Elk Adventure 2016

Back in 2014, I got my first bull elk and before too long, #2 Son, affectionately called D2, was wrathy (*) to kill an elk so we put in for the draw to see what would happen.  Nothing happened in 2015, but in '16, he drew for bull elk in our home unit.  Yeah!  Life went on for the summer and we were looking forward to the hunt. Then in August, I broke my collarbone and all of a sudden our elk plans were in limbo.  The problem, you see, is that it's awfully hard to pack an elk out off the top of a mountain when you can't put any pack pressure on your broken shoulder. But, as it worked out, the doctor cleared me for "light exercise" the day before our hunt. Fortunately, he did not define "light exercise" (and I didn't ask for a definition).

D2 and I talked it over and we decided to give our immediate area a good scouting before heading up on the mountain. We'd been seeing elk all summer long in our creek and on nearby State land and I felt our chances were good, although I met with skepticism among other individuals. Nevertheless, on opening morning, we were up and looking.  I drove down a neighbor's road that faced a rimrock wall I wanted to scout and almost immediately D2 and I both spotted 3 elk walking away, about a mile across a flat. Binoculars told me they were all bulls and one of them was pretty decent. Regardless of size (can't eat antlers, remember), they were bull elk in our backyard. We waited for them go around around a point in the rimrock and then we parked, geared up, and went after them.

We walked fairly quickly across the prairie and then climbed to where they'd disappeared at which point we started moving along much slower and doing a lot of glassing. I really expected to find the bulls bedded down in some timber back in a little bowl, but no luck. We spent until about noon working our way carefully around the rim where we found some bedded mule deer but no elk.  Where'd they go!?  We decided to go back for lunch and then I laid down for a nap. While napping and thinking about it, I figured the elk had to go into a little canyon on our property. I figured that instead of working around the rim like we'd done, that once they were in the open, they'd probably just trotted across a 1/2 mile open section. There are plenty of dips and drops in that section and they'd be easy to miss.  That was the only place I could think of that wasn't visible from our earlier position and it was a nice sheltered canyon, an important thing since the wind was now up to about 20 mph.  So, about 2-3 pm, we headed back out to check it out.  I went down the same road as earlier and glassed every little pocket I could find. D2 was soon-to-be-a-teenager pessimistic but I am an old dog and much more persistent.  And then... back in the suspected canyon, I spotted an elk. I couldn't tell bull or cow, but "bull" was a good gamble since I haven't seen a cow elk in this area all summer.

Plotting the situation, I decided to drive back to the north and come through our pasture to approach the canyon from the east.  That would put the wind in our favor and give us the canyon rim to stalk off of.  The plan was executed and D2 and I soon found ourselves crawling on hands and knees through cholla cactus to the rim. At the rim there was a bush to the left, an open space, and a juniper tree. I picked the bush and the instant we got there, I spotted a small bull elk bedded down on the opposite canyon wall. There should be 3 bulls in total, though, and it was important to find them all before moving.  Leaving D2 in position, I inched back away from the wall, over to the side, and under the juniper and there, right below me, was the biggest bull, feeding on grass in the bottom.

I motioned to D2 and he crawled back and over and was soon in position. We had a perfect shot- 75 yards almost straight down on the bull's back. D2 was shooting a 7mm-08 with 139 gr Hornady bullets which are on the light side for elk.  We needed a great position and we were in it.  Plus, it would be a pretty easy hike out of the canyon to the truck, an important consideration with my gimpy collarbone.  If the bull had been a big 6x6, this would've been the most perfect shot ever, but, hey, you can't eat antlers and he was a very respectable bull so I told D2 to take the shot. He did and the bull staggered forward, giving us a perfect angle for a 2nd shot, which I told him to take. At the 2nd shot, the bull dropped, rolled, and was still.

The other 2 bulls jumped up, trotted down the canyon, jumped the fence, and then stood there staring.  They couldn't smell us and all they knew as a loud noise had just happened. After a few minutes, they trotted off and we gave high 5's. We then called Mom and asked her to bring the Ranger. I'm not sure why we did that, since we had a pickup at the top of the canyon, but I wanted her to be with us when we walked down to the elk.

D2's first elk

Mom arrived and we explained the situation. We all walked down to the fallen giant and admired it. Then I dropped the bombshell...."We're going to need lights and stuff..."  I suppose I should've had her just bring them the first time, but the Ranger's easy to drive around so I didn't think it a big deal. Mom headed off for gear and D2 and I started butchering the elk. I have a little rule about "Don't shoot an elk past 2 pm" and we violated that rule big time and were now going to pay the price as it was getting dark, fast. Fortunately, we did have our own personal lights and before long we were cutting up elk in the pitch dark and falling temperatures. Eventually, lights appeared at the head of the canyon.  Mom was back.

D2 did most of the butchering himself since I was pretty much one-armed

After she made her way down the rocky, trail-less canyon to us, we hatched a pack-out strategy. Normally, I'd bone out all the meat and pack just meat 'cause those elk bones are heavy, but given that the Ranger was just 0.2 mile away (300 yards!), I decided to tough it out and pack quarters in my most excellent Horn Hunter Full Curl pack. We loaded up a hind quarter, Mom took backstraps in another pack, and D2 threw a front quarter over his shoulder. After the other helped me stand up under my heavier than expected load, we started out in the pitch dark, trying to find a path of some sort through the rocks and brush.

