We had a great time chasing elk in Western New Mexico. This was our first elk hunt and we were lucky enough to get it done. It was a great experience and one that I'll remember forever with my old man.
After walking 8+ miles a day trying to get on them, we were able to find this guy and his 9 cows across a canyon on Sunday morning. The lead cow was heading toward a finger that would put them out of sight, so I went ahead and took the shot at 486 yards. I was shooting my custom 6.5 PRC with all the long range bells and whistles and new full well it could do the job, but that's still a pretty good poke where I come from when you've got the shakes.
Upon skinning, the first shot looked like it would have been fatal, but I ended up putting 3 more in him to get him down for sure. 1 of those three was a Barnes LRX (other three being ELD-X) that would have hit him going at about 2362 FPS, and to say I'm disappointed in it's performance is an understatement. As we all know, those bullets need speed to really mushroom like you want (they claim they need 2000fps, but will expand at as slow as 1600FPS), and this one barely poked a hole through the lungs. Granted it did not hit any bone on the way in, that performance is enough for me to put them away.
All's well that ends well, and after taking some pictures with him it was time to get him out of there. The crazy ******* guiding us decided that we would put him on a 20 year old Yamaha 400, and drive him roughly 3/4er of a mile through some hairy, and steep, terrain to where they had moved the pickup. We thought they were crazy, but they were able to get it done. To say that part of the trip was Western was an understatement, and I feel bad for that little four wheeler. There's a picture below of the bull tied up like a Christmas gift on the back rack that I'm still laughing at.
At the urging of the guides I kept the heart. I'd never had it, but we fried it up a few days ago and it was good! Not sure it tasted much different than any other cut of venison, but kind of cool nonetheless. Thanks for reading along, and I look forward to chasing these things as much as I can in the future.
MZ
After walking 8+ miles a day trying to get on them, we were able to find this guy and his 9 cows across a canyon on Sunday morning. The lead cow was heading toward a finger that would put them out of sight, so I went ahead and took the shot at 486 yards. I was shooting my custom 6.5 PRC with all the long range bells and whistles and new full well it could do the job, but that's still a pretty good poke where I come from when you've got the shakes.
Upon skinning, the first shot looked like it would have been fatal, but I ended up putting 3 more in him to get him down for sure. 1 of those three was a Barnes LRX (other three being ELD-X) that would have hit him going at about 2362 FPS, and to say I'm disappointed in it's performance is an understatement. As we all know, those bullets need speed to really mushroom like you want (they claim they need 2000fps, but will expand at as slow as 1600FPS), and this one barely poked a hole through the lungs. Granted it did not hit any bone on the way in, that performance is enough for me to put them away.
All's well that ends well, and after taking some pictures with him it was time to get him out of there. The crazy ******* guiding us decided that we would put him on a 20 year old Yamaha 400, and drive him roughly 3/4er of a mile through some hairy, and steep, terrain to where they had moved the pickup. We thought they were crazy, but they were able to get it done. To say that part of the trip was Western was an understatement, and I feel bad for that little four wheeler. There's a picture below of the bull tied up like a Christmas gift on the back rack that I'm still laughing at.
At the urging of the guides I kept the heart. I'd never had it, but we fried it up a few days ago and it was good! Not sure it tasted much different than any other cut of venison, but kind of cool nonetheless. Thanks for reading along, and I look forward to chasing these things as much as I can in the future.
MZ
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