Gerbdog
WKR
Hey All,
We got my brother his first elk into the meat processor yesterday. He's hunted 3 times in NM where he lives for elk, and just keeps coming up short due to bad luck. We started hunting a unit down in NM on his tag the weekend before the Sep 1st opener. We found a good camping spot where we could glass a promising mountain out in front of us and spent a day and a half glassing bulls up on the ridges there on that mountain.
The day before the opener we had pegged a group of 3 6x6's on one side of the mountain and then 2 bulls towards the center of the mountain off in a small valley, one of which looked like a massive 5x5 and then another smaller 6x6, and then a group of what appeared to be 3 x bulls in the 4x4 and 5x5 size range off to the other side of the mountain.
Opening morning comes about and we are hiking before light up to a finger on the mountain towards the center to glass from that vantage point, we can see the group of 3 6x6's from here and decide to make a move.... we failed to remember to drop a pin on where we thought they were, and got turned about on where we were on the mountain in relation to the elk, even somehow with GPS, so we hiked up onto the ridge and decided to make our way to the other side of the mountain.
Sure enough we spot two of the younger 5x5's just laying out in the open in his bed, my brother said he would not be picky about what he hunted and would be happy coming out with a spike or cow for his hunt, and since it was gonna be his first elk i was in full agreement, a hot NM tag or not. We make our way across the ridge and get another vantage point on the bedded bull and see another one up feeding near it, devise a plan and put it into motion to get into bow range......
Turns out what looked like manageable location was all cats claw, scrub oak, and loose volcanic rock with deadfall (it was an old burn)..... this stalk in resulted in a blown out bull along with 5 others that we didnt see. I chirped on the cow reed and slowed them up enough to a walk just below us where they started to feed.
My brother proceeded to stalk in and see if he could seal the deal on one of these bulls as a T-storm started to blow in. As i sat there under a tree hiding from the rain i was glassing the valley that i knew that big 5x5 we had spotted was in and sure enough, there was an elk out and feeding mid day up in there.
When my brother returned i sent him in after that bull feeding in the other valley. This stalk was blown by me. No joke, plans werent followed, and i embarrassed myself in such a way that i wont even write about it here. I blew my brothers stalk on that elk and i lost sleep over it. This story has redemption at the end, but this was the end of our first day of hunting. Essentially we hiked the entire mountain and messed it all up.
As such, we left the area for a few days to let it cool off and would return later. We spent the rest of the week hunting various locations in the unit, sitting some water, and found elk in all locations and got blown out on the water due to swirling winds. Water was what everyone we talked to said to do, NM has had a dry dry year, but no luck for us, and we did have elk coming in but must have winded us in the valley due to storms and swirling winds.
As the end of the week approached we made our way back to the location we were on the first day to do some glassing and prepare for our step dad to arrive and help out with the hunt, we wanted to have a plan in place for the weekend and get a camp spot since people were flowing into the area for the weekend hunt. No elk sighted that evening, i had figured they had moved on to start looking for cows.
The morning of Saturday the 6th we wake up and decide to glass from camp with our step dad, spot one appears to be a large bull at the far end of the mountain ridge before he heads into trees, after a couple more hours we spot 2 other smaller bulls towards the middle of the mountain ridge and then another bull far off to the otherside in the area we blew out the previous 5 smaller bulls. A decision was made and we decided to head up the mountain and go for the 2 smaller bulls towards the middle of the mountain, i had pushed for going for the bigger bull because it wasnt that much further along the ridge than the 2 smaller bulls but it was not my hunt and not my choice.
We got up the mountain onto the ridge, glassed, located, and got near the 2 smaller bulls in their beds and attempted to call them out of their beds. After this failed, my brother and step dad made a stalk into the bedding area while i set up to watch for any fleeing bulls so i could call off the stalk. I never did see where those bulls ended up, but the stalk into in a massive thunderstorm while i sat and watched for bulls. The entire time i sat there in the torrential downpour, lightning and hail, i knew that big bull was gonna come out after the storm, because all week we had seen elk coming out to feed immediately after the storms, no matter what time of the day it was.
