CFMuley’s 2023 Hunting Adventures

This year started as my last few have by guiding in Mexico. We had a great season, and got our clients on a lot of awesome animals. Towards the end of the season I had a couple days to hunt for myself.

I had plans of hunting the deer I killed, but we hadn’t been keeping tabs on him lately, and I wasn’t sure how it would go. We knew the general area he was in, and decided to go see if we could turn him up.

Within 20 minutes of leaving the ranch house we jumped about a dozen does off the side of the road. There were a couple smaller bucks at first, but nothing I was interested in. As I worked through the brush I could see a bigger bodied deer tucked back in the brush. As soon as I could see enough antler to confirm it was him I took the shot, and he took off running.

My shot was definitely not perfect, and he required some tracking, but I was able to get another round into him and finish the job.

My next hunt of the year was red stag in Argentina. The hunt was mostly spot and stalk covering 8-10 miles a day walking. The food, property, and most of the people were awesome. The outfitter himself was a little shady though. I’d love to go back someday with a different outfit.

My next hunt of the year was OTC Barbary sheep in New Mexico. I went down for the opener of the season with 4 buddies and couldn’t believe the amount of people there. We were seeing sheep, but the pressure was insane, and we just couldn’t make it happen.

About a week later I had some free time and decided to give it another go. I drove 12 hours through the night to get to the unit, and got there right at daylight. There were 2 spots I really wanted to check for sheep. The first spot turned up nothing, but as I was driving up to the second I could see sheep skylined up on top of the mesa.

There was roughly 20 sheep in the group and they were all feeding down into a cut on the backside of the mesa. I snuck to where I could see into the cut and they were all feeding 150-200 yards away from me. I watched them for about 20 minutes until I was confident I was on a dry ewe.

I was able to get a good shot into her, and she went down. I quartered her up, and hauled her out in one load. I got back to my truck at about 8:30 and then drove 12 hours home.

While checking on ranches in Mexico I got the opportunity to go after a scimitar horned oryx. We attempted to hunt them with bows for an evening, but we were limited on time so the next morning I borrowed the ranch managers old 30-06 with mismatched ammo. We sorted through a handful of bulls before I found one I wanted.

We snuck into 175-200 yards before getting setup. I was resting on a trigger stick tripod and thought it’d be a simple shot. Apparently the rifle was as “dead on” as they claimed and it ended up getting a little sideways. 4 shots later I had a bull on the ground.

My next hunt of the year was my annual bear hunt in Montana. last year I saw 14 bears and killed a 6.5’ boar. I was hoping for similar luck this year, but the hunting proved to be tough.

The first 4 days of my hunt I walked logging roads and glassed all day long without seeing a bear. On the evening of my fifth day I saw a small bear off the road that I ended up passing. The evening of the 6th day I spotted a bear 4.5 miles away with no hope of getting to it.

The 7th day started slow, and I wasn’t seeing much of anything. I decided to just try a spot I’ve never hunted before and hope for the best. I drove the road and glassed clear cuts for most of the evening and decided to walk a logging road for the last 45 minutes of daylight.

I walked about a half mile down this closed road that wound through an old clear cut. The road was super grassy and looked perfect. While walking the road I was looking at the grass to check for signs of a bear feeding. As I was rounding a bend in the road I jumped a bear at about 15’.

He made a break for the brush, and stopped to look back right before he disappeared forever. I pulled my rifle off my shoulder, popped open my scope caps, and managed to get off a shot within a couple seconds. The bear tore off, but didn’t show any signs of being hit.

I made my way to where he was standing and found about a dime sized spot of blood. I sat and listened for a death moan or any crashing, but heard nothing. I slowly started walking into the brush, but wasn’t seeing anymore blood. I was starting to get worried when I walked up on him piled up about 15 yards into the brush.

At 5’9” nose to tail he isn’t my biggest bear, but a solid boar none the less. I continued hunting with my cousin for a couple days and he was able to shoot a super pretty blonde boar. I’m headed to Alberta next week for another bear hunt so hopefully the luck continues.