Took Jacob to northern NM for a youth either sex elk hunt that started the day after Christmas and lasted 5 days. For those that don't want to read the whole story, the short answer is we had a successfull hunt even though we didn't get one, for the rest, if there is any, here is the full story.
We headed out Wednesday afternoon after I got off of work, drove a ways, then got up early Thursday morning for the remainder of the trip. According to the temp. gauge in my truck, just north of Roswell, NM we hit freezing tempatures, not to mention snowy/icy roads and saw numerous cars in the ditch. Arrived in Questa about 6:00 pm on Christmas Eve with the temp. in the high teens with about 4-6 inches of snow on the ground.
On Christmas day, we slept in for a while & then headed out to do some scouting and came up with a game plan for the next day. Figured in the morning we would head out and setup on a high point overlooking the feeding area at the base of a mountain and decide at that time what to do.
Sat. morning, we headed out to the hunt area with the temp. gauge in the truck showing -14 degrees. Upon pulling in we saw about 30 head of elk running off of the feeding grounds heading up the mountain. After we got setup, 3 more vehicles pulled in behind us and drove right through the area where the elk had been. At that time I decided to basically follow them and see what I could find.
After about 30 minutes I glassed 3 bulls going on a bench not to far up the mountain about 1000 yards or so away. Jake & I decided to try to stalk them. We got ready and headed out across the flats and then up the mountain to the first bench. Not to our suprise, when we got to where I could do some more glassing, I found them about 500 yards heading further up the mountain. The reason we weren't suprised is that we sounded like a herd of buffalo trying to go up the mountain in the crusted over snow. At that point we called it off, and headed back to town.
Sat. afternoon, we decided to setup in the feeding area with hopes of ambushing them as they came down off the mountain to feed. We setup in a draw out in the flats area and got ready. After a couple of hours with the temps in the single digits, we watched the elk come down just before sundown over 500 yards away.
Sunday morning, we weren't the first ones out, so all we got to see were the elk heading up the mountain.
Sunday evening, we setup in the same location as Sat. evening. After getting to our spot, I looked up on the mountain side about 350 yards away and saw two mule deer does & a nice 4x4 buck feeding and watching us. After about an hour, they all laid down and continued to watch us for the rest of the evening. Right before sundown, I found the elk coming down one ridge over. When we got back to the truck, the temp was 4 degrees. Jake said he didn't want to do that again.
Monday morning we went around the mountain aways and saw some bulls that looked like they were close enough to a road where we might be able to get a shot. We headed that way, but they made it up the mountain before we could get close enough to get a shot.
Monday afternoon we decided to head over to an area close to where we saw the bulls that morning and glass from the truck and see what happens. About 4:15 I spotted 2 bulls coming down the mountain, after watching for a couple of minutes I figured out about where I thought they would show up and we headed out to try and intercept them. We had about a 3/4 mile hike and got there about 10 minutes before sundown, but the bulls did not read the script and were no-shows. Don't know if they just didn't make it down in time or if they heard us and got spooked.
As we were heading out, there were probably 60 or so elk feeding in an area where they had to walk right by the spot where we had been set up for the ambush the previous 2 days. The elk are smarter than I am.
Tuesday morning, head back out, only thing we see are elk out of reach going up the mountain. After the hunt we headed to Taos for some fuel & a trip to Walmart. On the way back, I noticed some side roads that went back into the national forest and we rode around on them for a while glassing for elk and looking for a spot that might be better than where we have been. During one of these little side trips I saw a two track that went up a hillside. Jake didn't want to go up it, but I like a challenge and up we went. At the top it made a sharp turn to the right, when I made the turn, it turned back to snow and I couldn't move forward. So here we are on top a ridge with only one option of making the turn in reverse and then backing down the hill. We made it, but I would rather not do that again.
Tuesday afternoon, we are back at our ambush spot, we set there all afternoon with the wind blowing like we are back in Wyoming and don't see anything. The only hunt of the whole trip that we didn't see an elk.
The last day, in the morning we glassed a couple of bulls, but when we tried to get closer to them, it just didn't work out.
Wed. afternoon, we saw a few bulls but nothing we could either get close to or try to stalk.
All in all, we had a great time. The elk out smarted us and our lack of experience in hunting in the snow hurt us also. I don't know how to move quietly in the frozen snow.
Thursday morning we wake up to about 2" of fresh snow as we head home. About 10:30 just north of Roswell, NM we finally hit temps above freezing for the first time in a week. The lowest temp we saw was -15 degrees, every morning had negative temps and the average temps in the afternoons was about 17 degrees going down to about 5 at sunset.
We drove the 935 miles on Thursday and got home around 9:45 pm. Total of 2800+/- miles. Like I said earlier it was a very successful hunt even though we didn't connect with an elk and we can't wait to do it again.
