The crisp morning air fills your lungs as you step outside your cabin and load your gear onto your ATV. Your buddies are inside finishing the early morning breakfast, a delicious meal prepared by a chef at one of the areas elk hunting ranches at which you are staying for elk guided hunts and other big game hunts on one of your latest hunting vacations. You are eager to get the day started but first you get a lesson in hunting and facts about elk. You’ll spend the day hunting elk in a 3,000 or more acre meadow and rock cliff property that’s dedicated to New Mexico elk hunts. Your breath is visible as you exhale. The snow fell gently through the night but now the sky is still. You tell yourself, “This is my day.”

In a field surrounded by cedar trees you spot a few elk grazing near a shallow, frozen creek. Your guide led you and your friends to a few choice spots already today, spewing facts about elk and allowing for several of your friends to earn a kill. But this gang of elk here? This is yours. It is from this gang where you will get your trophy. You can feel it, sure as you can feel the blood and adrenaline pumping through your body, warming you on this cold winter afternoon. The facts about elk run through your mind as you creep and then settle in and steady for your shot.

In all, there are four bulls, each one preoccupied with a lunch of cedar foliage. Moving slowly and steadily, you narrow the gap between you and your prey. You are within 30 yards from the gang and so close now that you can see the steamy exhalation as the bulls dine. Distracted by the chewing of their cud, you seize the moment and fire.

“Bang!” The sure sound of your rifle echoes around you. Briefly startled, all but one in the gang run for cover in the surrounding woods. Your prize waits as you and your guide approach the scene. It was a clean shot. No pain. Only glory. This is going to be one for the trophy wall. The six point bull, with its beautiful velvet rack and dark brown winter fur, is going to be a bragging point for sure! You’re a good shot and you had the knowledge thanks to your guide who provided you facts about elk.

Back at camp you’ve showered and changed. The ranch staff will process your bull, and those belonging to your friends. All there is left to do as the sun sets on the ranch is relax, enjoy another fine meal and think about a wonderful day spent doing the extraordinary.