Got invited on a mule deer hunt in Eastern New Mexico. I felt like I was hunting in the desert sand dunes with shinery covering the dunes. Saw alot of deer, we let 2 30 inch, 180 plus bucks get away. Was 2nd in line to shoot, and first in line was my good friends son. Just could not get a good shot. Found this buck from atop of an oil pumpjack, about 1 mile away. Put a stalk on him, floored him at 60 yds with my 338 Rum, 200 grain combined technology bt. DRT. Not a monster, but a cool buck. To my suprise, he has a 4 inch, screw pt coming off his right side between his base, and browtine. Killed 2 other bucks, the one pictured in the truck, and another big fork horn. To say this is some of the toughest, country to hunt for me would be an understatment. I have never hunted anywhere that you could not get high and glass. We made it work, by climbing up on oil pumpjacks, and windmills.



I ran off and forgot my camara, so the pics were taken back at the house.

Toby Joe

grrr,,,Great bucks.

WOW!

Big Mule Deer make me all twitchy....

Ingwe

Great deer bud! Were u out there with 2 hunting some of my old leases? It's FUN country to hunt!

Damn.........

Nice,
I'm going to west Tx for one. I'm not sure what to expect being a Mi-flatlander.

What is the average body size for a mature buck ?

thanks

Tim

Drummond-- 2, Mike, and 2's son and me. It is some very fun country to hunt. There is alot more deer there then you see, thats forsure. You will have to have 2 tell you the story about his buck, its pretty entertaining.

Toby Joe

Nice bucks with GREAT browtines.

These sandhill mulies are some of the biggest body deer that I have ever killed. It took 4 of us to load my buck in the truck. There was no doubting when you found a mature buck, he looked like a yearling steer standing out there. I didnt weigh my buck, but just guessing, he was bumping 300 lbs. He was very old, and his teeth were at the gum lines.
Your west Texas deer, or the ones around Alpine, are not going to be this big, or from my expierence, they will not be.
I have never seen deer as fat as these bucks that we killed this weekend. There was a 1 inch thick layer of tallo over there back staps running to their butt.
The shinery was full of acorns this year down there, and range conditions looked very good.

Toby Joe

Toby,

A SE NM buck I killed last week had the exact thing as you describe. 1-1/2" layers of hard tallow all over its back half...

I also saw lots of acorns and still a few mesquite beans...

sounds like some good healthy deer.

Good heavy racks, very nice. How far from the Texas line were you hunting?

Toby, great bucks. That is indeed tough country to hunt, but you did well. We're off this weekend and next week chasing them in the West Texas dunes. Most people will not believe the body size of those desert bucks. I was at the taxidermist with my buck last year and a guy brought in a big buck. We weighed the field dressed buck @ 268lbs. Mine was just as big.

I would say as the crow flies, probably 50 miles. That is just a poorly educated guess without looking at map.

Toby Joe

I could really get into hunting this country. Jumping them out of the dunes, and getting them while they are running off is right up my ally. I got invited to do it again next year, but next year, we are going to plan a complete week, and I will be a little more selective. I seen some damn big deer, but with just 2 days, and trying to kill 4 bucks in 2 days, I couldnt hardly let a decent buck walk.


Toby Joe

Obviously odds go up if you spend a week out there. 4 bucks in 2 days is pretty stout TJ. I hunted hard last year and finally killed my buck on the 7th day. You're really limited in NM too with use of 4 wheelers to get you into the "boon docks".

Congrats on a fine buck - he sure looks like a brute of a deer.

Many of us would consider him to be a monster and awesome, to boot.

Wild landscapes in E NM. Lunar,

Nice bucks Toby Joe. Much easier for my eyes to see here than on the cell phone's little screen. I'd sure like to see your buck's equal in the next 10 to 11 days. It would be especially nice to see him in my crosshairs!

