6th Prize
Hunting Journal with Weatherby Logo (100 awarded)
Kurt Lough, Texas
“A Dream Hunt of a lifetime in my words simply starts like this. Weatherby emailing me the news that I am the winner and that I should contact my sister and father immediately to start our packing. We will pack for an all inclusive Big Bull elk hunting trip into the Gila Wilderness WMA of Southwestern New Mexico at the end of October. It is a location that I have applied for a license a few times before, but I have not been drawn yet. I still have hopes that my time is near. The dream is dear to me, my father (Murlin Lough), older sister(Beryl Lough Miller) and I (Kurt Lough) as we make our way toward base camp after the hussle of aircrafts and rental cars is over. We can focus on base camp which is set up near the Gila River down in the valley. An unbelievable site to behold as the smoke of a campfire rolls off of the tents into the breeze as we approach it.
The entire outfitting staff calls us near once we reach the main tent. We are introduced to all of the staff and guides in camp. Then told of whom shall take us deeper into the Gila forest that surrounds us. The sounds of the Gila River is noisy in the background of base camp as the crystal clear water rushes over the pebbles and rocks on its way downstream filled with Rainbow or Brown trout.
Our new guide, Ray, wakes us from the daydream of the river music and he is filled with anticipation of what we shall hear or see each day of our journey. Ray has been spotting huge herds of elk just days before we arrived. After we pack our things onto a beautiful string of horses and pack mules, we continue our journey into the unknown. The deep forest above us on the Mogollon mountains is dark and green with the tall Aspen and fir trees swaying in the northern breeze of a cold front approaching. Our eyes gaze wide at the sights of moose near the creeks below us, bald eagles flying over head, mule deer bouncing over the ridge in front of us, even coyotes calling in the distant as we pass along the mountain paths toward our satellite camp 12 miles deep into the Gila.
With our first evening in camp, we can see a few small herd of elk across the mountain tops. As night begins to fall, the bugling of bulls grows louder. At times it seems the big bulls will run right through camp in pursuit of the cows. With supper around the campfire that night we decide who gets to go first for their bull elk. We decide that age is the deciding factor and my dad shoots first, then my sister up next. I will try to video everything that happens to them along the way, then it will be my turn up to bat. Our dream hunt video will be like an academy awarded film that we cannot wait to share with everyone we know or meet. Now that it is time to rest or sleep we can barely close our eyes...so ready for the days to come.
In an instant, we are up with coffee in hand and bacon on the pan. The big bulls are all around us still in search of loved ones, as our guide, Ray, gives us the plan. We take the horses a bit further to the tops of the ridges, then by foot we shall go. With the morning breezes flowing up the mountains we are waiting for our first sightings of elk. While daylight approaches in the sky, so does the elk slowly working their way to the pasture that we are watching. After the first group of cows clears the forest walls, so does the monster 6x7 bull elk we have been hearing on our way up the mountain. As my 80–year–old dad tries to steady himself for a possible shot, Ray gives the verbal okay. With me behind the camera waiting for some response out of my dad, we realize he has not heard a thing we said. Ray trys to give the okay again, but this time with hand signals and my dad responds with a crisp crack of his old .30–06. The big bull barely stumbles while he tries to keep up with the herd, but does not make it across the clearing before he crashes to the timber. As we all start to jump with joy, my dad is speechless and he wants to watch the herd move on before he approaches his trophy. While we walk back to the horses, it hits my dad and he is over come with joy, so we decide to sit down to catch our breath. As he tells us that it happened to fast and he wants this experience to slow down. He wants to absorb all of the sites, sounds and emotions of all of us being with him on this very Special day.
You see, my dad taught me to hunt and fish from a very early age. I shot my first deer at age eight, but I had been hunting for rabbit, ducks or squirrels a few years before that as long as I could tag along. I have been following my dad through the woods and marshes of Texas all my life. I would not change any of it, unless it was to have more time with my dad. My dad has hunted mule deer, elk and bear many times before. He has been successful on his hunts, but these hunts were not with me. These hunts were with some of his most dear and trusted friends. To date, my dad and I have only been elk hunting together once and it was in Montana on a friend’s ranch. No bulls were found then, but we did get a cow elk and had a fantastic time on this adventure.
Now that my dad is up around 80 years old and so many things happen to him to make him feel bad or unhealthy, including him loosing his sight. It is simular to macular degeneration, where his blood vessels burst in his eyes and the bleeding causes his eye site to get worse. Although he can still see, those gray morning and evenings are pretty tough on him. Also his right shooting eye is better than his left eye. He has had many steroid shots into his eyes and that appears to have stopped his bleeding for now. So when he hunts with us, regardless of where or what we hunt, each moment to him is a precious one. Yet at this point he feels he cannot see good enough to pay to go on a big hunt like this again?
