Epic 2023 New Mexico Hunting Trip!

Joined
Jul 25, 2022
Messages
62
Location
St. Louis MO
OK it’s novel time..
All DIY public land. I'm sure some of you will recognize where I was, so please keep it quiet.
I drew both mule deer and elk muzzleloader tags for NM this year, my first year entering the tag lottery. Luckily my 2nd and 3rd choices that were drawn were both muzzleloader tags and are in adjoining units so the camp move wasn’t as many hours as it could have been. My buddy(inexperienced hunter, especially out west) and I went out scouting the completely new to us state over Labor Day, so we were coming in with a plan for the hunt. Showed up 3 days early for the 7 day deer hunt and got a great camping spot with a small native brook trout stream going through it.

Plant Sky Plant community Mountain Leaf



Did a couple days of scouting around, seeing a few bucks, a million does and fawns(which there are 0 seasons for), and a surprising concentration of bears, which I had bought an otc tag for.
Air gun Trigger Wood Gun barrel Gun accessory



The deer unit is a heavy burn scar growing back with aspen thickets, so that’s where a lot of the deer were. Day 2 of the season I was able to shoot this buck not far from the trail. I was happy with him for sure because I didn’t want to wear myself out before the elk hunt. And it’s my first velvet buck.
Plant Grass Fawn Terrestrial animal Hat



Day 4 of the deer hunt my buddy had to fly back home for 5 days(6 calendar days) of work. As it worked out, I was able to send him home with an overweight checked luggage bag of boneless ice cold venison so I didn’t have to deal with it the next couple weeks. American didn’t charge overweight fees either which was nice.

Time for 6 days of me time! 😂
Since elk season didn’t start for 7 days and I was holding a bear tag and had seen some, the next morning I took the 300wby out to the bear hotspot and after the fog lifted just enough to see, I spotted a color phase boar black bear at 315 yards and was able to kill(on video using my tripod) my first bear! Immediately after that the fog lowered back down. Went to camp to get my frame pack and supplies and made the uncomfortable eerie solo walk through the oakbrush in the dense fog to recover it. I got him all skinned out and deboned looking over my shoulder the whole time..
Plant Sky People in nature Cloud Flower


Plant Plant community Natural landscape Fog Atmospheric phenomenon


Plant Beard Branch Grass Hat


Tire Plant Automotive tire Sports equipment Bicycle wheel



After tagging out in that unit, I had a little moment and cooked some deer inner tenderloins that night and packed up camp Monday and headed to Santa Fe to check in my bear and head to the other unit.
Food Tableware Ingredient Plate Fire



Rain, hail and general aggravation that day ran me out of time so I got a hotel for a couple hot showers and seeing what my work email disaster looked like. I also grabbed a little 5 cubic ft deep freezer to freeze the bear hide ,head and meat, and also have it to rotate elk meat in and out of coolers/freezer as needed running it a few hours a day with the inverter generator. Highly recommended!

Right back up into the new unit mountains the next morning to get elk camp set up, and I was able to score the exact campsite we scouted out Labor Day. Freaking gorgeous 30 yards behind the tent looking left and right. The tent was at 10,400' of elevation.
Sky Plant Mountain Natural landscape Highland


Sky Plant Cloud Mountain Natural landscape
 
Last edited:
OP
backyardbandit
Joined
Jul 25, 2022
Messages
62
Location
St. Louis MO
12,000 steps later I had camp set up. I brought my 16x20 wall tent as a camping and cook tent combo since there’s only of 2 of us this year.
Motor vehicle Tire Automotive tire Tread Mode of transport



