npaden
Well-known member
New Mexico Elk and Deer – 2014
After what seemed like 2 epic hunts for me in Wyoming for my mountain goat and elk, I thought I had a few weeks at home to hang out and get caught back up on the things I needed to do at work and around the house and just decompress. Somehow I had it in my head that the season was the 25th to the 29th of October and that’s what I had told my wife and also the guy that was going to go hunting with me this year. So I was a little surprised when I actually got online to print out my hunting licenses and they were for the 18th through the 22nd instead!
Not sure if I have mentioned it or not, but I made a mistake applying for my New Mexico licenses this year and ended up drawing 2 different hunts the same season in 2 different units. They were both my 3rd choice options and I just didn’t look over everything as carefully as I should have and ended up drawing both tags for the same season. This wouldn’t be as bad in most states, but New Mexico’s hunting seasons are very short (5 days for deer and elk) so this was going to be tough to do either tag justice. In addition the deer hunt was a muzzleloader tag (my first ever) so I needed to bring everything I would need for that as well.
To make everything even better I had a last second work trip that I had to make on the 23rd to San Antonio so this was going to be a madhouse getting things turned around and headed out. My friend Angel was going with me for his first ever elk hunting experience. He didn’t have a tag, but really wanted to go just to be out in the mountains and kind of get a feel for what elk hunting was like.
Finally we got loaded up and were headed out a little late, but since I had hunted the unit the previous year I felt like I had a good idea of where I wanted to be opening morning and hopefully it wouldn’t make much of a difference. It was about a 7 hour drive from my house to where we were staying and we ended up getting there in time to get settled in and get to bed at a pretty decent time. Last year I had planned on staying in my tent, but ended up staying at a cheap hotel for several nights instead so this year that was the plan from the start. The hotel was only about a 10 minute drive from the trail head where I had stumbled on a nice herd of elk last year so I didn’t really see the need to mess with camping out if we didn’t have too. We brought our camping gear though so we would have it if we needed to switch spots.
One little note here, I didn’t do a very good job of taking pictures on these hunts. Part of that is that these are some of the easier to draw tags in New Mexico and I don’t really want to give away too much information on exactly where these spots are. The other part of that is that I guess my picture taking finger must have been sore from taking so many pictures on my Wyoming mountain goat and elk hunts. Either way, I don’t have near as many pictures of these hunts to share as I normally would.
Day 1.
We started early, I wanted to get to a spot I had marked on my GPS from last year an hour or so before shooting light so we would give everything plenty of time to get settled down after we hiked in. We made the hike in pretty uneventfully and got setup in the dark just in time for it to start raining. Not a hard rain, but enough that we were getting our rain gear out.
We sat there in the rain for a while and I had high hopes as it started to get light. This was the area that I had been in elk so thick last year that it was actually a problem because there were too many elk and it was hard to avoid detection. Last year they were also very vocal and that was really neat too. Not so much this year. We sat for about an hour after shooting light and I threw out a few bugles and cow calls but nothing responded. After about 30 more minutes of that my high hopes weren’t so high any more. My honey hole from last year was not this year.
Here's a picture of what we were looking at that first morning.
The rain had pretty much stopped as we gathered our gear up and decided to scout up along the ridge we were on. We moved slowly and tried to be quiet, but Angel’s rain gear was pretty loud. We kept at it moving a ways and then I would cow call or bugle, moving slowly and trying to hear something. This area is pretty thick and not the kind of spot where you can glass out in front of you or anything. Generally you have 50 – 100 yards for you maximum visibility in the trees.
We’d moved up the ridge about ¾ of a mile from the original spot and I was getting pretty dejected. This wasn’t turning out at all like I had expected. About that time I threw out a cow call and bam, a bull bugled back about ¼ mile ahead of us! It is amazing how quickly things can turn when you see or hear a bull with a tag in your pocket. It was Angel’s first time to hear a bull bugle in the wild and that was pretty neat. We started moving toward him trying to stay off the ridgeline and being as quiet as possible. Angel dropped back a bit since his rain gear was making so much noise.
The bull bugled on his own a couple times and then got quiet so I cow called back and he responded right away. We were closing in on him and the wind seemed to be good and this was looking like a great opportunity. The unit I was hunting is not a trophy unit so a legal bull was all I was looking for and this guy sure sounded like he would qualify.
