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I had hunted the area in past years and with no elk tag for me this year I figured helping Scoot & Jon a little was a good excuse to tramp around with a bear tag in my pocket. Until this year I had never focused on getting a bear, but almost always had a tag "just in case" when hunting deer or elk. For a variety of reasons I've never even had a shot at a bear in past years.

Honestly I had not seriously expected to even see a bear, so my plan was to either "divide and conquer": me look for bears in one area and keep an eye out for elk for the boys while Scoot & Jon hunted elk elsewhere; or tag along with them to glass, call, or whatever else I could do to help in hopes of stumbling across a bear while we were together.

On that first trip I began gearing up for the day only to realize I had left my bow at home – doh! I had my backup pistol decided to make the most of it. Honestly I felt the odds of finding a bear were slim; however, a few hours later I panned my Vortex binos across the head of a valley and spotted a bear rambling down an open slope! I hastened to close the distance, but lost sight of him during my approach. I guessed him to be within 200-yards below my location, which felt like a “safe” direction to try and call him within range.

I found a place with a commanding view next to some bushes that provided camouflage cover, chambered a round and began wailing on a mouth-blown predator call (electronic calls are not legal to use for bears in New Mexico).

I alternated calling for 5-15 seconds and listening for 30-seconds to a minute for around 10 minutes, at which point the bear suddenly appeared to my right just 10-yards away! I immediately recognized it to be a juvenile: small head, big ears, lankly legs and skinny body. I evaluated my desire to shoot him. With my bow I would have been thrilled to take any bear, but I wasn’t fired up (no pun intended) to shoot this one with a firearm. As I debated whether I wanted to shoot the small bear my 30-second window of opportunity closed when he let out a loud “woof” and bounded back the way he had come. I had absolutely no regrets and was elated to have actually called one in! I didn’t see any more bears on that trip, but counted it a resounding success as it was my first time calling one in.

I crossed paths with them midday as I Baja raced down the forest road toward the area I planned to scope out. Scoot & Jon were pulling up stakes and shifting locations because they hadn't seen much elk sign.

I continued on my way after making plans to meet up with them that evening.

I hiked a big loop through an area I'd hunted several years ago, but only found old elk sign. I curved my way back towards my truck with intentions of meeting Scoot & Jon before dark. I dropped some elevation to follow a drainage and look for bear/elk sign and was suprised to see acorns on the ground - a good sign for bears!

Soon I found a few fresh bear pies loaded witn acorn shells, so I selected a good spot and called for about 20 minutes with no results.

I continued hiking for another 30 minutes and heard a noise. I froze to scan the area and spotted a bear slinking into some brush! I immediately nocked an arrow and began squalling on my call.

After a minute or two the bear moved from behind the bushes and began to circle my position, trying to catch my scent and assess the sounds of a delectable dying animal.

I carefully angled toward his line of travel and our paths slowly converged. Whenever he appeared to lose interest I gave a soft squeal to regain his attention. We both traveled about fifty-yards with the bear partially obscured by trees and brush. Finally I spotted an opening that would allow a clear shot and ranged the distance to be 40-yards.

I drew my bow as the bruin stepped clear I gave a brief squeal with my mouth. He froze and stared intently toward me in a perfect broadside position. I settled my sight pin on his vitals and gently squeezed off my release. My arrow flew true and disappeared into his side! He let out a low huff, spun away and stumbled over a deadfall of logs deposited by past floods.

A copious amount of blood on the gray logs gave me confidence of a lethal hit; however, bowhunting a large predator made me think twice before taking up the blood trail!

I waited about fifteen minutes and ascended the side of the narrow canyon to scan from a safer location. I couldn’t see the bear but verified he wasn’t lying in wait behind the pile of logs to ambush me, so retraced my steps to the shot location and chambered a round in my pistol before following the blood trail.

He appeared to grow before my eyes as I approached. The bruin was a lot bigger than I had realized. His paws were huge and his head enormous. I obviously couldn’t weigh him, but I have a coworker that weighs 250-pounds and this beast was every bit as big and then some.

His teeth were worn and chipped: definitely an old bear. Often New Mexico bears have nearly bald summer hides, but the hide was thick and dark with reddish highlights. This huge boar was everything I could have hoped for in a trophy class bear – what a blessing!

I felt a little guilty knowing I'd be spending all night and most of the next day packing out the meat and hide, having planned to be helping Scoot & Jon, but I knew they'd be happy for my success.

No idea on the skull size yet, but I've since measured the hide to be 6'-6" nose to tail, so he's plenty big for me! I have NOTHING against other methods of bear hunting, but it was certainly satisfying to get one on my own without dogs or bait.