Earlier, while at the elk, we'd talked about mountain lions (they've been spotted in these canyons several times).  Because I had my hands full with my super heavy pack, I gave Mom my Bersa .380 pistol to carry "just in case". D2 was leading, with his headlamp lighting the way when he suddenly stopped and threw his rifle up.  "Cat!", he whispered. The kid knows the difference between cat eyeshine and others and I believed him. "I think it's a bobcat", he said. We made sure and then proceeded onwards.

Doing some "light exercise" in the dark

At the last steep section to the Ranger, I couldn't get my feet off the ground so Mom pushed my pack up while I took a step. D2 went ahead to the Ranger and dropped off his load, then came back and got Mom's pack while she continued to help me. Eventually, we made it to the Ranger and downed appreciated bottles of water.  While there, I said "Where's my pistol?"  Mom slapped her pockets and came up blank. It was lost somewhere on the trail. I was not happy, but I did figure that I could come back during the day and find it, so we set off down the canyon again. This time, we took our time and did, in fact, find a trail of sorts. About halfway down, D2 stepped on something hard and metallic- my pistol!  Yes!  I was happy now.

Approaching the elk, we caught the eye shine again. The bobcat had moved down the canyon and was about 50 yards up the slope from our elk. Under the cover of darkness, he was totally unafraid of us so, just to give him (and any other cat in the area) a little warning, I fired a shot from my freshly-found pistol in his approximate direction. That sent him hustling and we watched him go up the canyon into some rocks and disappear.

Another staggering trip later, we had all the meat back at the truck and headed home. "Tired" doesn't even begin to describe me. I took a hot bubble bath and collapsed in bed. Sunday was church and on Monday, we we butchered the elk meat off the bones and cooked some up. There is nothing better than elk meat, let me tell you.

L-R: Venison, pronghorn, elk burgers

In '17, I've put in for archery elk and mule deer while D2 has put in for rifle bull and cow elk and mule deer.  I want an archery big game animal and he wants a big bull elk and big mule deer and is willing to pass smaller ones up. Stay tuned!

(*) the term "wrathy" is one I've been using recently and it generates a lot of comments from people who've never heard it.  It comes from this passage from "Bear Hunting in Tennessee" by Davy Crockett:

When my lead dog found him, and raised the yell, all the rest broke to him, but none of them entered his house until we got up. I encouraged my dogs, and they knowed me so well, that I could have made them seize the old serpent himself, with all his horns and heads, and cloven foot and ugliness into the bargain, if he would only have come to light, so that they could have seen him. They bulged in, and in an instant the bear followed them out, and I told my friend to shoot him, as he was mighty wrathy to kill a bear. He did so, and killed him prime. We carried him to our camp, by which time my son had returned; and after we got our dinners we packed up, and cut for the house of my old friend, whose name was Davidson.

The Collarbone Incident

This is the longest I've ever gone between blog updates and it's time to catch up.  The biggest news is that I broke my collarbone on Aug 28 and had to have it plated and screwed. How did that happen, you ask?  Dirt bikes is how.  If you've been following me, you know that Derek wanted to start riding dirt bikes, so I made it happen in Jan '16 by buying a set of bikes for us- a Honda CRF150F for him and a Yamaha TT-R 230 for me.  We sampled the dirt biking world, riding in the open area of the Canadian River, the mountains around Red River, our own creek, and around our little home-made track.  After all this, we decided that the mountains were our least favorite simply because of the distance and time required to get there and we like track riding best, followed by the Canadian River.

Derek was getting better on the bike and I suggested we look into getting better (read "faster and better suspended") bikes.  Which we did, by buying a '15 KX100 and '16 KX250F brand-new from Hester's Motosports in Raton.  Here's our first ride on them- Derek's first time ever actually kick-starting a bike (the Honda was electric start), first time on a 2-stroke, and 1st time on a real motocross track. This was just a quick break-in ride on the way home from the shop.  Before you critique, Derek's real riding gear was sitting at home in a box- he's wearing full padding underneath his street clothes.

Two days after this, we went back to the track to actually ride.  I was super-impressed with the KX250F and was quickly making all the jumps except for two doubles.  If you don't know what a "double" is, it's a gap jump where you leave one jump face, cross a gap, and land on the next jump face. There's not much margin for error on these things. But, my KX250F can easily do them, so after a little practice and concentration, I went for it.  I cleared the easier of the two- a 50' gap- easily and then went after the harder of the two. This one has a much more pointed landing ramp but it's the same distance.

The double jump

I reared back, gave it gas, and poooooommmmm..... cleared the landing ramp by 10'!  The hard thing about this is that there's a bowl turn immediately after the ramp and when you land there, it's kind of a harsh landing.  The best thing to do is land on the landing ramp. So, Jump #2, I did that.  Jump #3, I did that.  Jump #4.... I came out of the darkness, wondering how long I'd been lying there, what day of the week it was, and did anyone know I was there?  Then I felt a burning pain in my right shoulder and I knew I'd broken my collarbone. There was no way around it. Here's the thing (there's always a "thing", right?). The previous night I'd had a dream where I'd broken my collarbone and in the dream I thought "Oh well, everyone breaks their collarbone!"  Then, Georgia didn't want to go to the track with us because she had a bad cough and I said "You'd better go because you might need to drive me to the hospital."  Of course, I didn't tell her either of these things until afterwards.