We kept closing the distance and I quit calling so he couldn’t pinpoint me and thought I was getting really close. I setup in a little ravine that I thought he was in and waited a bit hoping he would talk again but he had gotten quiet. I cow called a couple times and he didn’t respond. About that time I hear some branches breaking down in the bottom of the ravine about 100 yards away, but it was so thick I couldn’t see anything. I cow called again and then I heard him busting out of there. I never did see him but evidently he saw or smelled us and the gig was up.
The spot I was hunting was right on the edge of some private property and I was afraid if we went after him that we might push him onto private for the duration so we just backed out and moved on around the ridge. It was pretty exciting for me and Angel thought it was really cool being that close to a bugling bull. We were so close to making it happen but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.
We kept moving up to the top of the ridge calling occasionally but not getting any responses. We were seeing some sign, but nothing like I had seen the year before and nothing was really that fresh. We sat around a while up on top and ate some lunch but didn’t really see any reason for sticking around.
Here's the view from where we were eating lunch.
The year before I had stumbled on this spot and was surprised to find that there was a legal ATV trail down in the bottom of the canyon. Even more surprising was that I never saw anyone using it. I was prepared this time and we had hauled a couple ATV’s in and were going to use them. We hiked back down to the trailhead and unloaded the ATV’s and headed up the canyon a little after lunch.
What seemed like a great trail when I had hiked it the previous year didn’t seem quite so great trying to ride the ATV’s up it. Lot’s of big rocks and fallen trees and not much trail maintenance. The little trail maintenance that had been done seemed to be by someone who liked motorcycles but not ATV’s because they would saw about a 24” gap out of the fallen logs which was perfect to get a motorcycle through but didn’t work at all for an ATV. We kept after it though, it was better than walking, but not by a lot. It was pretty rough on the ATV’s though.
We got about 2 miles up the trail and ran into 2 hunters sitting in a clearing. We were surprised to see them as we were the only ones parked at the trailhead and I didn’t know of any other way to get in here without going a long way around. Turns out there is a road that goes up on one of the ridges and they were able to drop in off that road and were only about ½ mile in from where they had started. We chatted a while but they weren’t exactly thrilled to see us running ATV’s up the trail and decided they would held back up a side canyon and we went ahead and kept going up the main canyon.
We got another ½ mile up the trail or so and ran into 2 more hunters walking down the trail. These guys were obviously locals and weren’t even carrying a backpack or anything. They seemed very unprepared, no rain gear, I’m assuming they had a knife and a gun and that was about it. They weren’t even carrying a water bottle or anything. We talked to them a while and they didn’t really seem to even know where they were, but didn’t seem too concerned about it. We later figured out that they did know where they were but they were looking for a trail that didn’t show up on the map and actually ran down into the clearing where the first 2 hunters had been.
We kept going up the trail and it didn’t get any easier on the ATV’s. Up and over logs, around logs, over big rocks, etc. Not exactly fun. About ½ mile farther and we decided to give up on the ATV trail. We had crossed over or around at least a dozen fallen trees and a couple pretty bad spots with some big rocks. None of it was really scary as we were running the bottom of the canyon, but it was rough on the machines and rough on us.
We decided to go ahead and head up a side ridge in an area that looked pretty good and see what we could turn up. It looked like a really good spot, but we hung around until right about sunset and didn’t see or hear anything. We headed back and got on the ATV’s and headed back toward the trailhead and got back to the clearing right at the end of shooting light but didn’t see or hear anything there either. I did some calling there and a few more times in the dark thinking that something might respond but nothing ever did.
The ride back down was just as rough as the ride up was but even more fun now that it was dark. Somehow I had knocked one of the skid plates off the a-arm of ATV I was riding so I kept looking for it as we went back over logs and rocks but never did find it. It really wasn’t that bad riding in the dark, the headlights do a pretty good job and again, we were riding in the bottom of the canyon so it wasn’t really that scary like it would have been if we had been up on the edge of the mountain or something.
We got back to the trailhead about an hour after dark, loaded up the ATV’s and were back at the hotel pretty early. I was disappointed that the original spot that I had picked out had been a bust, but we did have a good opportunity on the one bull although it didn’t pan out but at least we had an opportunity.
Totals for the day were 5.56 miles and 1,540’ elevation gain on foot per the GPS and 6 miles on the ATV’s. A quick supper and we had the alarm set for 4:45 the next morning, ready to go.
