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16C New Mexico Early Rifle Report

cedahm

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 22, 2015
Messages
1,284
Location
Colorado
This whole hunt started during a conversation around a fire in 2014 with my longtime friend from back home in MN at his cousin’s place in Western WY. We both wanted to hunt a sheep before we’re too old to do it. So – in 2015 we put in for rams in my 20-year adopted home of CO (where I’d been putting in anyway) and WY.

Last fall - on my antelope hunt @ the same place in WY– I’d discovered HuntTalk, GoHunt and the like and we decided to step up our game and put in across the west. As many of you who’ve gotten into the ‘game’ know, we of course noticed that it’s minor extra effort and $ to put in for primo tags once you’ve done the sheep apps, we decided to throw down for some higher end elk, pronghorn and deer tags in multiple states, too.

Enter another buddy along with the two of us in SD last year pheasant hunting a few weeks after the above. Guy #3 says he wants to come west and hunt elk. I say I can oblige that, and he should put in with us for some NM tags (no point system) and the fallback is we will just hunt CO. A month later at our boyhood deer camp back in northern Minnesota, a plan is hatched on paper, and this spring besides the other stuff, the 3 of us put in NM for Valle Vidal (basically 0% odds), the 16C early rifle tag (2%) and the Pecos (~10%). They put in for a 1st rifle tag in CO and that’s where we really plan to go.

April 27, I see the green ‘success’ line on the NM page, and after a triple-check, that I’ve beaten the long odds and drawn 1 of the 3 unguided NR 16C early rifle tags on my first try. Thus, I am launched into a summer of maps, imagery and even a family drive the 11 hours down to the Gila to try and figure out this place that I’ve never been but heard so much about. Many hours of map reading, emails and marked up maps and phone calls from generous folks that had hunted the unit before (Thomas, Fin, I owe you guys a bunch of beverages for your help).

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After many hours of map reading, the family driving trip, more map reading and all the generosity above – I had an opening day plan and a plan B through maybe E. I left Denver Tuesday afternoon before the Saturday season start, stopping in ABQ for the night and arrived in the unit Wednesday afternoon. Rob and Tony were flying into ABQ Thursday. With my distrust of the not-so-great rental storage trailer, I ended up camped WAY east of where I’d planned. It was near a place where we’d seen a couple of big groups of elk this summer, so offered some other possibilities as well. Camp took until dark to set up (note to self – just sleep in the truck and wait for your buddies instead of manhandling a 14x17 wall tent solo in the SW NM heat). Just as I got a fire and dinner going at dark, a bull rips off a few bugles less than a mile away. Good sign :) I drive some likely routes Thursday morning and find what I think may be his home turf. Spend the rest of Thursday driving around and checking out places I’d marked this summer. It is hot as all get out and forecast to get hotter with not a speck of rain since the youth hunt the week before. I drive down to Winston to meet my buddies at 6, and as I’m hanging around outside, the lady comes out of the store with the phone and asks ‘are you Chris?’ – not good. They were delayed a few hours and are racing down from ABQ, so I give them directions to camp and head back. They pull in, hugs, beers, dinner are made in the dark, and no bugles, but a whack of coyotes yipping are cut off abruptly by a wolf howl.

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Friday morning we are awoken by the bull in ‘my’ valley bugling again. We make a slow breakfast to give him some time to get to bed and go over there to see if we can get further into his valley and find some evidence. We hike in and find 3 wallows, with fresh sign in the lowest one. Plan A is now that spot. I drive them all over the unit and we check on some other potentials. Friday night – everyone sleeps about 45 minutes.

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Saturday morning we are set up an hour before light on the lowest of the wallows on a little knob where we can see it and a route back to the nasty stuff. We can’t quite see the 300 yards up to the 2nd wallow from our position due to a little rise in the land between the two and the thick ponderosa and cedar between. We wait until about 30 minutes after light with nothing happening. I decide we need to drop down quietly and go peek at the upper wallow. We do that, and crest the little rise and there he is standing, broadside, 30 yards away. Covered in mud, stinking like a barnyard. Problem is – he’s a broken up, very small 4x5. I decide to pass and we watch him wander away up the valley into the thick stuff.

Saturday afternoon we talk to some other folks and actually run into the warden (which is shocking given where we were and how much territory he has to cover across 4 units). I had my Elk tag in my pocket, of course, but I had purchased and printed my Conservation tags, fishing license etc separately this summer and those were in my ditty bag back at camp. So – I had to to pull out my laptop to show him my pdf versions. Maybe the first time he’d been staring at a laptop miles down some horrible road But saving that file and having the laptop in the truck saved me 60 bucks in fines. We get a tip from some guys that had a nice bull from the 21A side on some other bulls they’d seen on the 16C side and decide that’s our new focus area. We pounded a lot of country the rest of the day and didn’t see much at all for fresh sign. Saturday night we sit up a canyon from some water that had relatively fresh sign. See some cows crossing the road on the way out, but that’s it.

