Pink camo, #dadbodhunter, and a whole lotta stupid!

[Dsnow9]

My original plan was to leave Tuesday after work but the Mrs. Asked for my help and I left Wednesday morning instead. I woke up at 3am with no alarm and tried to fall back asleep but finally gave up at 4am and got up to get the ice blocks and guns loaded. Everything else was already in the truck. I was on the road by 5am.

I picked up a breakfast burrito and fuel before entering the unit on the South end. I started in the dessert and ended up at the North end of the unit by sun down. I was checking out different glassing areas I had marked on the map. After about five hours of checking I came to the conclusion that this hunt may challenge my close quarters hunting skills. The glassing opportunity was very limited, the elk could hide everywhere, and there were a lot of roads and sxs trails. Before dark the only elk I saw was a spike. I ended up on a sxs trail up to the top of a mountain for my morning scouting mission. It was way to narrow and lots of hazards but to tight to turn around. Got high centered once, a couple loud bangs, and mirrors folded in for half the drive but I made it.

 

[Dsnow9]

Morning two started off amazingly! I started hiking in the dark to make the ridge that looked over some of the higher country in the unit. The previous season ended the day before, and I was ready to see some elk. As the sun rose I saw sxs trails everywhere and no elk. The wind started to pick up and it was apparent that the cold front and weather were on their way in. I sat there on that ridge and pondered my drive in the night before. There were a number of hairpin corners and off camber sections that might put me in serious trouble if the moisture came in hard and fast. It was some beautiful country but ultimately decided that I wasn’t going to be getting rescued out of there.

On my way back to the truck I bumped a couple cows and a couple younger bulls. On the way out I had just as many problems as the way in. I grew up driving nasty roads and not much phases me but that road had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. Most of the time my mirrors and doors were pinned and couldn’t take pictures if I wanted to.

I finally made it back to where it opened up a bit and was able to see some more open country. There was a huge prescribed burn that looked promising. I needed fuel so I drove out to a gas station and checked out the area in the process. Saw different stages of prescribed burns and even a few wild horses.
I didn’t realize it then but you can see my step is smashed up to the door and there is a large dent low on the panel between the rear wheel and rear door.

I finally made it back in to an area that I thought I could oversee a lot of the burn if I hiked a ridge about 600 vertical in 600 yards. The rain was starting to pick up a bit but figured it’s NM and it would probably just come and go. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t have service to check the radar regularly on this hunt or I might have given up hope.
I found a cool little cave on the way up the face that definitely had been modified by a person at some point. There were two rocks basically closing off a large portion of the back area. It didn’t look inhabited but being solo, no gun, and rain pouring I didn’t feel like crawling in there to poke my head around the corner.
I got to the ridge and my visibility wasn’t great and I really enjoy glassing. That’s how I hunt most hunts. But I saw a 40-50ft tree in a prime location I wanted to climb. I waited about an hour for the sideways rain and lightning to stop before I attempted the climb though.
Once the weather broke I climbed up and was floored with how much I could see. I spent as much time as I could between storms. I also got a text from a good family friend that he was going to take me up on the NM elk hunt offer and would be there mid day on Friday. I never got to hunt with him growing up and was excited about the opportunity and hopefully to learn something from someone with way more experience than me. He is now in his early 60s but you wouldn’t know that from the way he hunts.
It was about 15 minutes till last light and I could see a nasty storm rolling in. The thunder was intense and the white wall of water was moving in fast. I decided that my time was better spent getting back to the truck asap. I made it down the steep face and was about a hundred yards from the truck when the water let loose. Huge lighting hit the ridge I was on twice as well as the other side of the valley before I made it to the truck. I hadn’t seen or heard a thing all afternoon so I figured I would check one more area out the next day. On my way to the new spot the sky opened up and let every bit of moisture go, there was a sheet of water running down the road and my wipers could not keep up. The truck slid sideways into some nasty ruts where I was looking at the mud hole out my drivers window and sky out the passenger. There were multiple deep ruts and my left rear was in the furthest left rut, my drivers front and passenger rear were in the middle, and the passenger front was in a rut to the right. I threw it in reverse hoping the new tires were everything I had heard. I popped right out and took a different line through the second time.

 

[Dsnow9]

This is where my positivity and excitement for the hunt took the first blow. I made it to the next camp spot and quickly pulled out the coolers and got situated in the bed of the truck. The rain had definitely subsided a bit but was not gone.

The rain and hail alternated most of the night. At some point I remember being woken up by water hitting my face. I figured it was just condensation on the window and moved a little bit and went back to bed. I woke up again and felt water on the edge of my sleeping bag but figured I bumped up against the side window. I was running two bags, one under and one over to have more room to move around. At some point I realized that there was way more water on my lower bag than rubbing up against the window. Then my alarm went off. It was still pouring, I started patting around and realized there was water everywhere but I wasn’t wet so I decided that rather than get wet I was going back to bed. It stopped about 30 minutes after sunrise. I got out of the truck bed and found lots of water and hail outside.
I then started pulling out my bags and found that the top bag was full of mostly condensation due to the windows being closed all night and a bit extra on the edges. The bag under me was pretty saturated. The water found a way into the topper around the window and must have dripped all night and run between the pad and bag because both were soaked. It wasn’t warm and intermittent rain would come and go so I set up a clothes line and put my fan to use to try and dry the bags out. At this point that was more important than a mid morning glassing session.

Around 11:15 the bags were starting to dry out and got a text from Troy that he was on the dirt road so I started making us some food.
I didn’t know it at the time but his little minimalist popup jeep camper would turn out to be the savior of this hunt more than likely.
After getting his things settled and camp situated we headed out for an evening glassing session in some lower country. The plants were cool and I ate way too many piñon nuts but had a good time catching up. Unfortunately no elk were spotted.
We watched a few storms roll by in the distance but were lucky enough to stay dry.

 

[Dsnow9]

The night before season was more of the same. Rain, hail, lightning, wind… luckily I had flipped the truck around which meant I would have to climb head first into the truck to sleep but hopefully avoid the leak. Overall I was pleasantly surprised with how the couple changes made for a much dryer night sleep but I slept like crap. I was constantly worried that I was going to get soaked or be woken up by water again. And the weather was calling for way more moisture the next 2.5 days.

Opening morning we went up to check out an area another ht’er told us about. It was raining but it was opening day so we gave it a shot. It wasn’t long before we were tucked up under a tarp just trying to keep as much water out as we could. The amount of water running down the trunks of the pine trees sounded like a back yard water feature.

We hiked the ridge the couple back to camp to see what we could find. Just more freezing rain, snow, and sleet. We were pretty saturated by the time we made it back to camp. We jumped into the camper, turned on the buddy heater and started to try and dry out our rain jackets, rain pants, and boots.
After a couple hours we went and grabbed Troy’s jeep from the spot we parked it for our morning hunt. The rain never really let up till about 12:30. Around 1pm we made the call to go check out another area close to camp. The rain was hit or miss for a while and we saw a little bit of sign and I found a shed. We were out till about 4:30 when the skies opened up and unleashed again. Visibility was basically gone and couldn’t hear anything with the amount of water coming down. We decided that we would do some road hunting till sun down since that seemed to be the norm in this unit and it was better than sitting in the camper. Day one of my NM elk was in the books as likely the wettest I have ever been and most water I had experienced in one day. The closest town nearby reported 1.5” in 24 hours but up on the mountain I am pretty confident we got double that.