So, I woke up in the dirt.  My bike was over there, my helmet camera mount was there, and the camera (loose from the mount!) was yonder.  Something went wrong.  What, I don't know.  I just remember heading toward the jump. Well, it'll be cool video anyway.  But guess what I found out?  The camera switch wasn't on, so no video of the crash.  Georgia was reading a book. She missed it.  Derek was on the other side of the track. He missed it.  I firmly believe that I was abducted by aliens while mid-flight, tested for intelligence, virility, good looks, and common sense and then rudely slammed back to Earth hard enough to knock the memory from my head.  Georgia and Derek arrived and helped me up,  I made it back to the pit area and, fortuitously, a relative of the track owner happened along just then. He helped load the bikes up and then we were off to the Emergency Room.

On the way to the ER!

At the ER, I got X-rayed and here's what we found:

First X-ray

Well, no doubt about it now.  That's a break. At first it looks like 3 pieces of bone with a gap in between, but after they got put back together, I saw that wasn't the case as we'll see in a minute. The crash happened Saturday. Monday, we got an appointment with Christos St. Vincent Sports Orthopedics in Santa Fe for Weds. By the time Tues rolled around, this is what I looked like:

This is kind of painful

When we got there- and the car ride down was possibly one of the most painful parts of the thing as I couldn't get comfortable in the front seat- I got fresh X-rays which revealed that the loose bone fragment had shifted around.  I was in a lot of pain, but knowing that surgery was going to happen the next day helped me tough it out.  The surgeon said "Okay, surgery on Thurs!" and left.  I breathed a big sigh of relief.  Then he popped back in and said "That's NEXT Thurs... we have an emergency to do tomorrow."  Oh, man!!!  A WEEK more of this?!  Note that I was not on any painkillers at this time as I didn't want to deal with constipation, upset stomach, and possible addiction. The Dr's prescribed Percocet and, back home, I took one to help me sleep.  I then had a nightmare in which the collarbone broke through the skin and I was bleeding to death but couldn't get out of the couch because the blood made it too slippery.  So... no more of that!  In the interim week, I managed the pain fairly well with alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen. Once I got past the hump and the time was getting closer to surgery, I started actually getting used to it. Every time I started to feel like the pain was too much,  I asked myself the question "What Would Hugh Glass Do?" and then I didn't feel very bad at all. At least I didn't have to worry about infection from grizzly bite, you know?

At Santa Fe- where's the bone piece?

FINALLY, the day of surgery came and I've never been happier to get knocked out.  Anesthesia is a funny thing.  I was supposed to help them move myself from my gurney to the operating table, but I don't remember any of that.  The last thing I remember is leaving the staging area and then waking up.  Back home, here's what it looked like:

After surgery

A week later, we were back and here's what I look like now.  The two "loose" screws are holding the floating chip back in place.  If you look at the X-ray, you can now see that the loose piece broke off the bottom of both sides of the main bone.  So, the main bone broke in half and an "inferior" piece then broke off the bottom of both of those. The 2 screws are holding that piece up the main sections.

The plate and the screws.

After all this, I did 4 weeks of passive physical therapy where the PT moved my arm for me.  I quickly rigged up my Bowflex machine at home as a pulley so I could do this myself.  At first, let me tell you, it hurt to move stuff. I had a definite "catch" in my muscles when bringing my arm down. My PT found this muscle and massaged the catch out and I improved a little each week. After 4-5 weeks, I went back to the Dr for more X-rays and check ups and then he approved me to do "light lifting and active physical therapy".  Well, that's good because the next day was elk season and Derek had a tag for a bull elk.  So, long story, short:

Derek's first elk! On our property, too!

Packing out an elk in the dark.
This is "light exercise", right?

After a great stalk, Derek had a 75 yard shot straight down into this bull's back and dropped him with 1 shot from his 7mm-08. We only had to pack 0.15 mile to reach the Polaris Ranger.  Granted, it was uphill, in the dark, over the rocks, but I just kept the pack strap off my bad shoulder and toughed it out.  

After this, I started active physical therapy for another 6 weeks and then, finally, in early December, was cleared for full activity.  Of course, I immediately went riding.  Okay, well, I'd already ridden a few times prior but we're not going to say anything about that, right?  I mean, c'mon, I'd only ridden the KX250F for 1 hour before the crash, I was dying to ride the thing, so I took a few super-easy laps around our front yard track.  After being cleared for good, I started working on building muscle again using the Bowflex, a kettlebell, free weights, and stretching.

Looking back, here's what I learned:

1) a collarbone break is painful, but it will pass.

2) I watched a lot of TV from the recliner. TV gets old fast- there is so much junk on there.  Two programs, though, stand out. Steve Rinella's "Meat Eater" is the best hunting show I've ever seen, hands-down.  No guides, DIY, with lots of tips on meat care, cooking, etc.  "The American Bible Challenge" was great.  I really enjoyed it and Derek and I did our best to answer all the questions.

3) Sometimes you crash when going for it. 

4) Do the physical therapy!!!!

5) I could afford a $6000 motorcycle but I hadn't counted on an additional $6000 in out-of-pocket insurance costs!  If you ride, ski, run, walk, or breathe, I suggest keeping your OOPs (<  see what I did there?) on hand!

Next time, I'll talk about the elk hunt.

