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28 October 2008

Day 1 Elk Hunting - NM Unit 16C with Wade Johnson Outfitters - I Missed a 6×6!

Posted by Darrell under: Elk .

 

We were up at 4 am. Butch, my guide for the week, woke Caleb and I and after a a quick snack we drove towards the area we would be hunting this morning. Butch had previously scouted this area and had seen a couple 300+ quality elk in the area. We began our hike about an hour and a half before first light and the moon was bright enough that we were able to go in without lights. The hike was intense. Caleb and I had not yet aclimated to the elevation and you could hear both of us breathing as we tromped along as quietly as our lungs would permit.

We were working our way towards a finger that would allow us to glass 3 different ridges that had all previously burned. This hike in the dark was somewhere between a mile and a mile and a half - which doesn’t sound like much. But, trust me, a mile in the mountains in the dark seems like a really long ways. Butch told us how the elk would work their way across these mountain tops on their way to the dark timber where they would bed for the day. We couldn’t be sure which of the three areas they would come across, so we were positioning ourselves somewhat in the middle. The idea was to have all three visible come daylight and to be ready to immediately begin glassing them. Then, if we saw some, we’d be able to take off towards the right mountain and intercept the elk on the way to their bedding area.

Butch said the elk would likely be moving and we would have to really hustle in order to be able to get set up for a shot while trying to intercept them. Made sense to me - at least in concept. It would be interesting to see if we could actually pull it off, though. I was still a little skeptical after hearing how few elk had been killed in the Gila so far this year.

We were in position by daylight and began glassing at first light. We soon saw cows on one of the burns and began quickly working our way towards them. We were able to set up about 200 yards from the first cows. I was absolutely shocked when bulls started bugling. I just didn’t expect it. I had been told that it had been an extremely quiet rut and we were well past the rut. Apparently, though, some cows came into heat late (phase 4 of rut) and the bulls were going crazy. Was I ever pumped!

Soon, we had bulls following the cows. First a small one. Then, a nice 5×5. And, finally a big bruiser of a 6×6. This was the elk of my dreams. Unfortunately, though he had been in a recent fight and the top part of one side was completely broken off and gone. Butch informed me that it had been broken off real recently, since this was one of the bulls he had scouted. It was incredible to be able to watch that bull through my scope at 200 yards and see him bugling that close up.

After watching this group of 50 cows and 3 bulls we heard a couple of bulls start fighting. And I mean they were really fighting. It was so loud that it sounded like they were right on top of us. Butch said “come on” and we found ourselves pretty much running through the mountains in order to get in to position to see these fighting bulls. If you’ve never ran in the mountains with a hundred pound pack on your back you probably won’t be able to understand just how hard it is to breathe. I probably sounded like I was dying as I panted for air.

The fighting stopped and one of the bulls started screaming. He was really lighting the forest up and it sounded like he was right on top of us. Turns out he was. As I’m running and panting for air, our guide comes to a screaching halt. His glasses go up and he screams “shoot the bull”. At this point, I hadn’t even seen the bull yet. But, I turn my head to the left (in the general direction of his binoculars) and sure enough a beautiful bull is hurling right towards us on the heels of a cow. I cycle a shell into the chamber and pull my gun up. The bull has stopped in some heavy brush only 80 yards away! I can clearly ee his vitals in a 6 inch wide gap between two big trees. Well, I can see this with my naked eye, but cannot for the life of me see it in the scope.

I had dialed my scope up to 14 power while watching the other bulls and in the ensuing melee of running for these elk I had forgotten to dial it back. That simple mistake likely cost me this elk. I adjusted my scope, found the elk in it, and gently squeezed the trigger. As I was in my trigger pull the elk turned away from me and I missed. I feel confident that if I had pulled the trigger even 1 second sooner my hunt would have been over right then and there. But, as fortune would have it, I missed.

You can imagine how devastated I was. While dressing for the hunt just a few hours before I was hopeful to just see an elk. Now, I had missed a beautiful 6×6. Sure, I could come up with all kinds of excuses. I was panting hard and out of breath. It was a super fast off hand shot. There was heavy brush. Try as I may to convince myself that it was OK, the fact was that I MISSED, and it wasn’t like I missed a 300 yard shot with bad crosswinds or something exciting like that - I missed a standing shot at an animal as big as a horse at only 80 yards.

Missing really messes with your psyche. I had to really concentrate to get past it and convince myself that I would nail my next shot. Caleb kept telling me that he couldn’t believe that I missed a shot like that and Wade just loved teasing me about it (in the good natured way that hunters will taunt their compadres).

I was happy that the miss was clean, though. I would have hated wounding the elk and spending the next few days trying to find an elk that may or may not die. So, if you are going to miss, a clean miss is by far and away the best kind of miss.

We decided to get out of that area  and return the next morning. We didn’t want to do anything to further spook the elk. Butch was pretty sure that they were OK, since the one I shot at went right back to bugling again within 30 seconds or so of my shot.

We spent much of the remaining morning and afternoon scouting watering holes. We saw 3 cows leaving one of the holes which was really cool to see. That evening we set up on a ridge where we could see and glass for miles. We saw a couple cows and watched a 280 class 6×6 get up from his bed and head towards a ridge. He was about 600 yards away and the idea of taking a shot a him didn’t really cross my mind. New Mexico hunting hours are 3o minutes before sunrise until sunset, so shooting hours end while you can still see quite well.  I was probably pretty quiet this evening because my  focus was on tomorrow morning and finding those bulls again.

We had a great dinner that evening. Butch’s wife, Tonya, was the camp cook and she did an excellent job of keeping us well nourished. She would make a great dinner each evening and prepare a portable breakfast and lunch for us to pack each morning.  Butch warned me not to expect to hear the bulls bugling again as it was likely an anomoly that we had heard them so much this morning. I went to bed concerned about seeing bulls again in the morning and about making my next shot count.

My next post will be about Day 2 of my hunt.

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