Eventually my brother and step dad came out of the bedding area and we reconvened to come up with a plan, my brother was looking mighty defeated but we kept pushing on him and i insisted that we use the wet ground for silence and the fact the big bull would be out feeding to push us further along the ridge to make an attempt on him as evening approached. After needing to take cover from another downpour under a tree we made our way over to where i though the bull would be coming out to feed, and sure enough after a careful approach and a little glassing some antlers were spotted in the growth.
a 40 yard stalk by my brother and an arrow was set loose from a bow string followed immediately by a "F***" from my brother. I see an elk and some antlers go crashing down hill and immediately get on my cow diaphragm, i can see the bull turn back, fall down, and then stand back up and disappear from view. My brother had an emotional rollercoaster when that bull went down and then back up, fist pumping to dead pan. After an hour we re-gather, my brother had shot at a downward angle high and back after shaking himself to pieces with buck fever on his first draw back on an elk. Not a good shot. We all had tempered expectations at this point and crept down to a small point to get a better view of the valley below. Just below us in a valley filled with cat claw and scrub oak we could see a bulls head and antlers, he was still standing. We watched awhile but he never laid down and never moved, evening approached and we backed out before winds changed and blew down to him, we would need to come back in the next day.
Next day came around with little sleep and we got into position in the same vantage point but could see nothing, this wasnt unexpected because the scrub oak and cats claw were so thick the bull could be standing 10 ft from us and we'd never see it. after a couple hours of glassing and position changing a decision was made to start following the hoof trail, no blood was found, so we followed the hoof prints. An arrow was found where he had shed it and eventually the trail led into the area we had seen him. Not 30 yards from that spot we bumped something in the thick stuff and something basically got up and tumbled down the slope a bit in the thick scrub oak / cats claw and laid still again.
Ill spare the exact details of the last hour of this bulls life but it involved a bunch of charades and position changing with the hunting group side of things and ended with an arrow in the bull at 5 yards where he lay injured and tired, unable to go any further.
This was not my favorite way for a magnificent bull to end his life but i am glad we were able to go in and finish the job, my brother worked hard for his first elk and im sure this memory will stay with him forever. I am proud of him and im glad he stuck it out as there were more than a couple moments where the disappointment of failure was heavy. It will look pretty dang good on a wall also. Afterwards it was determined this was the bull we thought was a large 5x5 that i blew up his stalk on on the first day, and i got some redemption on my end. Now i will move onto my own tag in CO and dont really expect to come across anything quite as big as my brothers first elk, he will have a hard time moving past his first.
Thanks for reading that freakin book but i do love a hunting story, especially one i get to tell.
We got my brother his first elk into the meat processor yesterday. He's hunted 3 times in NM where he lives for elk, and just keeps coming up short due to bad luck. We started hunting a unit down in NM on his tag the weekend before the Sep 1st opener. We found a good camping spot where we could glass a promising mountain out in front of us and spent a day and a half glassing bulls up on the ridges there on that mountain.
The day before the opener we had pegged a group of 3 6x6's on one side of the mountain and then 2 bulls towards the center of the mountain off in a small valley, one of which looked like a massive 5x5 and then another smaller 6x6, and then a group of what appeared to be 3 x bulls in the 4x4 and 5x5 size range off to the other side of the mountain.
Opening morning comes about and we are hiking before light up to a finger on the mountain towards the center to glass from that vantage point, we can see the group of 3 6x6's from here and decide to make a move.... we failed to remember to drop a pin on where we thought they were, and got turned about on where we were on the mountain in relation to the elk, even somehow with GPS, so we hiked up onto the ridge and decided to make our way to the other side of the mountain.
Sure enough we spot two of the younger 5x5's just laying out in the open in his bed, my brother said he would not be picky about what he hunted and would be happy coming out with a spike or cow for his hunt, and since it was gonna be his first elk i was in full agreement, a hot NM tag or not. We make our way across the ridge and get another vantage point on the bedded bull and see another one up feeding near it, devise a plan and put it into motion to get into bow range......
Turns out what looked like manageable location was all cats claw, scrub oak, and loose volcanic rock with deadfall (it was an old burn)..... this stalk in resulted in a blown out bull along with 5 others that we didnt see. I chirped on the cow reed and slowed them up enough to a walk just below us where they started to feed.
My brother proceeded to stalk in and see if he could seal the deal on one of these bulls as a T-storm started to blow in. As i sat there under a tree hiding from the rain i was glassing the valley that i knew that big 5x5 we had spotted was in and sure enough, there was an elk out and feeding mid day up in there.
When my brother returned i sent him in after that bull feeding in the other valley. This stalk was blown by me. No joke, plans werent followed, and i embarrassed myself in such a way that i wont even write about it here. I blew my brothers stalk on that elk and i lost sleep over it. This story has redemption at the end, but this was the end of our first day of hunting. Essentially we hiked the entire mountain and messed it all up.