Elk Adventure 2014

A few years...scratch that.. FIVE years ago, I achieved a life-long goal when I took a cow elk and last blog report, I talked about hunting.  Now, the cow elk was pretty cool, but I love bull elk antlers and so my next goal was a bull elk, even better if I could call one in and hear it bugle at me.  Elk license in hand, that's what we set out to do last week.  Here's my report.

Scouting, Friday:

My long-time falconer friend, Michael Melloy came up from ABQ to go hunting with me.  During scouting on Friday afternoon, we hiked up to some areas that Derek and I had located while turkey hunting back in April.  On the hike in, we bumped into- almost literally- a medium sized black bear that was feeding along the slope.  Mike had his camera out, I had my .40 S&W out.... we had a stare down until I played Bear Whisperer and said "Yo, what up, homey?" and he eased off (although we bumped into him again later).  Unlike April, we saw a couple of turkeys, too.  On the trip out, Mike spotted one small 4x4 bull sparring with a couple of cattle. He's not the elk I'm looking for so we just ignored him.

Bear on hillside

Day 1, Saturday:

Mike and I headed out in the early morning and watched a nice bull with some cows moving away from some other hunters.  We pursued, but we lost them in the timber.  The weather quickly got warm, so we just sat and glassed for a long time.  After awhile, a spike came up from the lower elevation, again probably pushed by other hunters and we followed him a little bit before deciding to head home and trying to trap a prairie falcon for Mike.

Saturday's view

There's an elk!  In that canyon 5 miles over....

Day 2, Sunday:

We did church and then after a solid "Mexican Steak" at Sierra Grande Restaurant, we were ready to explore some new country in the afternoon. We bid Mike farewell, as he had to return to his day-job, and Derek and I headed out. We hiked up a ridge and glassed both sides where I found a good bull about about a mile away across two canyons. The wind was not in our favor and it would be a brutal haul getting him out, so we decided against going after him (and back home, I confirmed that he was on private land).

Working the other side of the ridge, we found lots of rubs but not much fresh poo, and no elk. Saw a couple of mule deer and I heard my first coyotes. I have some new hearing aids that give me a lot of "sound" and I swear those coyotes were RIGHT THERE. Derek thought they were close, too, mabye just over a hill we'd just walked over, so we took a look but didn't spot them in the falling light.

Heading back to our ATV's in the dark, rocky, rough downhill, we got caught up in a herd of Longhorn mommas and calves also moving down the hill. I didn't know this herd and didn't want to get speared by a big protective cow with 6' long horns, so we moved to the side, over-shot our ATV's by about 3/4 mile, and ended up getting a ride back from the rancher.  It was tough walking down the ultra-rocky mountain in the dark- one of my least favorite parts of hunting- but we made it out alive. It was 10 pm when we got home.


Day 3, Monday:

I had a lot of work to do, including shipping a guitar and reorganizing some gear, and Derek and I were both tired from the previous evening, so we decided to take a break until Tues.  I got my work done and spent a lot of time fooling with Google Earth, finding the much desired topographic overlay that I'd been wanting for a long time.  Derek went to his first 4H meeting and all in all, it was a good break.  We spent the night at church, it being just a few minutes away from our destination on Tues.

The Mighty Assistant Hunter takes a break

Day 4, Tuesday:

With instructions from the rancher, Derek and I headed out to a new place, getting a good early start from our church vantage point.  Riding along in the dark down a new road, we only got lost a few times.  At the start, I'd noticed that Derek had his pack tied to the rear of his ATV.  I told him "I like to tie mine up front, so if it falls off I'll see it".  He thought it was snug so off we headed, me leading.  When we finally got to our destination and dismounted our steeds, I heard Derek's "UGH!!!" and sure 'nuff... the pack was gone.  We headed back and I left him to look in a meadow where we'd taken a few wrong trails while I headed down the main road.  About 2 miles later, I found his pack.  But, no big deal as the sun was just up and I was able to do some glassing of the nearby hillside on my way back to him.

We wisely GPS'ed the ATV's and then headed up the mountain.  Before long, to our surprise and delight, we found an old jeep trail leading up the mountain and we gladly took this road up.  About a mile up, Derek grabbed me and said "I hear a bugle!"  I bugled and cow called and Derek said I got a response, but we couldn't get the bull in and it went on downhill.  We hiked on up to the top of the mountain and glassed from several locations without seeing anything. Discouraged, we decided to head down.

Tuesday's office view

About a mile and half down, I spotted an inviting little glade out of the sun and decided to take a rest break.  As we plopped down, Derek said "try your call"  so I gave one little cow call on my Primos diaphragm and a bull exploded _right behind us_. We scrambled across the trail and I hid behind a boulder with Derek about 10 yards behind me against a tree.  We called again, including a short, weak bugle from me, and the bull in the woods answered back with a scream.  Derek whispered "He's coming!!!" and we sat still.  Suddenly, the woods echoed with a screaming bellow that sounded like a very angry Brahma bull. I wear 2 hearing aids and can't hear bugles unless they're close and, believe me, I heard that one!!! I heard the breath intake, the resonance, and _everything_. It was LOUD!!!! I saw a sudden dark spot appear in the trees not 10' from where we'd been sitting and there he was... not 50 yards from us.  He stayed in the trees, out of sight, so after a minute or so, I motioned for Derek to do another cow call on his Primos Hootchie Mama, which is a squeeze-type call. That did it. The bull erupted from the timber, heading straight for us.