Not nocking the size of the buck. I liked him, or I would have not pulled the trigger on him. Just compared to some of the bucks that we seen, this buck was just a little above average. I love to shoot big stuff, but most importantly I was with good friends, and having a good time. Would have been happy with no buck, but if I would have had a few more days to hunt, I probably would have not pulled the trigger on this guy the first evening.

Toby Joe

Those are good bucks for Eastern NM. I grew up out there and have hunted the sand since just after it opened to deer hunting in the 80s and most will look long and hard to find two bucks better than those in your pictures. Hunting those NM sandhill deer is where my screen name and passion for big mule deer comes from.

If I may ask, Did they come off public or private land?

Private. I dont think we would have had as good as luck as we did on public. Is there much public in that area? I went to school in Portales for a semester, but never got to hunt much.

Toby Joe

NM has a lot of public land, but quite a bit of private land in the sandhills around Portales.

Those are GREAT deer. Congratulations!

I am also a mule deer hunter who has done it here and there, from Old Mexico to Canada. Even more interesting to me than the antlers (which are always interesting!) is where the deer grow really big bodies. I have killed huge-bodied bucks (300+ pounds live weight} in the mountains of Montana and up in Alberta, but not that far south. Very interesting....

I was born and raised in NM, I know there is alot of public, but I didnt know there was much public land in the sandhills in the units around Kenna.
Mule Deer--We didnt weigh these deer, but like you, I have hunted all over Western New Mexico and Colorado, and I have yet to see deer with body sizes like are in the sandy country of the Western Panhandle of Texas and Eastern New Mexico. They are also starting to kill some smoker whitetails in New Mexico. A few years ago, I bowhunted on some friends farms around Ft. Sumner, NM. After seeing some of the whitetail bucks that I was seeing, I started chasing them, instead of the mulies.

Toby Joe

Congratulations - nice buck.

Were you near or on the Best's place?

No, we were not on Bests Ranch.

Toby Joe

toby,

damn nice bucks.

those bucks gwen and i whacked down there with you had a ton of fat on them as well.

Toby Joe,

More public in areas farther south of Portales. To my knowledge, Kenna is primarily private. When I lived in SENM, I had a lot of friends that hunted around Kenna and always did well.

Mule Deer,

Having hunted NM sandhill deer for 20 plus years, I would guess a fairly big deer would go about 250 field dressed there. I was with a friend who shot an average 4x4 last year (about 23" inside spread), and if memory serves, it went 190 field dressed, which was heavy enough by the end of a two-mile drag.

I've hunted in senm for 25 years. I've always hunted on public land in units 33 and 31.A few years ago i drew out in 32 and quickly realized theres a ton of private land in unit 32.We saw some really nice deer but all on private land.How does one go about contacting these land ownetrs around Kenna.

Congrats on the bucks! When I was a young man, there were very few mule deer bucks out in the sand hills, which also happens to be the worlds largest oak forest. (Yeah! Really!) That started changing around 1970 thanks to the efforts of Ladd Gordon the last non political professional to head the NMDGF. Now there are lots of good Deer out there.

A couple of thing though! Keep your dumb a$$ of the pump jacks. The walking beam of a pump jack is a very dangerous place to be for a number of reasons including automatic starts to poisonous gas. That is also true of getting up on the oil tanks. The decks on the tanks may be severely corroded, and if you fall through, you cannot swim in oil, you cannot breathe the fumes, and it is potentially very explosive. The equipment is not yours! STAY OFF and LIVE.

I like to hunt any of the caprock country and there are lots of good high points to glass from, but out near Elida or Ft. Sumner I usually set up the spotting scope on the roof of the pickup. It really is great hunting.

Good bucks

Wow. Great buck. Never killed a deer over 200 lbs. That would be a rush. Working in Gaines Co., TX now and wish I had been smart enough to locate a place to hunt mule deer there when the county opened a season.

Thanks,

stumpy

Heard the hunting was tougher in Gaines this year....full moon, hot, etc. Any truth to that?

