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

Jace and his proud Mom

Well done! Congrats to you all.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Excellent! I was wondering if NM had a youth hunt.

Colorado reserves up to 40% of female elk, deer, and pronghorn tags for youths--plus it's only $10 for a youth tag. It's one of the best hunts CPW has ever created. That's how I started my son. This was his last year, now he has to join the real world and compete with the rest of us.......

Casey

Excellent! Lots of good eating and great memories there. Thanks for sharing the pictures and story and best wishes to all of you for many more memorable hunts together.

I had a awesome time hunting with you guys Ben!

What Ben forgot to add is that young Jace had nerves of steel at the moment of truth. Jace and I were about 300 yds from Ben and his mother glassing the country when I heard the sound of elk trotting off. [bleep]!!! For those of you that have hunted elk before, you can often hear them blowing out of the country. When I turned around, I was relieved to see that it was his mother waving her arms over her head, it was obvious that they had spotted some.

I quickly told Jace to chamber a round in his custom mouser, and the training Ben gave him the day before had paid off when he worked with with authority.

After a 100 yard dash, we dumped down over a hill side to get a view of the deep box canyon that his mother pointed us to and instantly saw elk filtering out. I let out a couple attempted cow calls to try to get them to stop, but the were not liking it. They finally put the brakes on at around 307 yds and one of them turned broadside and i kicked out the bog-pod for Jace.

While his mother and I were looking at the elk, I could hear him, intentionally take a moment to control his breathing and wait until he had the right sight picture and then Boom/THWAPPP. He handled himself like he'd been hunting elk for 50 years, not 50 minutes! Perfect double lung shot. Ben had been very confident in the 120 grn BT, but I was not a believer until I saw the proof, it performed swimmingly.


Ben- Here is the video of those wolves, I'm sure the hillside will look familiar to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbC2FhK4P9g

Wow! Good for Jace!!! Congrats all around!! Well done!!!

Excellent!!! Nice photos.. Thanks for the fine show..

Way to go Jace!!!

That's fantastic,
I love all the youth hunts that are offered,It's a great way to get kids involved.

Thanks to Dad (Mudhen) and Jon, we'll have a freezer full of elk! More importantly, Jace has had an experience he will remember for the rest of his life AND a great story to tell!

Pretty nice way to spend Thanksgiving. Nice hunt!

Good job Jace and Co. Jon sent the pic earlier today while I was elk hunting. I couldn't recognize him in the hunting clothes!

Congrats to Jace. A Thanksgiving to remember.

Deans

Congratulations to everyone - a great team effort!

Great job to the young man, and congrats on a freezer full of elk!

Jace is one of the Quemado crowd. And that youngen' can sure shoot!!!

Congrats!

Very cool.

Congrats to all.

Well done Jace and family.

That is just fantastic mudhen. Thanks for posting those great field pics. Looks like the performance of that little 120 BT was fantastic as well. Amazing how well that bullet kills. Congrats to you all.

Congratulations on a job well done - not only by Jace, but by all concerned!

Super! Well done by all. Give Jace a knuckle bump from me.

Outstanding!

Great hunt with granddad and mom and a good friend.

Doesn't get any better than that!

Congratulations Jace!

Congrats to all! My daughter wants to go elk hunting have to figure something out.. Those 7 mm ballistic tips are built tough!

Good Job for all the parties involved, especially the young hunter. Taking youth hunting is paramount to the future of recreational hunting. Mother, grandpop and friend are to be commended for taking the time and considerable effort to get this young man an elk.
P.s. Jace will live a long life as a hunter now , and like everyone else will remember every detail of his first elk. Including the helpful hands involved.

fanflippintastic! attaboy to all.

In response to a few PMs: Yes, there are a couple of photos of Jace and me, and we do have a picture of the exit hole. So, for those who wondered, here is a twofer:

Great story and congratulations to all.

Doc

Congrats to all involved! Love hearing stories like this.