I have met some neat people while elk hunting over the years. Most of them are from the West. If you have ever traveled West, you know that things operate differently than they do in the East. Most people are not in a rush and seem to be very friendly. Western hunters do pick up the pace when they need to – especially when chasing elk.
While I was elk hunting in New Mexico, I met two elk hunters from Idaho. Fred and Chad were their names; chasing big bulls was their game. A friend told me that I might run into Fred and said that he would be a big help to me because Fred had an elk tag for the first season and my tag was for the second season. I was told that Fred would be helpful and knowledgeable and willing to share information with me about the best places to hunt within our unit. He also said that Fred was as tough as woodpecker lips. Those were his exact words. If you aren’t familiar with that phrase, you’re about to find out what it means.
This was Fred's base camp miles from where he actually shot this bull
Fred arrived in New Mexico several days before his season opened to scout and locate large bulls. My hunting partner and I arrived early to scout, but we didn’t scout like Fred and Chad scouted. In one day, Fred and Chad walked about fourteen miles trying to locate big bulls. The fourteen miles they walked wasn’t your average fourteen-mile walk. It wasn’t like they walked fourteen miles to the grocery store on flat roads. Their walk was full of downed trees, steep mountainsides and loose rock on every step. The fourteen miles they walked was tough, every step of the way. Their walk required physical strength and mental toughness. The terrain was tough on their bodies and the lack of food and water made the hard walking even more difficult.
As the days passed and the hunt began, Fred and Chad set up several camps. They had a base camp set up a few hundred yards from the main logging road but most of their time was spent deep in the backcountry hunting and sleeping in a small tent with just enough room for two people. If they would’ve had a poodle with them, the tent would have been too small!
Here Fred is sharing valuable hunting info with my hunting buddy Tom
The largest obstacle to overcome on a backcountry hunt is often dealing with dehydration. When your mouth starts to feel like it is full of cotton balls and you dream of drinking a big glass of iced tea at night rather than dreaming about bulls, you know you are dehydrated. One day while hunting and desperate for water, Fred and Chad used leftover juice box straws to sip water out of a small stream. They had no water filter or iodine tablets but with dehydration setting in, they had no choice. They took their chances and didn’t get sick.
By the time their hunt ended, their boots were nearly trashed thanks to the loose rock they regularly stumbled over. When I ran into Fred he told me that he had lost so much weight while hunting that he was down to the last notch on his belt.
All of the blood, sweat and tears paid off for Fred and Chad. They both tagged nice bulls with a bow. Fred’s bull scored about 320 and Chad’s bull was about 340. When I congratulated them on their success, they both said that they just got lucky. I think hardcore hunters like Fred and Chad create their own luck.
As I watched Fred and Chad pull away from their campsite, I realized how tough woodpecker lips are. If you walk more miles in a day than most people walk in a month, sip water from a stream with a straw and don’t get sick, live on hardly any food for days on end and come out of the woods with a rack on your back and a smile on your face, you are officially as tough as woodpecker lips! Most eastern hunters don’t even come close to being that tough.
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