After what seemed like 2 epic hunts for me in Wyoming for my mountain goat and elk, I thought I had a few weeks at home to hang out and get caught back up on the things I needed to do at work and around the house and just decompress. Somehow I had it in my head that the season was the 25th to the 29th of October and that’s what I had told my wife and also the guy that was going to go hunting with me this year. So I was a little surprised when I actually got online to print out my hunting licenses and they were for the 18th through the 22nd instead!
Not sure if I have mentioned it or not, but I made a mistake applying for my New Mexico licenses this year and ended up drawing 2 different hunts the same season in 2 different units. They were both my 3rd choice options and I just didn’t look over everything as carefully as I should have and ended up drawing both tags for the same season. This wouldn’t be as bad in most states, but New Mexico’s hunting seasons are very short (5 days for deer and elk) so this was going to be tough to do either tag justice. In addition the deer hunt was a muzzleloader tag (my first ever) so I needed to bring everything I would need for that as well.
To make everything even better I had a last second work trip that I had to make on the 23rd to San Antonio so this was going to be a madhouse getting things turned around and headed out. My friend Angel was going with me for his first ever elk hunting experience. He didn’t have a tag, but really wanted to go just to be out in the mountains and kind of get a feel for what elk hunting was like.
Finally we got loaded up and were headed out a little late, but since I had hunted the unit the previous year I felt like I had a good idea of where I wanted to be opening morning and hopefully it wouldn’t make much of a difference. It was about a 7 hour drive from my house to where we were staying and we ended up getting there in time to get settled in and get to bed at a pretty decent time. Last year I had planned on staying in my tent, but ended up staying at a cheap hotel for several nights instead so this year that was the plan from the start. The hotel was only about a 10 minute drive from the trail head where I had stumbled on a nice herd of elk last year so I didn’t really see the need to mess with camping out if we didn’t have too. We brought our camping gear though so we would have it if we needed to switch spots.
One little note here, I didn’t do a very good job of taking pictures on these hunts. Part of that is that these are some of the easier to draw tags in New Mexico and I don’t really want to give away too much information on exactly where these spots are. The other part of that is that I guess my picture taking finger must have been sore from taking so many pictures on my Wyoming mountain goat and elk hunts. Either way, I don’t have near as many pictures of these hunts to share as I normally would.
Day 1.
We started early, I wanted to get to a spot I had marked on my GPS from last year an hour or so before shooting light so we would give everything plenty of time to get settled down after we hiked in. We made the hike in pretty uneventfully and got setup in the dark just in time for it to start raining. Not a hard rain, but enough that we were getting our rain gear out.
We sat there in the rain for a while and I had high hopes as it started to get light. This was the area that I had been in elk so thick last year that it was actually a problem because there were too many elk and it was hard to avoid detection. Last year they were also very vocal and that was really neat too. Not so much this year. We sat for about an hour after shooting light and I threw out a few bugles and cow calls but nothing responded. After about 30 more minutes of that my high hopes weren’t so high any more. My honey hole from last year was not this year.
Here's a picture of what we were looking at that first morning.
The rain had pretty much stopped as we gathered our gear up and decided to scout up along the ridge we were on. We moved slowly and tried to be quiet, but Angel’s rain gear was pretty loud. We kept at it moving a ways and then I would cow call or bugle, moving slowly and trying to hear something. This area is pretty thick and not the kind of spot where you can glass out in front of you or anything. Generally you have 50 – 100 yards for you maximum visibility in the trees.
We’d moved up the ridge about ¾ of a mile from the original spot and I was getting pretty dejected. This wasn’t turning out at all like I had expected. About that time I threw out a cow call and bam, a bull bugled back about ¼ mile ahead of us! It is amazing how quickly things can turn when you see or hear a bull with a tag in your pocket. It was Angel’s first time to hear a bull bugle in the wild and that was pretty neat. We started moving toward him trying to stay off the ridgeline and being as quiet as possible. Angel dropped back a bit since his rain gear was making so much noise.
The bull bugled on his own a couple times and then got quiet so I cow called back and he responded right away. We were closing in on him and the wind seemed to be good and this was looking like a great opportunity. The unit I was hunting is not a trophy unit so a legal bull was all I was looking for and this guy sure sounded like he would qualify.