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Sunday morning we set up on a spot we sniffed out driving around Friday. We hear elk mewing a ways away, but nothing takes the routes we are covering up into the nastiness. Anyone that’s hunted this country (or watched the OYOA sweepstakes episode) knows that there are a maze of canyons the elk take to bed and it’s oftentimes a matter of picking the right one or finding a ‘confluence’ of a couple. The rest of Sunday was a LOT of walking and stomping. I busted a bull out of some crazy box canyon mid-day, but only saw a flash. The heat was brutal.

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My buddy stepped into a small herd of cows in the same scenario a ridge over from me. When the sun peaked and it was like standing in a furnace, we ran down to Winston to re-supply some staples and get a quick shower and ended up chatting with an outfitter. He didn’t have any 16C hunters coming this season so he was generous enough to give us some detailed intel on a canyon south of our camp down towards the wilderness. As the crow flies, this canyon was 2.5 miles from camp. Took an hour to drive in there to where we parked and then walked up the ridges a mile or two from the end of the road. Place was as advertised, loaded with good sign. We set up where 2 side canyons come into the main one right (in front of me happened to be 2-3 rubbed-up saplings to boot). Nothing came out to play.

Monday we were back at the spot near the divide. There was a fresh bull track in the sand around a spring on top of our tracks the day before. Nothing filtered through so we hoofed it up the mountain and made it to the top after a long slog. I’d picked up a flu/cold bug of some kind, and I think I was getting near-hypothermic from all the sweating and subsequent freezing, (given it was in the low 30s at night and the low 80s all day) so we headed back to camp at 11:30 and my buddies went on a cell service/beer run all the way out to TorC while I took a few hours off in camp. We spent that night back at the morning spot and nothing doing. On the way out, we had a herd of cows cross right in front of us. After some headlamp map 'figgerin' on routes they would probably be taking, we had a morning plan.

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Tuesday we were back in some nasty stuff at a secluded confluence of small ravines we’d found near where the cows were crossing. Something walked the opposite ridge right before dawn, but it was too thick and too dark to see what it was.

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I sent the guys to get the truck and meet me a couple miles down the road and I’d still hunt to there. I found a virtual highway of tracks a couple ridges down and when I got to the bottom by the road I could smell elk. I traipsed around a bit before the guys showed up but didn’t find where they’d gone.

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I traipsed around a bit before the guys showed up but didn’t find where they’d gone. As we exited the valley, we ran into some guys whose camp we’d driven by a few times and stopped and chatted for a long time. The tagholder was from Silver City and had hit a bull opening morning that ran off into private and he couldn’t get a hold of anyone to get permission to go look for it, so while his spirits were down they were still hunting hard. That afternoon we drove down to talk to some other guys we’d met Friday. On the way, we saw and talked to a camp with a really nice 350-ish 7x7 hanging. That whole conversation was a little sketchy, as the bull was taken Saturday night and was hanging whole in the shady side of a ponderosa…still unskinned. Basically not fit for dog food anymore with the 80 degree heat of 3 days of hide-on hanging. We didn’t linger and drove the 500 yards over to the guys we’d meant to talk to a camp over said they hadn’t heard a bugle or seen many elk since the season started and were getting ready to head out. They’d had 3 bulls bugling close Friday night, but heard a rifle shot at 1:00am that night and not another bugle. Very odd situation in that little area.


Tuesday night – my last - we were back at the spot near the divide. I decided to take a side route around a few promising canyons and I’d meet my buddies a couple miles up an hour before dark and then we’d walk in and sit the spring the last hour. On my walk up and down multiple nasty canyons, I did come up on a really nice bedded Buck still in velvet. A 10 yard shot :) 50 yards later I busted his buddy (a still shootable but smaller 4x4). Several up and downs later I made it to the truck and was mentally and physically spent. I told my buddies the hunt was over for me, I just didn’t have anything left. As I was casing my rifle, Rob convinced me to at least leave it in the back seat in case something happened on the nasty ‘road’ out, so I acquiesced.

Not a ½ mile out, 3 cows crossed the road in front of us. I knew where they were going, and jumped out with rifle, binocs and cowcall and hoofed it to where I expected them to be headed. 45 minutes of light at the time I left the truck. I sat about 15 minutes and 2 cows appeared. They slowly were walking above me and one of them stopped and chirped. She barely got it out of her mouth when a bugle ripped out 3/4-1 mile up from me. The cows turned and headed that way, disappearing into the junipers. Since we’d been pounding that ground so much, I had a pretty god idea of where he was and where he was going, and I had the wind in my favor in that direction for an end-around, so I started running. I’d go 100 yards, stop, chirp my call (or a real cow would mew to my left) and he’d rip back – slightly closer each time. 5 minutes of light left and I stopped and a cow mewed to my left and he tore one off close enough that I knew I was on a collision course 1 ridge away. I slowly moved up over a rise threading between junipers, and just as the sun was turning the horizon red and black, he ripped one again – I could almost feel it vibrating on the low notes at the end and knew he was over the next rise. I duck walked to the crest, and looked down into the little draw. It was pitch black down in the draw even with binocs, and all I could make out was the tan of his ass and a big white sweep of antler that nearly touched his backside. 10 minutes too late. A long walk back to the truck, but that moment was worth all of it.

