A smattering of cow elk bedded, content, intermingled within a dense stand of lodgepole pine nearly 500 yards distant. Down on all fours, Jon shuffles his gloved hands through wrist-deep snow, feeling clumps of Idaho fescue and fringed sage, guiding each hand and knee placement as if navigating his way through heirloom china.
Keith, his long-time hunting buddy, and Brian, a chaperone for the host ranch, flank Jon. They’re also on all-fours, coaxing him onward. Brian slides large rocks, sticks, and branches away from Jon’s route using slow, deliberate motions. Keith becomes a human guardrail, applying slight pressure to Jon’s shoulders, telegraphing him to favor right or left.
Keith whispers to Jon, “Large bunch of fescue off your left hand, sharp rock directly in front of your right knee.” Their movement scarcely registers yet it’s highly orchestrated. The elk, oblivious to their presence, chew their cud. Jon remains ready, but he’s totally dependent upon his buddies to navigate. Ten yards in 20 minutes. Bitter January winds penetrate them.
Every stalk on heavily pressured elk is a roulette wheel. The elk alarm clock ticks constantly. Swirling winds, a twig snapping under a misplaced foot; the instant they detect movement, the jig is up. Stalking is a swinging pendulum of patience and urgency.
This stalk is a monumental event for the three men. They’ve been searching for the optimal situation for two days, yet it’s been a two-year journey for Keith and Jon. The trio slides through a stand of dwarfed Douglas fir, crawl beyond bladed bunches of rough fescue to the place: a clear shot path toward the bedded cow elk.
It’s harvest time. Jon is blind.
Dead Eye
Adult-onset diabetes vandalized Jon’s eyesight 20 years ago at age 52, and his future as an elk hunter seemed as dim as his vision — a devastating proposition for any Montana hunter.
I had met both Jon and Keith Mullan in the spring of 2025 during the MPG Ranch’s Next Level Hunter Camp. I teach the wildlife management segment and MPG Ranch, located in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley south of Missoula, hosts the course. MPG Ranch is a conservation property dedicated to ecological research and public outreach. Graduates of the Next Level course earn a chance to hunt elk and deer on the ranch.
Organizers designed the Bitterroot Next Level Hunter Camp to elevate participant’s proficiency with their rifle, improve landowner-hunter relations, and improve their knowledge of wildlife management and conservation. This two-day event is sponsored by the local Ravalli County Fish and Wildlife Association — Keith and Jon are members — and includes a full day at the shooting range under the instruction of a certified firearms instructor. When Jon mentioned he wanted to apply for the course Keith said, “You might want to tell them you’re blind.”
Jon’s and Keith’s presence in the course fascinated everyone, and the respect fellow classmates showed Jon and Keith included an understanding no one needed to express. People value their eyesight more than any other sense, and the thought of losing it hits home.
But through watching him slow down, consider the challenges, and rely on Keith’s guidance, Jon’s classmates experienced, first-hand, how he compensated for his lack of sight during the shooting portion of the course. The energy and focus that Jon once applied to see has transitioned into his shooting fundamentals. The lack of eyesight allows him to double down on maintaining excellent body position, breathing rhythm, and trigger pull. Jon becomes a human sponge while Keith mentions sight adjustment cues. Their connection during these critical moments reveals a symbiosis that few eyesighted folks have with their hunting buddies.
Their classmates slowly warmed to the idea that Jon and Keith, with their highly evolved teamwork, actually might successfully hunt big game and assure a humane harvest.
I got a taste of this new way of navigating daily tasks when I invited Jon and Keith for a meal at a Bitterroot Valley restaurant. Jon’s wife, Laurel, and MPG Ranch hunt chaperone Brian Sewell came along to talk about the possibility of putting Jon and Keith’s teamwork to the test on an elk hunt.
At the restaurant, I watched and listened as Laurel transformed Jon’s lunch into a series of GPS coordinates. She described in concise, relevant detail the organization of food on and around Jon’s plate: where the dipping sauce was in relation to his chicken strips and water glass, his fork in relation to the French fries. She painted a mental portrait so he could navigate himself through the process of eating lunch.
