Buying New Mexico Elk Land

[Bulldawg87]

I know you mentioned it, but what GMU is your place in?

12 hours one way is a beating. You’re more of a man than I am in that regard. I put my limit at 4 hours from my front door when we bought our place in the panhandle. Even then that drive sucks after a long weekend.

I would love a high elevation place like this when I hang them up and retire. Can’t beat those brisk summer mornings.

12 hours is a beating for sure, and in the future, I expect I will only make the trip a couple times a year. Once to work/fun/camping trip in the summer and once to hunt in the fall. I don't have any desire to be there in the winter. Although, I did draw a January muley bow tag in one of these units for this season.

The way I look at it, I probably would be making two trips out that way a year anyway, but now I can go to my own place....and I would be going anyways to hunt, if I didn't own it. What those hunts would cost annually are more than the land cost. So I get land and a hunting opportunity this way.

I don't believe I have put what units I am in publicly as to not draw additional attention to those units. I may want to buy some more land and not compete with a ton of people for it. I'm in two different units though. Both primary zone, both known for big bulls and solid populations. My experience has been really good in that sense. I helped on a hunt last year where we killed a 384" bull and then I killed on my hunt in the other unit. We were in elk every day on every hunt in both units last year.

[EastTexasMan]

How many acres are your properties?

[Bulldawg87]

How many acres are your properties?

I've got a few now, but ranging between 160 and a little over 400 personally. I have some family that entered a 330 acre place and a 40 acre place in the same units that did not qualify for this season however. I though the 40 acres was a long shot....but the 330 was a shock they didn't accept it into the Elk program.

We are protesting the 330 acre place and adding water to it for next year.

[M16]

12 hours is a beating for sure, and in the future, I expect I will only make the trip a couple times a year. Once to work/fun/camping trip in the summer and once to hunt in the fall. I don't have any desire to be there in the winter. Although, I did draw a January muley bow tag in one of these units for this season.



I don't believe I have put what units I am in publicly as to not draw additional attention to those units.

I’d guess units 12&13

[Bulldawg87]

I’d guess units 12&13

Some other good guess are 15, 17, 10, northern part of 21B and 16E. Any unit with a good amount of private ground and in the Primary Zone will work.

There also are some units up around the Colorado line where you could do something similar, it looks like...I am less familar with those though.

[EastTexasMan]

I've got a few now, but ranging between 160 and a little over 400 personally. I have some family that entered a 330 acre place and a 40 acre place in the same units that did not qualify for this season however. I though the 40 acres was a long shot....but the 330 was a shock they didn't accept it into the Elk program.

We are protesting the 330 acre place and adding water to it for next year.

With that size property, do you have a decent shot at killing a bull? Im ignorant

[Bulldawg87]

If you are in a good area and have water, absolutely.

Although, I chose the Unit Wide option, so I can hunt my land, anyone else in the unit that has private land that is unitwide listed, and all the units public land too, with my tags.

Of course, I'd love to have larger tracts, if I could!

I plan to start on my place each year...then if I need to expand into the unit wide, I will.

Last year on a Ranch Only tag, I was able to follow bugles around for 3-4 days.

Got this last pic last night.

[Bulldawg87]

Well, it was a good year for my elk program and my personal elk hunting goals! I ended up with a bunch of elk authorization for 2024. I had my pick between unit wide tags for archery in two units, gun tags in two units, or several cows. My goal was always archery so I kept one archery tag and sold the remainder of my tags to friends or outfitters I had met in the area.

I got to my container cabin on Sept 12th as I needed to meet with reps on the 13 with the NMDGF on a site evaluation on one of the properties they did not accept for the 2024 year. On the morning up the 13th, I got up and heard a bull or two bugle north of me on my ground. That was exciting...and I was pumped to probably start off hunting on my place. A couple hours later I was walking some ground with two guys from NMDGF. The property we were walking, EPLUS had shorted on scoring for forage and it did not qualify for the elk program in 2024 so this was basically and appeal process. The NMDGF guys were surprised how much good grass we had and a couple weeks after my hunt, they updated the score and qualified the land, which will get it into the program for 2025 season.


On the afternoon of the 13th, I decided to check out some surrounding public lands and ended up finding stud of a bull! Now I was trying to decide, do I come back after this bull on the morning of the 15, to start the hunt?

On the 14th, I decided to do more scouting, as I waited on an old college friend from MS to fly it to go on the hunt with me. It was his 1st time in NM and first experience around elk. Once he arrived, it was prime time and we checked out a couple more places and ended up going back to the big bull location just before dark. At first we saw a small bull and some cows, then the big bull from the day before came out and ran the smaller bull off. This sealed it for me, instead of hunting my ground to start, I was going to be at this location for opening morning. Another good thing was, we had seen little to no hunting traffic in the area.

