Day 8! Only three days left! Dad got in my head a little last night about hitting up the spot where I had the encounter with the boys from Oklahoma on day 3. I had hunted it the first two days of the season and the elk activity and opportunities had been awesome. The encounter with those guys turned me off and frankly I didn’t want to go back there if there was a chance we’d be hunting on top of each other again. We woke up at 4am and the wind was pushing out of north and occasionally from the west. It was a perfect wind for the spot so off we went. It had rained on day 4 and 5 and we were shocked to see that nobody had driven into this spot since the rain 3 days earlier. This definitely lifted my spirits and proceeded to drive up the road and park where I had met the guys from Oklahoma. This ended up cutting about a mile of walking, but there was the possibility that we’d drive past some elk too.
I parked the truck and immediately opened the door. It took less than a minute to hear a bugle. I didn’t respond and we just sat in the truck for the next hour waiting for light. I had every intention of hiking 3 miles to the north where the big herd would come off the private to bed, but I wasn’t about to leave all this bugling that was just a few hundred yards from the truck.
As it began to get light, off I went. Dad said he’d stay back at the pickup and take a nap while I was gone. I headed west towards the bugles. Several times I setup snd cow called, but the bulls just kept working west. I ran after them and finally closed the gap to less than 200yds. Instead of letting out a couple mews, I ripped a bugle and several bulls responded. I could hear one cow mewing with the bulls, but that was it. I bugled on top of them several times and this set them off. All of a sudden I could hear what sounded like several elk running. At first I thought they were running away, but it turns out that they were running straight at me. At 10yds, I drew my bow on a 270ish 6 point and he skidded to a stop at 6yds. If he had been head on, I would’ve let it fly. Unfortunately for me, he was heavily quartering to and there’s no way I was taking that shot. He wheeled and ran out to 80 and stood behind a pinion juniper. They just kept coming. Turns out that it was the same bachelor group of bulls that I had encountered the first day of the hunt. I was so close to letting an arrow fly on a small 5pt, but I passed. It was just after 7am so I was excited for what the day in store for me. As the bulls finally winded me, they grabbed the lone cow and headed west. Knowing that the group was a bunch of smaller bulls, I elected to move to the north.
As I walked further and further to the north, I wondered if I had made a mistake to leave elk in search of more elk. It was only 7:30am and all the bugling bulls had quit talking. I continued the march towards the private. Occasionally I would hear bugles a mile or so to the east, but I knew the bulls were in the wide open and probably not killable.
I was 300 yards from the private boundary when a bugle rang out at 10:30am. It was getting hot and had to be approaching 80 degrees already. I turned in the direction of the bugle and let out a couple mews into my bugle tube. The bull instantly responded. With nothing else going for me, I headed in his direction. I had to cross two openings that were both 300-400 yards wide. I knew there was a chance he could see me, but I knew I wouldn’t pull him across either one of them. As I finished crossing the second one, I stopped and called. He responded and I could tell he was much closer than his previous bugles. I didn’t respond. I decided to cut more distance as quickly as I possibly could. He kept bugling and every bugle was closer closer. Finally he let out a bugle and he was inside a 100. I got all setup and cow called briefly. When he got to 50, I could see his legs and then his body. At 40, he had no idea I was there. I drew my bow and settled my third pin right behind the shoulder. I took a deep breath, cow called to stop him and pulled the trigger. As the arrow hit perfectly, he wheeled back in the direction he came from. I cow called and bugled immediately in an attempt to stop him and it worked. I could hear him walking through the brush and it sounded like he was struggling. All of a sudden I could hear gurgling. Lungs!! It was right then I knew it was a great shot leading to a quick death. He wasn’t the biggest bull I had seen on the trip and I had even passed on bulls larger than him. It was just one of those times where it worked just as you dream it would.
As I followed his tracks, I came to a big opening. I hoped and prayed he wasn’t laying dead in the wide open. I was excited to see him laying a short distance away in the shade of several large pinion junipers. He was taking his last breaths as I approached him. He was a beautiful 4x5 with a good frame. It had been an amazing hunt so far and I was I incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to take this animal. I notched my tag and began the 2.5 mile walk back to the truck.
About a third of the way back to the truck, I looked at my phone and was becoming worried about the heat. It was now just after 11am and the clock was ticking. I knew I had to get back to the truck very quickly. I took off my camo jacket and pack and laid them next to a tree near the road along with my bow. This allowed me to move quicker and I ran the rest of the way back to the truck. When I got there, I think dad was shocked to see how I looked. I shared the good news with him and we quickly gathered all of our meat care supplies. We were able to drive within a half mile of where my bull died. This saved us a ton of time and energy. After some field photos, we broke him down and got all the quarters on ice in the cooler.
This capped off an amazing 8 days hunting elk in SW New Mexico. Once back to camp, we started prepping all of our gear for the breaking of camp the following morning. Still high on adrenaline, we went to bed about 11:30pm that night. The alarm went off at 4am and man was it tough to get up. It took longer than expected, but we pulled out of camp just after 5:30am. As we drove out of the unit, the elk were everywhere. We saw a ton of elk driving out in the dark and it was fitting that this would happen. It was like they were taunting us or were they trying to remind us of what we were leaving behind so that we would be excited to return. Either way, we kept pressing on to the north. We still had 1,500 miles to drive to get home. We stopped a lot for gas and old man pee breaks. Had a few double doubles and fries at In N Out in Salt Lake. We kept pushing north and the sun began to fade. I couldn’t believe that I was still driving. As it neared midnight, we had to stop and close our eyes. I had been driving for 19 hours and I had finally hit the wall in Yakima, WA. We parked the truck and closed our eyes for two hours. Just after 5am, we pulled into the driveway almost 24 hours later. It was great to be home!!! I now have an incredible amount of knowledge of the area and can’t wait for what New Mexico has in store in the coming years. My first ever out of state hunt was a success and I was able to share that with my father. Looking back, I will always wonder what would’ve happened if I would’ve held out until the last day. I have never been much of a coulda, woulda, shoulda guy so it is what it is. Maybe this will fuel me when I return back to the great state of New Mexico! Thank you for letting me share my hunt with you. My apologies for taking so long to wrap it up. It was chapter that I just wasn’t ready to shut yet. Enjoy the pictures!
