NM Elk - Story & Question; Marathon minus 1 Bull

[dihardhunter]

Story to come, question now. Anyone have a solid recommendation for elk euro taxi in Santa Fe or Alb'q? Same question for processor. Not tied to one location or the other as we are flying out of ABQ and driving in from the north. Thanks guys. One more pack load and the hunt is over.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I would imagine there are a couple of options.

When talking to a taxidermist about an elk euro always ask about their process. The correct steps are beetles, de-greasing with either ammonia or acetone, peroxide for whitening, and then sealing with Paraloid B-72. There is no reason to pay someone $275-300 for an elk euro, just to have them cut corners, when you can easily do it yourself the right way for a quarter the price.

 

[pojoaque40]

A buddy of mine has used Danny Gruben over at American Wildlife taxi in abq for probably six mounts. Trusted him with a 388 bull. He seems to do some really great work. Personally i've got no experience, just speaking for my friend.

Congrats on the need for a taxi!

 

[dihardhunter]

Thanks guys. Got it worked out. Decided to use 5 totes, dry ice, and baggage fees to handle meat, skull is at taxi in Abq. Won't be for a couple days but promise to make good on my promise of a story. Now if this plane will just take off, I'll be home in a couple hours.

 

[3855WIN]

A successful elk hunt will make you rethink the flying vs driving thing. Congrats on the success.

 

[Cas4764]

I've had a couple of my bull dipped in camo pattern in Albq. Message me if interested.

 

[dihardhunter]

Alright fellas. Had an hour to write things up and provide the full story.

Dad has had a hot hand the past few years drawing low odds tags in a couple different states, but his hand has been hottest in New Mexico and that trend continued in 2019. With the winter/spring precipitation and the hype of optimal antler growth, AZ and NM elk tags were in extra high demand and he yanked one out of the hat. For New Mexico, the unit is probably only in the 30th or 40th percentile, but the limited number of tags and success rate in the 30-35% range had me excited. The only catch was we’d be behind 2 archery seasons, 1 muzzleloader hunt, and the first round of rifle hunters. That said, I was confident the unit had some pockets that would attract post-rut elk and all the pressure might even make it better.

Dad and I met up in ABQ on Wednesday around noon, hit the local Walmart, and drove to our hunt unit in time to cruise a few roads and get camp set up. The 2 highlights of our couple days of scouting were as follows. First, we located a herd of about 35 elk nestled into a mountainside of oak brush on Thursday morning - ON PUBLIC!! The herd bull was a no doubt shooter – a little broke up, but long beams with 7 points on one side and 6 on the other. The downside to this first point was that we failed to relocate them on public land on Friday morning and Friday evening prior to the opener on Saturday morning. The second highlight was bumping into the local conservation officer. There is nothing like resolving last minute access questions with the one charged with prosecuting potential trespassing offenses – it was complete happenstance but ended up playing a large role in how our hunt would play out.

Opening morning, we were parked at the base of the mountain where we had glassed the elk on Thursday. Our plan was to hike straight up and loop around on top of the oak brush slope where we hoped the elk would be hunkered. It was about as straight up as it gets and the top 600’ was traversing a rockslide, but everything went smoothly. Sunrise found us peering through our optics and we quickly located a ton of elk, between 60 and 70 easily with 6 or 7 bulls including the big 6 by 7…on private. We held out hope that they would wander on to public or perhaps somebody on the private would shoo them our direction but that turned out to be wishful thinking. By the time we made it back to the truck it was noon. That afternoon, without a firm back-up plan, we headed into an area with a number of waterholes scattered through a mesa. 8 miles later and we had found zero fresh elk sign and every waterhole we checked was dry as a bone.

That evening, a system of strong winds moved into the area and we didn’t get a whole lot of sleep with the sides of the tipi slapping around. With gusts nearing 50 mph, we put some miles on the rental truck on Sunday morning. Despite glassing 5 or 6 good looking spots, we couldn’t turn up any elk. That afternoon, we decided to strike out from the truck and put 4 or 5 miles on our feet walking at a fast clip with the wind at our back. We hit a good turn-around spot and looped into some intermingled aspen groves / meadows / oak brush to slow hunt our way back to the truck. Right off the bat, we put a pretend stalk on a really nice 5 point muley – he was big enough that I checked draw odds for mule deer once we got done with the trip. A dandy. Thirty minutes before dark, we were slinking through a patch of dark timber when we stumbled into some elk. Sorting through bits and pieces of elk, we could identify one legal bull but no clean shot presented itself and shifting thermals spoiled the opportunity rather quickly.

