D
Droptine45
Guest
Was wondering if any bulls were shot in 5b on this weeks elk hunt?
I heard there was a lot of rain and mud.
I heard there was a lot of rain and mud.
N
nm_alazan
Guest
All the folks I talked too didn't see an elk the entire hunt. Hopefully, someone else had some luck....
R
RCM
Guest
Spent 4 days hunting in 5A last week. only found one herd of elk with a bull in it. Didn't do any good. Roads were a sloppy mess. Very hard to get into some areas. Couldn't see any evidence of elk migrating into that area.
SDBugler
Very Active Member
- Messages
- 1,131
Did anyone see any good muley bucks on their 5B elk hunt? My son has the late season youth hunt in 5B Nov 24 - 28 (he drew the only NR tag). Being from South Dakota, we can't justify a scouting trip, but will be coming early the weekend before the season opens. Done some research but could sure use any help/tips we can get.
N
nm_alazan
Guest
Hunted 5B during the archery elk hunt near Gallina. Saw a couple of does and then got a small buck on my trail cam. There's some big bucks in there, but they are few and far between on the Gallina side. I'm told the Mud Spring area near the Jic is the way to go for deer in 5B. Good luck!
TerynItUp
Active Member
- Messages
- 616
I have spent a ton of time up there at the Jic border past Mud Springs and havent ever really seen any big bucks. I know there are deer in there but there is a ton of country for them to hide, I would glass glass glass if I was hunting that area.
Hunt Hard. Shoot Straight. Kill Clean. Apologize to No One.
Hunt Hard. Shoot Straight. Kill Clean. Apologize to No One.
N
no_catch
Guest
SDBugler, Check your messages.
SDBugler
Very Active Member
- Messages
- 1,131
Wow!!! NM people are great!! This will be my 4th hunt in NM including two youth hunts. It is impossible for me to do any scouting other than the couple days before the hunt, but every year I have gotten lots of great help from the NM residents on this site. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS HELPED ME OUT SO FAR.
No-catch, I will give you a call sometime when I have a little more available time. I am trying to get caught up on work right now so I can get out achery huntig this weekend. It is the last weekend before rifle season opens here in SD and I have a couple bucks that my two sons and I are trying to get with our bows. They are 14 and 16 and I would really like for one of them to harvest one of these bucks with their bows. If we don't get it done this weekend then we will be out next weekend with our rifles. Here are a couple pics of what we are chasing.......
I was within 53 yard of this buck last Sunday before some other unters on ATV's ruined the stalk. This pic was taken at 313 yards before the stalk started.
I have been after this buck since opening weekend last September. Got within 20 yards once but no shot (just prior to these pics). Haven't seen him in a few weeks though. I have spent over 2 hours time watching him through the spotting scope on different ocassions and I think he will score 193 - 195 gross. The pics don't do him justice.
Thanks again everyone.
Brian
No-catch, I will give you a call sometime when I have a little more available time. I am trying to get caught up on work right now so I can get out achery huntig this weekend. It is the last weekend before rifle season opens here in SD and I have a couple bucks that my two sons and I are trying to get with our bows. They are 14 and 16 and I would really like for one of them to harvest one of these bucks with their bows. If we don't get it done this weekend then we will be out next weekend with our rifles. Here are a couple pics of what we are chasing.......
I was within 53 yard of this buck last Sunday before some other unters on ATV's ruined the stalk. This pic was taken at 313 yards before the stalk started.
I have been after this buck since opening weekend last September. Got within 20 yards once but no shot (just prior to these pics). Haven't seen him in a few weeks though. I have spent over 2 hours time watching him through the spotting scope on different ocassions and I think he will score 193 - 195 gross. The pics don't do him justice.
Thanks again everyone.
Brian
SDBugler
Very Active Member
- Messages
- 1,131
Well I promised everyone that I would post on here how we did after we got home. However, before I write about the hunt I want to thank everyone for their help and information. As i mentioned before, the NM folks are the best people I have ever met. I want to especially thank CRAZEYMAES, OUTNABOUT, GATOR, TERYNITUP, ALLENINNM and DROPTINE45 for their help. Not only did these guys help with phone calls and emails but I want to point out that TERYNITUP, whom I had never visited with before, even when out of his way to call and leave me a message on my cell phone while we were down there scouting to tell me about a nice buck he had found (we spent one cold and windy evening sitting in a sage valley but never found him though). Thanks again everyone!!!
Some of you questioned if we got either of the South Dakota bucks we were after. Unfortuneatly we didn't get either of these bucks, but my son Braden did harvest a decent buck opening morning.