Just before dark, another friend from NM drove down from Albuquerque to help us the next morning. He scouted a couple areas along the way down and didn't find anything so after he arrived we showed him the spot and pics of the bull and we all agreed, lets go after that big big in the morning.



On the 15th, opening morning of second archery, we got to our hunt location about 1 hour before shooting light and as soon as we stepped out of the truck, we heard bulls bugling in all directions. Probably 5 to 7 different bulls were bugling we thought. We had driven in to a specific location as it had us setup properly with wind for an approach on the spot we saw the big bull the two consecutive nights before. A lot of the bugling bull where on public ground but our wind was wrong for many so we made the play the water source in the direction of the big bull. Now, this was right off a public road...I could not believe there was no other traffic with all the bulls in the area going off. As soon as the daylight light was getting to where we could leave the truck and start the move on the big bull water hole, a truck starts coming down the road. We were still standing in the road so they stopped and we told them we had bulls in front of us we were going to make a play on them. As we had this conversation, you could easily hear probably 3 bulls in that direction, only a couple hundred yards away. The group in the truck as an outfitter and 2 or 3 hunters. The outfitter was cool and said, "Yall were here first, good luck", and turned around and headed out. The point he had driven up to was so close the the herd, it seemed to bump them and they gradually started moving away. We still couldn't make the elk out but we knew they were right there, over a small rise in the terrain.

We moved forward and the sun came up, we called a little but nothing was really working. We had a decoy and we had to move over pretty open ground between random pinion and juniper trees. Eventually, the sun was up enough to see an amazing sunrise. We also saw, there was not just one herd, but several smaller herds spread across a valley like grassland. We skirted the edge of the public but the elk were constantly moving slowly towards the private. We ended up counting about 40 elk and two distinct herds, one with the bull from the previous two nights (maybe 340) and another with an even larger bull we estimate may have been around 360 class. Then several satellite bulls where roaming the area between these to herds. Tons of bugles some sparing, it was a great morning...but nothing we could do to get the elk to come back to us.


We headed back out to camp and as we did a pretty good rain storm came in so went spent the next couple hours just hanging out, watching TV using the Starlink (amazing tool). Eventually we decided to head back out at 2:30 or so. I thought we would get behind the private ground back on public in the direct the elk had moved off to likely bed that morning. We found an area in that general direction and at about 3pm I let off a couple locator bugles and got a half heart response. Almost like a bull bugling from the bed. The wind was right so we moved in.

Over the next couple hours, it was just a half bugle here or a grunt / huff there, then silence, followed by another bull from another direction..but close enough. We zigged and zagged for a couple miles between what we think was a couple different groups. Around 4:00 it started to rain on us and eventually stopped around 4:30. As soon as the rain stopped, they fired up and we were in the middle of three that sounded good. As we slowing followed the sounds, we eventually walked right up on a herd of cows and bumped them, but they didn't spook too bad. We now had very very fresh tracks, plus elk noised and gradually closed the distance.

Right about 5pm, everything went silent. My local NM buddy said, "They caught our wind...I think we are probably done on these". I decide to have us wait a bit, and then I let out a bugle and the entire area just exploded again in bugles. He instinctively dropped back and started cow calling and I started slowly moving towards the bull that I seemed to have the best wind and approach on and within about 50 yards, I dropped to a knee as I could see him coming. My Mississippi friend, 1st day ever elk hunting, I told him to stay on my hip with a range finder and fortunately for me, he decided to film with his iPhone too.

The bull was walking right at me, other bulls to my right and left still bugling. I drew my bow thinking I was about to have a 10 yard frontal shot and as the bull crossed the sunlight I thought I saw he was a 6x6. That was about the only good glimpse I had, but I decide he was good enough and I thought he might be about a 300" bull.

The bull hung up about 12-15 yards out, right behind a tree. I held my draw for about 1.5 minutes, kneeling, then the bow let itself down, as I couldn't hold any longer..lol A few seconds later, the bull turned like he would walk to my right. He finally was broadside and I realized I had a perfect small hole in the trees, right at his heart / lung area and putting an arrow in there would be easy, so I hit the trigger on the release. The arrow appeared to zip right through him, he mule kicked and took off. A few seconds later, I couple hear what sounded like him blowing air out the holes in his lungs. He took off again, stumbling and crashing then then out of sight with a very loud final crashing sound. All this can be heard on the videos if you listen close enough, with the volume up.

