New Mexico didn’t disappoint.
It fit the traditional format of “this hunt is tough and we may be lucky to kill anything”. On day 8 of 10, Dirk and myself still had our tags in our pockets and we were getting a little nervous. We had been on bulls but nothing in our playbooks seemed to be working.
Get close and cow call...the elk run away
Try and cow call from a long ways away...the elk run away
Get close and bugle...the elk run away
Bugle from along ways away...the elk run away
On day 8 after getting winded by a herd with 3 bulls bugling we were in the dumps and really questioning what we were doing. We decided to hike out and regroup. On the hike out we decided to bugle one last time and to our surprise we heard a faint bugle. We went in to chase mode and got across from the bugling bulls. After about a 15 minute bout we had called the giant into 30 yards but Dirk had no shot. We watched the bull take a cow back across the ridge and as soon as it crested, I decided to run across the drainage and get right back on them. Once there the bulls were bugling like crazy. Dirk motioned me to move forward and setup. After a crazy 10 minutes of lip bawls, grunts and back and forth craziness Dirk had a migraine and had lured this bull into 25 yards and I placed a good arrow into it. He tipped over within 75 yards.