Before the hunt, I'd said I wanted a 6x6 350 bull, but Derek and I discussed this earlier and decided that the closer to the road we were, the smaller the bull could be.  As the bull bolted toward us, I had just a split second to make a decision. In my scope, I saw 4 really good points, a good spread, and good height. Given the proximity to a road (1 mile!), this being the next to last day, the first bull in my sights, the fact that at this distance a quick kill was virtually guaranteed, and the fact that- cool as they are- you can't eat antlers.... I put the crosshairs right at the junction of the front shoulder and neck and let my .280 rip at the whopping distance of 30 yards.  The bull ran in a complete circle and dropped just behind some trees.  I looked back at Derek and his eyes were like saucers! We waited as long was we could stand (30 seconds, at least!) and approached the huge animal.  That's when I discovered that the bull was a solid 5x5 with tiny 6th points. No monster, but a perfectly respectable elk for a public land, Do-It-Yourself hunt.  Derek repeated over and over "Wow... he's BIG!"

First (and probably last!) bull elk

Loaded up and ready to go

Funny hoof 

My daughter and new son-in-law were at the house and graciously offered to come help pack out. SIL being a former packing house butcher, I eagerly accepted the help.  Derek and I quartered the elk and then went the mile to the ATV's and 4 miles back to the HQ to pick up Brianna and Quenten and my game cart.  Another mile hike up the hill and Q got to work boning the meat while I worked the elk's head loose from his body. We got back to the parked ATV's right at dark and made it to the restaurant for a greatly appreciated supper.  Back home, the meat went in our walk-in cooler for processing later this week.

Elk Packer Selfie

Whew.... that was tiring just typing all that!  What an adventure.  I'm happy to report that my knees held up great- thanks maybe to Tommie Copper and Pro-Tec knee braces, maybe thanks to more exercise over the summer?  Who knows.  I felt good.

I have two more hunting goals coming up: 1) I still want to take a duck with a prairie falcon and 2) I still have not taken any big game animal with my bow. Bowhunting mule deer in January, and hoping to catch a duck with my new falcon.

Hunting

Hunting is a significant part of our life.  I've been shooting guns since I was about 10 years old or so, starting with .22 LR's and staying there for a long time.  It wasn't until 1981 when I was 19 years old that I bought my first real gun- a Remington M788 in .22-250 which I used to hunt coyotes and shoot prairie dogs for several years.  That gun was a "tack driver", especially after I started reloading and developed some good loads for it.  In '89, I stupidly scraped the finish off and applied an oil finish and the rifle never held a good true after that.  Now, of course, I could've fixed the problem, but back then I didn't know anything, so I sold the rifle, thinking (stupidly, again) that pretty much all rifles would shot as good.  Well, long story short, they don't!

Not too long after that, I started deer hunting.  I never had anyone show me how to deer hunt but by now I was in college and decided "well, what's stopping me?" so I bought a license and went.  I didn't even have a deer rifle but our ranch foreman (at the time), Henry, loaned me his .30-06.  I checked the sighting and went hunting!  Henry rode his horse around in a big circle on a mesa where he knew there here deer while I waited and watched from a high spot.  Before long, I saw a herd of mule deer does coming my way but I'd just read a magazine article that said "the buck won't run with the does" so I ignored them and looked elsewhere.  And sure 'nuff!!!  While the does cut over the top of the mesa, coming around the rim was a buck.  I had a great spot on the opposite rim and when the buck stopped I put the crosshairs on his shoulder and dropped him literally in his tracks.  My first deer was down.  It took me, Georgia, and Henry to drag that buck out the canyon.  He was BIG.  In fact, later, I learned that he was likely a hybrid mule/whitetail deer as his antlers showed definite whitetail characteristics and his metatarsal glands were larger than a mule but shorter than a whitetail.  The area has both muley and whitetail, and a hybrid is a definite possibility.

First deer! (1985)

Packing the deer out

After this one, I continued to hunt with mixed success.  My main problem was that I looked for animals where I wanted them to be, not where they are. I was picking scenic vistas and locations that might be good for me, but you gotta find game where it is, not where you want it be. After a number of years of doing this, I started to figure it out, got successful, and over the years, I've taken several pronghorns and mule deer.

I picked up my #1 rifle in '89.  While working on my Master's degree, I decided that it was time that I buy a big game rifle.  I read and researched and decided I liked the .280 caliber.  Then I decided that the Browning A-bolt looked good.  Then I found out that Browning made the A-bolt with a synthetic stock, something that was a rarity back then.  That was my target. Now to _find_ one; remember, the Internet didn't exist for us common folks back then.

One day I was in a gun shop in Clovis NM buying maps for a research project.  On the wall was a Browning A-bolt with a wooden stock- the first actual Browning A-bolt I'd seen apart from magazine ads.  "What caliber is that", I asked.  "What caliber do you want?", he asked back.  ".280", I replied.  And from behind the counter he produced.... a Browning A-bolt in .280 with a synthetic stock!  Oh, man!!!  But, I had to check with Georgia first, so I drove back to Portales from Clovis, hunted her down on campus, and told her about it.  She said "Why didn't you just buy it?!"  I knew I'd made a good decision in marrying her!  So, we drove back, and I wrote a check for my 1st big-game rifle.

