Sixmile, Montana
The Rusk family, Sixmile, Montana
Earl and Dot Rusk ran their first elk camp under Tallow Ridge in 1974. Their son Cody guides it now, his daughter Jess runs the antelope hunts, and Loretta Haines has cooked every supper in the cook tent since 2006. The ground is private, and nobody else hunts it.
40,000
private acres. No public access, and no other outfitter on them.
1974
the first camp: four hunters, one wall tent, two elk.
3
species on the ground: elk, mule deer and pronghorn antelope.
20
years of Loretta Haines in the cook tent. She has not missed a season.
The season on the ridge
Every hunter asks the same three things: when does it run, what is it like up there, and is there still room. Pick a month to see all three, week by week.
Weeks in October
Oct 10 to 12
Rifle antelope, opening weekend
Oct 13 to 15
Rifle antelope
Oct 16 to 18
Rifle antelope
Oct 25 to 30
Rifle elk, opening week
Oct 25 to 29
Mule deer
Openings as of September 21, 2026. Jess updates this page every evening.
We would rather you book knowing the odds. The rates below count every hunter who came, including the ones who passed on the animals they saw.
$7,800
We hunt the parks and dark timber under the ridge on horseback, then on foot. Most bulls taken are five and six points. We pass on young bulls and ask you to do the same.
78%
of elk hunters took a bull in 2025
(sample figure)
$5,200
Long glassing days in the coulees of the Big Coulee lease. The mid-November weeks are the ones to want, when the older bucks forget to hide.
92%
of deer hunters took a buck in 2025
(sample figure)
$3,400
Spot and stalk on the sage flats with Jess, crawling the last few hundred yards. A good first hunt for a son or daughter, and a good excuse to see the ranch.
100%
of antelope hunters filled their tag in 2025
(sample figure)
A 50% deposit holds your week. Details are further down, under the money and the tags.
Tallow Ridge started as a way to pay for a cattle ranch. It turned into the reason the family kept it. The ground has grown from 12,000 acres to 40,000, always the same way: a neighbor who liked how the Rusks treated the land.
Earl and Dot Rusk take four hunters into a single wall tent on Sixmile Creek to help pay the note on the home place. Two of them go home with elk.
The Harlows, the next ranch north, lease their 15,000 acres to the outfit on a handshake. It has been renewed every spring since.
The Big Coulee lease adds 13,000 acres of breaks and coulees, the best mule deer country for fifty miles. The ground reaches 40,000 acres.
Cody Rusk, nineteen, guides his first paying hunter to a six-point bull. He runs the outfit today, and still guides every elk week.
Loretta Haines answers an ad in the Sixmile paper for a camp cook. Twenty seasons later she runs the cook tent and, some say, the camp.
Jess Rusk, Cody’s daughter, takes over the antelope hunts and the booking book. If you call the ranch, she is who answers.
Camp sits at 5,800 feet on a bench under the ridge, forty minutes of gravel from the home place. It goes up the last week of August and comes down after Thanksgiving. Clients tell us they remember the tent and the food longer than the animal.
The evening fire is lit when the last rider is back, not before.
12 by 14 foot canvas wall tents on wooden floors, two hunters to a tent, each with a wood stove, cots with thick pads, a lantern and a rack for wet gear.
Long tables, a coffee pot that is never empty, and the sheepherder stove Earl bought in 1974. Loretta bakes sourdough in it from a starter older than Jess.
A propane shower tent with hot water every evening, which matters more on day four than anyone admits on day one.
You ride to the top of the ridge and walk down from it. If you can hike three miles with a thousand feet of climb, you are fit enough. If you have never ridden, our horses have carried plenty of hunters who hadn’t either.
4:30
Loretta has breakfast out by 4:45 and your lunch packed in a paper sack with your name on it.
5:15
We ride out in the dark and tie up below the ridge before the sky starts to grey.
6:40
On the glass from the rim, working the parks and benches while the animals are still feeding.
11:00
Lunch on the ridge in the sun, or back to camp for a nap, depending on the wind and on your legs.
3:30
Back out for the last two hours of light, which is when the ridge earns its name.
7:30
Elk roast on Sunday, chicken fried steak on Wednesday, cinnamon rolls on Friday. Lights out by nine.
Sample letters, for illustration
“Eleven seasons with the Rusks. Cody put me on a six-point in 2019 and on nothing at all in 2021, and he told me the truth about both years before I booked the next one.”
“My son took his first antelope with Jess when he was fourteen. She made him lie in the sage for twenty minutes until the right buck turned. He still talks about the twenty minutes.”
“Snowed in for two days in November. Loretta had a pot roast on by noon and Cody had us glassing from the tent door. I filled my tag on day five, and I would have gone home happy without it.”
Call our hunters yourself. Ask Jess and she will send you names and numbers from last season, including the hunters who went home without an animal.
Ask for referencesShe is at the ranch office after the horses are fed, usually from six. Nothing is charged until she confirms your week and sends the deposit invoice.