2022 was starting off to be a great year, and on March 23rd, it became even better. That was the day my fiance´, Gwen, and I were talking with her brother, James, and made the decision to go on a late season elk hunt in San Carlos, Arizona.
Over the years, James has become a close friend of the legendary elk guide, Homer Stevens. After a quick call and conversation with Homer, we found out there were a few tags leftover from the draw and made the decision on short notice to buy three tags and book Homer and his guide service for the late season hunt in the Malay Gap area of the San Carlos reservation.
Fast forward nine months and a few North Dakota blizzards later and we had our 12-foot enclosed trailer loaded up and ready to make the 1,500-mile trek to Arizona. After a sketchy drive through Western New Mexico during an ice storm and blizzard and a few pit stops along the way to pick up some Arizona petrified wood, we made it to our destination – Globe, Arizona.
We met up with Homer and his family for lunch before heading up to camp to get the lowdown on the hunt. It didn’t take long for us to realize the conditions were less than ideal up on the mountain. There had been a few days of rain that made even the worst of roads back in the Midwest look like pavement, not to mention that two days into our hunt they were calling for an Arizona blizzard. Only a crew from North Dakota could bring in something like that to the desert.
We got nestled into camp that night and met our guides for the week. The stories they told during our hunt about the elk of San Carlos were absolutely amazing and worth the trip alone. I needed to be pinched every so often during that week to make sure I wasn’t dreaming that I was here. The decision was made that all three of us would split up during the week to cover more ground and increase our odds of finding bulls.
The first morning proved to be a great day once the fog lifted. Gwen and her guide, Mario, had spotted five nice 6x6 bulls that were right on the unit boundary. They needed to feed down about 300 yards to be in our unit to make a play on them. These bulls kept us occupied all week as we could only dream of a scenario where one of the three of us could get an opportunity at a bull of this caliber.
We hunted hard that first day knowing the incoming storm could change a lot of things in a hurry. Being a migration hunt, the weather could also be of benefit as it was starting to push a lot more elk into the unit. The key would be glassing them up in this thick country full of mahogany and juniper trees.
Sitting around our wood stove reminiscing on the first day of the unit, James made a comment about how he thought tomorrow will be the day. The last time he hunted here, he shot his bull in a similar situation on the day a storm was rolling in.
Day two, we awoke to alarms at 3:45 a.m. and made our way up the mountain. Due to the road conditions and creeks we had to cross, it took us anywhere from two and a half to three hours to make the 10-mile drive up to our hunting unit from camp. We tried to glass those five bulls back up to no avail. The decision was made after a morning of glassing to split up again and go three separate ways, which proved to be the best decision of the week.
James and his guide, Chris, took off down a trail that hadn’t been used yet during the hunt. Upon reaching the end of the trail, Chris spotted a very respectable bull across the canyon at over 1,000 yards. They quickly made a scramble across the rim to get in position for a shot. After a fast hike over to the edge of the canyon, James got set up for a 680-yard shot. The bull was behind some brush, and both had thought that he had escaped and missed their opportunity. After a few seconds, the bull doubled back and remerged, giving James a narrow window to make the shot. After Chris gave the OK, James squeezed off a shot from his 6.5x284 that connected on this San Carlos bull at 680 yards.
The two of them made the long trek back around the canyon to get over where the bull was to only find that he had dropped off the side of the cliff and slid down 200 yards towards the river bottom and was caught by one small tree, holding him from sliding the rest of the way down. James and Chris were able to use parachute cord to tie the bull off and keep him in place while they quartered him up. Keep in mind that there was a blizzard that was supposed to be hitting in less than six hours.
Knowing what the conditions were going to be sooner than later, they had to make some sacrifices, which included leaving a pack behind and some gear. Chris made the decision that they needed to get the whole bull out in one trip because he knew they would not be able to get back there after the storm dumped another foot or two of snow on the mountain.
Upon arrival at camp that evening, we found two very exhausted individuals who were able to get the whole bull out in one trip. Luckily for them, they had all week to rest and recover from a grueling pack out that they’ll never forget.
The impending storm dropped its fair share of snow that night and made it a very interesting week with on and off snow flurries and looming fog that made glassing a little bit trickier. Gwen and her guide, Mario, focused on turning up those bulls the rest of the week to no avail, and I was fortunate enough to harvest a cow during the week.
As we headed home, we couldn’t wipe the smiles off our faces as we were loaded down with two elk, a “ton” of petrified wood, and the world’s hottest snacks. When one has time to reflect on a hunt like this, it isn’t about the biggest bull being shot, making sure no one has tag soup, or getting mad about conditions one cannot control. It is truly about realizing how lucky we are to be able to do things like this and make memories that will keep us smiling for the rest of our lives with the ones we love the most.
A special thanks to Homer Stevens for running a top-notch guide service. My hat’s off to you and your crew for showing us the Apache way! With any luck, we will back again someday to hunt in San Carlos.
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