A highly educated aerospace quality engineer, Jon had been ascending through the Washington-based Boeing Corporation before diabetes turned the lights out. One of his serious hobbies included target shooting and reloading rifle ammunition. The world of ballistics, the precision of reloading equipment, and achieving the perfect cocktail of cartridge development fit wonderfully into his engineering mindset.
“I dove into the deep end with ammo reloading,” he told me. “I was an expert marksman and spent years studying ballistics. I was more of a match shooter than I was a hunter long before I lost my eyesight. My new condition means I ask Laurel to set all my reloading components out, describe where each is located, and I can continue to reload.”
I jokingly asked Jon what he’d name an ammunition company should he decide to create one?
“Dead Eye Ammo,” he offered. Clearly, he’d thought about it previously.
“I figured he could crawl into a corner and feel sorry for himself or he could figure out how to get on with life,” Laurel said regarding the loss of Jon’s eyesight. “I heard about a young lady, an elite surfer named Bethany Hamilton who lost an arm in a shark attack. While the doctors were still stitching up her wounds, she asked how soon she could get back on a surfboard. She reminded me it’s not about how you fall but how you get back up.”
Eye Pad
Enter Keith Mullan. Jon told me that, shortly after moving from Washington State to Hamilton, Mont., he picked a bank with Rocky Mountain in its name, and was delighted to find the new-accounts manager had a large bull elk mounted above his desk. At least that’s what Laurel noticed, and communicated it to Jon.
As Keith Mullan walked Jon and Laurel through the details of opening a bank account, he and Jon verbally waded into the bottomless reservoir of elk stories. Those stories extended beyond banking hours as Keith and Jon became friends, and then shooting companions.
Conversations routinely centered around ballistics and elk hunting. One day Jon found a way to attach an iPhone to a rifle scope, and the pair immediately envisioned possibilities. That system failed to operate at a level that they could implement in the field. Months turned into years until a product developed by Tactacam opened the door.
This device that allows a rifle scope’s reticle and image to be transmitted to a smart phone transported Jon’s rifle scope image to Keith’s iPad. They spent hours at the local shooting range trying to develop a communication system that allowed Keith to “speak” Jon onto a target. Through trial and error they focused on simplicity and clarity. Words like “up,” “down,” “a little left,” “a little right,” and persistence guided Jon to the 10-ring.
“How do you get into Carnegie Hall?” Jon asked.
“Practice, practice, practice,” Keith responded. “This might sound weird, but Jon and I developed a unique rapport. We say ‘I’m sorry, please, thank you, and good job’ a lot. The development of our shooting system took about two years. I didn’t just gain a shooting buddy and great friend through all of this. I ended up with an extended family.”
Their confidence swelled in their communication and shooting protocol derived from determined repetition.
“It’s all about breath control and trigger pull,” says Jon. “My job is to be numb and listen to Keith. He is the hero in all of this.”
Jon details how he remains in total control of the firearm. Keith positions himself within speaking distance and monitors the video image appearing on the handheld iPad.
“Jon brought a strong understanding of shooting fundamentals before he went blind,” notes Keith. “Being blind strengthens his ability to lock onto his natural point of aim. He’s an absolute rock behind the rifle.”
I asked Jon how he knows he’s on target. When does he begin the trigger squeeze?
“It’s all about cadence,” he said. “We’ve done this enough where I can tell when to apply trigger pressure when Keith’s ‘Steady’ tempo increases.”
One afternoon at the local shooting range stands out to these men. As Jon began spanking the 300-yard gong, then 400 and 500 yards, other shooters took notice. A crowd mingled around them with several onlookers in awe of what this blind shooter accomplished.
Two years of disciplined effort brought these men to the threshold of attempting a maiden hunting trip in 2024. It was a train wreck.
“I got out of the pickup, immediately stepped into a hole in the ground, fell, and rolled under the vehicle like a baby seal,” recalls Jon.
“It became obvious that we had to spend time evaluating hunting situations that made sense from a safety and success standpoint,” says Keith. “When Jon fell on our first outing, I felt horrible. We realized the stars needed to align in spades when we hunt. When we heard about the [MPG Ranch’s] Next Level Hunter Camp, we felt this event would help us find success. We defined success as getting out to hunt. Harvesting an animal was icing on the cake.”
