2022 Season Recap: Building some Street Cred

[HuntandFly]

Next up was the hunt I had anticipated and planned for maybe more than any hunt ever. In my second year of applying for deer in New Mexico, I was lucky enough to draw an unguided tag in one of the better units in the state. Let me be clear that this is not usually my luck, but in the past few years I have found the more you play the game, the better chance you have of creating some luck. In my research I found that the unit has started to struggle as far as age class goes the last 5-10 years, but that there could still be good hunts there depending on deer movement patterns.



So the first week of November I struck out for NM for the third time this year with high hopes of having a good time. With this opportunity, I decided early on that I wasn’t going to settle for a buck that I couldn’t be confident in being 4.5 or older. I would be happy to take an old heavy buck really no matter what the score (2 points and 3 points need love too). I had planned to tent camp near where I wanted to hunt, but being solo and with my personal set up not cut out for the nasty weather that rolled in 2 days before the hunt, I called for backup and got in touch with a friend of ours that knew of a place I could stay close by to the area. The camp was an amazing spot and the people that were also there utilizing a local outfitter.



I spent a day and a half before the season scouting some places that I had researched the past summer, but found that with the terrible weather it was extremely difficult to move around the unit. I opted to stay closer to the hard top roads in my scouting so as not to risk getting stuck before the hunt even started. I had chains and a shovel but being by myself in new country, I wasn’t interested in the goat rope of digging my pickup out of the mud.

 

[HuntandFly]

Day 1 dawned very cold but drying out. I opted to hunt a spot off the highway that I hadn’t seen as much sign in and that most people didn’t really spend time in. My home was to find some overlooked deer in some tougher to access country. Right off the bat I found a nice buck track on my walk in and then 5 does feeding in some beautiful open parks among some ponderosa, but sadly no bucks were with them yet. I moved along over the saddle of a large ridge to drop into a huge canyon/basin on the other side. As I dropped in, I heard a mature bull elk bugling his head off like he was in full rut mode, which I thought was odd. I found a lot of elk sign as I worked up the canyon, but almost no deer sign. I stopped at a couple different spots on the way in to glass across to the thick north slopes, but despite spending 3-4 hours glassing huge chunks of hillside, I didn’t see a living thing over there all day. Eventually I ran out of time to keep going up the canyon and turned around to start working back towards the truck. On the way back I found some cool rock formations, as well as a really nice glassing point overlooking the canyon bottom which surprisingly had a lot of water in it. Found the same 5 does on my way back, as well as a large herd of elk with a nice 5 point bull tending them. Day 1 was the biggest hike of the trip at about 12 miles. It was also the least amount of deer and sign which amounted to a solid lesson learned and area crossed off the map.

 

[HuntandFly]

Day 2 I decided that the roads had finally dried up enough that I was going to try out some of the better looking spots I had scouted in the cedar tree country. I drove about an hour in the dark (that became the routine each morning) to park the truck and start hiking up the hill 30 minutes before daylight. I reached my glassing knob as it was just getting light enough to see. I immediately saw a decent buck over a mile away walking out to feed in the canyon bottom. He was acting jumpy and only spent a few minutes there before working up the hill into the cedars. I spent the next 3 hours glassing and only turned up about 10 does and a small 3 point on the hill across from me. Just as I was getting ready to climb down, I glassed up a side canyon one last time. Something caught my eye and I thought “there is a nice bull bedded up there.” As I looked closer I realized I had just found a nice 6 point shed (first one ever through the spotter). I packed up and headed down to snag it on the way out, and laying directly below it was the match set. Easily my biggest set of sheds to date as I don’t spend much time looking for them

I went back to camp that morning to find that a couple of the guys staying there had connected on very nice bucks, one of them being an old trashy buck. I spent some time looking them over before heading back out. For the evening hunt I hiked in about a mile and a half to look over a massive creek bottom filled with sage and PJ. I found about 25 does and 2 or 3 more small bucks along with another herd of elk, but still sadly no mature bucks.

 

[BullsDeep]

Can you start over? I lost my spot

 

[packer58]

LMFAO !!!........... No disrespect to the OP ....

