NM GMU 16D MI ELK HUNT

[surefire44]

I had hunted 16D years before right after I retired from the Air Force when I was still able to walk through the wilderness for hours at a time without pain. But my advancing age coupled with near crippling arthritis in my neck, back and knees, all of which had resulted in a fairly substantial VA disability rating back in 1994, now makes it impossible for me to hunt the way I once did. Last year, I was granted a NM Mobility Impaired card. So after I got the card, I applied and was lucky enough to be drawn for the MI hunt in 16D, which started on October 8th of 2011.
I had been keeping track of hunting in the unit on another website for bow hunters, so I was well aware of the drought conditions in the unit and the late rut which really didn’t start in full until the end of the bow season. I was looking forward to the MI hunt because it seemed for the first time I might be able to go afield with a rifle and find bulls still bugling strongly.
My old Air Force buddy, Rene, drove down from Pueblo Colorado on October 5th to help me out on my hunt. We left Albuquerque on October 6th and drove down to an area where another member of this forum had given me information on elk that he and his brother had killed the year before. We set up camp there and started scouting for elk. On Friday morning, as we were driving through the area checking out the various canyons, we heard an elk bugling along a ridgeline about a quarter mile off the road. We stopped, got out, walked around and listened. It soon became obvious there were at least 3 bulls in the area so my spirits were lifted as I anticipated the start of the hunt. We located a small pond about a mile away and decided that I would set up on it the next morning since fresh elk sign existed all around the pond. We also scouted some other areas but because they were so inaccessible, they didn’t look promising for an MI hunt.
Saturday morning was clear and cold. We left camp well before dawn and drove to the area I was planning on hunting. As we approached, an elk came out of the dark timber on a nearby hillside and started to come down towards the pond but the headlights of an approaching vehicle scared it back into the timber. It was too far away and too dark to tell if it was a bull but it sure looked big.
I set up at the pond but saw nothing except the many passing trucks and vans of other MI hunters who had come to look over the area. However, I heard the screams of several bulls on a nearby hillside in fairly thick pinion and junipers. They were moving down a ridgeline away from the pond. I decided to see if I could locate them with my binoculars but could never see them.
That afternoon, I set up closer to camp and waited just outside an area of private property to see if anything came down into a meadow where I had seen several elk the night before. Around 4:30, I heard a bull bugle across a canyon from where I was sitting. He continued to bugle and I could tell he was moving down onto some private land where I could not see him. Then around 5:00 another bull started screaming behind me. Again, I never saw this bull but he too moved down onto an area of private land.
The next morning, I decided to see if I could hunt one of those bulls in the public land that abutted the area where the bulls had come down to. I left early and drove through the private land and back onto public land. Just as I was leaving the private land, I spotted a small herd of 5 cows near a watering place. I kept driving and as I came over a small hill where I could see vast areas of open plains, I looked up to my left and spotted 5 or 6 elk standing on top of a small mountain. I stopped and glassed them. It was a small herd of 5 or 6 cows (maybe more as some could have been back in the trees) and a very large bull that looked to be at least a 6x6 and maybe bigger. He was so far away I couldn’t be sure, even with my Zeiss binoculars. I tried to figure out if there was any way to hunt that bull but he was too far off the road. He was over 1200 yards when I first spotted him.
That evening, Rene and I went back to the spot where I had hunted the first morning. Rene let me out of the truck down a road that was closer to the back of a large meadow and I carefully began moving in the direction I had heard the bulls that morning. I set up and waited and a bull started screaming at around 4:30, then several others around him. I cow called and they would scream back but they were at least a quarter mile away. They all moved down a ridgeline and out into a field but I was never able to spot any of them. I also couldn’t pry any away with my cow calls. If I get to go back, I may try to hunt that area again since one of the bulls sounded really big (but you never know).
When Rene picked me up he said he had gone back to the area where we had first heard bulls bugling on Friday. He said finally he saw a bull come out of some trees at about 400 yards away and move across an opening with some cows and then move down into a small canyon near dusk. He said it might be worth a try at some point.
The next morning I hunted close to camp again but saw no bulls. When I returned to camp, Rene said a bull had been screaming in the next canyon over but had stopped. I then decided to drive up a very poor road near our camp to see what was up there. We had met a guy from South Dakota a few days earlier who was scouting for his own hunt which started after mine, and he said he had seen several small bulls up there. I drove around, found 2 water holes, but no elk. Met a rancher on his ATV and he said he hadn’t seen any either and thought the drought was the cause.
That evening, as we were driving back to the first place I had hunted, we met 2 guys from Las Vegas, NM. I think they were brothers. We told them about the bull we had heard near the canyon where our camp was and headed off to hunt.