I'm still using that Browning today and, in spite of all my other rifles being Savages, it's not going anywhere or getting replaced with anything.  Around 1999 or so, I finally bought a Leupold 3x9 Vari-X II scope for it to replace the lesser Redfield it wore up to that point and that completed the package.  It's a great rifle- light, laser accurate, and forgiving of various handloads.

Pronghorn doe 2013, Browning A-bolt

In addition to deer and pronghorn, the other thing I've hunted over the years are coyotes.  Back in the day, a good coyote hide was worth $50-80 and in the 80's that was nice money for a poor college student.  I didn't hunt coyotes at all in Idaho (although I did bag one mule deer).  When we moved to the ranch in '94, I hunted coyotes kind of sporadically, but in '02 or so, I met a neighbor who was skinning them and selling the furs and who needed the money, and that gave me motivation to hunt them (I gave him the furs).  I hunted coyotes hard for about 4 years.  During the winter, whenever the wind wasn't blowing 100 mph, I was hunting.  First, this provided a lot of exercise as I like to walk between stands.  Second, it gave me a lot of time in the field and I started trying new techniques, some of which were surprisingly productive.  Third, I became a much better field shot.  After awhile, prices on hides went down and my neighbor didn't want them anymore so I stopped hunting coyotes.  In those four years, though, I learned a lot about hunting and coyotes both; it was very productive time afield.

David and Derek and I with my first "double"

I'm a lousy bowhunter in spite of having done it since about '86 or so.  I don't have the patience to sit for long periods and my hearing is bad enough that I can't hear sticks breaking, leaves rustling, animals calling, or a lot of the things that help bowhunters be successful.  In spite of bowhunting deer for maybe 5 seasons and elk for 3, I hadn't killed a thing with my bow.  That changed in 2013 when Derek and I were invited to go turkey hunting on a neighbor's ranch.  Thing is, we had to take a specific gobbler and not just any ol' turkey.  We headed over and quickly found the turkeys heading to eat at the horse trough.  They were paralleling a creek bed so Derek and I bailed into the bed and ran down it, using it for cover.  I found a good spot against a bush just as the first hens started filing by.  The target gobbler was in the rear and when he paused for a second at 30 yards, I let fly.  Bam!!!!  Turkey down!!!  What a thrill....now to get a deer.....

1st bow kill, 1st turkey.

I've tried to pass "hunting" on to my kids.  The first to score was my daughter, Brianna.  She quickly proved to be a safe and accurate shot with a Savage Youth in .243 and it wasn't long before we went deer hunting on the ranch.  I spotted some bucks in a creek, we stalked down the creek, and got to about 125 yards from them as they bedded in a bunch of trees.  Brianna took the shot and her first deer was down!

Brianna's 1st deer

The next year we went back to the same creek, did some scouting and found a very nice buck.  The next morning we stalked to 200 yards, moving along the rim while the deer came toward us from the opposite side.  The deer were feeding below us and I told Brianna to take the shot when she was ready.  I don't have much faith in the .243, having had some bad experiences with that caliber, so I was watching the buck thru binoculars in preparation for tracking.  Brianna shot, the buck's hindquarters sagged, the front sagged, and it dropped as literally in its tracks as you could ever hope for.

B2's second buck

As you probably know, we lost my oldest son, David, at 11, but he had the opportunity to learn to shoot both a bow and rifle and proved to be a good, safe shot with both.  He struggled with a bolt-action rifle, but just before Thanksgiving 2011 I bought him a semi-automatic Ruger 10/22  and he was able to shoot that and take his first prairie dog the day we bought the rifle.  He was so proud of that.  Mom and Derek were gone that week down south and I'd had David's blood tested early in the week. It was low, but we needed to try to get thru Thanksgiving before heading to ABQ for a transfusion.  When they got back, Georgia took one look at David, loaded him up and headed to ABQ (I'd given her a heads-up that this would be likely).  They ended up staying there for 10 days.  You can find those blogs Here and Here, in case you want to read what I wrote as it was happening.  I was glad that David and I had gotten into the field.

David's first prairie dog

After David passed, Derek inherited that .22 and it wasn't long before he got his first prairie dog.  Derek needed a little more work on safety than David did, but he quickly was shooting responsibly.  After about a year of .22 LR work, I let him start shooting our Savage Youth model in .223 and that winter, he bagged his first hunted coyote.  I called it in, but the shot was all Derek's and he dropped it at 150 yards.  We skinned that one, tanned it, and it's hanging on the wall in the barn.

Derek's first coyote

This year (2014), Derek started making noises about deer hunting and such.  He needed a rifle for this, so I started looking and back in March, when we went to the archery shoot in Las Cruces, I picked up a new Savage Youth in 7mm-08 that'd I'd ordered from a shop there.  When we finally got a chance to sight it in, it proved to be an incredibly accurate rifle.  Derek was putting 2 shots inside 1" at 150 yards, which is some very good shooting.  He was understandably eager to go hunting and that chance finally came this past week when we went pronghorn hunting here on the ranch.

I get 2 permits for a doe/immature buck and one went to Derek this year.  He took his first pronghorn and first big-game animal at a cool 230 yards while it casually munched away on pasturage.  After the shot, the little buck went about 40 yards and cartwheeled.  We had it butchered and bagged inside an hour and feasted that evening on chicken-fried backstrap, courtesy of Brianna the Cook.