Edit : Meant to quote BullsDeep

 

[HuntandFly]

On day 3, I headed up to the highest point in the unit that I could find to hike back into a big steep canyon with a lot of good feed openings in it. Long morning with only a couple small bucks spotted.

Afternoon hunt was a couple mile walk in, saw probably 60 deer and the biggest was this 3 year old 3 point who got the easy pass

 

[HuntandFly]

Can you start over? I lost my spot

I’ll cut most of the words out

 

[HuntandFly]

Day 4 I hit one of the main migration canyons, immediately pass up a couple younger 4 points and then finally see the type of buck I’m looking for. He is a big mature 3 point, probably 25-26 inch spread and very tall. He is at 1000 yards and headed into the cedars. I make the dumb call to go in there after him and he ends up getting bumped by another hunter. Spend all day in there and never see him again.

 

[HuntandFly]

Last day: Day 5 I head back in after the big 3 point. He is a no show as expected. I make a move on a 3 year old 4 point, maybe a 150 type buck but it’s too thick in the cedars we are moving through. Found another nice shed in that canyon, but no shooter bucks. Ended up eating the tag but had an amazing experience in some awesome deer country.

 

[HuntandFly]

Last hunt of the year: Montana Deer.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t think Montana should be letting me hunt deer in mid November on a general tag. Mule deer less than 4 years old were harmed in the making of this post, and they made some delicious beer brats and summer sausage. Here’s hoping they stop letting us hunt these dates, I know we are taking a couple years off from hunting MT.

On the first half day in the area we drove through some of the country we would be hunting and the deer were rutting like crazy. Counted 22 bucks including a couple real good ones on private

 

[TheCougar]

I’ll vouch for this FNG…

 

[HuntandFly]

Day 1: we parked at daylight and started hiking, looked back and a nice buck crested the hill directly above the truck, about 600 yards away. We split up, buddy went south and we went north.

Dad and I headed across the road and onto a glassing knob. We spotted a decent 4 point on the south side and headed over to make sure my buddy shot it or we would if he couldn’t see it. He killed it as it fed over into his basin, his best buck to date

 

[HuntandFly]

I’ll vouch for this FNG…

Haha thanks buddy, didn’t want to invoke your name around here.

What can I say I like to type up a good story

 

[TheCougar]

Haha thanks buddy, didn’t want to invoke your name around here.

What can I say I like to type up a good story

You must be sitting SOF…. I’m glad you finally figured out the best forum to be a member of!

 

[TheCougar]

Haha thanks buddy, didn’t want to invoke your name around here.

What can I say I like to type up a good story

 

[HuntandFly]

Packed my buddies buck out and headed up the road a ways where we had seen a decent buck the day prior. Dad and I went for a hike after a smaller whitetail. He has never killed a WT so that’s what we were trying for.

As we got back on the ridge, the WT was gone but as we were discussing a plan he whispers “buck right there!” As a decent muley jumps out of the draw. He hammered him 1 shot and we had a second buck to pack out

 

[HuntandFly]

You must be sitting SOF…. I’m glad you finally figured out the best forum to be a member of!

No but I will be Friday

 

[Crusader]

Good stories and well-written!

 

[HuntandFly]

I was the only tag holder left now, and the next morning I hiked back into an area I killed my buck last year. Within 30 minutes and about a half mile of hiking I saw 6 bucks, 4 of which were 4 points and the oldest was a 3.5 year old wide 3 point that looked good but I wasn’t ready to shoot. Hiked another couple miles and saw around 50 total deer and passed all the bucks.

We went back to the same area as the day prior and ran into the landowner who said I made a mistake by not going there first thing in the morning as he had seen a heavy 4x5 while taking the kids to school. Just my luck!

A blizzard was rolling in so we decided to wait in the truck for an hour to try and let it blow through. While waiting, my buddy spots a few does crossing a drainage and sure enough they are followed by what looks like a wide buck. I take a quick look and decide to go make it happen. We hike up in the drainage and I am able to drop him quickly at 280 yards. He is younger and smaller than bucks I passed up that morning but I was happy to have him and he tastes delicious

Thanks for reading if you made it this far, looking forward to this upcoming fall!