The evening of the sixth day we were working our way back into some timber that we had hunted earlier in the week when we jumped a single elk. We decided to split up and hunt till dark. I chose to go to the base of a cliff and John went the other direction.
The aspen leaves were as yellow as fresh cut osage as the sun began to set on the New Mexico mountains.
With just about a half an hour before dark when the snapping of limbs and the clinking sound of rocks could be heard along with the sound of soft cow and calf calls. As they made there way to me I could see cows and calves but no bull in the bunch.
I began to see the area that they would be coming in front of me and the possible chance for a shot. A small opening in the brush about forty yards away was the only chance for me to get an arrow to one. As the herd filled past one by one along the narrow mountain trail I prepared for shot. A mature cow in the center of the line of animals had my attention. As she began to come into the opening an Abowyer Brown Bear head on the end of a Wilderness Custom Arrow shaft found both lungs, passing through falling to the ground still shaving sharp.
As the heard crashed through the dark timber I knew the arrow had done its job. I could see the entrance hole perfectly centered behind the shoulder as she crashed through the timber.
After I hooted for John to join me we began to work out the blood trail in the dark. We had good blood but it seemed to end at a thick jumbled up mess of juniper bushes. I had heard what I thought was the cow crash just below the area so we centered out search there. After deciding that we were likely doing more harm than good trying to sort out the trail we decided to come back in the morning.
After a restless night, trying to make out the details in my head of what might have happened as it all unfolded. We awoke to a million stars under a clear cold New Mexico morning. Thankful for the cold temperatures we returned to the flagging that we left as a marker at the last sign of blood. Still looking low we decided that all the tracks were from the other elk in the herd and that none were leaving a blood trail. So I told John lets take a water break and go back to the juniper thicket at the end of the blood and I would look up the hill.
I hadn't went four steps up the hill when I found fresh new blood, as I hollered to John that I found fresh blood and took three more steps when I looked down in a wad of low growing juniper and there lay my elk. I have never been more proud of an animal in my life than this cow was to me now. We had drawn this once in a lifetime tag, done all the hunt and work ourselves with the exception of some help from a couple of traditional hunters that live in New Mexico that new the area who gave us info through the summer, thanks Butch and Sancho. We scouted the area in the summer and hunted from before daylight till after dark every day climbing to over 10,000' twice a day most days we had hunted hard and we were both proud of the elk that lay before us!
Topic: I drew a once in a lifetime Elk Tag in New Mexico (Read 4085 times)
