Extending my season or starting 2011 early

[David Heitsman]

Sitting at Seatac waiting for plane to Hermosillo, MX. Going for muleys and maybe Coues if there's time. Hunting with Rancho el Bamury. They have a website. Unfortunately there is little Internet in Pitiquito where we're headed so there won't be many updates. Apparently I can climb a hill a few miles away with my iPhone and get messages out so we'll see. Adios!

[bowhunterbruce]

what a great way to start a new season goodluck to ya and have a great trip.i look forward to seeing all the picks when you get back into civilization.
goodluck
bhb

[kennyj]

Good luck David. Hope you nail a monster. I've always wanted to hunt there.
kenny

[Blainer]

Best way to ring in the New Year I have seen yet,mulie hunting and a corona.
Good luck & I look forward to the story and pictures.

[Brett]

Please put up some pictures and a story looks like it should be a great time.

[shallowH2O]

good luck down there. look forward to the pics and the story. dont forget the suntan lotion!!

[houndogger]

Good luck David! Always enjoy hearing about your adventures:-D

[1/2 slam]

:-DShoot a big one David :-D

[todbartell]

don't miss! :mrgreen:

[David Heitsman]

Got back last week and have been a little buried. Didn't kill a muley or a Coue's. Put on a couple pounds from all the tortillas every day!

Best I could find was two mid 170's and a high 160's. They were all 2 - 3 years olds and I just didn't have the heart to kill them knowing that they'd
go 190 class with a couple more years under their belt.

Shot a coyote so now I have my "North American Coyote Slam"!

Kept a written journal each day and I'll try to enter a bit in every now and then when I get a chance.

Paid for next year before I left as this hunt ranked as one of my top international hunts ever. My journals will explain why.

Did I mention the great Mexican food?

[Kyle84]

They have some big muley on their webpage.

[chilcotin hillbilly]

I have been waiting for your journal entries David. Don't let work get in the way.

[BiG Boar]

Can't wait to hear why it was a great hunt! Keep us posted. Sounds like a tonne of fun.

[David Heitsman]

Day 1,

We were met in Hermosillo, MX by Bamury's translater and expediter, Omar and it took me about 45 mins to clear my rifle. I was the first to get my rifle and set it on the tables only to have the other 14 guns get set up beside me. Unfortunately they started at the opposite side of the tables and mine was the last to be verified. It's quite the process as their military has to examine the rifle's serial number, verify calibre and then count number of cartridges verifying that they are matched. My serial number is only three digits and they didn't like that thinking that it must be the 'modelo numero' and not the serial number.

The drive to Pitiquito is about 3 hours on four lane modern freeway and then it's a rough dirt road for 45 mins into the ranch in the desert. We hadn't seen a house for at least 20 k's when we crossed a cattle guard to the ranch. These desert ranches are all minimum 80,000 acres and well up from there. They are huge. After crossing a cattle guard we right away saw deer near some cultivated fields. I looked at a 170 buck for a few minutes just drinking it all in.

We were shown to our modest room with an ensuite toilet and shower. Mexican beds are quite 'firma' and I knew that from many trips to the resorts down here.

Dinner was macaroni soup with beef tacos and fijoles and fresh tortillas. Spent an hour at the fire with the guides and ranchands practicing my Spanglish.

The other two hunters would arrive tomorrow.

[David Heitsman]

Day 2

First morning.

Cold in the night. Had to get up and put socks on. Huevos rancheros for breakfast and on outside before daylight. Help driver Juoquin scrape ice from the windows. Ice in Mexico! All I was used to is beaches and cervesas.

Guide's name is Roman. Late thirties and is a vaquero (cowboy) on the ranch the rest of the year. His brother is my driver. We load up onto a mid 90's Dodge ram with these car seats bolted to a floor frame about the same height as the roof. Off we go and is it ever cold. You can see well tho. We rode a few K's and yhen walked in a several K circle arching back to the road we where Joaquin met us with the truck.

Back to the ranch at 11:30 and by now it's 25 degrees and I'm getting my tan. John's gun was a ranch rifle and it took a few shots to get it printing well. After lunch is siesta time so we napped for a couple hours, jet lag you know, and headed back out around three PM. I saw a nice javelina
but managed to short jack my rifle so it was the click heard around the world. Javalinas are peccary that make a pretty cool mount and good table fare for the crew.

