I had posted earlier that my last day of work, officially, would coincide with the opening of NM's rifle season. I was fortunate to take this nice bull on that day and, compared to a day at my office, well..there was no comparison!
We had absolutely horrible weather last week during the hunt. Warm, humid, full moon like everyone else, rain, industrial strength fog, etc, which resulted in virtually zero bugling & no response to calls at all. It was a "wear your boots out and find em" type hunt.
Each morning found us socked in with dense fog...visibility a hundred yards or less. An hour or two with sunshine around lunch and then rain moved in each afternoon. Not the type of weather I'm accustomed to in NM for elk season, but that's life.
At the end of the day I had only seen 3 5x5s, all smallish, and a cow/calf pair. The day seemed dead for sure. Late that afternoon I rounded a bend and saw a herd bull, three satellites, and about 20 cows @ 300 yards. The herd bull was making no effort to keep the cows away from the satellite bulls at all. They were all were just milling around browsing on the grass in a secluded canyon.
Once the bull cleared the other elk I dropped him with my Sako 338. The 225 grain North Fork blew through both shoulders and, Good Lord, that was that. I also put another finisher in him just to be sure, but it was probably not necessary. This was my first bull with NF's and I was astounded with the bullet's performance.
I had never loaded NF's before and I'd like to give a tip of the hat to BobinNH and MD for their kind advice on these fine bullets. Thanks guys...much appreciated!
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