Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Unit 45 New Mexico experience.

Pulled back in at the house around 2am yesterday am. Our experience in 45 NM was a different one for sure.

We arrived 2 days early to scout the area. My uncle had hunted the unit last year, so he had some areas in mind to address. My BIL and I had never been there, so we were in the dark so to speak. We found a nice area that looked to be holding some Elk the first day of scouting (actually just driving around learning the roads in our area). The second day we explored the area more on foot, really liked it and the sign we were seeing. There are a lot of roads in this particular area. But the amount of Elk sign we saw just drew us to the area.

So the first morning we head out there in the truck. Parked it part way in and set out afoot. We made it about 100yds farther down the road on foot when another truck tops the hill and comes by with 4 guys in it. At that point I switched to my plan "b", as did my BIL. I headed back to the truck and took another much smaller road from there that skirted the hilltop. He went on down the main road a bit and caught another smaller road that went up onto the hilltop. So I get about 100yds down the small road from the truck and hear the crashing of 8-10 Elk coming down off the hill. Unknowingly to me, the truck that had passed us had dropped off two guys on the other side of the hilltop, and in doing so they spooked the Elk off the hill 9or so we thought at the time). As the Elk ran down the hill, I locked onto the bull in the group, a 5x5. Nothing huge, but dang respectable for what would have been my first Elk. He's out front leading the way. He comes down the hill, crosses the road, and stops about 10-20' off the road at about 150yds from me. There was a bend in the road that had me looking through forest to see him, and a rise in between us that kept me from taking a knee. I had a clear shot behind the shoulder and flat missed him. Yep, I just got in too big a hurry and screwed the pooch. I knew as soon as the cows caught up with him, he'd be gone into the timber. So instead of taking a breath and calming down for a couple of seconds, I let fly. Obviously, no other shot was to be had after the report of the rifle. They were long gone. I tracked the bull, and the group for about 500yds out onto a finger and off the edge into the thick and nasty stuff where I knew I'd neither catch up with them, nor see them again. Lesson learned the hard way.


That evening brought no sightings in the same area. Other than a few other hunters (public land).


The next morning I was working the ridge where I'd lost sight of the group of Elk the previous morning. It was fairly close to the small road, about 50yds of to one side of the road. I ordinarily would have looked for something more remote to hunt, but it was obvious from the sign that Elk were feeding on this hilltop every night, and moving down off it very early in the AM. So I'm working along the edge where I could watch the flat area along the road, and beyond, and also see down the hill through the timber for about 100yds. I hear a truck. It comes into sight as I am in a semi-open area. The passenger sees me. His wife (I suppose) stops the truck, he rolls down the passenger windows, and yells, "HAD ANY LUCK". In utter disbelief at what this knucklehead has just done, I shook my head in a "no" manner. He then proceeds to climb out of the truck, walk across the wide open area, and start a conversation with me about the nice 5x5 he'd seen up on the hilltop the previous morning. Said he spooked them off the hilltop and they busted off through the woods. Yes, the same hilltop my BIL was heading up on that same morning (with the wind in his face). Who knows what outcome that might have had if this goober hadn't been there. So now he has screwed up two hunts. My BIL's the first AM, and mine this AM.

So the next day, Monday, we decided to give that area a break in hopes that the locals would too. We hunted some areas closer to camp, and saw no Elk nor fresh sign of any.

Tuesday AM finds us back in the area again. No tire tracks headed into the area, so we are confident the locals are all back at work, and we have a good area relatively to ourselves. We start out from the truck, hearing Elk bugle off in the distance. Both very confident we will see some brown hide that day. We had made it about 200yds from the truck and 50yds or so from where we had split up, and see lights through the trees. A jeep came right down the road my BIL was heading up to get to the trail he was to walk that day. They pass right by him and cut the wheels like they were going to turn down the road I was on. I had stopped and was removing my rain gear after a small shower had blown through. They sat and watched me rip off my rain gear and throw it on the ground in digust upon seeing them driving through the area before daylight. They were not headed anywhere in particular. It was obvious they were just road hunting or busting hunts. So after strapping my gear to my pack and heading out, they turn and drive right by me. So I go about my hunt, not seeing anything that AM but more fresh sign that the Elk are still using the area. My BIL makes it to the top of the hill and finds steaming Elk scat right in the area he'd planned on stalking into. But again, the jeep had just come out of there so the Elk were run out before daylight.

