This whole hunt started during a conversation around a fire in 2014 with my longtime friend from back home in MN at his cousin’s place in Western WY. We both wanted to hunt a sheep before we’re too old to do it. So – in 2015 we put in for rams in my 20-year adopted home of CO (where I’d been putting in anyway) and WY.
Last fall - on my antelope hunt @ the same place in WY– I’d discovered HuntTalk, GoHunt and the like and we decided to step up our game and put in across the west. As many of you who’ve gotten into the ‘game’ know, we of course noticed that it’s minor extra effort and $ to put in for primo tags once you’ve done the sheep apps, we decided to throw down for some higher end elk, pronghorn and deer tags in multiple states, too.
Enter another buddy along with the two of us in SD last year pheasant hunting a few weeks after the above. Guy #3 says he wants to come west and hunt elk. I say I can oblige that, and he should put in with us for some NM tags (no point system) and the fallback is we will just hunt CO. A month later at our boyhood deer camp back in northern Minnesota, a plan is hatched on paper, and this spring besides the other stuff, the 3 of us put in NM for Valle Vidal (basically 0% odds), the 16C early rifle tag (2%) and the Pecos (~10%). They put in for a 1st rifle tag in CO and that’s where we really plan to go.
April 27, I see the green ‘success’ line on the NM page, and after a triple-check, that I’ve beaten the long odds and drawn 1 of the 3 unguided NR 16C early rifle tags on my first try. Thus, I am launched into a summer of maps, imagery and even a family drive the 11 hours down to the Gila to try and figure out this place that I’ve never been but heard so much about. Many hours of map reading, emails and marked up maps and phone calls from generous folks that had hunted the unit before (Thomas, Fin, I owe you guys a bunch of beverages for your help).
After many hours of map reading, the family driving trip, more map reading and all the generosity above – I had an opening day plan and a plan B through maybe E. I left Denver Tuesday afternoon before the Saturday season start, stopping in ABQ for the night and arrived in the unit Wednesday afternoon. Rob and Tony were flying into ABQ Thursday. With my distrust of the not-so-great rental storage trailer, I ended up camped WAY east of where I’d planned. It was near a place where we’d seen a couple of big groups of elk this summer, so offered some other possibilities as well. Camp took until dark to set up (note to self – just sleep in the truck and wait for your buddies instead of manhandling a 14x17 wall tent solo in the SW NM heat). Just as I got a fire and dinner going at dark, a bull rips off a few bugles less than a mile away. Good sign
I drive some likely routes Thursday morning and find what I think may be his home turf. Spend the rest of Thursday driving around and checking out places I’d marked this summer. It is hot as all get out and forecast to get hotter with not a speck of rain since the youth hunt the week before. I drive down to Winston to meet my buddies at 6, and as I’m hanging around outside, the lady comes out of the store with the phone and asks ‘are you Chris?’ – not good. They were delayed a few hours and are racing down from ABQ, so I give them directions to camp and head back. They pull in, hugs, beers, dinner are made in the dark, and no bugles, but a whack of coyotes yipping are cut off abruptly by a wolf howl.
Friday morning we are awoken by the bull in ‘my’ valley bugling again. We make a slow breakfast to give him some time to get to bed and go over there to see if we can get further into his valley and find some evidence. We hike in and find 3 wallows, with fresh sign in the lowest one. Plan A is now that spot. I drive them all over the unit and we check on some other potentials. Friday night – everyone sleeps about 45 minutes.
Saturday morning we are set up an hour before light on the lowest of the wallows on a little knob where we can see it and a route back to the nasty stuff. We can’t quite see the 300 yards up to the 2nd wallow from our position due to a little rise in the land between the two and the thick ponderosa and cedar between. We wait until about 30 minutes after light with nothing happening. I decide we need to drop down quietly and go peek at the upper wallow. We do that, and crest the little rise and there he is standing, broadside, 30 yards away. Covered in mud, stinking like a barnyard. Problem is – he’s a broken up, very small 4x5. I decide to pass and we watch him wander away up the valley into the thick stuff.
Saturday afternoon we talk to some other folks and actually run into the warden (which is shocking given where we were and how much territory he has to cover across 4 units). I had my Elk tag in my pocket, of course, but I had purchased and printed my Conservation tags, fishing license etc separately this summer and those were in my ditty bag back at camp. So – I had to to pull out my laptop to show him my pdf versions. Maybe the first time he’d been staring at a laptop miles down some horrible road But saving that file and having the laptop in the truck saved me 60 bucks in fines. We get a tip from some guys that had a nice bull from the 21A side on some other bulls they’d seen on the 16C side and decide that’s our new focus area. We pounded a lot of country the rest of the day and didn’t see much at all for fresh sign. Saturday night we sit up a canyon from some water that had relatively fresh sign. See some cows crossing the road on the way out, but that’s it.
]
Sunday morning we set up on a spot we sniffed out driving around Friday. We hear elk mewing a ways away, but nothing takes the routes we are covering up into the nastiness. Anyone that’s hunted this country (or watched the OYOA sweepstakes episode) knows that there are a maze of canyons the elk take to bed and it’s oftentimes a matter of picking the right one or finding a ‘confluence’ of a couple. The rest of Sunday was a LOT of walking and stomping. I busted a bull out of some crazy box canyon mid-day, but only saw a flash. The heat was brutal.