Our trip started out pretty good. While driving into the area from Chama Saturday afternoon, we spotted a real nice buck out with some does in the middle of the afternoon in unit 4. While driving into our unit we spotted this nice buck along the trail. We passed up shots at a few deer this size during the hunt.
Saturday night and Sunday morning we spotted several nice bull elk and a couple herds of cows. Sunday morning we spotted what we felt was a solid 170 class buck. We had previously agreed that 170 would be our goal before squeezing the trigger, so we marked the spot on the map and decided to scout for other fall back options. We had previously crossed a creek on Saturday and I wasn't comfortable keeping our camp on the opposite side of that creek with the pending forcast so we decided to pull up the tent and get back to the "safe side" of the creek. this is when our trip took a turn for the worse. Well as it turns out we got the truck stuck coming back across the creek in a different spot. I know I shouldn't have risked coming back thru at this spot but I didn't want to backtrack and waste 15 - 20 minutes. After about an hour of futile attempts I had my son walk up the trail to where we had seen a truck parked earlier in the day. As it turned out we nearly missed these guys as they were pulling out to leave. They were nice about the situation and pulled us out with their brand new truck (still had the dealer plates on it). It was a little disheartening having to get pulled out by a dodge!!!
Well as you can see, when we hit the opposite bank, the front valance got broke off from under the bumper. (I never liked that thing anyway and knew it was only a matter of time before it was going to get caught on something.) As we were going down the road we noticed what sounded like a vacuum leak from from the engine. I also noticed a slight loss of power and that I wasn't getting the usuall amount of turbo boost. The noise continued to get louder so the decission was made to head to Albuquerque to get it looked at. As it turned out, when the valence got torn off, it cut a hole in the turbo piping that goes to the intercooler and thus the noise and loss of power. Well after losing a day and a half of valuable scouting time we were back in the woods.
Fortunatly it snowed about 5" while we were in town so we decided to use our final scouting day driving to some areas we wanted to check out and look for tracks. We didn't see anything more promising than our sunday morning spot so we elected to start there on opening morning.
After saturday the nights got pretty cold (down to around zero) but we stayed warm in the tent. The cold weather did keep the deer moving a little better in the mornings and evenings in spite of the full moon.
Opening morning we went looking for the 170 buck but didn't find him on the same ridge so we decided to cross over to the opposite ridge and try spotting him from the opposite side. As we were going up the other side a large buck and a doe came running straight at us. I told Braden "don't shoot - he's only got one horn". the buck stopped 60 yards away and we got a chance to look him over pretty good. After he ran off, we both agreed that he looked like the same 170 buck that we had spotted Sunday morning. I told Braden not to worry that he might be a different buck, or that at least it probably meant that there was another even bigger buck in the area that broke his antler off during a fight.
After getting back to the truck for some lunch, we received TERYNITUP's message about a nice buck he had seen. We called him up and talked about what he had seen and decided to go check it out since it was in the area of what we felt was the second best area. That evening we sat out in the sage flat in the cold and wind but didn't see anything.
Thanksgiving morning we decided to try go back to the first area since we hadn't seen any other hunters in the area and we felt that there was probably some other big bucks in there. We came across the "one horn buck" again and watched him in his bed at 150 yards. After looking at him the second time we were really begining to think that he was the 170 buck we had seen on Sunday. Fortunatly, we had also seen a really nice buck headed into some junipers with some does about 700 yards on the other side of the fence from our unit boundry. Thinking that this bigger buck might be the one that broke the 170 buck's antler, we decided to come back that evening and see if they fed across the fence into our unit.
That evening not long after setting up on a ridge to spot for the evening, I spotted a couple does down in the sage valley below. As soon as I got the spotting scope on them I noticed a buck come up out of a dranage behind them and immediately recognized him as the original 170 buck from sunday morning - and he had both of his antlers!!! The "one horn buck" was not the same deer but coud have been his identical twin.
We watched the three deer for a while and the buck bedded down. After another 10 minutes, the two does fed off, and to our suprise the buck stayed bedded. We were able to sneak up to about 175 yards of the bedded buck and waited for him to get up. After getting set up for the shot it was only another 10 minutes before the buck decided to get up. However, when he got up, he immediatly started walking directly away from us. I told Braden to get ready for the shot and I whistled at the deer. He continued to walk away and was a few steps from going over a small ridge so I decided to whistle again but louder. This time the buck stopped and looked back, and Braden took the shot and dropped him in his tracks.
As we approached the buck, I appologized to Braden as I had missjudged the size of this buck. It wasn't a 170 buck, instead it was a 180 buck!!! We were both extremely excited and overcome with emotion after thinking that this buck had broken off one of his antlers.
After we got home Braden put a quick tape to him and came up with 180 1/2" gross and 2 1/2" of net deductions.