On Monday morning, we started by checking for our oak brush elk to no avail. We found them again but way over on private land. Turns out the private land was being hunted by an outfitter. We talked to them and pointed them towards the herd for which they were appreciative. We caught up with them a few days later and learned that their client missed the 6x7 three times at 300 yards later that morning. In our mind, there was no downside to helping the guides. Best case scenario, having someone shoot at the elk herd might encourage them back on to public land where we could get at them. From there, we decided to use some ePLUS property to access some hard-to-access public land. The ePLUS property was down low and the fresh elk sign started immediately off the edge of the landowner’s hay field. As we moved along, things went from good to great and pretty soon we were wading through “barnyard” conditions. To make a long story short, we methodically hunted our way through some of the best elk sign I have ever seen for nearly 4 hours without detecting any actual elk. Running out of public land to hunt at the 4 mile marker, we starting bending our route back towards the truck when dad glimpsed a patch of tan hide through the dark timber. Bull. I used a cow call to coax the bull into a good broadside position and dad worked the bolt on his .270 doing the rest. 5 loud booms later and dad had his first ever elk. All 5 rounds were solid hits and a solid 6 point bull was down in his bedroom at 12:50 PM. The spot had all the right ingredients and it was like the bull had ripped a page from the "where elk should be post-rut" playbook and was a living (now dead) example.

We gutted the elk quickly and headed back to camp to empty backpacks, grab food and water, and fresh batteries for our headlamps. We made it back by sunset to skin, quarter, and hang, and made it out with a load of a meat that night at 1 AM, packed another round of quarters on Tuesday, and finished the packout on Wednesday morning. All told, we had 8 miles roundtrip in the successful hunt, and an additional 5.67 miles in each round of the packout. Add it all up and we had nearly a full marathon in the effort of taking and packing that bull. One of the first times I’ve had time on my side during an elk hunt, and it made for some not too miserable work (more loads but smaller loads) to extract the bull from the mountain.

We left the unit Wednesday afternoon for a hotel in Santa Fe, then connected back to ABQ for our return flight late Thursday afternoon. We purchased a cheap bathroom scale and 5 totes to fly our meat home as check baggage. 257 pounds of boneless meat and the head/antlers weighed an additional 40 pounds. The skull and antlers we left at a taxidermist who does European mounts, and I had to stuff one of the backstraps in dad’s luggage and toss a few frozen cuts in my carry-on to meet the airline’s 50 pound bag limits. All told it was another incredible adventure with my dad. He has been on a great run the past 4 years out West and this trip especially felt like a true “paying it back” for all the time and energy he invested in me in my younger years. I was real proud of him. He got into some of the best shape of his past couple decades and overcame some health scares earlier in the year that led to a heart cath and ramped up cholesterol medication.

‘Til next time…

 

[dihardhunter]

Pre-season scouted 7x6 bull on public.

 

[dihardhunter]

Elk country in full color.

 

[dihardhunter]

So many dry waterholes.

 

[dihardhunter]

Night life at hunting camp in the tipi.

 

[dihardhunter]

Opening morning hike straight up only to find the elk over on private across the valley.

 

[dihardhunter]

Dad's first elk! Thanks New Mexico.

 

[dihardhunter]

Heavy meat pole.

 

[dihardhunter]

One funny picture to end - checking in to the hotel in Santa Fe.

 

[SBAHunts]

great story, congrats to both

 

[MT_elk]

Congrats!

 

[Deleted member 28227]

View attachment 119667
One funny picture to end - checking in to the hotel in Santa Fe.

Lol I like your style! Really one of the best parts of an out of state trip are the double takes in the airport.

 

[ashersdad]

Lifetime memories made with your Dad. Doesn't get much better than that.

 

[NMGuy]

Awesome! Congrats to you and your dad!