Libby hunter Rick Jaqueth downs his bull bison Friday

With a small group of people watching and filming, the hunt did not transpire exactly the way Rick Jaqueth wanted. But he came away satisfied after downing a large bull bison in the Eagle Creek area north of Yellowstone National Park Friday.

"I don't think he's a real old bull. I think he's going to be a good eater," the Libby hunter said shortly after shooting the bison at 1:50 p.m. He estimated the bull weighed close to 2,000 pounds, and judging from its teeth, he figured it was a 5- or 6-year-old.

The kill was clean and quick by the account of all witnesses, including Mike Mease, who heads the Buffalo Field Campaign, an activist group seeking changes in Montana's policies regarding Yellowstone bison.

"Good shooting," Mease said, shaking Jaqueth's hand afterwards. The kill brought to an end an odd game of cat-and-mouse, with Jaqueth attempting to elude the scrutiny of Buffalo Field Campaign volunteers for three days. But along the way, Jaqueth had many gregarious chats with the volunteers, who spend every day, all day, watching over the bison that migrate out of the park.

Jaqueth spent Thursday watching dozens of bison, inspecting them for size and location, enjoying himself thoroughly as he passed up several convenient opportunities, some involving a wide selection of animals. It was an excursion that led to sightings of just about every type of big game animal that inhabits the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

There were mule deer, a bighorn ram and even antelope on the grasslands north of Gardiner. There were cow elk wandering through the downtown area, and distant sightings of bull elk inside the park. By the end of the day, Jaqueth had settled on a plan that involved saddling his horses and mules to pursue scattered bison he had seen in the Deckard Flats area.

But returning to look over that area Friday morning, he found they had disappeared. Instead, Jaqueth and his hunting partners watched as dozens of elk crossed the flats in single file lines. There were barking gunshots, as some hunters on horseback found their marks.

The bison, however, were not to be seen the way they were on Thursday. The morning passed with Jaqueth unable to find any, with the exception of a few bison seen miles away passing over a high ridge toward the Absaroka Wilderness.

"I think we've got a hunt going on here," he said.

More than a few times during the week, Jaqueth had been discouraged from pursuing bison because of the presence of Field Campaign volunteers. But he could no longer concern himself with their presence when he came across the three bulls at Eagle Creek.

"I'm losing buddy points by the minute, so it's time to do this thing," he said, referring to his Libby hunting partners, Bruce O'Brien and Earl Messick, who were pressed for time to return home. The Field Campaign volunteers told Jaqueth on the road below they would get out of his way, so he could proceed with the kill.

Finally, Jaqueth walked about 300 yards up the snowy draw with seven people behind him, and two Field Campaign volunteers filming from a distance. Jaqueth stopped about 50 yards short of the three bison. He quietly watched the animals for a while, and then explained his intentions.

"What we're doing now," he said, "is waiting for them to move down into the draw a little and turn broadside so I can get a good low shot."

Soon after, he took aim and fired a .300 Winchester Magnum round, aiming for the heart. The largest bison in the group stumbled, but stood for a few minutes. Jaqueth fired a second round.

Within a couple of minutes, the bull dropped, and then died as Jaqueth and the people behind him watched in silence.

"You just had to film that, didn't you," Jaqueth wryly said to the volunteers.

He earlier explained his ambivalence about being filmed by outsiders.

He considers hunting to be a private endeavor, and he believes there is nothing entertaining, or positive, about seeing an animal die.

Mease apologized to Jaqueth, but said there is a purpose to his group's intense dedication to document bison hunts and bison management actions carried out by the Montana Department of Livestock.

The group's main purpose, he said, is to bring about change in the manner in which the state does not tolerate bison. The state's policies are based on concerns bison will contaminate cattle with brucellosis, a disease that causes cows to abort calves.

Mease said he does not object to the hunt once bison have habitat they can use year-round in Montana.

"We have way more in common with this hunter than we have differences," Mease said, referring to Jaqueth.

"This definitely was a clean kill," Mease said, noting a bison shot on Tuesday by a Belgrade hunter took 24 minutes to die after being shot four times. "How can you say there was anything wrong with that … Can you imagine how many people this beautiful, sacred animal will feed?"

That was exactly the motivation for Jaqueth, who considered it a "meat hunt" he can share with friends and family.

"There definitely is something satisfying about getting food from the hoof to the table," said Jaqueth, who was one of the original 10 people chosen out of 6,200 applicants for bison permits in the fall of 2004. "I have the resources and ability to do that, and I am really grateful for this opportunity."

When the bison died, the work began. Mostly with the help of his hunting partners, Jaqueth worked well after dark field dressing the bull and hauling it out for the long trip back to Libby and eventually the dining-room table.

Reporter Jim Mann has been traveling with Rick Jaqueth on a bison-hunting trip near Yellowstone National Park. Mann and Jaqueth have been friends for 23 years. Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com