Unit 401 (Sweet Grass Hills)

Montana FWP draws an exact line around unit 401 and says nothing about where the elk stand inside it. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Toole and Liberty counties. It runs to about 1,806 square miles.

What bounds unit 401

Montana FWP draws unit 401 in Toole and Liberty counties with a boundary that runs on Interstate 15 and US Highway 2, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions. It tells you the shape of the unit and nothing about its inhabitants. What it does give you is the way in: the rivers and highways you cross, and the divides that decide which drainage you end up in.

High ground inside the line: West Butte, Mount Brown and Mount Royal

Named high points inside the unit include West Butte at 6,987 feet, Mount Brown at 6,916 feet, Mount Royal at 6,907 feet, East Butte at 6,555 feet and Gold Butte at 6,490 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Elk on low, open country live on distance and visibility, so they see you first.

Holding ground: Miners Coulee, Eclipse Gulch and The Deep Ground

Below them sit Miners Coulee at 4,198 feet, Eclipse Gulch at 4,182 feet, The Deep Ground at 4,011 feet, Snow Coulee at 3,896 feet and La Plante Coulee at 3,869 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Two you can watch from a single knob is worth more than five you have to drive between.

Water in this unit

The water inside the unit line comes to 240 mapped stream reaches, 136 lakes and 1,387 stock tanks. On ground with that many tanks, knowing which two or three hold water in your season is the most useful thing a scouting trip can tell you.

Reading the land status

Our ownership read for this unit is approximate — it comes out as Private / Other 100%, so treat it as a starting point and check a current land-status layer before you plan a route. The unit runs from 3,205 feet to 4,607 feet, averaging 3,630 — not much relief, so the animals move laterally rather than up and down.

Montana FWP publishes no elk success figure for unit 401 that we can tie to this unit alone, so we won't quote one. The plan: find the feed, find the timber it backs onto, then watch the seam between them at the edges of the day.

Glassing from Devils Chimney, Rooster Ridge and Black Jack Butte

Take a position on one of Devils Chimney (5,566 ft), Rooster Ridge (5,237 ft), Black Jack Butte (5,207 ft) and Bear Tooth (4,775 ft) and be on it before light. Cold air slides downhill in the dark, so keep your scent out of the bowl you mean to watch; expect the thermals to turn uphill an hour after the sun reaches the slope. A tripod is worth more here than another hour of walking. On the rut hunts, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Water decides where you sit

With 1,387 tanks and only 240 mapped stream reaches, this is ground where standing water is made rather than found. Find the two or three holding water near a glassing position and you have found the only appointment the animals keep. Check the ground around it before you commit an evening to it.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Season normals here run Sep 70/39°F, Oct 56/27°F and Nov 42/16°F. By Nov the lows are around 16°F, and the first hard storm after that moves animals off the high ground — a late tag is a bet on that storm arriving. Precipitation runs about 1.1 in. in Sep, 0.7 in. in Oct and 0.5 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Getting past the roads: I 15 and US 2

I 15 and US 2 are the paved frame, which is also where everyone else starts. There are roughly 13.3 miles of genuine four-wheel-drive road in the unit, and the country past the end of them is the part worth your legs.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks West Butte, Mount Brown, East Butte and Gold Butte as places to see from, and Snoose Coulee, Lily Coulee, Greens Coulee and US 2 @ unit boundary as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the unit line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Take the pair you can reach on one road and treat the rest as a second trip.

What a day here costs you

1,806 square miles is more country than a week will cover, so pick one drainage and learn it rather than driving the unit. The nearest services are at Chester, about 23 miles out, which is an hour of your morning each way if you sleep there. The ground is gentle enough that the pack-out is a distance problem rather than a climbing one. Leave the truck earlier than you want to and you will hunt the best half-hour of the day.