Thanksgiving
Jon’s hunt slot on MPG Ranch was scheduled for two consecutive days in early January 2026, during the late shoulder season designed to help reduce antlerless elk on private lands. We finalized the details of his hunt and provided him with a ranch chaperone, a young, tough, and avid hunter named Brian Sewell. Brian had two other hunters in addition to Jon and Keith. Tom Moore and Jason Rigby, graduates of the Next Level Hunter Camp, agreed to assist with finding Jon an elk.
Gauging Jon’s mobility was a primary focus for Brian’s hunt planning.
“We also had to figure out what was on the elks’ mind that morning. What flavor is the day going to bring?”
On their first morning, through thinning fog the team observed a string of elk sneaking across a bunchgrass park into a densely timbered pocket. Using the terrain as cover, they sidled within 200 yards of the few elk still worming their way toward security cover.
“We just didn’t have time to get Jon and Keith set up,” said Brian. “The elk just wouldn’t settle in.”
Despite the setbacks, Jon described Brian’s cheerleading that morning. He kept repeating, ‘We are going to find you an elk.’”
A large herd of elk greeted them just before dawn the next day, about 160 yards from the vehicle, but the elk were moving purposefully toward security cover. The team helped Jon set up. Keith powered up the iPad, Brian shouldered Jon’s rifle, Tom kept track of the elk, Jason shepherded Jon to a shooting location. But no elk waited around.
They watched the elk move into the timbered upper portion of a dog-legged drainage. A primitive access road snaked through the scattered Doug fir, serving as a conduit to the bedding area. The team agreed to allow these elk to find their beds, then strategize an approach. Brian glanced at his watch – a whisker past 1 p.m. He felt heaviness of legal shooting time dripping away.
As the team approached the upper drainage, they attempted four different approaches. Each one thwarted them. Too steep. Insufficient cover. Too far a shot. Too much downfall. Shortening the 600 yards between them and the sleepy elk required a new strategy.
The team decided to hike the easiest route possible, using mature dogwood shrubs and windblown conifers as cover. Keith gathered up the equipment required to speak Jon on target, Brian carried Jon’s 6.5 PRC, clearing sticks and rocks out of the 100-yard path toward a shooting position. Tom and Jason monitored the elks’ reaction.
Flanked by Keith and Brian, Jon became intimate with the landscape, feeling every speck of gravel, blade of native bunchgrass, and pine needles. Once they reached the shooting position, Keith powered up the Tactacam, Jon dry-fired four times, a tactic to soothe hypered nerves. Calm elk, calmer Jon. Brian as spotter, Tom and Jason on point, the stars aligned.
Jason trained his rifle on the same cow elk as Jon. Should a shot go awry, he was up as anchorman. Tom selected another elk and waited for Jon’s shot.
“I could tell I was on target when Keith’s voice gained more than a hint of vibrato,” Jon said. Keith’s voice shook with excitement.
“Steady…. Steady…. Steady…. Steady. Steady. Steady.”
Jon sent the 127-grain monolithic bullet down range.
“She’s down!” Brian blurted. Jason and Tom, veterans of this craft, shifted to other cow elk. Three cow elk were harvested in five seconds.
Jon pleaded for confirmation several times, then finally grasped the meaning of the moment, and finally allowed himself to share his team’s excitement.
“One of the things that stands out with this hunt, aside from Jon’s condition, was how focused everyone was on the mission,” Brian explained. “Even more amazing was the energy everyone felt for just being out on the ranch, soaking up the days Huck Finning around the North Sapphire Mountains searching for elk. This was one of those moments that transcended hunting. It was so much bigger than that.”
All three harvested elk had bedded on an old grassed-over logging road, their final resting place. Brian navigated the ranch pickup to the elk so Jon could step out, shuffle over, and place his hands on the tangible gift of the day.
“I bent down onto one knee, slowly stroked my bare hand across the warm flank of the cow, giving thanks for the gift she gave me and Laurel,” recalled Jon. “My next prayer was one of thanks for everyone involved in this journey. I am so grateful to have all of you as friends.” Then he called Laurel.
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“I asked her to turn on the compressor in our chill room,” he said.
Laurel knew exactly what the directive implied.
“I have a happier husband because of hunting.” Laurel told me a few months after Jon’s hunt. “I’m thankful he isn’t spending the remainder of his life sitting in a corner like a grump.”
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