In early July we made arrangements to go to the Rocky Mountain Elk
Foundation�s White Mountain Chapter�s annual banquet in late Aug. At that
banquet a auction was held. One item that was auctioned off was a 3 day Cow
Elk hunt in New Mexico guided by Black Mountain Outfitters. The first two sold
for under $300.00 so I decided to try for the third one. I ended up as the high
bidder for my first out of state Elk hunt. The hunt was scheduled for the second
week of Jan. 2004 but it was still part of the 2003 hunting season.
The hunt was to take place outside of Quemado, NM., on a 240 section ranch
owned by the Salt River Project. SRP is a big water and electrical company in AZ.They bought the ranch because the area has allot of coal on it and they were
hoping to mine it to fuel their power plants.
By the time of the hunt the morning lows were in the teens to lower 20�s with
about 4 to 6 inches of snow on the ground. Opening morning found me and the
other shooters sitting around the breakfast table at 04:30 after we finished out
came the topo maps of the area we were going to hunt in. The other hunters
after studying the maps decided that they wanted to get dropped off and hike
the area. A hour before sunrise we were on the road headed to a couple drop off
points. Continuing on, the guide Tom McReynold�s and me, we hit some of the
back country dirt roads. With the snow on the ground it made it easy to spot
tracks, we spotted plenty of tracks but they were mainly deer, rabbit, coyote and a couple bobcat with just a few elk track. As we cruised in his Ford dually I learned that the land I spotted all the Antelope on during my Mobility Impaired Hunt was under his control. So I made arrangements to obtain a trespass permit to hunt his land during the 2004 Turbo Goat hunt. But as luck would have it, it never came to be because I failed to get drawn, bummer. When lunch time rolled around we headed to the Largo Cafe for something warm to put in our belly�s. After lunch we headed into a area Tom said he spotted numerous elk before the latest storm and set-up a ground blind. Sunset came and with the
dying sun came the cold. After the cook fed us a great meal and tales of the
days hunt started to circulate. Everyone saw tracks but no Elk plus quite a few
coyotes were seen.
The next morning started off with some scattered light snow flurries. Then
about a mile North of Quemado we came up on a herd of Mule Deer with a
couple of nice 4 point bucks leading their harem of 10 or so does. Tom and me
covered some more back country going from the junipers to the sage brush
plains back into the junipers then into the pines but still no Elk nor sign. Lunch time came and went, going to the Largo Cafe for something to eat. Again like the day before I set-up a ground blind but this time Tom went on a long hike hoping to drive some like to me. It looked to be a good spot to see some Elk, Tom said their was a small herd here last week. It was a long grassy valley that lead to a stock tank. After a couple of hours hiding behind my camo netting it started to snow. As the hours past the flakes grew in size and the snow started to come down allot harder. The visibility dropped to maybe 10 yards so if anything came by it would almost have to trip over me to be seen. At about 17:00 my Dad drove out to my stand to pick me and Tom up. There I was doing my snow ball imitation and he didn�t see me in the poor visibility and drove past. After shaking off some snow and loading up in the truck we went a couple hundred yards and met up with Tom.
The last day came and all us hunters and our guide felt dejected at the lack of
seeing any game. We took to the fields until about noon then all of us met back
at the Largo Cafe for a bite to eat before saying our good-byes and departing for home.