Derek and 1st pronghorn

And this just in- I had offered my 2nd doe permit to my friend, Michael Melloy, but he decided to pass and let Brianna have it.  She took quick advantage of it and here we have both her first pronghorn and her first, yes, husband.  Congratulations to my favorite daughter on both.

Brianna and 1st pronghorn

Deer hunting is coming up next, in November or December.  And me, I'm going rifle bull elk in early October and archery deer in January.  I'll probably get skunked at both, but I will have fun, I know.

Well, now that we've gone thru our family history of hunting, here's what we did this week- cleaned up the barn in preparation for incoming pronghorn hunters.  We have 8 private land hunters every year and they stay in our barn which is complete with bathroom/shower, walk-in cooler, and etc.  It's kind of a chore cleaning up the barn every year, but on the other hand, the barn gets cleaned every year!  A few years ago, David and Derek and I built a loft over 1/2 the barn to store beds and such and that makes our job easier.

Beds are stored in this loft

Derek's lowering stuff to Georgia

Beds in place

More beds

One hunting barn ready.  Just add hunters!

Weak in the Knees

Isa 35:3 NKJV  Strengthen the weak hands, And make firm the feeble knees.

Here we are again... first, an update on Georgia.  She has more or less recovered from her two surgeries and we are just awaiting results to find out if she needs chemo or radiation or both.  It’s kind of frustrating- as these things can be- because 2 weeks ago we drove to Amarillo to discuss this only to find out that the doctors couldn't say anything and simply needed her to sign a permission form so they could then get the needed test.  So, 7.5 hours of driving and 4 hours of sitting around just to sign a form.   Oh well, we made the most of the trip and did some needed shopping.  And BTW, just in case you missed it: Georgia's Cancer Treatment Fund. [link removed as this is now an old post]  We've gotten some very generous and very much appreciated help from friends thru this.  

It's been a very windy spring.  The wind is the worst thing about NE New Mexico... it can be just incessant sometimes.   And destructive?  Stuff never rots here- it blows away long before that.  I've heard it said that if the wind doesn't blow, the summer rains don't come.  At this rate, we oughta have a genuine wet year.

A touch o' a breeze

In New Mexico you have to draw for just about every hunting opportunity and this year I was fortunate enough to draw a rifle bull elk and archery deer tag.  I’ll go to the spot where I killed the cow elk a few years ago and with that in mind, Derek and I took our turkey tags out for a little turkey hunting and elk scouting.  We didn’t see a single turkey or any sign, but we did see quite a few elk and picked up a decent shed antler. 

Shed elk antler

We walked- according to Google Earth- about 3.5 miles up and down canyons and my knees just flat-out gave up.  That’s the first time that’s ever happened.  I've gotten muscular tired before, but this time, my knees just quit and going downhill was painful.  I was carrying my new pack- a Horn Hunter Full Curl- with about 20 lbs of stuff in it, but still...  On the upside, now that I know I can’t rely on my inherent conditioning anymore, I have all summer to get my knees strong enough to pack out the big bull elk I’m going to take this fall. [< update!] The next day, I felt pretty good with no lingering stabs of pain, so I guess it’s good that I can still recover.

In the archery world, Derek and I traveled to ABQ in early April to shoot the State Animal Round.  Derek shot very well and, as usual, won.  I shot good at first and then fell apart a little bit- the uphill and downhill shots got me.  I ended up 2nd place, missing 1st by 1 point.  But, we got our scores in from the Vegas Indoor Round back in Feb and got a surprise.  This was a "sectional" shoot, covering CA, AZ, NM, CO, UT, and NV.   Derek took 1st place is now the Sectional Champ!  My score was good enough for 2nd and I'm not complaining about that.  Scores aside, we're having fun shooting.

David’s 13th birthday has come and gone.  In observance, we went to the grave site and placed some solar-powered crosses on the site.  We went back a few days later at night and they were all lit up and looked nice- as nice as a grave site is going to look, I suppose.  That was Weds night.  Thurs, Derek and I went elk-scouting and turkey-hunting.  Saturday, my gout returned and Sunday, it hammered me.  I really need to get a number on this thing.  It’s probably not any particular food I’m eating, but may be a result of general kidney decline.  For now, I’m drinking lemon water and lots of it, and here on Sunday evening, it’s feeling better.

We have cattle on the ground, it’s rained a little, the grass is greenish, and here we go into another cattle season- my 19th.  Hopefully, I’ll be showing pictures of green grass soon.

Early morning visitors

Goals

I’ve been thinking about goals lately. I’m a goal-oriented person.  Generally, when I have a "big" specific thing that I want to accomplish, I'll also have intermediate goals that need to be accomplished between now and The Big Goal.  In other words, just accomplishing The Big Goal usually isn't enough.  There is a certain order or certain steps that I also want to accomplish.  I like to do this, then do that, then build up both of those, and so forth, all the way to the final goal whereupon I proclaim “Mission Accomplished!” and immediately lose interest.  Well, not always… sometimes I take the skills I’ve developed on the way and head off toward another goal.  The more of these sub-goals that I accomplish, the happier I am with the final result.

