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Couple New Mexico Bulls

bmack

Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2010
Messages
270
Location
Salt Lake City, UT
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!

camp.jpg

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.

the flats.jpg

tony.jpg

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.

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I asked Tony if he'd rub my feet but no such luck.

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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.

dad II.jpg

Only gets better from here...

Dad's bull.jpg

dad's bull II.jpg

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.

dad's bull III.jpg
 
Bmack looks like your dad put the smack on a real nice bull, first or last day he would have been in trouble to most of those tag holders i would say...excellent to see him get a good one..
 
Heck of a way to start out this hunt! When we got back to camp everyone was gone which seemed strange. As we rounded the corner of the wall tent to grab some cold beers before heading back to finish up my dad's elk we saw the reason camp was quite.

Another big bulls rank laying against the base of a pine. Wow! Two big bulls on the first day? Unreal.

Needless to say we had a party that night.


Day two was hard to get out of the rack but I managed to crawl out of my warm bag and rally the troops. I had Tony with me agin and now picked up Casey to join our morning hunt.

We found a nice rim to glass from and set up shop for a bit. After about 30 minutes Casey suddenly asked to get the spotter set up. Once set, he says in a definitive voice "I found your bull".

glassing.jpg

This kid has super human (we call it Warewolf) vision because he spotted this bull 2 miles away...no joke. It took Tony and I 5 minutes to find them in our binos even after the spotter was pointed right on him. LOL.

We put a plan in place and headed off to find that bull.

casey.jpg

It was a challenge to locate them once down in the low lands, but eventually after several hours of looking over land marks, video footage and some dumb luck we thought we were close.

Sure enough we crested a small ridge as it opened up into a saddle. Bam...elk...

With a good breeze in our face Casey and I walked up on the herd and had them sitting at 35 yards! After 10 minutes of them feeding to our right we knew that bull had to be close.

The wind changed and the lead cow started sketching out...off she went. The rest of the herd seemed confused and things were about to happen.

I slowly stood up and glanced to my left. Out of no where appeared the bull we'd been searching for since this morning. I had a small window to shoot through so I anchored my 7mm and shot him off-hand through the opening at 45 yards.

Not sure if I hit or missed but he took off like a race horse and I quickly darted over towards Casey. As the bull passed through the junipers I shot again, this time dropping him in mid stride. I put one more in him to make it quick.

my bull.jpg

After nearly 20 years of elk hunting it had finally happened. There was a period of silence that fell over the saddle as I collected my thoughts and reflected on how thankful I was for this beautiful animal. Another emotional day in the Gila.

A bull with unique character donning 3.5" devil points making him a respectable 7x7.

my bull II.jpg

my bull III.jpg

Once the rest of the guys showed up we all celebrated the events over the past two days. The pack out was a good hurt...it felt so good as a storm blew in and the sun started setting.

pack out II.jpg

Two happy guys...

me and dad.jpg

pack out.jpg

Hunt of a lifetime with my dad and good friends.

pack out sunset.jpg

Overall we got 3 great bulls and had a blast.


Special thanks to Cody, Tony and Casey for helping us out and keeping us laughing!
 
Great story with fabulous pics. What a bull for one day of hunting from camp for your dad!
 
Awesome hunt and write-up. Great pictures too.

The body on your bull looks huge.
 
Excellent looking trip. . .you guys did really well. . .I cherish the hunts with my Dad good or bad. again congrats!!
 
Very nice bulls! I've got country that looks like that close to the house but never see bulls like that in it
 
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