NM Rut

[ida homer]

Made my NM donation this morning.

Do you NM guys find that there is still decent elk rut action beyond 10/10 down there? Does the latitude make that much of a difference?

In ID I tend to see the herd bulls about wrapped up by October 10th-15th, give or take. Occasionally you can get into some bugling in mid to late Oct here,
but those are typically the raghorns taking advantage of sloppy seconds, at least that's been my experience.

I've never liked the NM rifle dates, taylor made for archery.

 

[NMGuy]

Hunted South Central NM on a mid October Muzzle loader hunt a couple years back. There was a little bit of bugling in the early morning but that was about it. Not sure if it had to do with the time of year, or the several hundred rifle hunters who were out the week before my hunt made them go quiet.

Good luck in the draw!

 

[hank4elk]

Depends on the year really. I have taken a couple rutting bulls mid Oct in NM.
Seen them into Nov. too, and silent by the 5th......

 

[IEATELK]

Ive had bulls rutting hard oct 25th. in Northern NM

 

[brownbear932008]

The bull I shot this year was still vocal. It's what got him we almost walked by him when he ripped a coup!e of bugles think it was Oct.30th. I heard bugles daily early and late 2nd rifle tag. We got into a herd of about 70 elk the first evening with about a dozen bulls going crazy mostly 4 and 5 points.

 

[ida homer]

Good to know, thanks for the replies. Sounds like a decent chance of some vocal elk during the 1st rifle seasons then.

Would love to hunt NM sometime, but damn those odds are tough!

 

[Elk Junky]

I hunt with a bow in September. I called in more bulls in 1 weekend for my buddy during his muzzy hunt this past season, than I did in 10 days during our archery hunt. They were really fired up! The year before hardly any action in October in the same unit. Year before that they were going nutz. I've considered applying for a muzzy hunt and using my bow. He passed on some nice bulls holding out for the bigun and ended up killing a spike on the last day when the spike committed suicide by running in to his brothers call at 10 yards.

 

[brownbear932008]

I've really been wanting a muzzy tag there I bet it's fun!