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We had two youth hunters this year, one was Luke Mehling from Canada on his second elk hunt with us and the other was my son David on his first big game hunt at nine years old. Luke drew a tag and then broke his leg playing football so he had hunt on a peg leg, you can see it in the picture.
We found some great bulls while scouting but with the situation being what it was Luke decided to take the first bull we got on which was a nice 5x. Russ, Luke’s dad filmed this hunt for Archers Choice ( www.archerschoicemedia.com ) so it should be on TV sometime next year. Russ also owns Adrenaline Outfitters, if you are looking for a great bear hunt check him out www.adrenalineoutfitters.ca
My son David also drew a youth antelope tag. It was his first big game hunt and he was sure excited, he took this buck with one shot at 100 yards and he scored 72.5
This year we have had 21 private land rifle elk hunters. Out of those 21 hunters we killed 18 bulls and the other three had opportunities that they couldn’t capitalize on or they passed on bulls looking for a better bull. Our archery hunts went well this year, we had 13 bow hunters and killed five bulls. Everyone but two hunters had good opportunities and either passed on smaller bulls, missed bulls or wounded a bull. The other two hunters were in elk during the hunt but always had something happen (like the elk stop behind the tree) and just didn’t have a true opportunity do draw on a bull.
I know everyone is excited to see some pictures. We have some cameras out and we are putting more out all the time so you will be seeing more pictures. We start hunting soon so hopefully you will start seeing some harvest pictures also.
In December we had Howell Cullens and his two sons here for an elk hunt. Howell shot a bull that we ultimately lost but both of his sons killed great bulls with one scoring 320 and the other scoring 340. Then in January Christian took a great buck off of one of the ranches that scored 163. 2017 will go down as one of the best years ever for quality and quantity of bulls killed. on the rifle hunts we ended up killing 19 out of 23 hunters and four of those going over 340!
We have had a great year so far. On our archery hunts we had eleven hunters with every hunter having a shot opportunity with two hunters passing on smaller bulls looking for something bigger, unfortunately they went home empty handed. We had three guys wound bulls that were not recovered. We did have six hunters kill bulls and they took a 370, 360, 311 and a 260 on the private land elk hunts and a 260 and a 4×4 on the public land hunts.
We had twenty private land rifle hunters and everyone except one hunter had an opportunity to kill an animal. Out of the twenty rifle hunters, seventeen of them killed bulls with the biggest rifle bull scoring 353. We also killed a 348 and a 346 with a 46 inch spread, several 300 class bulls and a few 240 to 270 bulls.
We also had one antelope hunter and he took a 15 inch buck that scored 76.
Take a look at the pictures below from the 2017 hunts.
We have been getting some good game camera pictures. Here are a few of them.
I thought I would let everyone know how this season has gone so far on our private land elk hunts. We still have a few hunts to finish up but the bulk of the hunts are done for the year.
On our rifle hunts we had eighteen of twenty hunters with shot opportunities and we killed fourteen of twenty. We killed a couple heavy 325 bulls, several 320 – 300 class and some 5x’s. We had a couple guys pass on bulls looking for a bigger bull.
On our archery hunts we had a tougher year. We had eight out of twelve hunters with shot opportunities and a couple guys passing bulls looking for something bigger, we had two bulls wounded and lost, and we killed two out of twelve.
The rut this year was a disappointment, it was like they just never got going. The slow rut made things more difficult this year but we ended up doing pretty well under the tougher circumstances. Below are the the pictures from this year.
If you have any questions or want to book a hunt for 2017 give us a call. Things are filling up quickly, we already have the third archery hunt and the first two rifle hunts booked.
Thanks to everyone who hunted with us in 2016!
I know I have been promising for a while but we have finally been getting some cameras out in the field so here are a few pictures of what we have been getting in. You can see that the bulls are looking good this year. As we get more pictures in I will add them to this page so keep checking back.
We are excited to announce a new ranch that we have added to our current ranches. This new ranch is over 18,000 acres and have produced some great bulls over the years. It came available and we jumped at the chance to pick it up. We will be adding this ranch in with our others and will give us over 45,000 acres to hunt this fall. This past year they killed a 387 bull and this ranch has produced bulls like that over the past years.