This was a wonderful hunt getting to spend quality time with my son and getting to experince some new country. I know that last year 180 people applied for this one non resident tag and just found out yesterday that nearly 100 people applied for this single tag this year. I know Braden was very lucky for drawing this great tag and we are very apprecieative of NM for having these youth opportunities. We just hope that we did justice to this unique opportunity.
Thanks again to all that helped make this a hunt to remember.
Brian and Braden
Some of you questioned if we got either of the South Dakota bucks we were after. Unfortuneatly we didn't get either of these bucks, but my son Braden did harvest a decent buck opening morning.
Our trip started out pretty good. While driving into the area from Chama Saturday afternoon, we spotted a real nice buck out with some does in the middle of the afternoon in unit 4. While driving into our unit we spotted this nice buck along the trail. We passed up shots at a few deer this size during the hunt.
Saturday night and Sunday morning we spotted several nice bull elk and a couple herds of cows. Sunday morning we spotted what we felt was a solid 170 class buck. We had previously agreed that 170 would be our goal before squeezing the trigger, so we marked the spot on the map and decided to scout for other fall back options. We had previously crossed a creek on Saturday and I wasn't comfortable keeping our camp on the opposite side of that creek with the pending forcast so we decided to pull up the tent and get back to the "safe side" of the creek. this is when our trip took a turn for the worse. Well as it turns out we got the truck stuck coming back across the creek in a different spot. I know I shouldn't have risked coming back thru at this spot but I didn't want to backtrack and waste 15 - 20 minutes. After about an hour of futile attempts I had my son walk up the trail to where we had seen a truck parked earlier in the day. As it turned out we nearly missed these guys as they were pulling out to leave. They were nice about the situation and pulled us out with their brand new truck (still had the dealer plates on it). It was a little disheartening having to get pulled out by a dodge!!!
Well as you can see, when we hit the opposite bank, the front valance got broke off from under the bumper. (I never liked that thing anyway and knew it was only a matter of time before it was going to get caught on something.) As we were going down the road we noticed what sounded like a vacuum leak from from the engine. I also noticed a slight loss of power and that I wasn't getting the usuall amount of turbo boost. The noise continued to get louder so the decission was made to head to Albuquerque to get it looked at. As it turned out, when the valence got torn off, it cut a hole in the turbo piping that goes to the intercooler and thus the noise and loss of power. Well after losing a day and a half of valuable scouting time we were back in the woods.
Fortunatly it snowed about 5" while we were in town so we decided to use our final scouting day driving to some areas we wanted to check out and look for tracks. We didn't see anything more promising than our sunday morning spot so we elected to start there on opening morning.
After saturday the nights got pretty cold (down to around zero) but we stayed warm in the tent. The cold weather did keep the deer moving a little better in the mornings and evenings in spite of the full moon.
Opening morning we went looking for the 170 buck but didn't find him on the same ridge so we decided to cross over to the opposite ridge and try spotting him from the opposite side. As we were going up the other side a large buck and a doe came running straight at us. I told Braden "don't shoot - he's only got one horn". the buck stopped 60 yards away and we got a chance to look him over pretty good. After he ran off, we both agreed that he looked like the same 170 buck that we had spotted Sunday morning. I told Braden not to worry that he might be a different buck, or that at least it probably meant that there was another even bigger buck in the area that broke his antler off during a fight.
After getting back to the truck for some lunch, we received TERYNITUP's message about a nice buck he had seen. We called him up and talked about what he had seen and decided to go check it out since it was in the area of what we felt was the second best area. That evening we sat out in the sage flat in the cold and wind but didn't see anything.
Thanksgiving morning we decided to try go back to the first area since we hadn't seen any other hunters in the area and we felt that there was probably some other big bucks in there. We came across the "one horn buck" again and watched him in his bed at 150 yards. After looking at him the second time we were really begining to think that he was the 170 buck we had seen on Sunday. Fortunatly, we had also seen a really nice buck headed into some junipers with some does about 700 yards on the other side of the fence from our unit boundry. Thinking that this bigger buck might be the one that broke the 170 buck's antler, we decided to come back that evening and see if they fed across the fence into our unit.
That evening not long after setting up on a ridge to spot for the evening, I spotted a couple does down in the sage valley below. As soon as I got the spotting scope on them I noticed a buck come up out of a dranage behind them and immediately recognized him as the original 170 buck from sunday morning - and he had both of his antlers!!! The "one horn buck" was not the same deer but coud have been his identical twin.
