblanc is accompanying me to call and video. I am the only hunter on the ranch this week. .

Precursor to our Hunt (Flight out on Friday)

Thank you Northwest Airlines. 

Friday afternoon precursor - It started yesterday afternoon. I got to Bradley International Airport in Hartford CT to board my Northwest flight for Helena, MT through Minneapolis.  When I got to the ticket counter their computer system was down. So they hand-wrote my baggage tickets. 

Now I fly, a lot. An by a lot I mean 3x per week and about 200 legs a year.  And the airlines simply can’t suck enough. So when I saw them hand-write my baggage tickets I knew I was absolutely screwed. And screwed I was. I arrived at Helena Montana and stood at the baggage carousel until they turned it off. Then on to the SkyWest ticket counter where they rolled their eyes and could feel my pain. Especially since it was Northwest. But I’ve lost bags before and a simple entry into the system was all I’ve ever needed and they show up the next morning. But we had one big problem; the hand-written tickets were not in the system.  The good folks at SkyWest made me comfortable that my bags would be on the next flight. Unfortunately, that was at 11 PM on Saturday so I would effectively miss my first days’ hunt. 

Addendum, February 2012

I recently received an email from Mike Rhynard, updating me on his progress in addressing the ATV issues Jerry and I experienced on our Rhynard Ranch hunt in 2007.  He informed me that his hunting operation has been going very well and that, since 2007, he and his hunters have worked closely with US Forest Service Enforcement folks to help eliminate illegal ATV activity in the southern Castle Mountains.  Concurrently, the Forest Service greatly restricted the number of trails open to ATV's, which further mitigated the rampant abuse we saw in 2007.  As a result of these efforts, Mike's hunters reported no ATV violations during the 2011 season, and only one in 2010.  There is occasional LEGAL ATV use in the area by a neighboring rancher who has a grazing permit in the area, but it's not frequent.  Mike also reports that his hunters, who are all unguided, consistently exceed the Montana success rate for guided and unguided hunting combined.  We applaud Mike's, and the Forest Service's, efforts in creating an improved hunting environment for all hunters in the area, and we wish Mike and his hunters, many of whom are repeats, continued success.

We wanted you to know that Mike is a terrific guy with a great operation. The situation we experienced in 2007 was unfortuante, but it has been addressed thanks to Mike and the US Forrest Service.

Pat Lefemine