Then there is my older sister, Beryl. She also has been around hunting her whole life. Yet she had not been interested in it at all until the last few years (maybe five). Now she goes nuts over deer hunting each year and has recently shot her best eight–point to date. I have managed a small ranch (just south of Austin, Texas) for the last 15 years and we have been fortunate enough to be able to lease it for my family to hunt on. Beryl is an elementary school teacher and shares her hunts, pictures and stories with all of her kids. She shows much more emotions now during the hunts than I do and buck fever overcomes her many times.
My dad loves every minute of this and it is more fun for him to watch or listen to her than watching me being quite or patient about taking a shot when I see a nice deer. I do still get shook up, but I can control my emotions and the process that I go through preparing to shoot more than my sister. I have simply done it much more and more often, cause I like the saying of shoot more and shoot more often! For all of us to be together or share a time and a hunt like this would simply be INCREDIBLE! No words really could discribe it.
We get up from our rest after my dad shot his bull. We get on the horses and ride over to admire the massive set of antlers on this huge bull elk my dad just shot. The closer we get, the more powerful our emotions become and we could not take any pictures of this event without tears in our eyes. My dad was speechless, yet you could not have pulled off that smile from his face with a team of Budweiser Clydesdale horses. Ray quickly brings us back to reality as we quarter up this beast of the forest. By the time we finish packing my dad’s bull on the horses and head back to the satilite camp, it appears we will have a few more hours of daylight left. Ray decides to make it across two more ridges that we had not been on yet in case some new bulls had moved into the area. No sooner than we get down off of the mountain near the valley floor and tie up the horses, we hear the commotion of two bull elk in a serious fight. I mean it sounds like an 18–wheeler trying to drive through the forest. It seems that we cannot grab our guns fast enough to get to the scene. Once we make it to the edge of this small clearing, we start to make out the large herd of elk on the opposite side. As we slip the last few feet between the firs, the fight is still on. I begin to record what appears to a big 6x6 challenger trying to whip an older and larger 7x7 dominant bull.
Ray is trying to get my sister into position for a shot on either one of them. The muddy grass is just flying over their head as they kick, shove, push and slam into each other. It is an amazing sight to see or witness as these two bulls mean business. The rest of the herd are either eating or standing near the treeline also watching these two giants give it their all. With the shade of sunset covering the valley that we are in, shooting light is fading fast. The 7x7 then throws the smaller bull to the ground, but I think it was only because he tripped over a downed tree. Once the 6x6 got back to his feet he backed off in an attempt to catch his breath. That’s when I hear Beryl’s rifle click off of safety and Ray saying take him, ‘TAKE HIM NOW.’ As I turn to see how she was doing, I kept the camera on the big bull. I can spot the barrel of her gun going in a circle almost, as she is so shaken up. I try to zoom out with the camera to catch her in the scene, but not quick enough as her gun blast out a ball of fire. As she reloads I cannot tell which bull she has shot as they both start to advance towards each other again for another round.
Beryl is about to shoot again, suddenly the huge 7x 7 drops to his belly. Without stopping the 6x6 bull runs in and rams the downed bull. As they are still locked in horns our trusty guide starts to run into the meadow waving his hat and hollering at the 6x6 bull to run him off. The younger bull is not paying any attention to Ray, as he grabs his sidearm and shoots into the ground. This shakes the two bulls apart and the 6x6 began to run away in victory towards his newly acquired cows. As we are sitting there in awe of what we have witnessed before us this day. My dad makes his way to my sister’s side and they hug in celebration like never before. Tears just rolling down both of their faces as I continue to video the entire event.
Ray is waving us over to him. As they start to walk towards the Big bull I grab up the horses and bring them with me. As we gather around this second monster of the forest, darkness is coming fast, so we begin to take some pictures as Beryl cannot hold up the head of this 7x7 by herself. My dad jumps in there to help and we must have shot a roll of film with the both of them behind those horns. The width and mass on this set of antlers was even bigger than my dad’s set. Ray decides that we will field dress the bull and haul him towards a tree, then let him hang over night. We shall return after the morning hunt to complete our task of quartering up Beryl’s bull. We quickly get the bull cleaned up and haul him to the closest big fir tree we can make out. Once he is tied up off of the ground, we let the horses find their way back towards camp.
I am not sure how Ray had the energy to whip up a supper for us after all of this, but he did. As we sat eating supper around the campfire tonight the bull elk started calling or bugling back and forth again. Tonight will be different, as we are all physically and mentally exhausted from a gifted day on earth. Will anyone believe us as we tell of these stories? Time will tell, but if not I still have the video to. Before we know it our conversation is dead as we all pass out for the night. The night before this little satellite tent seemed so small and noisy that we could not sleep in it. Then tonight as the shooting stars blast over head on this ‘no moon’ night, I am not sure that we would sleep any better in the Marriott downtown than in these simple cots.
