Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Thanks Montana (solo backpack elk) and 2013 season

Creasy, I live in the west. I have killed moose in BC, deer in Montana and bow hunted there for elk unsuccessfully, hunted colorado probably 12 seasons archery elk, killed 2 cows and 2 bulls there with bow, while camped out and hunting with no guide. I have killed many deer in New Mexico with bow and muzzle loader.

Often I have camped by myself for 5-7 days at a time in the Sacramento mts south of Cloudcroft, and hunted the national forest or camped on land controlled by the Circle Cross ranch north of Timberon. Many years I have hunted alone 7-8 days from my solo camp on Stoner Mesa north of Delores. I quit when I got to the age I couldn't pack an elk out myself. I have killed many cow elk for meat on the Mescalaro Apache Reservation out of Ruidoso NM.

In the early Sept archery season I can't get an elk out for spoilage. From camp it takes an hour to get to Delores and normally a couple hours from elk to camp. Getting the packer east of town to get horses loaded and hauled up the mountain and then back in to the elk before dark, if it was killed that AM is almost impossible. If elk is killed in the PM then you have to get up early the next am and go to town and get horses. You can't make it back in to the elk till after lunch. This, along with the costs involved when my son has left home and he and his buds aren't having big dinners of venison has my freezer running over from the white tails or mule deer I kill in WEST Texas, central Texas, or East Texas.

When my brother and I used to hunt together north of Delores we would rent horses from there, until the owner got killed in the mountains by having one of his notorious green stock rear back and fall on him where his head hit a rock.

I have taken a couple of mulies with spreads over 30 in. While hunting by myself. One would have made Leatherstocking class I took with a muzzle loader from west of Chama.

I have passed on several mulies with near 30 in spreads since they had a white tail rack on one side and a back fork on the other. When I get out on a 25,000 to 100,000 acre ranch In west Texas by myself it I'm pretty much on my own.

I have spent many days hunting thousands of acres of BLM in south east NM with my GSP.

My time spent in the outdoors is rivaled by few. I figured two years ago I hunted DEER 30 days.

Normally, I am hunting something EVERY weekend from Sept (dove) to the last of March (coyote). Now, working every other week I hunt even more. After lunch to day I will go to McCamey to deer hunt, or to south of Ozona, or Sheffield, or to Amistad, though they are threatening to close I-20.

Unless I find a huge buck I won't shoot as I hunt for the challenge of finding a big buck. I can get does for the freezer in the late doe season in Jan.

Precisely because I have spent so much time hunting in frigid conditions is why I know not to spend time in semi- blizzards hunting in un insulated leather gloves.

I spent my summers as a kid growing up on my granddads farm and cattle operation in Polk County of east Texas or on my other grandads cattle operation in the coastal bend of Texas near ElCampo.