I have to thank our own Bowsiter Paul@thefort Navarre for inspiring me to call a bear with his "famous" bear calling story & photo that's been shared on Bowsite many times.

I like to write hunting stories to share too, but have never posted one play by play on the Bowsite. For those who may be interesed you can read my longer-version at this link.

ElkNut/Paul

Good reading right here Scoot--------->

Good luck, Robb

Plenty of action and and plenty of sign:-)

Now go kill a couple!

Not sure but looks like they are spending an awful lot of time snoozing in the shade! How in the world you gonna kill an elk if your snoozing all day?

They must be using that top secret snoring elk call;-)

Things are looking up! Can’t wait for the follow up and retrieval...

Scoot, pics needed man!

At our expense!

I’m tellin’ you guys, ‘ol Scoot already let the cat out of the bag with his previous pictures showing off the “magic technique”! Heck, looks like those boys had it down to a science;-). Probably gonna market it with a book “Snoozing Your Way To Elk”!

Honestly, the world’s greatest naps are definitely when out hunting elk. I sleep better on the rocks, sticks and pine cones than I ever do in a bed.

Can’t wait till the next installment...

Now y’all need one more! Go get em!

P.S. Kia says it's not the size of the bull that matters it's the size of the hunt!

ElkNut/Paul

Success rates for archery generally bounce around 10%. That's for ANY elk, cow, bull, spike, raghorn (I cringe at that term - it's a freakin' legal bull!) and monsters. That means 90% of us eat tag soup. Getting anywhere in that 10% means you're elite.

I firmly believe the circumstances and hunt conditions help determine the quality of the trophy. A P&Y bull on day 1 five minutes into the hunt may only be so-so. A spike bull after 14 days of hard hunting is a real memory. IMO a clean kill on a unicorn bull at single-digit yards is infinitely more of a trophy than a 340 bull wounded at 100 yards, lost, and the only antlers recovered days later with the meat gone to the coyotes and ravens.

I'm DANG PROUD of Scoot! And I can't fault him in the least. You get the drop on an elk at spitting distance it's tough to justify passing on the shot. When I choose to drop the string on any animal, it's a trophy to me. None of us should care one bit if it's a trophy to anybody else.

Congrats Scoot! I wish you would have gotten the drop on one a couple days earlier so I could have helped you pack it out. I might have passed on the whiskey though...yuck! LOL

Come on, guys! I have faith in you Minnesota boys beating those odds twice in one hunt! Come on Jon!

That “magic technique” has potential - give ‘er hell boys!

But that has to be most MINIMAL 'guided' hunt ever. I thought NM required at least 2 days of guiding to eligible for the 'Guide Pool'?

That last video is great, that's a heck of a mule buck, cool to see the elk chase him off!

I hunted 15 ML years ago. Never saw huge bulls BUT the antlers I saw in several trucks were UNREAL.

Nice pics!

Then a couple days later while we were chasing elk I looked down to realize that somewhere in the chase my rangefinder had come unclipped from it's harness and was laying on the mountain....somewhere.. (S4 evo) I was never happy with that system of attaching my rangefinder. Searched for it for awhile but no luck.

The bow hanger, now that one really made me mad. I borrowed my $3 dollar screw in bow hanger to Scoot and he lost it, no idea where....and he didn't even buy me a new one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F55olo6F94

Congrats fellas!

Carl, congrats on your bear too!

Scoot eventually reached cell service as they began the long haul home. He filled me in with the majority of the story he posted here. It was well after dark and they had a LOOONNNGGGG drive ahead of them. I asked what their plans were for stopping for the night and Scoot replied that they hadn't really thought it through.

I told them at their rate of travel the'd probably hit ABQ sometime before midnight and we'd have a spare bedroom that was bigger than their tent and a hot shower waiting for them. "Um honey, these you know those bowhunters I was with earlier this week? Well they could use a shower and a place to crash so they're coming by the house late tonight after being in the woods for 10 days..." LOL

They arrived ahead of schedule and it was my pleasure to put them up, feed them breakfast burritos the next morning, admire their well-earned trophies and wish them safe travels. These two are top-notch guys and fun to be around.

Hopefully they'll get another chance at a NM bull soon.

Scoot said, "I silently completely agreed with him." That's priceless brother.

Smarba seems like my kind of people.

This was a great story guys. It illustrates why we do it and, the friendships we make along the way, while we are doing it. Just great stuff men.

Thanks for sharing

Congrats

Good luck, Robb