My NM caller buddy heard the shot and all the following sound and moved up. We discussed what all happened as he couldn't see it from 50 or so yards back. As we had this discussion, we realized we were still surrounded by elk. While we gave my bull extra time, we decided to get one of these other bulls to show themselves, just too see what else was there. We snuck in on another of the bulls we thought sounded bigger and saw he was actually a good bit smaller. After we saw him, we decided it was time to go check out my bull. I couldn't find the arrow but we found some quick, bright red, bubbly blood and some rib bone. There wasn't much more blood, so as they looked for blood, I just started walking the direction I had last seen him run and heard the final crash. 50-60 yards later, there he was! My 1st archery elk and second elk in two years since starting this landownership project.

I was super happy with him, he was a very nice 6x6 but I did realize he was a bit smaller than I was thinking. It was almost bittersweet too, as it was day 1 of a 10 day tag, and we had seen several larger bulls in the area that morning, Plus, the action was so fun, you don't want it to be over so quickly....but still, I was happy with the entire chain of events, the elk itself, having a couple good dudes there with me. Now the work started! I told my Mississippi buddy, this is the part you are never prepared for, the breakdown and hike out.



We decided to go on back to the camp, eat and then get all the stuff we needed. Game bags, extras knives, lights, etc. We had gone out on the rain so went lightweight in, plus we thought we could get a vehicle probably a half mile closer after looking at a maps.

By the time we got back to him, it was dark and we got to work. I think the three of us broke him down in about 1 hour. Then two trips by foot out, a little over a mile each way. In total, that day we walked approx. 8 miles with 6.5 of those miles dedicated to this bull in the afternoon hunt and pack out. On the last trip out, my MS buddy ended up with the heaviest bag of loose meat and when we got to the truck, I could see his legs shaking with each step.



Once back at camp, we hung the game bags so the cool night air could quickly cool the meat and another huge rainstorm hit...our timing ended up working out great. The next morning, I had to find a game cooler or ice to keep on him. Two of us were stuck there for the rest of the week! Fortunately, I found a walk-in cooler space....so that was very nice!

On opening day, my uncle was hunting a neighboring unit and he harvested a bull on opening morning. He drove over to stay with us for day #2 but he still had never experienced the crazy bugling action he had on the opener. So on day two, we decided to go back in there just to show him how good it was. That very next afternoon, we did not hear a single elk. The afternoon before, we probably heard a couple hundred bugles, and cows too. My friend from MS said, "Man, I was happy you shot yesterday but I am so much more happy you shot today! I can't believe we didn't hear anything... I thought this elk hunting thing was super easy after yesterday, maybe not"


Over the next couple days, we ventured around the Gila National Forest, checked out some cool areas that weren't too far away and I still needed to finish up one of my water improvement projects in the neighboring unit. In the summer, I never had quite gotten one of my water project where I needed it. I ended up dropping a solar pump in to a 5000 gal water tank and running water about 1000ft to a water trough I setup in the summer. It was mostly finish up work but I finally got that project buttoned up. I also made another drinker system overflow to create a larger water holding area and wallow type location too.

That should increase my land score and hopefully get me another tag next year, I believe.

Once I got back to Texas, I scored my bull and came up with 260". I took this bull to the processor and the only bone was in the quarters. The meat, plus those bones was 239 pounds! May bull last year completely deboned was 222lbs in comparison.

I ended up selling my cow elk tags to a couple groups of friends and those hunt days are mid to late November. In a couple weeks, I plan to head out to hunt with them a bit and just enjoy the area some more!

After that, the next order of business is resubmit everything for next years elk program, plus supply documentation on the two newest water improvement projects. All that is due in the first week of January.

[unclefish]

Good stuff! Congrats on a nice bull!!

[hooligan]

love following this thread other than the fact it's made me shop land out there a lot and so far haven't found the right justification to get my wife on board. Congrats on a great bull and continued work on that land

[youngbuck1]

That’s awesome, congrats!!

[MooseontheLoose]

This is a cool thread to keep up with. Enjoy seeing all your updates. Congrats on your bull!

[slayr]

It’s been really cool watching this unfold from start until now. Congratulations on putting in the work and capitalizing in the end. Looking forward to hearing more adventures! Archery elk is on my bucket list.

[Bulldawg87]

Thanks yall! Year #2 has been much better than the first year. I expect the same results for at least two more years until my tag total falls off a bit in year #5.

[Yak blue]

One of my favorite threads to follow. Great bull. Congrats..