Just wanted to provide a report on our hunt the first week of September. I have not actually posted any our past successes as it is a bit awkward to me, kinda like bragging but i have learned a lot from other's post over the years and have tried to post what our experiences were from other hunts. No time for an eloquent story, so to speak, just gonna give the rundown.
We camped the whole week and the country is as beautiful as anywhere i have hunted. The opener was a bit crowded along the main roads the bridge was being worked on at San Antonio river crossing so it cut the unit in half for functional access. The secondary roads were closed a few years ago to access but there are no gate or signage on each road and a lot of hunters are still running the roads. We did have hunters taking in atv's well back off the road and we called the G&F and let them know, but by the time they made it there a few days later and the activity had slowed down by then....it is frustrating when you walk for an hour or two and just have someone come in on top of the ridge on an atv and not even on a trail. But, we just went into nastier country than most people would go with an atv and were able to get into some beutiful country. After 2 days with of a lot of walking before the opener, we were in elk and excited to say the least! It didnt take long to get into elk I had a bull down at 11 am on the first morning and he dropped down into a steep canyon and expired. Man that is tough on eastern lungs, that weight at that elevation is a tough go of it.
It was about 80 degrees so we focused on getting meat deboned and hung right away! The flies were awful!! i have never experienced anything like it. The elk had been dead only about an hour and half when i was dressing it but it was covered in flies like it was dead for days.....that was unpleasant and apparantly a result of heavy rains all summer in northern NM as none of the locals we talked to had experienced anything like that either..but we got it done and hung and headed to camp for the cart. Antlers came off last! I am all about trying to get the best animal i can get, but there is a little too much focus on the antlers these days and i focused on taking care of the meat and i encourage you all to make it the priority. We had some bears hanging around camp so we got it out that night, 1.8 mi or so by gps tracking distance. If i had it to do over, i would have hung it higher and gone back for it the next morning. By the time i got back to camp to get the one wheeled cart i took with with me (neet cart), i was ready to call it a day. The cart beat my wife up pretty good but we were out and done with it in one day. I thought the cart was sent straight from heaven but she is 5'2" and 108# so she just did not have the height or the mass to deal with balancing the weight upright while going down a narrow and rough game trail. She was too sore the next day to even draw her bow so we recovered and went at it again the next few days. Even with a guide we had lined up for a few days on the back end of the trip, we were not able to get her within 35 yrds and a clean shot but we had her close several time....
It was a great hunt, one of our best western experiences to date. Getting lucky and actually drawing a tag with less people than an easy to draw hunt made for a much better experience. We just want to hunt and not be covered up in people, trophy quality is less important. My bull was a about 240" 5x6, not a bruiser but probably pretty typical of what you shold expect in that unit. If you want to pick through them, i doubt this the unit you should be in. we worked hard, did not come back to camp to nap and eat fancy lunches and we were in elk every day. Other folks were doing ok near the roads as 52 seemed to have good elk numbers and if you can handle the rough stuff, you can stay close to the road and drop down in canyons and be in them. We saw bulls from the road several time but i was not willing to drop down 500' in elevation and at a 1:1 or steeper slope. An elk is a big critter and i was realistic about our abiitly to get one out of really tough terrain. My advice to the folks not from the west is keep in mind what you can handle getting the bull out of.....you are most likely going to misjudge the difficulty of the terrain when you first look at it...
Closing Comments:
- neet cart was a life saver for not having stock and able to go pretty much anywhere we went. i did not want to take it down into the canyon so we packed the meet to the ridge
- Kuiu pack was awesome. i just bought it this year and went away from other brands i have had to reduce weight. i had about 120# on it when i came out the canyon and it was comfortable as i can be at that weight. i loved the pack and will be selling my gregory backpacks for normal backpacking as i would just as soon use the kuiu and save seveal pounds. I guess packs fit everyone differently, i found the lumbar and waist belt to be right in liine with top end actual backpacking packs.
- There is a lot to be said for not wasting effort and time going back to camp for comforts. Get a lightweight backpacking hammock, and boil up a meal in the field and take a nap. It helped me acclimatize and keep my energy for hunting. This is pretty much what we do on all hunts, but it amazes me that so many people feel they have to go back to camp for lunch every day. I eat well 48 weeks a year...i am there to hunt, not eat
.
