Empty Nester
Member
- Messages
- 41
1st - thank you to all those individuals who I spoke with over the spring and summer. Your advice and wisdom were greatly appreciated.
Story - I was fortunate to have drawn the 6B (Valles Caldera) 2nd rifle hunt for October 22 -26. I was completely caught off guard to learn that the Valles Caldera was a National Park/Preserve. For some reason, I thought it was a National Forest, similar to the VV. Once I got that through my head and realized that I would have to play by the rules that are in place, my wife and I began the scouting process. We were able to get five scouting trips in during the summer. The VC is just to big to cover by two people, so we split the unit into four sections and decided that we would hunt the North East corner of the park (no real reason why we chose this - just a gut feel when looking at the map and evaluating our first drive through the park). We never saw one elk during our hikes. This was not a surprise because we could only enter at 0900 and had to be out by 1700. We were able to locate quite a bit of sign in some areas. These were the areas where we would focus our efforts for the hunt.
Myself (Tim - 56) and one of my son's father in law (Fred - 71) left Carlsbad on Tuesday (10/18) to get camp set up. My wife (Wendy -56) had flown to Idaho Falls, ID to pick up my father (Bruce -85) and drove him down to camp. It was important for me to have my father in camp with me. Unfortunately, he is slowing down and not sure how many more camps he has left in him. My wife and I scouted Wednesday and Thursday. Friday was the hunter orientation and steaks for dinner.
Saturday we were at the main entrance at 0330 (we were told not to enter the park until 0400). Once inside the entrance, we headed to the NE corner of the park. My wife and I headed up the trail and Bruce and Fred stayed in the truck. They would give us a 60 minute head start and then they would walk in a mile to a vantage point to glass and communicate with us if they saw anything. We were immediately hearing elk all around us. Wendy and I had gone about 3/4 of a mile up the trail and decided to stop and wait for it to get a little lighter outside (the bulls were talking in every direction). I wasn't comfortable walking through them. This decision paid off. We moved another 1/2 mile up the trail and was met with a piercing bugle. We hit the ground and after a couple of minutes of looking, we found the bull in a small clearing. I still had my pack on and was having trouble getting comfortable. I removed the pack and looked back at my wife for the shooting sticks. She had already slid them to me - she had already read my mind (scary). My thought process was simple. This was a good bull (not huge but big enough), my wife was with me as she has been for the past two elk seasons, my father and father-in-law were only a short distance behind us and this was a meadow they could get too. One shot and the hunt was over. We called on the radio and asked them to continue walking up the trail. Wendy asked if we could go see the bull while we waited. I asked her to wait out of respect for my father and let him be the first one to the elk, she was onboard. We met on the trail and walked the 200 hundred yards up into the meadow and had an amazing family experience. As always, dad provided the instructions on cleaning and quartering the elk. Fred returned to the truck and came back with a hauling cart. We got the elk from the meadow and into the cart and enjoyed the walk back to the truck.
We stayed a couple more days just to enjoy each others company. Once we ran out of lies, dad headed north and I came back south. This was a great hunt and one I will never forget.
EN
Story - I was fortunate to have drawn the 6B (Valles Caldera) 2nd rifle hunt for October 22 -26. I was completely caught off guard to learn that the Valles Caldera was a National Park/Preserve. For some reason, I thought it was a National Forest, similar to the VV. Once I got that through my head and realized that I would have to play by the rules that are in place, my wife and I began the scouting process. We were able to get five scouting trips in during the summer. The VC is just to big to cover by two people, so we split the unit into four sections and decided that we would hunt the North East corner of the park (no real reason why we chose this - just a gut feel when looking at the map and evaluating our first drive through the park). We never saw one elk during our hikes. This was not a surprise because we could only enter at 0900 and had to be out by 1700. We were able to locate quite a bit of sign in some areas. These were the areas where we would focus our efforts for the hunt.
Myself (Tim - 56) and one of my son's father in law (Fred - 71) left Carlsbad on Tuesday (10/18) to get camp set up. My wife (Wendy -56) had flown to Idaho Falls, ID to pick up my father (Bruce -85) and drove him down to camp. It was important for me to have my father in camp with me. Unfortunately, he is slowing down and not sure how many more camps he has left in him. My wife and I scouted Wednesday and Thursday. Friday was the hunter orientation and steaks for dinner.
Saturday we were at the main entrance at 0330 (we were told not to enter the park until 0400). Once inside the entrance, we headed to the NE corner of the park. My wife and I headed up the trail and Bruce and Fred stayed in the truck. They would give us a 60 minute head start and then they would walk in a mile to a vantage point to glass and communicate with us if they saw anything. We were immediately hearing elk all around us. Wendy and I had gone about 3/4 of a mile up the trail and decided to stop and wait for it to get a little lighter outside (the bulls were talking in every direction). I wasn't comfortable walking through them. This decision paid off. We moved another 1/2 mile up the trail and was met with a piercing bugle. We hit the ground and after a couple of minutes of looking, we found the bull in a small clearing. I still had my pack on and was having trouble getting comfortable. I removed the pack and looked back at my wife for the shooting sticks. She had already slid them to me - she had already read my mind (scary). My thought process was simple. This was a good bull (not huge but big enough), my wife was with me as she has been for the past two elk seasons, my father and father-in-law were only a short distance behind us and this was a meadow they could get too. One shot and the hunt was over. We called on the radio and asked them to continue walking up the trail. Wendy asked if we could go see the bull while we waited. I asked her to wait out of respect for my father and let him be the first one to the elk, she was onboard. We met on the trail and walked the 200 hundred yards up into the meadow and had an amazing family experience. As always, dad provided the instructions on cleaning and quartering the elk. Fred returned to the truck and came back with a hauling cart. We got the elk from the meadow and into the cart and enjoyed the walk back to the truck.
We stayed a couple more days just to enjoy each others company. Once we ran out of lies, dad headed north and I came back south. This was a great hunt and one I will never forget.
EN
