Elk in the Land of Enchantment

[beachbowhunter]

Well I just got back from my second attempt at hunting elk. Last year I had the distinct honor and pleasure of hunting with Whip and two of his Wisconsin buddies and it was a blast. This year I went to a different unit in New Mexico with my local hunting buddies where they've have hunted in the past. While last year we did a self-guided hunt, this year I had a guide who knew the area inside and out. In fact, he wasn't a guide but the long time hunting partner of the outfitter in for a "guest appearance". Man, was I lucky to have Randy show me around.
   

[beachbowhunter]

Out of respect for the outfitter and staff who have poured their hearts and souls into scouting and hunting this area for 30 years, I won't provide much detailed information on the location, etc. These guys have EARNED the success they enjoy in units 6A and 6C of New Mexico.

A local landmark....

[Wannabe1]

Absolutely stunning. Sounds like the trip was a success, second attempt or not.

[beachbowhunter]

For the last six months I've been struggling with a degenerative hip problem that I've known would someday slow me down. There was no way I was going to give up hunting wapiti so I did the best I could on conditioning all summer and just went for it. I think some of my pals gave the outfitter a heads up because he assigned Randy as my guide and gave the younger, billy-goat guides to the others.
 

The first couple of days we hunted the lower section near camp at about 8,500 feet. There was a large bowl area lined with overgrown logging roads that allowed us relatively easy passage. The first morning we took a mid-altitude road into the bowl and promptly heard multiple bugles coming from the bottom - down wind.

Hearing one on the western ridge at about the same elevation as us, we moved after him. After a few minutes all was silent. We followed a game trail up slope hoping to cut him off. We quickly found very fresh sign and the beautiful scent of a rut-crazed bull. We set up and did some light calling. Twenty yards up the slope above us we heard some crashing and rustling. What we saw were the round heads of some cattle. We then heard some elk cow calls that had a distinctive "Hoochie Momma" sound - too perfect. Must be a hunter...  Where was the bull?

[BigRonHuntAlot]

   

[beachbowhunter]

After seeing the cattle above us and nothing else, we headed up a game trail that headed off to the western ridge. We'd gotten up about 50 feet when we heard an unbelieveable crashing behind us. I was the middle of three with my friend Dave trailing. I spun around to see a beautiful bull, a 5x5 at least (hard to tell under the conditions) barreling after us trying to take the same trail!  He came to within 10 or 15 FEET of Dave before seeing/smelling him and falling off to the right and down the slope we'd come up breaking brush and trees all the way down.  WHAT A RUSH! Especially for Dave seeing that this was his first morning ever elk hunting!

The bull WAS up there and either caught our scent or busted a hunter making the cow calls. Can't tell.

[beachbowhunter]

Up the valley we found a nice and apparently active wallow. We set up a tree stand and I spent the firt two evenings sitting it. No elk came to visit but I heard loads of bugeling lower in the valley down wind of me. Not a good location for an evening hunt given the wind conditions...
 

I wanted to go up higher..

[Charlie Lamb]

Hey dude! Been waiting for this tale to unfold. Sounds great so far. Keep it coming.
             

[Missouri CK]

Looking forward to this as well even though I know how it ends.

Chris

[DesertDude]

Keep it coming Beach...........

[Benny Nganabbarru]

Looks and sounds good!

[tradtusker]

   

[Ray Hammond]

Go Beachie! I believe, I believe!!!  

[beachbowhunter]

Thanks guys. Chris, I didn't do anywhere NEAR the photojournalistic job you guys did up in Idaho. Your pics are superb. I found it a little difficult to take a decent picture while breathing like a freight train  :D

[Ray Hammond]

been there done that got the T shirt, brother! The air's pretty thin for us flatlanders at 9600 feet, and a 40 degree slope!

The last time I was out there a guy in camp with me climbed up to "the top" on a bull he had bedded that morning. On his way uphill, the bull was headed down- right on top of them! He literally was in the trail the bull was using. As he was bugling his rear end off coming downhill like a freight train to the water that was 1000 feet below, my campmate loaded an arrow, drew, released, and two things happened: the arrow went UNDER the belly of the bull and stuck right next to his "business" in the dirt, and the shooter fell backwards and he and his bow rolled downhill about 75 feet, rear end over tea-kettle!!!

It was about a 370 bull. He still sends me emails about his nightmares, 6 years later.

[beachbowhunter]

I was talking with my guide as we were walking and he lives in Farmington which is about a mile high. He says, "what's the elevation at your house?"  I say it varies beteen 8 and 16. He asks "800 ot 1600?"  Nope, 8 to 16 ft above sea level...  "It's gonna be a long week for you..."  

[bohuntr]

Impatiently waiting for the rest of the story!!!  

[beachbowhunter]

Ok then...

We devised a plan to hunt our way to the top of the Santa Fe Wilderness up from our camp. We would drive to a trail head well before light and hike 2.5 miles up a rough trail to approach an area my guide knew contained "parks" or open meadows. These were not the very large parks shown on the topos, but smaller parks located between some very steep drainages.

The first morning we make it up to the lower park at just after light. We walked across the small park to a strip of aspens and pines only to have two elk cows run right in front of us. Something spooked them as we had the wind and they wouldn't have run to us if they'd seen us. We quickly hid and waited to see if a bull was after them. Nope.

We heard bugles from at least 3 bulls going off in the larger upper park within a few hundred yards in each direction. Wow, this was encouraging. From the sounds, it appeared that they were working thier way up the steep upper section to the top of the ridge. We chose to follow after the closest, most vocal bull.

Plenty of scrapes on the way up...
 

[beachbowhunter]

We followed the bull up the steep slope towards the top. We kept within in what sounded to be about 100 yards of his bugles. We made several set ups but nothing would draw him to us. We were finding that the bulls were keeping track of each other but were not interested in fighting and cow calls just ran them off (???).

We did this for several days with the same results. We had bulls absolutely screaming their heads off within 70 yards that wouldn't even come in when we got between them and their cows. They just weren't ready, probably due to the continued warm weather. They shut down for the day at about 10 am.

We found elk nirvana at the top of the ridge at about 10,000 feet. Dark timber, moss covered ground, tall grass and awesome wallows.
 

[beachbowhunter]