We kept closing the distance and I quit calling so he couldn’t pinpoint me and thought I was getting really close. I setup in a little ravine that I thought he was in and waited a bit hoping he would talk again but he had gotten quiet. I cow called a couple times and he didn’t respond. About that time I hear some branches breaking down in the bottom of the ravine about 100 yards away, but it was so thick I couldn’t see anything. I cow called again and then I heard him busting out of there. I never did see him but evidently he saw or smelled us and the gig was up.
The spot I was hunting was right on the edge of some private property and I was afraid if we went after him that we might push him onto private for the duration so we just backed out and moved on around the ridge. It was pretty exciting for me and Angel thought it was really cool being that close to a bugling bull. We were so close to making it happen but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.
We kept moving up to the top of the ridge calling occasionally but not getting any responses. We were seeing some sign, but nothing like I had seen the year before and nothing was really that fresh. We sat around a while up on top and ate some lunch but didn’t really see any reason for sticking around.
Here's the view from where we were eating lunch.
The year before I had stumbled on this spot and was surprised to find that there was a legal ATV trail down in the bottom of the canyon. Even more surprising was that I never saw anyone using it. I was prepared this time and we had hauled a couple ATV’s in and were going to use them. We hiked back down to the trailhead and unloaded the ATV’s and headed up the canyon a little after lunch.
What seemed like a great trail when I had hiked it the previous year didn’t seem quite so great trying to ride the ATV’s up it. Lot’s of big rocks and fallen trees and not much trail maintenance. The little trail maintenance that had been done seemed to be by someone who liked motorcycles but not ATV’s because they would saw about a 24” gap out of the fallen logs which was perfect to get a motorcycle through but didn’t work at all for an ATV. We kept after it though, it was better than walking, but not by a lot. It was pretty rough on the ATV’s though.
We got about 2 miles up the trail and ran into 2 hunters sitting in a clearing. We were surprised to see them as we were the only ones parked at the trailhead and I didn’t know of any other way to get in here without going a long way around. Turns out there is a road that goes up on one of the ridges and they were able to drop in off that road and were only about ½ mile in from where they had started. We chatted a while but they weren’t exactly thrilled to see us running ATV’s up the trail and decided they would held back up a side canyon and we went ahead and kept going up the main canyon.
We got another ½ mile up the trail or so and ran into 2 more hunters walking down the trail. These guys were obviously locals and weren’t even carrying a backpack or anything. They seemed very unprepared, no rain gear, I’m assuming they had a knife and a gun and that was about it. They weren’t even carrying a water bottle or anything. We talked to them a while and they didn’t really seem to even know where they were, but didn’t seem too concerned about it. We later figured out that they did know where they were but they were looking for a trail that didn’t show up on the map and actually ran down into the clearing where the first 2 hunters had been.
We kept going up the trail and it didn’t get any easier on the ATV’s. Up and over logs, around logs, over big rocks, etc. Not exactly fun. About ½ mile farther and we decided to give up on the ATV trail. We had crossed over or around at least a dozen fallen trees and a couple pretty bad spots with some big rocks. None of it was really scary as we were running the bottom of the canyon, but it was rough on the machines and rough on us.
We decided to go ahead and head up a side ridge in an area that looked pretty good and see what we could turn up. It looked like a really good spot, but we hung around until right about sunset and didn’t see or hear anything. We headed back and got on the ATV’s and headed back toward the trailhead and got back to the clearing right at the end of shooting light but didn’t see or hear anything there either. I did some calling there and a few more times in the dark thinking that something might respond but nothing ever did.
The ride back down was just as rough as the ride up was but even more fun now that it was dark. Somehow I had knocked one of the skid plates off the a-arm of ATV I was riding so I kept looking for it as we went back over logs and rocks but never did find it. It really wasn’t that bad riding in the dark, the headlights do a pretty good job and again, we were riding in the bottom of the canyon so it wasn’t really that scary like it would have been if we had been up on the edge of the mountain or something.
We got back to the trailhead about an hour after dark, loaded up the ATV’s and were back at the hotel pretty early. I was disappointed that the original spot that I had picked out had been a bust, but we did have a good opportunity on the one bull although it didn’t pan out but at least we had an opportunity.
Totals for the day were 5.56 miles and 1,540’ elevation gain on foot per the GPS and 6 miles on the ATV’s. A quick supper and we had the alarm set for 4:45 the next morning, ready to go.
