New Mexico Elk Hunt - Now Live on YouTube

[Big Fin]

Well, sometime tomorrow the rest of the world will get a notice about this hunt being loaded up on YouTube. Hunt Talkers get to see it first.

Some of you already saw it on TV earlier this month. The feedback has been remarkable. It is a great hunt, with a great guy, Bruce Pettet, who leads a great company, Leupold. Add in a great camera guy and it might be worth your time to watch, even with the sub-par host that leads the operation.

Bruce applied for the tag in the New Mexico draw, but was unsuccessful. Since vouchers can be controversial, I want people to know this hunt was on a unit-wide voucher. Sometime this is how we have to do it when we have guest who we have made contractual obligations to take them hunting and they don't draw and they have super tight schedules in hunting season. Not our preference, but it is how it happens some times.

[video=youtube_share;yGE72mUKprs]https://youtu.be/yGE72mUKprs[/video]

In addition to the hunt itself, we are continuing with our YouTube strategy of providing a lot of hub content that helps explain more of what you saw in the episode. Since this hunt was with the guy leading the team at Leupold, much of these hub content vids are about the equipment you saw us using.

The rifle, scope, bullet used - https://youtu.be/yCKQpA9gAOg


Leupold TBR Range finders - https://youtu.be/87VzHMqEGaU


Leupold Spotting scopes - https://youtu.be/V7cZbwphnoI


Gutless method on an elk – https://youtu.be/Ny5z3kJWbn8


Using Trekking Poles for Mountain Hunting - https://youtu.be/C8Ux_MKKihw
​

I hope you like the episode and I hope you like our use of YouTube for distribution of the big episode and the surrounding hub content. If you do like it, I hope you will sharing.

When it comes down to measuring the success of this YouTube venture, your sharing and commenting on these videos is what will make the final difference in whether or not ad agencies find the YouTube model a worthwhile manner for reaching their client's customer. Not many high quality productions are doing the full on YouTube gig like we are A lot of people are watching what we are doing and waiting to see whether we succeed or fall on our face.

Thanks for watching.

 

[Southern Elk]

Thanks Randy! Can't wait to see it.

 

[Little Big Man MT Chris]

Great Video !!! Enjoyed watching that hunt !! what a whopper of a Bull .. I will be watching that hunt again very soon

 

[noharleyyet]

Excellent......what a shot. Good commentary Randy...like the periodic options to click in info pops. Well done.

 

[shoots-straight]

Good hunt. Thanks for the early bird encounter.

 

[el unit]

Awesome show! Now I'm even more pumped for elk season! Thanks for the hunting videos and HuntTalk.

 

[mtmander]

great hunt , it looked like you had fun

 

[mdhunter]

That is a great episode Randy! Congrats on the hunt and the experience.

 

[hank4elk]

Another great episode Randy.
Now I understand the ? possed to me by a guy that had seen it and it is as nasty as that in NM. The Gila for sure and even dinky ranges will whip you.Add the post fire blowdowns and it is crazy how tough it is.
I declined helping with a couple hunts this year in the wilderness because there is no way I could be help as I'm not in shape enough after the heart attack last year.
The place I am deer hunting is just a little ways away and not as high and as far but looks somewhat similar as it burned the year before the Baldy fire and is not as thick....sort of. Also not 1800'of up & down...lol.

 

[Cooperd0g]

I was really excited to see this and expected it would be months before it went to YouTube. As a non-cable guy you made my day. I do like the smaller companion videos as well.

 

[NoWiser]

I've been waiting for it to post to YouTube! It was worth the wait. Excellent job, as always!

 

[Eric.MN]

Great video Randy and thanks for sharing it on YouTube! Glad to see your hard work paid off.

 

[Bukwild3]

My 2 girls and I watched it again today streaming it on the tv. Great show!

 

[Reata]

Great hunt Randy! All other hunting shows pale in comparison and I just don't bother to watch anymore. I will always make time for yours. This has me really stoked for my NM hunt in Oct!

 

[airlocksniffer]

Great video and great hunt. I'd definitely be questioning my sanity dropping into that hell hole but that bull looked worth it. How long did it take you to pack that critter out?

 

[Big Fin]

Great video and great hunt. I'd definitely be questioning my sanity dropping into that hell hole but that bull looked worth it. How long did it take you to pack that critter out?

When we got there, the biggest of the three was gone. But, Bruce liked this one, also.

As for the pack out, we got in touch with an outfitter who had a wrangler that packs out elk. We lucked out and found one small piece of cell reception we could get from a knob protruding from the side of the canyon. He asked us, "How the hell did you get in there?" He told us to haul the bull down to the bottom and carry out the antlers, as his mules did not like antlers. He said he would meet us between 2-3 am at the mouth of the canyon. We were parked at the top of the canyon, but he said he would haul us to our truck in the morning. He said his wrangler would go in and get the bull in the morning if we marked it good.

Tyler and I looked at each other, as the GPS said we were only 2.5 miles as the crow flies from where he said he would meet us. He told us since the fire, the trail was washed out by erosion and we would have to follow the creek and hurdle all the blowdown. Still, it was 8:45 pm when we started, so we wondered how it could take us that long. We found the outfitter sleeping in his truck at the mouth of the canyon when we emerged a bit before 2:30 am. We had left for this hunt at 4:30 am the prior morning. The trip meter on my GPS said we had traveled over 13 miles that day, and none of them were easy going, except for the last mile.

 

[Gerald Martin]

When we got there, the biggest of the three was gone. But, Bruce liked this one, also.

Great episode! I briefly wondered if that was the same bull that you guys spotted across the canyon but chalked it up to distortion at long distance. Wonder how big "Hank" would have been. Those are the kind of hunts where the memories better way outlive the pain because the pain lasts a long time after a pack out like that.

 

[Big Fin]

Great episode! I briefly wondered if that was the same bull that you guys spotted across the canyon but chalked it up to distortion at long distance. Wonder how big "Hank" would have been. Those are the kind of hunts where the memories better way outlive the pain because the pain lasts a long time after a pack out like that.

Yes, the pain lasts a long time. With "long time" being "yet today."

On our way hauling the bull down to the canyon bottom, I had a serious wreck in the dark. Tyler and Bruce calling to find where I ended up. Then they had to extract the load from my back that had me doing a hurdler's stretch with over 100# pushing my face into the burnt ground on a very steep slope. I was in that position, underneath a deadfall. In the process I smashed the top of my tibia, or as the ortho called it the Medial Condyle, on a big rock. That stopped my descent down the gully, but that thumbnail-sized spot is still sensitive to pressure after nine months, albeit not as bad as it was last winter.

I hunted the rest of the season, but it hampered me a lot. I felt sorry for Schmalt's hunt a month later, as the 10-12 mile days were killing me on the downhill grades as the body/pack weight pushed down on the top of the tibia with every step. It was getting to the point of unbearable.

I don't need that kind of experience again, but we will be back there in October. Wish it was my tag, but will still be a ton of fun.

 

[SixPoint]

What is it in an elk hunters blood that gives us the drive to do crazy things? After hearing you reference this hunt in several podcasts I've really been looking forward to seeing the footage, and, yup, it looked just as terrible as you described. So cool to be able to catch these on YouTube! Looking forward to the next episode.

 

[Art Vandeley]

Great episode. Thanks posting