Hi All,
Been doing a lot of research over the past few weeks and keep going back and forth on what I want to apply for this year.
A little background first: I drew a Type 6 tag in unit Ninety Eight last year and hunted the first week in November outside of the wilderness area. There were 5 of us up there and I ended up being the only one who harvested an elk. We hiked all over the place, sat and glassed for hours, explored a lot of areas a friendly warden recommended, and found a decent amount of sign but never really got into the elk like we'd hoped to. This year I'd love to hunt an area that has a higher concentration of elk and also less restrictions on where I can and can't go (i.e. less wilderness and minimal private land) so my buddy and I are thinking of burning our preference points (2) and drawing a type 4 tag in what is otherwise a max points unit.
To make it a little more complicated, we would like to hunt the archery season. Neither of us has ever archery hunted before but everyone has a first archery hunt at some point and I figure we've got to start somewhere. I started spearfishing a few years ago and ever since then have been dying to pick up archery. If archery hunting is anything like spearfishing then I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a good time.
Anyways, I know we can draw a general tag (most likely at least based on past odds) but we are leaning towards hunting a cow in a premium unit that doesn't seem to get a lot of archery pressure vs having the any elk tag in a general unit (I know some general units aren't actually any elk but the one's I'd consider hunting are I believe). Both of us would love to have a chance at a bull but putting meat in the freezer is much more important to both of us as is having a fun hunt. I know that the odds of harvesting with archery equipment are much lower but I have to believe that hunting in a unit with 80% + success is going to give us more opportunities and teach us more than hunting a unit with 30%-40% success.
I'm fairly confident on what I want to do but keep going back and forth as I am having trouble finding much info on archery hunting cow elk. Do people generally even bother hunting cows with archery equipment? Is there anything I'm missing or is it just that since so few people hunt cows with a bow that there's not a lot of info out there? I'm concerned that with how little info I've found and my limited experience that I'm missing something most people consider obvious.
I don't need anyone's spots although any advice is always welcome but just looking to get some confirmation that my thinking isn't way out of line so any feedback would be appreciated.
Also, If anyone is willing to share information but wants information on the specific units I'm considering let me know and I can PM you more info. I'm pretty new on here still but have enjoyed reading the HACs and am willing to share what little knowledge I have about NM as well (Been in 51 a few times and worked in the SE corner of the state for awhile). Sometime I'll post up some fish pictures and videos a friend took of some diving trips in the general forum as a lot of people don't see stuff like that all the time.
Cheers,
TX_Diver
Been doing a lot of research over the past few weeks and keep going back and forth on what I want to apply for this year.
A little background first: I drew a Type 6 tag in unit Ninety Eight last year and hunted the first week in November outside of the wilderness area. There were 5 of us up there and I ended up being the only one who harvested an elk. We hiked all over the place, sat and glassed for hours, explored a lot of areas a friendly warden recommended, and found a decent amount of sign but never really got into the elk like we'd hoped to. This year I'd love to hunt an area that has a higher concentration of elk and also less restrictions on where I can and can't go (i.e. less wilderness and minimal private land) so my buddy and I are thinking of burning our preference points (2) and drawing a type 4 tag in what is otherwise a max points unit.
To make it a little more complicated, we would like to hunt the archery season. Neither of us has ever archery hunted before but everyone has a first archery hunt at some point and I figure we've got to start somewhere. I started spearfishing a few years ago and ever since then have been dying to pick up archery. If archery hunting is anything like spearfishing then I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a good time.
Anyways, I know we can draw a general tag (most likely at least based on past odds) but we are leaning towards hunting a cow in a premium unit that doesn't seem to get a lot of archery pressure vs having the any elk tag in a general unit (I know some general units aren't actually any elk but the one's I'd consider hunting are I believe). Both of us would love to have a chance at a bull but putting meat in the freezer is much more important to both of us as is having a fun hunt. I know that the odds of harvesting with archery equipment are much lower but I have to believe that hunting in a unit with 80% + success is going to give us more opportunities and teach us more than hunting a unit with 30%-40% success.
I'm fairly confident on what I want to do but keep going back and forth as I am having trouble finding much info on archery hunting cow elk. Do people generally even bother hunting cows with archery equipment? Is there anything I'm missing or is it just that since so few people hunt cows with a bow that there's not a lot of info out there? I'm concerned that with how little info I've found and my limited experience that I'm missing something most people consider obvious.
I don't need anyone's spots although any advice is always welcome but just looking to get some confirmation that my thinking isn't way out of line so any feedback would be appreciated.
Also, If anyone is willing to share information but wants information on the specific units I'm considering let me know and I can PM you more info. I'm pretty new on here still but have enjoyed reading the HACs and am willing to share what little knowledge I have about NM as well (Been in 51 a few times and worked in the SE corner of the state for awhile). Sometime I'll post up some fish pictures and videos a friend took of some diving trips in the general forum as a lot of people don't see stuff like that all the time.
Cheers,
TX_Diver