That evening, we saw no Elk, but the same jeep driving around and screwing up others' hunts. We had gotten well off any roads that evening, in hopes that these yahoos would not have such an adverse effect on us. But low and behold, they knew where other roads were that would get them within sight of us. We saw them, but they never saw us that evening.

Wed morning we, being such gluttons for punishment, head back over there because this is the only area anyone in our group had been seeing such fresh sign on a regular basis. We got there extra early, and hunted the area with no sightings of Elk. But again, saw the same jeep driving around, this time well before daylight.

My uncle and his son had been working a different part of the unit for the whole season. They had a couple of cow sightings, and no bulls were seen. Just many miles and a lot of boot leather left behind. Almost every hunt they had similar experiences, only with 4 wheelers in a non-mechanized area!

The one day we avoided the area we'd been hunting, I had walked a trail down into a canyon. I encountered one hunter that evening walking up the trail I was headed down. A very nice fella. We talked for a minute, and parted ways. That night as I was headed back up to the trailhead, in the dark, I hear a four wheeler coming up the trail behind me. It just flat out pissed me off. I never turned around to look as I knew what it was, and they'd be coming right by me anyway. So I stepped over to the side of the trail and just kept my pace. Two teenage kids drive up beside me and smile a big caca eating grin and waved at me. I just nodded at them. So he gasses it up and pulls out in front of me, them he grabbed the brake lever and basically blinded me with the brake light on the back. This made me furious! I started really hoofing it at this point, as the ruck was only a few hundred yards up the hill, and I knew they'd be parked there as well. As I was coming up the rise, I could see them frantically loading to four wheeler and getting out of there asap.. When I got to my truck, I walked around it making sure they hadn't damaged it in any way. I then loaded up and went back to camp.


Honestly, I think I am done DIY hunting Elk on public land. This was my 3rd hunt doing this, and the majority of my trips into the forest have been very similar experiences. Although, this last trip was the worst. I do not know if these people treat everyone this way, all the time....Or if our out of state plates bring out a certain disdain in them. Either way, my next Elk hunt, and likely every one after it, will be pack-in remote camp hunts with an outfitter who can get me in farther than these goobers will bother to travel. And hopefully get me into some Elk that aren't being pushed around by humans.

Don't get me wrong. I had a good time. And even had the opportunity to take an Elk (which I readily admit, I screwed up). I just feel at least one of us (out of 4) would have another similar opportunity had it not been for locals who's mission, it seems, was to screw up our hunts.

That was my experience. Another really expensive camping trip.


Jay

Jay
Just remember, there are boneheads everywhere and they tend to multiply after the first one is encountered.

You had time in the woods with a good group to be out with, even if you didn't bring home a bull.

My buddies had a similar experience in unit 15...see my thread below. Your choices are either private land or designated wilderness areas.

New Mexico is a lost cause, it turns my stomach. The only upside to New Mexico is the landowner tags on good private land. At least you are likely to get your moneys worth then.

We did run into a fella in town with a spike and a huge 7x7 in the bed of his truck. He'd spent $8k total on the private land hunt to get those Elk (he and his son). Nice trophies for sure. I'm just not sure spending that kind of money is prudent for me at this point. But I guess a pack in hunt for two is not much cheaper. Food for thought I guess.


Jay

I like NM, but I would go to Colorado if I was doing a pack in trip. As said above it sucks that NM and G&F is so unmanaged and patrolled!

+1 'As said above it sucks that NM and G&F is so unmanaged and patrolled!'
The thing that really pisses me off IS that Game and Fish IS incharge of all the wildlife on all Federal (except the Reservations), State and Private lands in NM (just like every other state), but I swear you would never know it from the dolts up in Santa Fe running the wildlife show. I've never seen people claiming to be wildlife professionals be so inept at running a statewide wildlife program.

If you wouldnt have missed it would have been the best hunt you had ever been on.

Toby Joe

I feel if you are going to hunt on or near open roads, that is what you have to be prepared for.

No joke!! And them bastards blinding you with taillights should be shot...

I never assume that walking up a road or trail that I"ll be the only one there, to me thats not even close to happening these days. If I want to avoid someone, I simply go until there is no road left at all and then go in or cut off the side of a road in nowhere land and foot it on in.

If you are anywhere around a trail or road I assume either someone is in front of me or will pass me.

Just the way it is on public land about anywhere these days.