Elk Hunting November 2001

Elk Hunting in New Mexico - November 2001
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So, after years and years of putting in, Dad, brother Max, and I finally were drawn, yehaaaaw!! This was for a Rifle Rocky Mountain Elk Hunt (that's "Wapiti" to you natives) in the middle of New Mexico. So we made many plans, bought lots of gear, watersealed the equipment, packed it all up and went..... on a Scouting trip!! Well, we had to, it was a new place - area 16E; just above the Gila wilderness and about 40 miles South of the VLA. This area has a pretty good success rate and is, um, right next to the prime Elk Country where Elk Mountain can be found on the map. We spent some time driving around and looking for Elk, or at the very least Elk poop - all we saw was purty country, many bovines, and a few pronghorns. But we did find a great place for the base of operations and picked a few places that looked promising.

Waited a few months, then did the same planning, gearing, etc. but this time we brought the guns! Oh, yeah, Max built a full size recreational trailer by hand, from scratch, from the ground up, just so he could bring the Quads (4-wheeler beast offroad machines, these will be important later). Actually, the trailer is almost as cool as the bikes - awesome job and it didn't fall apart at all!! :)

And here's how it went:

Saturday, First Day - got up at 0-dark-30, checked the radio's, shell in the chamber, headed straight south, split up, climbed a mountain.... nothing! not even sign! Then we met some guy that shot at a deer, he thinks, with iron sights, and was kind of looking for him. Made a quick, unanimous decision to go immediately to a different area. So that evening we did more scouting, mostly on the quads, thanks Max!

Sunday, Second Day - got up at 0-dark-30, checked the radio's, put shells back in the chamber, headed out. Hiked all day, covered miles and miles. Heard other shooting. Got excited. Started seeing lots of sign. Sneaking very carefully thru the woods, being the great white hunters......nothing! All day, saw lots of signs, but nothing legally in season. Napped in the afternoon, took this cool picture, then went home, drank, ate, talked about a better tomorrow.

Monday, Third Day - got up at 0-dark-30, checked the radio's, put shells back in the chamber, headed to where we heard shots the day before. Got there and were hiking up the mountain before anyone else.... wow, much more Elk tracks, droppings, stripped saplings!! couldn't go 30 paces without seeing some kind of big game markings!! Sneaking ever more confidently now.... most hopeful hunters on the planet right then.... nothing!!!!!! So we all got to the top, still nothing! Great country, lots of Elk in the area, just not where we were! So we headed back to camp for lunch.
Coming off the mountain, a rock reached up and tripped me, I fell flat on my butt. Well, actually I fell on my rifle scope which broke the scope mount, Aaarrrrrgghhhhhhhh!!!! So we grumbled a bit all the way back to camp. And when we got there, we did the only thing you could do in that situation. Being Typical American Males (and also Engineers), we DUCT TAPED the scope securely to the gun!! I fired a round of shots and was a few inches off, but mostly on, and I thought we're not seeing anything anyway, I'm probably safe with this gun!

The weather was weird on this trip. Cold at night, but no snow and very warm in the day - we were in T-shirts!! So we had a nice nap, then got up and talked about what to do. Dad wanted to chill so he hung out around camp. Max and I decided that the Elk must have moved on to greener pastures as a result of the hunt pressure in that area. We decided to go to an entirely different area that had also looked promising. It was getting late so we hopped on the quads and headed out. It was a good thing Max had them, because we got to the area in record time with a lot of time left in the day to hunt. We hiked up to a mesa and were going North looking in Canyons. On the third canyon WE SPOTTED ELK!!! About 13 that we could see, casually grazing. Not down in the canyon in a convenient place, but across the canyon about 1/2 mile away as the crow flies. This was surprisingly late in the day on a hot day (about 60 degrees) - they were out in the open grazing, not bedding down as we had expected. So we had two ways to go: long way around the mouth of the canyon out in the open, or charge down and up the sides and come out right where they were. It was 4:30, and if you know us, you know we chose to charge down and up the hill!! Actually, it was a good decision because the Elk were a ways away from the rim, and we could be noisy and fast without worrying about them seeing/hearing us.

And we set off, down and up the canyon. The other side was steep, at times we were on all fours. And we made it up the other side out of breath and panting like Coyote's. Luckily, they were still there! And now we could see where all the Elk were hiding - there were about 25 in that herd! Cows and a few Bulls too. That picked up our adrenaline a bit; Max had the better gun - he shot first and missed. Then it was my turn and I dropped to one knee, aimed on the one in the back of the herd, checked for horns (didn't want any), and fired. She went down with one shot and never got up again. Pretty good for a duct taped .270!!! oh, yeah, it was 215 yards and she was trotting slowly away. The bullet entered behind the ribs, through the lung, and I found the bullet just inside the hide.
Dang 'ol luckiest shot I ever heard of!!

Here's some pictures:

It was about 5:00 pm when I got the Elk. We had about 30 minutes tops of daylight left. Really, the sun was going down and all that was left was ambient light. Now it's been years since I've dressed a large animal, and we usually had Dad to help. We did call Dad on the radio's and let him know. He drove the Jeep up to a nearby stock tank near where we had left the quads. Max was unlucky so he came back to help and we both were standing there thinking, "Now what do we do?" Max planned ahead and whipped out a printout he had gotten from the internet - "how to field dress a deer"!! Yeah, it wasn't a deer, but the same basic shape, so we went after it pretty quickly, it was getting dark.. We finished and did a damn good job! So now it's 5:20, nearly dark and we have a gutted Elk to deal with. We discovered that we couldn't haul her back to the bikes (much too heavy) so again we stood there and thought, "Now what do we do?"...... Max and I are both big guys, so we put a rope around the neck and hauled her about 100 feet to a tree - dang that was hard!!!! Hung her in the tree and headed back to the bikes.

By now it was 5:45 and totally dark. UNFORTUNATELY we had both taken our flashlights, that we had faithfully carried so far the whole trip, out of the packs that morning so we had to hoof it out completely by Starlight. It was a little scary - the landscape was littered with Lava Rocks, but we made it; over a mile in about 2 hours.

The next day all three of us hiked in (this time we had Dad, thankfully!!) and de-boned the meat, put it in bags, and packed everything out in one trip. That's 155 pounds among 3 guys! But we smiled all the way.

And here's the picture worth a million words:

Elk Hunting 2001, taken with a Duct Taped .270:
(you can see the white duct tape holding on the scope mount, around the stock)

Epilogue;

The meat is great !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The wife and kids are still a little unsure, but the guys and I love it!
We've made all of the choice cuts as well as hamburger, sausage, summer sausage, and Jerky.
I can't wait until next year!!

So sayeth the Elk Man.

"Duct tape is like the force: It has a dark side and a light side and it holds the universe together."
- Carl Zwanzig

Redfield Scopes - best scope I've ever hunted with, even when duct taped to the gun!

MonsterMuleys.com - cool Mule Deer and Elk website

New Mexico Department of Game and Fish

if you feel like you just have to email me - GeorgeL at GLEUENBERGER dot com

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