On the drive back to camp, we stopped at the Silver City guys’ camp and had a couple beers and I gave him my intel on that bull since they were still going hunting Wednesday. We had a long rambling conversation that only folks with our passion would have. Ranged from conservation practices to Ben Lilly’s fate and old hunt stories to the intricacies of mining in the Southwest. I hope he got that bull.

We got back to camp late, made up the last of the food and even watched a little Fresh Tracks/OYOA on the ipad around the fire.

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Wednesday morning – even though it was the last day of the season, their flight was at 3:00pm and we took down camp – everyone kind of sullen knowing it was all over. My buddies knew I’d be slow with the crappy trailer, so hugs exchanged we all headed out. Before leaving – they asked me two questions.

1 = “if you saw the opening morning bull right now would you take him” – that was an easy ‘No’ answer for me. I will probably never draw this tag again and I know what’s in that country. That was not the bull for me in that unit. Tony – who’s never hunted the West – took a lot of explaining on why that bull wasn’t ‘right’ for me.

Question 2 I actually thought about a lot on the 11 hour drive home. “Would you hunt this tag again?”

The Gila is an extremely special place for a lot of reasons. The time spent with my friends in that country was worth every second. There are a lot of elk there, and more mature bulls than I’ll probably see in my home unit the rest of my days. While it is heavily ‘roaded’ (‘road’ again being a gentle euphemism in that country), it is some of the most remote country in the lower 48. Also, the early rifle season – with 50 tags for that massive swath of country, it was an absolute luxury to only run into two other hunters while actually out walking around in the woods.

I’ve only been hunting elk since 2001, and living and traipsing around in the rockies for 5 years prior to that, but this was by far the most difficult hunt I’ve been on in terms of terrain, visibility, elk patterns, weather conditions and physical and mental strains. 6-12 miles a day on foot across that country in 80 degree heat, after bouncing hundreds of hard miles in the truck in between is a hard deal. The lack of visibility in a lot of the unit was frustrating. Sweating and slogging to the top of a ridge or canyon only to find you can still only see one little piece of the ravine got frustrating. I have no regrets on not filling the tag, but even though I pounded maps all summer, had several email and phone conversations with folks, had the incredibly generous info from Fin and Thomas11 and some other folks, and actually drove around down there in early August, not being able to really pound the country scouting left us with essentially needing to ‘scout’ for 5 days before we got into elk, minus the bugling little guy opening day.

So, I guess the answer I arrived at is that I would hunt it again in a second now that I have all that boot leather and knowledge. I would have a tough time applying for one of the neighboring units on a fresh tag without being able to devote a week of hard scouting close to season. The country is just so challenging and the elk habits are so unique (traveling many miles each way from food to bed every day with no seasonal migration and thus routing a slightly different canyon complex each day all year) that even when you work really hard, you still have to get pretty lucky. I know that statement applies to just about all public land elk country, but that hunt took a lot more out of me than I expected. I have a heightened appreciation for the guys that come here to Colorado, driving through the night to hunt new country for them that’s even more different to their norms than the Gila is to mine.

I don’t care how many times you read posts, articles, books about it – this hunt drummed in the simplest ‘rules’ of Elk hunting. You’ve gotta find the elk to hunt them and no amount of scouting (electronic or otherwise) is ‘enough’. We did generate 2 encounters. 1 with a really big bull. That’s enough for me.

The unfilled crinkled up tag and some keepsakes (a bobcat skull I found by the wallow, piece of alligator juniper bark, etc) are getting shadow-boxed and will hang proudly on the wall.

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Nice story! So true!
Hard to get folks to realize this is some tough country, tho not too high in elevation.Very hard to see critters when they get spread out.
And when you have seen real big ones or high concentrations ,then they just vanish,it is very hard on you.
You done good. It has been a very odd year in the Gila this year with how warm it has been and how spread out the elk are.

I'm helping a HTer & his hunter wife this week on her 1st elk hunt down in the Gila.With some tips they have seen 2 decent bulls so far with no shots possible in a very pressured unit.I'll check back in person tomorrow.But from your post and what I have seen they are doing real good.
 
Thanks for sharing. I have had a similar experience as most have. Its funny how many nons will feel sorry for you or not understand that this can still be counted as a success. Bittersweet for sure.
 
Glad u had a great time! Good story and wished u woulda got one! Tough country for sure
 
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