My 2020 hunt planning started like any other year by going through the application deadlines published in the Huntin’ Fool magazine. Not much has changed in my annual strategy, but this year, my kids were older (14, 12, and 9 years old) and it was time to use some of the points we had been accumulating and make that hunting dream a reality. We live in South Florida where we do tons of fishing and some hunting, but I had never had the chance to take the kids for an elk or mule deer hunt out west.
I was going to apply for most of the youth hunts available in some of the key states, but I knew the odds for most of those tags were not very good. I decided to put my two oldest kids in the adult draws for elk and deer so I could improve their odds of drawing a tag. After analyzing the information published by Huntin’ Fool, I was ready to narrow my selection and start applying for the hunts. Arizona was the first state in which we applied for elk, and we selected a unit during the late rifle season. We also applied for mule deer in Utah in the Zion unit. To my surprise, the kids drew the Arizona elk tags and the Utah mule deer tags!
Now the fun started, and I needed to start planning the logistics of the trips. After speaking with some very impressive outfitters recommended by Huntin’ Fool, COVID threw a wrench in our plans and I was not in a financial position to hire an outfitter, so these hunts were going to be self-guided. The units we drew were huge, and I needed to narrow the search. I enjoy doing online scouting by using the online platform from Huntin’ Fool, but there is another tool which I learned about a few years ago during a successful self-guided Colorado elk hunt. It’s the Member Draw List. I learned how resourceful this list could be after I spoke with many members who had hunted the same unit before. Everyone I spoke with was extremely cordial and helpful. Through my conversations with HF members, I was able to not only make friends, but the conversations also assisted me in narrowing the unit to a few key locations.
Our first hunt was for mule deer during the early October season in Utah. I flew out a few days before the hunt by myself so the kids would not miss much school while I spent time scouting the area. My kids and wife were scheduled to arrive the day before opening day. The plan worked perfectly as I was able to find a great spot with a lot of deer traffic. They were in the process of starting their annual migration. All we needed now was a change in the weather since it was still too warm and the deer were not moving. Our hunt was a great success. The kids not only enjoyed the hunt, but they also had the opportunity to visit two great national parks. My wife and I rotated the kids between hunting and visiting a national park every day, and that turned out great.
The last day of the hunt, we got the break in the weather we had been waiting for. We started to see deer moving early morning, and there were a few very mature bucks. Unfortunately, we were unable to get to the mature deer. However, my oldest son, Gustavo Ray, took a shot at his first ever deer at 380 yards that morning. This was a memorable family trip in the beautiful Zion National Park area.
The season was not over yet. We still had to get ready for our Arizona elk hunt, and I still needed to work on the planning, scouting, and logistics. I knew the weather would be much colder and the hunt was going to be somewhat different. After discussing the unit with multiple Huntin’ Fool members, I narrowed my search to a few spots. This time, the kids were off from school the full week of Thanksgiving, and the whole family and family friends were able to fly to Arizona a few days earlier and do some scouting before opening day.
The weather during the days before opening day was gorgeous and we were able to locate few nice, mature bulls. We were counting the days and hours before opening day when Mother Nature decided to change the plans. We woke up that morning to very low visibility and a lot of snow. It was impossible to get to the area where we had seen the elk days before. We decided to go to a lower altitude area with better visibility where we also saw a few smaller elk days before opening day. We were able to locate a few fresh elk spoors that morning from the knob we were glassing and decided to follow the tracks. After four hours and six miles, we were able to get to the herd of elk. It turned out to be a group of cows and a few spikes, but the experience with the kids tracking the elk and being able to locate them was priceless.
Although I selected this unit thinking it was going to be easy, it turned out to be a lot more difficult than I expected. Three days after opening day, in which we had seen elk every day, we were unable to locate the large bulls we saw the day before opening day. As such, we decided to change tactics and started to look into new areas. I was fortunate to stay in touch with one of the outfitters I spoke with during our planning process, and that last afternoon of our hunt, he told me to go to a particular place I had not hunted before. We were able to make it to the new location at around 3 p.m., and right before sunset, we spotted a few smaller bulls. They were about one and a half miles across the ridge from where we were, so we needed to work on a plan to get closer for a shot. I asked the kids if they wanted to take those bulls, and they both said, “Yes!”
The two bulls were feeding in a small opening surrounded by dark timber. I knew the only chance we had to get closer was through a small saddle on top of them from the other side of the mountain. We made the long trek and were able to get to 450 yards. My middle son, Santiago, took the shot with the .300 Win and the bull took off. I was unable to see where he hit him, but I knew he was hit. We decided to wait and give him some time before looking for the bull. After an hour, it was already dark and we decided to look for him. To our surprise, the bull was just a few yards from where my son had shot him. By 10 p.m., we had finished quartering and getting the meat in bags. The temperature dropped to 5 degrees, and I decided to take as much of a load as we could that night and come back in the morning for the rest of the meat and skull.
We woke up at 4 a.m. and drove back to the place where we left the bags of meat and skull. I told my wife that I was going to drop the meat at the processor and by 11 a.m. we should be picking her and my little one up to go to the airport. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 4 p.m. from the Albuquerque airport, which was about three hours away from where we were. As we started the walk that morning, we spotted another bull just a few yards from us. This was Gustavo Ray’s chance to fill his elk tag. My son got in position on the ground, I gave him my backpack to rest the rifle, and he took a long, deep breath. He took a perfect shot, dropping the elk in its track. We had now filled two elk tags and had a flight to catch in a few hours.
2020 was a tough year, but our family will never forget my kids’ first elk and deer hunting trip out west!
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