Rene suggested I set up on a hillside sloping down into a small canyon near the place where he had seen the bull elk the evening before. He said if the elk came out and did the same thing, he would circle into the canyon at a spot that we ranged at 225 yards, basically across the canyon and to my right.
I walked about 30 yards off the road down into the top part of the canyon and set up my bogg pod. I have the tripod kind, as I find it makes a nice walking stick but is also steadier to shoot off of. Then the waiting game began.
Every once in a while from 3:30 on I heard a bull make a small bugling sound which came out of some dark timber on top of the other side of the canyon to my left. It would just be one short call, then silence. Finally, about 4:30 that bull started bugling in earnest. Soon 2 other bulls started bugling, one straight out in front of me in some dark time that I ranged at 552 yards and the other off to my right somewhere down in the canyon.
At around 4:45 or so, the bull to my left started moving. At first I saw 2 cows come out of the timber and start to cross the plateau on top of the canyon. They were heading in the direction of the other bull in the timber that was 552 yards away. Finally, the bull came out and I could see him moving through the trees. He was massive. I knew he was less than the 552 yards but I wasn’t sure how much less.
I was hunting with a Steyr 30-06 that I had purchased at the Rod and Gun Club on Patch Barracks back in 1993. I had killed some nice animals with it in Germany and was confident in the weapon. I had topped it off with a nice Schmidt & Bender scope and had sighted it in at 200 yards with a 180 grain Federal bullet. Those scopes have the best glass I’ve seen, and I had hunted pigs at night in Germany with it. I knew I was good out to 300 yards, but then the bullet started to drop fairly fast. I thought the hold over at 400 yards was somewhere between 3-4 feet. Even though the glass was great, the German reticle was the simple cross hairs with no hatch lines for hold over points as the new scopes now have. I was going to have to guess and estimate how high to aim.
The bull was now moving broadside from my left to my right and I took an aim point and fired. The herd stopped and looked around as if to determine where the shot had come from. I recall seeing a cow behind the bull. I shot again and missed. They heard started moving further to the right, closer to the dark timbers over 500 yards away. I shot several more times, all misses, all the while trying to figure what the correct hold over was.
One thing I like about the Steyr rifles is they have a detachable magazine that you insert through the bottom of the rifle. I emptied the first 5-shot magazine and reached in my pocket for the second and quickly inserted it. By this time, the bull had turned around and had started heading back in the direction he had come. The herd was not panicked, as they were so far away I’m sure they did not think the shots were aimed at any of them.
I looked through the scope and saw the bull quartering away from me back towards the deep timber. I remember deciding I would try a neck shot and I placed the cross hairs over the bull’s head somewhere around the top of his antlers and fired. As I stared through the scope, the bull suddenly swung around on the spot and fell. I couldn’t believe it, and I yelled to Rene, “I got him.” Rene could not see the hit from where he was and he said, “Are you sure. Keep watching him.” I looked through the scope and could still see the bull lying where I’d hit him.
I left Rene at the spot I had shot from and drove up an old fire road to as close as I could get, which was part way down the canyon I had shot across. As I walked down the middle of the canyon, I was really pumped and I recall Rene telling me several times on my walkie talkie to slow down, take my time. By the time I managed to walk up the side of canyon to the top, it was getting dark. I made my way to the bull and found him in the fading rays of the now set sun. He was dead. I still couldn’t believe it. I had never shot a bull elk before and I was amazed at his size and massive antlers.
Rene eventually made it across the canyon also and I directed him to me with a flashlight. We spent the next several hours gutting the bull and cutting out the backstraps. We took some precautions to keep coyotes away from the carcass that night before we left and headed off to find a cell signal to call a wrangler Rene had made arrangements with to help us pack the elk out should we get one by Tuesday morning. It was now Monday night and the wrangler had commitments to set up some drop camps starting Wednesday, so he said I had to shoot an elk by Tuesday morning or we would have had to figure out some other way to get the elk out. The hunter we’d met from South Dakota, who has a license plate that says, ELKHUNTR, had said he’d help if we got an elk, so we had a backup plan.
The next morning we went back with the wrangler, 2 horses and a mule and packed the elk out in 3 trips. I also was able to range my shot that morning in daylight. It was 452 yards!! I would not normally attempt a shot like that, but Rene and I had been hunting prairie dogs in Colorado that September and I was routinely hitting them at 300 yards with my .17 HMR and my 5.56 AR, and I learned how to hit them ever farther out by estimating windage and holdovers. The scope picture that evening was clear and bright, and I was confident I could do it. And at my age, it might have been the only elk I’d ever get a shot at. As it turned out, the shot hit the elk in front of the left hind quarter below the spine and exited behind the right front leg. My guess is, I forgot to lead him and that’s why I hit him where I did. It turned out to be a perfect shot, dropping him on the spot and not destroying any meat. If it’s not below, then I’ve posted a picture of Rene (with beard) and me in the elk photo section on this website.

[Muleys 24/7]

Great story, I'm glad it came together for you! Congrats......and thanks for your service.