bmack
Member
Sometimes things just seem to work out. Call it karma, luck, hard work or just capitalizing on an opportunity?
I love hunting elk and yet had never taken a nice mature bull in my many years of running all over the hills every year chasing bugles. Partly my own fault hunting in an area that I go to more for sentimental value than for the ability to chase big bulls.
New Mexico is an amazing place to hunt and I've had some good fortune to hunt there several times the last 3 years.
One of my best friends and hunting buddies Cody (nmelktrout) has been by my side sharing in the adventures. This year, my dad and I were lucky enough to draw our 2nd season rifle tags in the Gila and I had a feeling it would be a good year. Cody and his wife also had tags in addition to one other buddy.
Great camp shared by Cody's dad, wife, father-in-law, uncle and baby boy. A few other friends were along to help out as well...Tony and Casey were great pack mules!
Amazing food (Harold is one hell of a cook when it come to traditional New Mexican cuisine) and his kitchen rocks!
Opening day we had our plans in place...Cody and I lined up my dad and our buddy Mark on what we thought might be some good places to start. Myself, Cody, Casey and Tony would split up and cover some other spots we thought would be good too.
The country is a beautiful mix of rolling grass lands, rim rock and deep canyons.
My opening morning was a death march uncovering that the normal "honey" water holes were dry as a bone. 7 miles round trip and not an elk spotted. Sweet.
I asked Tony if he'd rub my feet but no such luck.
Hopefully my dad was having better luck. I left him to hunt solo knowing that we were both trying to fill our dream tags and that I had a good opening morning plan in place (that worked well).
He was into elk from camp...figures! He displayed the most unusual amount of patients I have ever know him to have, which generally isn't much.
He got on a herd at 9:00 am and stuck with them for over 7 hours (and he didn't even f@$% it up). He crawled on his hands and knees, belly crawled, stayed concealed and played frogger between the junipers and yucca plants.
When the time was right, he made an excellent 360 yard shot that actually woke me from my afternoon nap at our spike camp.
The shot got me moving and before long Cody and Casey greeted Tony and I on the trail with some great news. "Your dad killed a big bull" Turns out they had seen the same herd my dad was on and had spoken to him earlier in the day so they hung back and were running the video camera from a distance. They captured some great footage.
Now I was getting excited (and slightly envious). As we crested over the ridge this great shot was captured.
Only gets better from here...
Hard to put into words how happy I was for my dad. He's hunted for a number of years and was always chasing that dream bull we all think about. To have been able to see him accomplish this was really an amazing moment. We both had tears in our eyes and that lump in your throat that makes it hard to swallow.
You just never know how many more hunts you will share together.
I love hunting elk and yet had never taken a nice mature bull in my many years of running all over the hills every year chasing bugles. Partly my own fault hunting in an area that I go to more for sentimental value than for the ability to chase big bulls.
New Mexico is an amazing place to hunt and I've had some good fortune to hunt there several times the last 3 years.
One of my best friends and hunting buddies Cody (nmelktrout) has been by my side sharing in the adventures. This year, my dad and I were lucky enough to draw our 2nd season rifle tags in the Gila and I had a feeling it would be a good year. Cody and his wife also had tags in addition to one other buddy.
Great camp shared by Cody's dad, wife, father-in-law, uncle and baby boy. A few other friends were along to help out as well...Tony and Casey were great pack mules!
Amazing food (Harold is one hell of a cook when it come to traditional New Mexican cuisine) and his kitchen rocks!
Opening day we had our plans in place...Cody and I lined up my dad and our buddy Mark on what we thought might be some good places to start. Myself, Cody, Casey and Tony would split up and cover some other spots we thought would be good too.
The country is a beautiful mix of rolling grass lands, rim rock and deep canyons.
My opening morning was a death march uncovering that the normal "honey" water holes were dry as a bone. 7 miles round trip and not an elk spotted. Sweet.
I asked Tony if he'd rub my feet but no such luck.
Hopefully my dad was having better luck. I left him to hunt solo knowing that we were both trying to fill our dream tags and that I had a good opening morning plan in place (that worked well).
He was into elk from camp...figures! He displayed the most unusual amount of patients I have ever know him to have, which generally isn't much.
He got on a herd at 9:00 am and stuck with them for over 7 hours (and he didn't even f@$% it up). He crawled on his hands and knees, belly crawled, stayed concealed and played frogger between the junipers and yucca plants.
When the time was right, he made an excellent 360 yard shot that actually woke me from my afternoon nap at our spike camp.
The shot got me moving and before long Cody and Casey greeted Tony and I on the trail with some great news. "Your dad killed a big bull" Turns out they had seen the same herd my dad was on and had spoken to him earlier in the day so they hung back and were running the video camera from a distance. They captured some great footage.
Now I was getting excited (and slightly envious). As we crested over the ridge this great shot was captured.
Only gets better from here...
Hard to put into words how happy I was for my dad. He's hunted for a number of years and was always chasing that dream bull we all think about. To have been able to see him accomplish this was really an amazing moment. We both had tears in our eyes and that lump in your throat that makes it hard to swallow.
You just never know how many more hunts you will share together.