As such, we left the area for a few days to let it cool off and would return later. We spent the rest of the week hunting various locations in the unit, sitting some water, and found elk in all locations and got blown out on the water due to swirling winds. Water was what everyone we talked to said to do, NM has had a dry dry year, but no luck for us, and we did have elk coming in but must have winded us in the valley due to storms and swirling winds.
As the end of the week approached we made our way back to the location we were on the first day to do some glassing and prepare for our step dad to arrive and help out with the hunt, we wanted to have a plan in place for the weekend and get a camp spot since people were flowing into the area for the weekend hunt. No elk sighted that evening, i had figured they had moved on to start looking for cows.
The morning of Saturday the 6th we wake up and decide to glass from camp with our step dad, spot one appears to be a large bull at the far end of the mountain ridge before he heads into trees, after a couple more hours we spot 2 other smaller bulls towards the middle of the mountain ridge and then another bull far off to the otherside in the area we blew out the previous 5 smaller bulls. A decision was made and we decided to head up the mountain and go for the 2 smaller bulls towards the middle of the mountain, i had pushed for going for the bigger bull because it wasnt that much further along the ridge than the 2 smaller bulls but it was not my hunt and not my choice.
We got up the mountain onto the ridge, glassed, located, and got near the 2 smaller bulls in their beds and attempted to call them out of their beds. After this failed, my brother and step dad made a stalk into the bedding area while i set up to watch for any fleeing bulls so i could call off the stalk. I never did see where those bulls ended up, but the stalk into in a massive thunderstorm while i sat and watched for bulls. The entire time i sat there in the torrential downpour, lightning and hail, i knew that big bull was gonna come out after the storm, because all week we had seen elk coming out to feed immediately after the storms, no matter what time of the day it was.
Eventually my brother and step dad came out of the bedding area and we reconvened to come up with a plan, my brother was looking mighty defeated but we kept pushing on him and i insisted that we use the wet ground for silence and the fact the big bull would be out feeding to push us further along the ridge to make an attempt on him as evening approached. After needing to take cover from another downpour under a tree we made our way over to where i though the bull would be coming out to feed, and sure enough after a careful approach and a little glassing some antlers were spotted in the growth.
a 40 yard stalk by my brother and an arrow was set loose from a bow string followed immediately by a "F***" from my brother. I see an elk and some antlers go crashing down hill and immediately get on my cow diaphragm, i can see the bull turn back, fall down, and then stand back up and disappear from view. My brother had an emotional rollercoaster when that bull went down and then back up, fist pumping to dead pan. After an hour we re-gather, my brother had shot at a downward angle high and back after shaking himself to pieces with buck fever on his first draw back on an elk. Not a good shot. We all had tempered expectations at this point and crept down to a small point to get a better view of the valley below. Just below us in a valley filled with cat claw and scrub oak we could see a bulls head and antlers, he was still standing. We watched awhile but he never laid down and never moved, evening approached and we backed out before winds changed and blew down to him, we would need to come back in the next day.
Next day came around with little sleep and we got into position in the same vantage point but could see nothing, this wasnt unexpected because the scrub oak and cats claw were so thick the bull could be standing 10 ft from us and we'd never see it. after a couple hours of glassing and position changing a decision was made to start following the hoof trail, no blood was found, so we followed the hoof prints. An arrow was found where he had shed it and eventually the trail led into the area we had seen him. Not 30 yards from that spot we bumped something in the thick stuff and something basically got up and tumbled down the slope a bit in the thick scrub oak / cats claw and laid still again.
Ill spare the exact details of the last hour of this bulls life but it involved a bunch of charades and position changing with the hunting group side of things and ended with an arrow in the bull at 5 yards where he lay injured and tired, unable to go any further.
This was not my favorite way for a magnificent bull to end his life but i am glad we were able to go in and finish the job, my brother worked hard for his first elk and im sure this memory will stay with him forever. I am proud of him and im glad he stuck it out as there were more than a couple moments where the disappointment of failure was heavy. It will look pretty dang good on a wall also. Afterwards it was determined this was the bull we thought was a large 5x5 that i blew up his stalk on on the first day, and i got some redemption on my end. Now i will move onto my own tag in CO and dont really expect to come across anything quite as big as my brothers first elk, he will have a hard time moving past his first.
Thanks for reading that freakin book but i do love a hunting story, especially one i get to tell.
