Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Another First Elk...

My 14 year old grandson Jace lives in south Texas. He has taken a couple of little Texas whitetails, but he got the bug to hunt elk a year or so ago. New Mexico offers Youth Encouragement elk hunts (late season cow-only population management hunts) for young hunters apart from the general public draw. My daughter applied for a license for his Christmas gift this year and successfully drew a tag for a good unit up in the Gila.

A lot of the encouragement came from our friend Jon Graham who offered to help us if we were successful in getting a tag. We met up with Jon Thanksgiving afternoon at a small cabin in the Gila. My daughter, Donelle, served up a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, prepared in a Crock Pot. After a short late afternoon recon trip, we got out Jon's map. After some discussion, we decided to start in an area pretty much clear across the unit from where we were staying.

Despite an early start, it was good daylight as we drove into the area where we wanted to hunt. We were driving right by a ridge where Jon had taken some videos of Mexican wolves, and he said that it would be a good place to stop and glass. We drove up a steep hillside through a grove of pinyons and junipers, and I stopped the truck right at the edge of the woods. Jon and Jace grabbed the shooting sticks and headed out on the spine of the ridge to glass.

Donelle and I strolled through the trees to an open spot and I began glassing across the canyon. She was smart enough to look down, and there was a big cow at the base of the ridge looking up at us. As we looked carefully, we could see several more cows and calves in the trees below us.The cow had spotted us, too, and I urged her to go get Jon and Jace while I kept an eye on the elk.

The cow was edgy and finally moved back into the trees below me. It was only a minute or so and about 15-20 cows and calves moved out below me, headed across the bench below. They ran across a shallow draw and slowed to a walk as they started up a small rise on the far side. Several of them stopped to look back. As they did, a shot rang out, followed by the whomp of a bullet finding its mark. I could clearly see the mist of blood and hair as the bullet exited the far side of the nearest cow. She ran about 20 yards or so, and folded up.

We regrouped and congratulated Jace on a very good shot. Jon ranged it at 307 yards. Then, it got even better when we saw that she had piled up only a few yards from a two-track! It was 8:00 AM and we had been hunting only a little less than an hour.

Details.
Rifle: 7mm-08 built on a Mexican Mauser action, with a Douglas premium barrel and a reshaped Bishop walnut stock.
Scope: a Leupold VX-3 3.5-10x40.
Load: 120-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip over 50.0 grains of Big Game, R-P cases and WLR primers.

Bullet entered high wrecking the upper lobe of the near side lung and exited after destroying the upper two lobes of the far side lung.


Jace and Jon, gripping and grinning