Last fall - on my antelope hunt @ the same place in WY– I’d discovered HuntTalk, GoHunt and the like and we decided to step up our game and put in across the west. As many of you who’ve gotten into the ‘game’ know, we of course noticed that it’s minor extra effort and $ to put in for primo tags once you’ve done the sheep apps, we decided to throw down for some higher end elk, pronghorn and deer tags in multiple states, too.
Enter another buddy along with the two of us in SD last year pheasant hunting a few weeks after the above. Guy #3 says he wants to come west and hunt elk. I say I can oblige that, and he should put in with us for some NM tags (no point system) and the fallback is we will just hunt CO. A month later at our boyhood deer camp back in northern Minnesota, a plan is hatched on paper, and this spring besides the other stuff, the 3 of us put in NM for Valle Vidal (basically 0% odds), the 16C early rifle tag (2%) and the Pecos (~10%). They put in for a 1st rifle tag in CO and that’s where we really plan to go.
April 27, I see the green ‘success’ line on the NM page, and after a triple-check, that I’ve beaten the long odds and drawn 1 of the 3 unguided NR 16C early rifle tags on my first try. Thus, I am launched into a summer of maps, imagery and even a family drive the 11 hours down to the Gila to try and figure out this place that I’ve never been but heard so much about. Many hours of map reading, emails and marked up maps and phone calls from generous folks that had hunted the unit before (Thomas, Fin, I owe you guys a bunch of beverages for your help).
After many hours of map reading, the family driving trip, more map reading and all the generosity above – I had an opening day plan and a plan B through maybe E. I left Denver Tuesday afternoon before the Saturday season start, stopping in ABQ for the night and arrived in the unit Wednesday afternoon. Rob and Tony were flying into ABQ Thursday. With my distrust of the not-so-great rental storage trailer, I ended up camped WAY east of where I’d planned. It was near a place where we’d seen a couple of big groups of elk this summer, so offered some other possibilities as well. Camp took until dark to set up (note to self – just sleep in the truck and wait for your buddies instead of manhandling a 14x17 wall tent solo in the SW NM heat). Just as I got a fire and dinner going at dark, a bull rips off a few bugles less than a mile away. Good sign
I drive some likely routes Thursday morning and find what I think may be his home turf. Spend the rest of Thursday driving around and checking out places I’d marked this summer. It is hot as all get out and forecast to get hotter with not a speck of rain since the youth hunt the week before. I drive down to Winston to meet my buddies at 6, and as I’m hanging around outside, the lady comes out of the store with the phone and asks ‘are you Chris?’ – not good. They were delayed a few hours and are racing down from ABQ, so I give them directions to camp and head back. They pull in, hugs, beers, dinner are made in the dark, and no bugles, but a whack of coyotes yipping are cut off abruptly by a wolf howl. Friday morning we are awoken by the bull in ‘my’ valley bugling again. We make a slow breakfast to give him some time to get to bed and go over there to see if we can get further into his valley and find some evidence. We hike in and find 3 wallows, with fresh sign in the lowest one. Plan A is now that spot. I drive them all over the unit and we check on some other potentials. Friday night – everyone sleeps about 45 minutes.
Saturday morning we are set up an hour before light on the lowest of the wallows on a little knob where we can see it and a route back to the nasty stuff. We can’t quite see the 300 yards up to the 2nd wallow from our position due to a little rise in the land between the two and the thick ponderosa and cedar between. We wait until about 30 minutes after light with nothing happening. I decide we need to drop down quietly and go peek at the upper wallow. We do that, and crest the little rise and there he is standing, broadside, 30 yards away. Covered in mud, stinking like a barnyard. Problem is – he’s a broken up, very small 4x5. I decide to pass and we watch him wander away up the valley into the thick stuff.
Saturday afternoon we talk to some other folks and actually run into the warden (which is shocking given where we were and how much territory he has to cover across 4 units). I had my Elk tag in my pocket, of course, but I had purchased and printed my Conservation tags, fishing license etc separately this summer and those were in my ditty bag back at camp. So – I had to to pull out my laptop to show him my pdf versions. Maybe the first time he’d been staring at a laptop miles down some horrible road But saving that file and having the laptop in the truck saved me 60 bucks in fines. We get a tip from some guys that had a nice bull from the 21A side on some other bulls they’d seen on the 16C side and decide that’s our new focus area. We pounded a lot of country the rest of the day and didn’t see much at all for fresh sign. Saturday night we sit up a canyon from some water that had relatively fresh sign. See some cows crossing the road on the way out, but that’s it.
]Sunday morning we set up on a spot we sniffed out driving around Friday. We hear elk mewing a ways away, but nothing takes the routes we are covering up into the nastiness. Anyone that’s hunted this country (or watched the OYOA sweepstakes episode) knows that there are a maze of canyons the elk take to bed and it’s oftentimes a matter of picking the right one or finding a ‘confluence’ of a couple. The rest of Sunday was a LOT of walking and stomping. I busted a bull out of some crazy box canyon mid-day, but only saw a flash. The heat was brutal.