Good luck to all of you that still have hunts this fall.
We camped the whole week and the country is as beautiful as anywhere i have hunted. The opener was a bit crowded along the main roads the bridge was being worked on at San Antonio river crossing so it cut the unit in half for functional access. The secondary roads were closed a few years ago to access but there are no gate or signage on each road and a lot of hunters are still running the roads. We did have hunters taking in atv's well back off the road and we called the G&F and let them know, but by the time they made it there a few days later and the activity had slowed down by then....it is frustrating when you walk for an hour or two and just have someone come in on top of the ridge on an atv and not even on a trail. But, we just went into nastier country than most people would go with an atv and were able to get into some beutiful country. After 2 days with of a lot of walking before the opener, we were in elk and excited to say the least! It didnt take long to get into elk I had a bull down at 11 am on the first morning and he dropped down into a steep canyon and expired. Man that is tough on eastern lungs, that weight at that elevation is a tough go of it.
It was about 80 degrees so we focused on getting meat deboned and hung right away! The flies were awful!! i have never experienced anything like it. The elk had been dead only about an hour and half when i was dressing it but it was covered in flies like it was dead for days.....that was unpleasant and apparantly a result of heavy rains all summer in northern NM as none of the locals we talked to had experienced anything like that either..but we got it done and hung and headed to camp for the cart. Antlers came off last! I am all about trying to get the best animal i can get, but there is a little too much focus on the antlers these days and i focused on taking care of the meat and i encourage you all to make it the priority. We had some bears hanging around camp so we got it out that night, 1.8 mi or so by gps tracking distance. If i had it to do over, i would have hung it higher and gone back for it the next morning. By the time i got back to camp to get the one wheeled cart i took with with me (neet cart), i was ready to call it a day. The cart beat my wife up pretty good but we were out and done with it in one day. I thought the cart was sent straight from heaven but she is 5'2" and 108# so she just did not have the height or the mass to deal with balancing the weight upright while going down a narrow and rough game trail. She was too sore the next day to even draw her bow so we recovered and went at it again the next few days. Even with a guide we had lined up for a few days on the back end of the trip, we were not able to get her within 35 yrds and a clean shot but we had her close several time....
It was a great hunt, one of our best western experiences to date. Getting lucky and actually drawing a tag with less people than an easy to draw hunt made for a much better experience. We just want to hunt and not be covered up in people, trophy quality is less important. My bull was a about 240" 5x6, not a bruiser but probably pretty typical of what you shold expect in that unit. If you want to pick through them, i doubt this the unit you should be in. we worked hard, did not come back to camp to nap and eat fancy lunches and we were in elk every day. Other folks were doing ok near the roads as 52 seemed to have good elk numbers and if you can handle the rough stuff, you can stay close to the road and drop down in canyons and be in them. We saw bulls from the road several time but i was not willing to drop down 500' in elevation and at a 1:1 or steeper slope. An elk is a big critter and i was realistic about our abiitly to get one out of really tough terrain. My advice to the folks not from the west is keep in mind what you can handle getting the bull out of.....you are most likely going to misjudge the difficulty of the terrain when you first look at it...
Closing Comments:
- neet cart was a life saver for not having stock and able to go pretty much anywhere we went. i did not want to take it down into the canyon so we packed the meet to the ridge
- Kuiu pack was awesome. i just bought it this year and went away from other brands i have had to reduce weight. i had about 120# on it when i came out the canyon and it was comfortable as i can be at that weight. i loved the pack and will be selling my gregory backpacks for normal backpacking as i would just as soon use the kuiu and save seveal pounds. I guess packs fit everyone differently, i found the lumbar and waist belt to be right in liine with top end actual backpacking packs.
- There is a lot to be said for not wasting effort and time going back to camp for comforts. Get a lightweight backpacking hammock, and boil up a meal in the field and take a nap. It helped me acclimatize and keep my energy for hunting. This is pretty much what we do on all hunts, but it amazes me that so many people feel they have to go back to camp for lunch every day. I eat well 48 weeks a year...i am there to hunt, not eat
. Good luck to all of you that still have hunts this fall.