We watched the three deer for a while and the buck bedded down. After another 10 minutes, the two does fed off, and to our suprise the buck stayed bedded. We were able to sneak up to about 175 yards of the bedded buck and waited for him to get up. After getting set up for the shot it was only another 10 minutes before the buck decided to get up. However, when he got up, he immediatly started walking directly away from us. I told Braden to get ready for the shot and I whistled at the deer. He continued to walk away and was a few steps from going over a small ridge so I decided to whistle again but louder. This time the buck stopped and looked back, and Braden took the shot and dropped him in his tracks.
As we approached the buck, I appologized to Braden as I had missjudged the size of this buck. It wasn't a 170 buck, instead it was a 180 buck!!! We were both extremely excited and overcome with emotion after thinking that this buck had broken off one of his antlers.
After we got home Braden put a quick tape to him and came up with 180 1/2" gross and 2 1/2" of net deductions.
This was a wonderful hunt getting to spend quality time with my son and getting to experince some new country. I know that last year 180 people applied for this one non resident tag and just found out yesterday that nearly 100 people applied for this single tag this year. I know Braden was very lucky for drawing this great tag and we are very apprecieative of NM for having these youth opportunities. We just hope that we did justice to this unique opportunity.
Thanks again to all that helped make this a hunt to remember.
Brian and Braden
Cahunter805
Long Time Member
- Messages
- 3,349
Congrats on a great deer!! I really like those small dagger points on the bases. Sounds like you had a great hunt and made some lasting memories!
elkmuzzleloader
Active Member
- Messages
- 772
Awesome deer and great story. Glad everything worked out for you guys even with all the difficulties.
tailgunner
Active Member
- Messages
- 486
awesome buck ,great story ,congrats to both of you.
N
NMHUNTNUTTG
Guest
Congrats , to both you and more so your son. That is about as good a story I have read on here in a long time, I LOVED IT! I grew up there in that country, was born over in TA and my dad took me all over that unit, it was once an over the counter hunt for the January bow hunt and was by far my favorite deer unit. Since it's gone to draw I've never been back to hunt it.I heard a few years back the deer were doing well but my friend who is a State Police officer and was stationed up there believed it was getting poached pretty heavy as many locals new the game wardens and thier work timing. As long as it was closed and now been a draw unit I'm really saddened at the still low numbers of deer. Your sons buck is about the best I've seen from there in a few years though I've only seen a handfull of bucks successfully taken. Again congrats on a great hunt and super buck...
SDBugler
Very Active Member
- Messages
- 1,131
Gator
Yea that kid is hard on the taxidermy budget. 16 years old and this will be his third mulie mount and he also has a 300" elk. Mom says we need a bigger house with a trophy room for all the mounts!!! He missed a week of wrestling practice for this hunt but still managed to cut his final 8 pounds in two days after we got home and made 125 pounds. He wrestled his first matches of the season last night and is now 2-0 with one pin under his belt already. His brother is also on varsity as a freshman at 119 and went 1-1 last night. Dad is pretty proud!!!
Yea that kid is hard on the taxidermy budget. 16 years old and this will be his third mulie mount and he also has a 300" elk. Mom says we need a bigger house with a trophy room for all the mounts!!! He missed a week of wrestling practice for this hunt but still managed to cut his final 8 pounds in two days after we got home and made 125 pounds. He wrestled his first matches of the season last night and is now 2-0 with one pin under his belt already. His brother is also on varsity as a freshman at 119 and went 1-1 last night. Dad is pretty proud!!!
UngulateFoe
Active Member
- Messages
- 157
Very nice buck congrats to your boy! Sounds like he's turning out to be quite the hunter...at 16 he's most definitely out done me! In reading some of the replies, I can't help but agree with NMHUNTNUTTG as far as the poaching activity in the area. I would say you all are very fortunate to have found a buck of that size! That place where you got stuck is where my agency is going to implement a riparian area project, so I've spent some time there. Last winter, I saw a nice buck just south of that spot, so if thats where you harvested him....neat. Mostly though, the bucks in the area are not that big as you found out. Really big thumbs up...
The Beast is Dead, Long Live the Beast.
-The Nuge
The Beast is Dead, Long Live the Beast.
-The Nuge
NMBOWHUNTR
Active Member
- Messages
- 272
Congrats on an awesome buck! I loooooove that country up there and spend quite a bit of time in 5B. Just wish they had a bowhunt and I could possibly pull a tag. The odds are crazy for 15 tags! I have been keeping an eye on one buck two years now and he would break the 190 mark with all his trash. Still young too so hopefully next year he is still around and I can get some decent pics! Monstermuleys!
leftturnabq
Active Member
- Messages
- 723
Awesome story!!
Thanks for sharing and congrats!!
Thanks for sharing and congrats!!
crazeymaez
Very Active Member
- Messages
- 1,513
SDBugler
Congrats to you and your son on a great deer
Congrats to you and your son on a great deer
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