The canyon behind camp backs up to an Indian reservation and another unit so we had to be careful, but bulls were bugling EVERYWHERE. Getting there Tuesday afternoon for a Saturday hunt left me lots of time to find plan b, c, d, e spots, which I did pretty easily. Pretty unreal experience hearing and glassing all those bulls compared to what I’m used to in Colorado and Utah..
Drove back to the airport to pick my buddy up Thursday evening and got a plan together for opening day. That led us down the 700’ elevation drop into the canyon which is tough for a Missouri boy that works in an office! Bulls were screaming but worked up into the steep north facing draws we weren’t allowed to go into. A couple rough days of that including some close calls and we went to plan B. Had an evening hunt that was quiet until right before dark a bill came screaming over a ridge out of dark timber and down a hill towards a large meadow. The next evening we planned to go around both sides of the ridge and meet on the point at dark. 30 minutes before dark I heard my buddy shoot. Met up at dark and his hunting inexperience got the best of him and he didn’t physically mark blood and in the heat of the moment trying to reload with your bull standing 50 yards away and others running all over, didn’t get a direction where it went after the shot. Long story short we backed out with plans to recover it in the morning.
I forced him to wait until good daylight so we could sneak down the old logging road and possibly get me an opportunity, which came pretty quick when I had a bull bugle to a cow call. A quick 30 yards up the hill to the edge of a meadow and he was about 200 yards up the hill blocked by trees. Cow calling to him bugling for 10-15 minutes, I finally grabbed a 3” diameter 8’ long limb and proceeded to beat the hell out of a dead pine, breaking every limb I could. Didn’t bugle because I threw my pack off that had my bugle tube in it, and I think that saved me honestly. FINALLY his next bugle had cut the distance in half, then shortly later I saw brown through the trees for a few minutes, then he finally walked the last 20 yards and parked broadside at maybe 75 yards in my clearing and I let him have it.
Sky Plant Branch Wood Tree



Everything felt perfect so we walked up to look for blood at least and didn’t really find anything. I crouched down to look up the hill under a tree and saw the color I was looking for and a quick look through the binoculars showed a rack sticking up! Hugs and high fives followed by a bunch of pics and my best bull to date was mine! I completed the trifecta of NM kills!!
Plant Plant community Natural landscape Wood Tree


Hunting Deer hunting Plant community Vertebrate Plant



I spent the next couple hours getting him cut up and ready to pack out while my buddy went to find his bull. Long story short and some hard lessons learned for him, I went and found his bull for him fairly easily.
Cloud Sky Plant Plant community Mountain



At that point the bear quota had been filled so we were out of tags with 1 day to spare so we packed up camp and headed home with a much needed hotel stay along the way.
I was gone from home for 20 days and I’ll tell you what I wanted to get home but at the same time I was doing just fine out there grinding out the days keeping busy.

The solitude, remoteness being 2 hours from pavement, sounds, silence, night sky, sunrises, sunsets, wildlife, danger, beautiful views, ruggedness, emotional ups and downs, etc..
It really is good for the soul to get out and experience it if anyone reading this hasn’t done it I highly encourage you to get out west and hunt for a week away from the craziness and politics of everyday life. It’ll change you for the better. Whether you kill or not it’ll be a success.

It’s almost all a blur looking back so it’s probably good to get it documented to come back and revisit because it was the hunt of my lifetime so far!
Plant Bonfire Bottle Tree Sky


Sky Cloud Plant community Plant Mountain



Cloud Sky Atmosphere Plant Afterglow


Sky Plant Cloud Mountain Gesture
 
OP
backyardbandit
Joined
Jul 25, 2022
Messages
62
Location
St. Louis MO
And for those wondering, the deer and elk were both shot with a 300 gr Thor using 90gr by weight of blackhorn 209. Both bullets were through the lungs slightly quartering to me and both bullets were found bulging on the opposite hide. The deer dropped and the elk went 75 yards. My buddy’s elk went 100 yards with the same combo. Both bullets look almost identical in the weird way they expanded. Not sure what to think, but they certainly worked.

deer:
Body jewelry Gesture Plant Finger Wedding ceremony supply



elk:
Hand Plant Organism Finger False morel
 
Joined
Jul 20, 2014
Messages
1,305
Location
Kirtland, NM
Congrats! I know what you mean about getting away from it all. I spent 10 days out on my archery NM elk hunt this year. Last time I went that long on a hunt was in 2008 in Quebec. Had a blast on this years hunt. My 12 yr old son was with me for 4 days. My brother for 4 days and my dad for 10!
 
Joined
Feb 13, 2023
Messages
11
Beautiful trip! That's a lotta critters. I'm hoping to get into big game muzzleloader hunting next year~ So far birds and small game have been fun. ^-^
 

COelk89

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Nov 18, 2022
Messages
205
Congrats! I tried that once (holding all 3 species archery tags in same unit). I didn't shoot anything. That was my first year archery hunting and ain't much changed with a stick and string for me lmao
 
Top