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 Article Contributed by:
Richard E. Westwood
Highland, UT
As I drove the 600 + miles from Highland, Utah to Ross Johnson Outfitters outside of Magalena, New
Mexico I wasn't sure what to expect. I'm fifty six years old and after years of trying to draw a really top elk tag, by putting in year after year, in five western States. I decided to buy one
tag a year and enjoy some top quality hunts. This was my third and most costly tag. In 1996, I got the lower cost management bull tag on Desert Land and Livestock, you can only
harvest a five point bull on this tag and I got a nice bull. In the summer of 1997, I found a Bitter Creek, Book Cliffs tag for sale and took a nice 6X6
bull with 47 inch main beam. In October of 1997, I booked this 1998 New Mexico Hunt through John Andres, Wilderness Outfitters, I called Ross Johnson on October of 1997 and talked with one of his guides and about
the hunts they had available. I choose and October Muzzle loader hunt as the odds for a huge bull sounded better.
Now as I drove along I thought about the events leading up to the hunt.
As luck would have it I had drawn a dual Book Cliffs bull tag with my son Neal this year and we tool two nice 6X6 bulls on that hunt, also my friend
Neil Peterson, drew a bull tag on Blue Mountain, Unit 10 in Colorado and we filled that tag with a nice 6X6 bull. So now as I drove to New Mexico
with these great draw tags filled, I'm wondering how would a paid-for, guided hunt be with people and places I'd never met or seen.
I located Ross's Lodge down a ten mile dirt road, after short hellos and
tag checking my camp leader, Pat, took me to shoot my muzzle loader. The first thing I discovered was a plugged nipple from the last time I had
cleaned it. Well I had both a spare nipple and a spare gun, so I promptly changed the nipple and laid in a Saboted Knight 300 Jacket bullet three
inches high and on center at 100 yards. Pat was happy. I'm shooting a 50 caliber T/C Arms FireHawk which I got a great discount on through an
offer to Hunters Education instructors in Utah, and had already used a similar gun, the T/C Thunderhawk. I had wanted a second gun I could mount with a scope for New Mexico; I used a T/C variable matte Black
scope. When I first sighted in the gun at 50 yards in Utah is took me only eight shots to zero it in with the last three touching. This is absolutely the best shooting gun I have ever owned. I used two 50/50
prodex pellets and the above mentioned Knight bullet which I choose from reading some tests ran by Outdoor Life's Shooting Editor - Jim Carmichel.
After sight in and gun clean up I followed Pat and several guides and
hunters back up the dirt road and on to our hunting camp, one catch, my assigned guide AAron hadn't shown up and didn't show up until we left on
the first days hunt the next morning at 4 AM. So I really was still in the dark about where we were hunting and the game plan, etc. I decided to
make the best of it and prepared all my equipment and was ready to go early. As I came to understand the system the outfitter followed is was to divide the hunting area up so conflicts should not occur between
hunters.
Whether by accident, I don't know, but we had as area with another
guide and hunter, an area where several nice bulls and a herd of cows had been spotted. Our first look at what Ross calls BIG TIME ELK!
Aaron and I were dropped off in a flat area and we walked about an hour
in the dark to a water hole he knew, at dawn we spotted elk out on the flat coming our way, a young bull and cow came right up the draw past us at 85 yards and a couple hundred yards out where two huge bulls,
they were coming our way and it looked like a short great hunt.
I stayed hunkered down so as to not spook the elk, then all of a sudden
the next bull jerked his head up, whirled and took out the whole herd, next thing we heard was the other guide and hunter on the hill above us. Spooked elk are hard to catch and we didn't catch these.
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