All right, heres the story.
I ran the numbers for the hunts this year and it appeared that unit 13 would have limited tags and a large range. I decided I wanted to get away from hunters and would buy this tag instead of my usual 15 tag. Well let me tell you I had one of the most exciting hunts I have had in a long time. I drove through the area for about 2 hours friday evening on my way through and was instantly stoked. I didn't see a single elk or any sign of elk. What I saw were zero camps, zero hunters, and zero human activity. What I also saw was a lot of potential elk country and a lot of steep steep terrain. I know people would never be hunting in there and that I would have plenty of vantage points to look from. So off I went to stay with jerry in quemado at his ranch. Jerry usually help me when I hunt on his ranch and we have become very good friends. Naturally he wanted to go kill an elk. He enjoys a good elk hunt sometimes more than I think I do. We get up saturday morning and go sit on a high point above the blacktop in the hopes that the elk I had been driving through all summer would be in the general area. Well as luck would have it a hurricane was camped right on top of us and wasn't leaving. We had 30 to 40 mph gusts, rain sleet, hail, drizzle, etc. etc. We didn't hear a single bugle and decided to start paralleling the ridges and try to pick up some fresh tracks in all the muck. Well we finally picked up a herd and followed it for a couple of miles before finally seeing an elk. after watching the one elk bedded in the trees for about 45 minutes we decided to go in for the kill on her boyfriend. Once we got there we had a shocker ending. No bull, and no other elk. Just one lone cow. Man now this really was exciting. I'm used to Jerry's ranch where the elk are everywhere and the only problem is over-analyzing every potential bull. This was the land of the unknown. There could be a 900 inch bull over the next ridge. Well, it started hailing and we were both getting pounded in the head with dime sized hail and decided it hurt too much to continue on. We jogged up and down hills for about an hour until we reached the truck. we decided to head to datil for an early lunch and re-think things. I was stoked... we had won.....we had spotted an elk. After lunch we decided to drive to the local com tower at 10k feet and spend all day there. Once we got there we both busted out the swaro spotting scopes and made a litttle camp. We were now repositioned about 7 miles from where we were earlier that morning. We started spotting at 5 minute intervals. We would spot, it would cloud up, and the cow would comence to pissing on the flat rock. then it would clear and we would start the whole process over. Needless to say we were looking for bedded elk. after an hour I saw something about 3 miles out. After 2 minutes of looking at it the clouds hit. I swore it was a bedded mature bull but 2 minutes later the clouds were gone and the rock with horns was gone to. Well we decided to head back to Jerrys and sit on a fire the rest of the day and let the hurrican leave. On our way out we ran into a game warden who promptly recognized both of us, slapped handcuffs on us for poaching and took us to jail. Not really. He turned on his weather alert radio and let us hear the weather man say that the hurricane was camped there for the rest of the week. I said screw this then were gonna kill an elk somehow. We decided to hike in the general direction of where I saw the supposed elk that neither one of us thought was an elk. Once we got to the top of hells ridge which was directly above devils canyon which was near deadmans lookout I started looking at the ridge our rock elk was on. We instantly spotted one elk in the only clearing for 1000 miles. Jerry said it was heading down hill and I said it was going up. Well It only took us an hour and we were across the raving from the rockelk ridge. At this point the to of the ridge on the other side is only 275 yards away. I figure if any elk are in there they will be leaving or could easily be seen. Well I was ready to go over the next ridge and cut off the elk. Jerry persisted teh elk was and is still on the same hill. So we sat. 20 minutes later Jerry proclaims "There he his". I throw up my binos only to se a tan colored roack in some thick crap. The tan spot had an off colored rock at the back that looked like a rump patch, a black dead log on the underside that looked like the black belly of a bull, and a deadfall that would have to be the head. I quit looking. After all I watched that stupid thing for 20 minutes. Jerry was blowing his cow call and nothing. 10 minutes after I gave up jerry hit me in the side of the head with a rock and told me to put a bullet in that rock. I instantly put my scope on that thing which amazingly enough and elk had walked in front of. I pulled the hammer back and squeezed the trigger. At the same time I squeezed the trigger I jerked the gun and put my thumb in front of the hammer. The bull I was looking at was only about 24 or so inches wide. even though I told myself I wasnt after horns on this hunt I decided I wasn't ready to go home. I had seen two elk and was having a ball hunting something that was proving this difficult to find. I freakin love a challenge and I was having the toughest time ever finding elk. I was in heaven. That very instant I looked down the ridge. Jerry was literally screaming with his cow call because the wind was blowing so hard. I guess the elk finally heard his call and were now checking out the area around us. I pulled up my binos only to see a 3 foot window on a bull that was looking straight at me. All I saw were his 1'st and 2nd points. I came unglued. I really didnt expect to see a bull like that on this hunt. I told jerry there was a big bull down the ridge and he got a little upset. He started cussing and told me to just shoot the blankedy blank blank. I re-adjusted my scope and centered the crosshairs on the bull. I had ranged him at just under 250 and knew this was a chip shot. Only problem was the 3 foot pine tree just in front of him. I wanted to wait for the shot but suddenly realized how thick the hill was and knew this was my only shot since he had us pinned. I centered my crosshair 1 foot back from his crease on the center of the pine and squeezed the trigger. Boom! All I heard was a bullet going through limbs and thwack! The bull bolted. I was worried that either the wind or the pine tree would have deflected my bullet into his shoulder which I know by experience would result in a lost bull. The other bull never left and I knew he must be waiting on his friend so I felt a little consoled in that fact. Well we slowly eased up the other ridge to find no blood hair or anything. I decided to check the thicket he bolted into only to find the bull piled up around a dead fall only 50 yard from where I shot him. The bullet hit him square in the front shoulder and tried to exit where the neck met the other shoulder. I've never seen a muzzy bullet do that. Well I was suprised to say the least. I knew the bull had good bottoms but I expected a 5x5. That was the story of my life on 15 this year and I know I had drought bulls in there. Well It turned out that I had one heck of a bull on the ground. All I knew is that I was excited and decided to go with the moment. Man what a hunt. Here are some pics of me and Jerry with the bull. After properly measuring the bull his width was 40", main beams were 46", 1's and 2's were 18. His total score was 340 on the nose. I'm the one in the first pic.