Once again Ray is waking us up with coffee and a few biscuits and gravy to get us started. Ray quickly tells us he thinks that we shall do better back on top, since the herds move down at night to feed. Then they work their way back up the mountains to bed for the day. So off we go into the darkness on horseback. I am not sure if you have ever slept on a horse while he is walking, but I am pretty sure that we all did some. If you looked to find your way the tree limbs may poke you in the eye on their way by, so it is best to close them as you ride. As we are reaching the ridge tops again, on a different mountain, our bodies are telling us that we are not cowboys yet. As we slide out of those saddles our bow legged bodies feel three feet tall. We try to stretch to loosen all of our stiff muscles and Ray takes us towards another big bowl on top. Darkness is still here, so we are early and the bull elk are calling in all directions. Ray decides to wait before making any elk calls and see what shows up first. He has mentioned a few times that this is the place! This is where he has seen the largest bull yet. He had not been up here in a week, but the sight of this particular 7x8 – 400 class bull he will not forget soon. As we listen in the morning darkness Ray thinks that he can recognize the shear scream of this bull. It seems deeper in tone to me and the morning light is coming quickly now.
We are all sitting near a tree facing the bowl and Ray is behind us closer to the horses. Ray begins to chirp with a cow call. We can begin making out the big dark bodies of more than 20 elk. A few are right in the middle of this bowl, which has a good size pond. As we are waiting the north wind begins to blow in snow. Not much falling, but enough to notice that winter is here. With the light of day only small bulls are out in the opening. They seem to run around not knowing what to do next, where the cows are taking their time to feed on the high green grass near the ponds edge. Ray begins to chirp with the cow call again, as I look at Beryl who is now controlling the camera, a deep scream comes from the woods closest to us. This particular scream made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. This bull is close, very close to us. The other elk are still going about their business without knowledge we are there watching their every move. Again this bull screams loud to our left, as it appears to be working downwind of us. All of the other elk are across the bowl from us, so where is this bull coming from? Ray tells us to be still, as he sees something coming through the Aspens. It stops at about 125 yards away from us, as the big bull begins to terrorize the trees in front of him.
Without being able to see the whole rack, you can quickly tell this dude has his share of horns. As we watch quietly two more small bulls break out of the woods in front of us to start a fight. As they fight their way down towards the pond, this big bull begins to take notice. That is all he can stand. The big bull screams again, as the two small bulls stop to look his way. They must have not moved quick enough for him and he begins to charge in. As he cleared the forest edge, I thought he still had a tree stuck in his horns. He did not, as it was all his own! The massive 7x8 rack swept backwards which seemed as long as his body. As he ran his right side was eight big full thick tines that you could spot without glassing them. He ran towards the smaller fighting bulls, which did not wait for him to make it to them before they headed for the woods. He had obviously stuck them with a horn or two before.
Ray had come up behind me by now and asked if this bull would do. I just gave him the big OK sign with my hand. Ray suggested that I shoot before anything ran them off. Here it is on our second morning of a 10–day hunt up near the Continental Divide and my opportunity is almost staring me in the face. Is this really happening like this, or am I still asleep from the night before and in a Dream? As I look at my dad, he is saying shoot. Then I look for Beryl behind me who has the camera rolling and gives me the thumbs up sign. I turn towards the Big Bull and lift up my Weatherby .30–06, as I click the safety off. The bull must have heard something in our direction and he turns broad side to us. I let him get out one more loud scream when I touched off the trigger. I could see the water fly off of his shoulder where the bullet entered. That bullet rocked his world like no bull elk ever had before. The bull jumped up and mule kicked as he begin to run up the mountain towards the cows that were now leaving him. I bolted another bullet and steadied for my second shot when he fell over backwards as his hind legs just gave out. He rolled a little closer to us, but not far with that set of horns on him. I started to yell with joy, as my dad extended his hand while walking towards me. I grabbed his hand to shake it and pull him closer to me. I gave him a big bear hug as we started to cross the bowl to make sure this bull was down and out.
As we get on top of this bull, he really is bigger, wider, heavier than either of the other two bulls down. That my friends is OK by me, as I will take a few pictures in an attempt to immortalize the whole episode. We finish the photos and begin to field dress this bull. That actually went pretty quick or I may have still been on Cloud Nine not knowing of the time going by? We did not stop and continued to quarter up this bull and cape him out.
Once on the horses, we begin to work our way back to the base camp this time. As we listen to the horses walking all of the way back down the mountain, we play the replay on this hunt over and over and over in our heads. Can this happen, will this happen, or did this happen? I hope so, for I am ready to go again right now. After two days of packing out meat, heads and horns we had everything back at base camp. We even sent off the heads to the taxidermist. Ray suggested we go back up the mountain one more time and finish out our hunt taking pictures of whatever we see or run into. We all looked at each other and decided that our bodies can take a little more horseback riding. So off we went and enjoyment, relaxation, is what we found waiting for us in the Gila. If possible I suggest that you go to, for the beauty of these mountains is hard to write about or explain so clearly. Thanks for the ride.”