New Mexico Junior Success

[stanley]

My son was drawn for an Junior elk tag in central New Mexico this year. The hunt was this past weekend. The entire story is VERY long, but the short version is that with lots of help from friends and others we were able to settle on an area with plenty of elk. A few bugles and a little drama later, and there you have it! hump

Not a bad trophy for his first elk...

S.

 

[Oak]

That's a great "first", or "second", or "third"... Congrats to you and your son.

 

[smalls]

Awesome, I'd take that bull in a heartbeat (and I'm not even close to being a junior!).

 

[Calif. Hunter]

I'll have to wait until I get home to see the pictures since they are somehow blocked on my office computer, but I won't wait to say Congratulations! Any elk is a trophy.

 

[DRAFTSTUD]

Stanley, I could finish up with that Elk. WTG to you and your son. John

 

[noharleyyet]

That's a pic you'll enjoy for a long....long time. Big time wtg's!

 

[elkfarmer]

That is a great bull, and a great picture. congrats to bothe of you.

 

[Tom]

Wow, a 6x6, congratulations!

 

[JohnSWA]

Attaboy, Son of Stanley! What a great first elk!

 

[shoots-straight]

Great bull and a hunter is born.

 

[Wally Dog]

Congrats to the youngen and his tutor!
WD

 

[AZ Ron]

Congats to your son and you! That is awesome!

 

[ashersdad]

Very nice first bull. Congrats!!

 

[Pickle]

Awesome! Congratulations to your son.

 

[Basser]

Good work boys!

 

[Bwana]

Congrats to all involved with the hunt, that is an awesome bull!!

 

[stanley]

Thanks guys, I appreciate all of the kind responses.

It was a heck of a hunt. The bulls were fairly quiet in general, and weren't coming to calls (at least not to my call....). We had this bull held-up about 250 yards down a canyon and decided that he was bedded or with cows, and that we were going to try to stalk around him from above. 1/2 hour later we were creeping through the deadfall & live timber and we sat down to let things settle a bit. Nature was calling, so I actually left my boy sitting on a little bench with a couple of good shooting lanes, and then backed-up about 30 yards for some privacy. I didn't eve get started yet (luckly for me... ) when I heard rocks & logs in the canyon below. Sure enough, here come a group of elk walking quickly at about a 45 degree cross slope RIGHT TOWARDS MY SON'S SHOOTING POSITION! It all happened so fast that all I could do was watch from a few dozen yards away while my boy found himself overcome with elk moving through his shooting lanes.

I could see him clearly, but since I was up slope from him (and the elk were down slope from him) I couldn't see the elk too clearly. It was mainly legs, sides, and brief glimpses of antlers. There were 15-20 in all. Within a matter of seconds the .7MM roared and I hurried down to his side. Buck fever was in full swing at this point, and he could hardly speak! I looked up slope and saw the bull limping badly, and then bed down about 100 yards from us. This started a 3 hour blood trailing game while we tried to get my son in for the finishing shot. He had hit is a little forward, breaking the left front leg high, and going low/front through the chest. We finally got him to stand still in the open long enough at one point form my son to end it.

It turns out that when my son shot, the herd was moving past his position at about 45 yards. He was walking when my son shot him. Had I been at his side, I think I might have tried to stop the bull but oh-well..... This bull was the biggest of the herd with a couple of 3 or 4 pointers mixed in. My son had an ES (any elk) tag, and we both would have been happy with any antlers. It was very cool that he actually passed on cows and smaller bulls waiting for this one.

The work of course then began, but it was all good.

Thanks again for the comments.

S.



PS: We were truly lucky this day, in that he fell about 200 yards up slope from an ATV trail that we were going to hike him out on (about 3/4 mile from the truck, up-hill). Some AWESOME hunters came by on ATVs and pulled that sucker out whole for us! They even loaded it in their pick-up and drove it a mile to our camp & hung it in a tree for us. All just because they were VERY cool guys!

 

[1_pointer]

Congrats! I'd love to find one like that to put my first bull elk tag on!