Don't forget the education that these bucks have received and the cream of the crop being skimmed off the top. It's almost a shame that Gaines was opened

Right on Drum. I know the game wardens hated to see it. As you know, the giant buck culling will, and has slowed way down already.

I dont take to kindly to being called a Dumb AZZ. For your information, the pump that I found this buck off of, was non working, and had not been working for several years. In fact, the actual pump jack that I crawled up on, was not even in the ground. It was just setting there, with nothing going in the ground. If you dont know what is going on, mind your own damn business. I have lived and hunted around oil fields most of my life, and know better then to do what you are accusing me of doing, and damn sure know better then to do any shooting off of the oil tanks.
Wow, another internet wizard, that knows everything.

Toby Joe

I loved chasing sand hill deer in Unit 31 last year...

If I didn't have some biiig deer spotted and known for the upcoming year west of the sand I'd hunt the sand again...

Thanks for the pics...

Toby Joe,

Those bucks are massive. Congrats on a couple of very fine Mulies.

CLB

Dang man fantastic bucks!

Toby, it is very possible that I once operated that pumping unit you think is so safe to be on. Or I could have been the one that assemblied it on that location. Or in latter years, I could have been the one that purchased it. Eastern New Mexico is where I grew up. Two guys died during my high school years climbing around on pumpjacks. One was rodeoing on the horsehead and fell getting crushed by the weights. The other apperently fell when the ladder gave way. In my 30 years of working the oil fields, I've had the misfortune to know some more young men that died being dumba$$ around pumping units. I'm sure they thought they were being safe too.

The fact remains, that even if the pumping unit is non-operational and the weights chained, you were still tresspassing on equipment that wasn't yours. It's a very dumb thing to do! And oh yes, I have had to run a guy off that was shooting coyote from the top of one of my tank batteries. One with a high H2S.

I still like your buck though, good job on that!

I knew a couple guys in high school that died while operating motor vehicles. I also know a guy that was paralized after a motorcyle accident. One time a friend of a friend of mine tripped on a curb while walking down the street.

Seriously, who called the oil field police? This guy is a buzz kill!. There are risks in everything we do

I climb up on pump jacks and tanks on my families ground all the time to glass and I double freaking dog dare somebody to try and scold me for it. In all the years of hunting there not one oil field worker has said anything to me. I'd LOVE to see somebody try and tell my grandfather to get down while he's up there looking for cattle, that would be a riot!

Drummond

Ain't that the truth? Giving TobyJoe lessons on the finer parts of hunting in the oil fields is like me giving Emeril cooking lessons.....give me a freaking break. I have and do use tank batteries, etc to my advantage every chance I get, and, like you have never had a pumper, etc say a word about it.

WoW! You Southwest Texas/NM guys are a tough lot! I love it! Men being men! Toby Joe...when we hook up piggy hunting will I be doing any of these crazy guy things?????

Y'all should run with scissors and post pics

Drum

Dang right we will do whatever it takes to smoke some pigs. We might even have to crawl up on a tank battery. But I will be sure and take my helmet and pads just in case I fall my DUMB AZZ off of the latter. I will also try my damdest not to stick myself with a knife while gutting said pigs, or stub my toe and fall down while my DUMB AZZ is walking.

All these risks involved, I dont know if I should even leave the house anymore. Its just too dangerous out there.

Toby Joe

maybe we can climb on some to glass elk this weekend

Might have to crawl up on the top of the truck. Oh chit, that may be to dangerous. We dont have no oil pumps on NM ranch. If I did, I wouldnt be guiding, I would be getting guided. lol

Toby Joe

well chit there goes my shot at being killed in an oil field

Find and kill your Elk with a knife, she may just drag you all the way to a oil field, then you can breath some H2S.

TJT...maybe, just maybe we can climb a windmill, with a chambered round, and spit chew juice into the damn wind!...Naaah! Might go blind from blow-back and then fall out the windmill onto a pump jack breaking our dumb azzz's....no azzz to crap out of and no eye to see it with...what a bunch of sorry sumbitches we would be!