I’ve achieved a few major goal in my lifetime.  After years and years of trail riding on dirt bikes, I wanted to ride a real motocross bike on a real motocross track and make all the jumps and obstacles.  And so, in 2005, I bought a used 2001 Kawasaki KX125 and set out to accomplish this.  It took a few months, but I eventually did clear all the jumps on that bike, and it was followed shortly thereafter by a new old-stock 2004 Yamaha YZ450F.  The jumps were easy on that bike and just "clearing the obstacles" was no longer a challenge.  I sold the 450F, backed down to smaller bikes, and repeated the goal on several other bikes- a 2004 KTM 200sx, a 2005 Yamaha YZ250, and a 2005 Kawasaki KX125.  Then the tracks got too hard for my KX125 and I didn’t want to keep up.  At this point, it was Mission Accomplished and I could’ve set up a new goal (like, “finish in the top 3 at a race”), but I was getting old and fragile and so I called it good and sold my bike and gear.  But, no regrets- I rode tracks (several of them) and I cleared all the jumps.

I achieved another major goal when I took a cow elk 2 years ago. Hunting for me is not just shooting an animal.  That's part of it, for sure, but only part of it.  For a hunt to be truly successful, several intermediate stages have to happen.  I need to reload and develop my own loads.  I have to find the game myself- no guides.  I have to hunt for the animal- if there are mountains and draws and tough terrain, all the better (in moderation!).  I have to make a good shot which for me means I get closer- I do not like to take long shots.  I’m happiest when it’s 1 shot, 1 kill.  And then I pack the meat out and I prepare it.  I eat it.  If all those steps come together, it’s the perfect hunt.

The elk under the tree

Almost no blood at all!

Packing the meat out- final trip!

My first cow elk hunt was a perfect hunt.  I hunted for 2 days w/out seeing anything and then on the 3^rd day, I found the elk.  I stalked into them and made a 250 yard single-shot with my hand-loaded ammo.  At first, I couldn’t find the elk but I was confident in my shooting and in my equipment and I kept looking.  I finally found her piled up in a juniper about 600 yards away, downhill.   I packed out one load, called for help, and ended up packing most of the rest out that evening, getting back to the truck in total darkness with the aid of a GPS and my trusty daughter.  We got a little lost in the dark and after the 4th or 5th canyon, I was exhausted so I ended up climbing a tree and tying off some of the meat, carrying out what I had in my pack and leaving the cart behind.  I GPS'ed the spot and the next day, Georgia and I went back to retrieve the meat and cart.  The next day it snowed a blizzard.  That was a 100% successful and satisfying hunt.  Building on this, I want a bull elk now.  It’ll have to be no guide, public land, and economically feasible.  As far as antler size goes, I just want a 6x6- it doesn’t have to make book or anything, it just needs to be a “good” elk and by "good" that means I have to go thru all the intermediate steps I've set up for myself.

Last Thanksgiving, I went to the North American Falconer’s Meet and the idea was planted in my head that I should take a wild peregrine falcon.  I’ve never done that and the idea was intriguing.  It would involve getting the permit, finding one, rappelling, and finally training it, all worthy goals in and of themselves, but to reach the goal of the taking of a wild duck with a wild-taken peregrine was why Aldo Leopold said “all in all, falconry is the perfect hobby.”  You can read all about the search and the eventual successful taking of the peregrine in earlier parts of this blog.  As long as I was doing this, I decided to get a prairie falcon, too.  I’ve had an eyass prairie, but I didn’t rappel into the nest for it.  

So far, this goal is only partially met.  Both birds were flying well and taking free-flying pigeons, but with these young, inexperienced birds, I couldn’t close the deal on a duck before it got cold, the ponds froze, and the ducks left.  Then, sadly, the peregrine contracted a virus, probably thanks to stress from the eagle attack, and died.  Duck season closed, thus slamming the door in my face.  Completion of this goal will have to wait until next year, but at that time, having (hopefully!) taken my prairie falcon thru the molt, I should have an older, wiser, and more experienced prairie falcon who already knows how to fly, knows how to “wait-on”, and all that good stuff.  I’ll be raising some captive ducks this summer and I’ll “enter” her on those so that she knows what ducks are all about.  All in all, I’m confident that I’ll get this goal accomplished.  And I won’t be sitting around all summer, either- I’ll be out looking for more prairie falcon nests and I hope to take a tiercel prairie this year.  That’s my goal for this year!  That, and re-build my pigeon loft and end up with close to 100 birds by summer’s end.

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On the Davidic front, for those of you not keeping up with this on Facebook, we have some VERY good news!  David’s been on steroids for, what, two months?, as I reported last entry.  In spite of lower doses of steroids, his hemoglobin has continued to rise and he was 9.1 g/dL on his 1/25/12 test.  We were SO thankful for this!

In other news, we bought a new, used car.  We need a car.  We have a ’99 Suburban with 190,000 miles on it and 3 pickups.  We don’t have anything that gets better than 20 mpg and we need something more economical for our trips to ABQ and, soon, to Denver for David’s medical work.  Even just going to town is a 65 mi round trip.  So, after much research, and some butt-planting, we settled on a Chevrolet Malibu and ta-da… I found a good one in Santa Fe.  Long story short, we bought a 2011 Malibu LT/1LT with 19k miles on it.  On the drive home, we got 38 mpg at 75 mph!  That’s what I’m talking ‘bout!  Our mechanic checked it out and pronounced it good and so here we are!  We’re hopeful that I’ll be a good reliable car.