We have been booked for this fall for quite a while but because of this new ranch we have four rifle spots and two archery spots available so if you are still looking for a hunt for this fall give us a call. 575-937-3572 or email at topnotchoutfitters@gmail.com
As of 1/26/16 We have just two private land rifle spots available and the archery is booked. We are trying to get more ranches to combine with our 25,000 acres so it is possible we will have some openings coming soon.
We have already booked several hunts for 2017 so if you are wanting a hunt please don’t wait to long as both seem to be going fast. Give us a call to book now. Brian’s cell 575-937-3572
The 2015 hunting season is in the books. We ended up 14 out of 17 on our private land rifle hunts with the biggest bull scoring 375 by Mathew Shelton and three other bulls between 340 and 350. We had four deer hunters this year and we went 100% kill on bucks between 140 and 160. We also had two antelope hunters who enjoyed 100% kill on 14″ and 14 1/2″ antelope scoring in the lower 70’s. Everyone here at Top Notch Outfitters would like to thank all of our hunters for a great year! We are looking forward to 2016 and we hope you will join us. Give us a call or email if you have any questions or want to book a hunt.
Well I never did do a better job on getting game camera pictures added but I will give you everything I have now.
The archery hunts were both good and bad, good because everyone either had a shot opportunity or had the opportunity to pass on a bull looking for something bigger. The bad part of the archery hunts were that we had seven wounded bulls, anything from just being grazed, to “I can’t believe an animal can live through that”. We also had a lot of misses. So out of four public land hunters and twelve private land hunters we killed four bulls, two on public and two on private.
We have done very well on the rifle hunts. So far out of twelve private land hunts we have taken eleven bulls! The best bull so far scores 375, then 345 and the third best bull scored 340.
I know I have not done a good job in putting game camera pictures up but I will try to do a better job.
We have been out scouting getting ready for the first archery hunters and over the past three days we have been finding some really good bulls. These bulls are already chasing cows, running off satellite bulls and bugling some. The rut is not going strong yet but they are sure showing signs of getting started and the big bulls are not wasting any time getting in with the cows. Here are a few pictures we have taken while out scouting the past few days.
We have started putting out a few cameras and getting a few pictures in. We will post more as we get more cameras out so keep checking back to see “whats new.”
Look at these pictures then scroll down and checkout the pictures and the statistics form our 2014 hunts. Give us a call to get one of the last few hunts available for this fall.
Here are a few pictures of some of the bulls that made it through hunting season and we will be hunting this coming year.
On our 2014 rifle hunts we went 79% on shot opportunities with our average bull scoring right at 300. Take a look at some of the pictures below and if we can help you on your next private land elk or deer hunt or public draw elk hunt just let us know.
Here are some of the photos from our rifle hunts from 2014.
Here are the bulls we took on our 2014 archery elk hunts. We had ten hunters total and killed six bulls. One hunter that didn’t kill missed two shots, another hunter missed one shot and a third passed up smaller bulls looking for a 330 plus and just didn’t have a shot at a bull that size. We had one hunter that did not have any shot opportunity. Hurricane Odile decided to visit, and with his visit he decided to leave rain and lots of it. Although everyone in New Mexico is always happy to get rain, mid September is not the best time to get it, at least not for me. The rain made hunting difficult but the lack of bugling made things more difficult. I will let you know if they bugle better in October.
These game camera pictures were taken on one of our Private Ranches. It is now mid July and the bulls are still growing, we have some good bulls out there and they will get bigger over the next several weeks. We have just started putting cameras out and in the first night got pictures of these bulls (and a bear).
We have started to get our monsoon rains and things are greening up nicely. With the new rains we have planted several new food plots and I will get you pictures of them as they grow.
Meanwhile, keep checking back for new pictures.
We have been getting a lot of rain over the past few weeks and everything is green and beautiful. Although there is plenty of water everywhere for the elk, we are still getting pictures of some big bulls at the drinkers. Here are a few pictures we got recently.
The first time I looked at these pictures I thought this bull was the same as the bull from above, but now I am not sure. Take a look and see what you think. You can click on each picture to enlarge them.
Top Notch Outfitters offers New Mexico guided elk hunting on private land ranches as well as public draw elk hunts. As a well-established New Mexico elk hunting outfitter, Top Notch has been providing customized hunting excursions for rifle, archery, and muzzleloader elk hunters since 1998.
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