Saw a very large possible declining 3 X 3 but wasn't what I was there for.

Dinner was rice and chile rellenos. At dinner the other hunters came in. One fella from Burbank and the other was from Bakersfield.

[The Hermit]

I'm liking this thread already!! :mrgreen:

[hntcrazy]

Funny the thread is more about spanglish and the food than deer hunting lol???

[BiG Boar]

Sounds great! Wish I was there.

[MountainHigh]

Right on David!

[David Heitsman]

Day 3

Left predawn in the cold out past the oatfields about 9 k's to an area with hills rising sharply up from the desert floor. Man is it ever nipply up in the rack. We parked dropped a few layers of clothes and climbed for maybe 45 mins to another plateau that was quite rocky with the rocks being somewhat volcanic and about 4" square everywhere. Total ankle busters. Nothing could ever live here I was thinking. As we rounded a knoll Roman pointed to a doe about 300 yards away. She was standing and when I looked with my binos I realized a buck was bedded in the cactus below her.

Roman was quite excited but with my 10X Leupolds vs his 7X Bushnells I could tell it wasn't what I wanted. We spent another 30 mins looking the area over carefully hoping that there might be larger deer there. All we could see was the doe and buck.

I set my rifle scope on him and twisted the Schmidt and Bender to 12X. Placing the rifle on my sticks I let Roman have a good look. He was a nicely thick 3 X 2 with likely a 26" spread. Then the doe broded and right before my eyes four more does appeared and eased off and up the hill.

The buck never moved an inch or took his eyes off us. This is remote country and I doubt they get much human interaction. I ranged him at 286
and practiced a couple rests to simulate when it would be 'go' time.

In another 'arroyo' basically a washout, we saw some Coue's deer tracks. My first ever sighting and necessary for the 29.

After about three hours of walking we came to an area near an old road and we made a fire and warmed our burritos, washing them down with Tecate and of course took a two hour siesta in the sun. It was hard to find a cactus freee place to lay down!

After lunch we went on a three hour death Nazi march across the barren cactus flats back towards the oat fields and rancho. No deer in there but a few tracks. Saw a badger and a white porcupiny looking animal. Forget the name. There are hundreds of these three foot high rabbits that lumber around like dogs. Pretty fun to watch them. Would be even more fun to vapourize a few with my .300!

As we drove back the last couple k' at dusk from around the fields we saw a well composed mid 160's 4 X 4 with about a four inch trash sticker on his right side. John had seen it his first day and passed and now I too passed. Roman was shaking his head and saying something about 'loco'
but his smile let me know he was happy to let that one grow.

Dinner was shrimp and fried fish with tomales. Turns out the other hunter from Burbank is somewhat an expert on African safaris and I listen by the fire till late as he recounts his lions, several buffalo and elephant stories.

[srupp]

keep it coming David, enjoying this....

steven

[1/2 slam]

What srupp said :mrgreen:

[David Heitsman]

Sorry guys.

Been away from a PC for a couple days 'harvesting' or should I say 'educating' coyotes in southern Alberta. (Unfortunately more got educated than harvested!)

Will post that story and add to the Mexican thread later this week.

[David Heitsman]

Day 4,

Just haven't had free time to type this in this week but I see that on day 4 John and I rode together well to the northeast. Here it turns out there is a hill that you can climb and get out with your cel phones. The guides and drivers were all checking in with their families on the outside. Unfortunately I had left mine at the ranch.

We split up with John walking around the west side of a range and Roman and I walked thru a valley pulling some altitude (alto) either side as necessary to glass the various desert plateaus. We kicked up a few deer but mostly burros, (wild donkeys) and cattle.
At one point we watched as a young 3 X 3 with his neck all swollen and his nose to the ground came to within 5 yards of us. I was easing my barrel at him, wasn't real comfortable being that close to his antlers if he decided to charge or kick at us in defense. As he came past us and scented us he still didn't really sprint away. We were hi fiving after that. I've noticed that even with language barriers, hunters of all nationalities appreciate their animals anywhere I go.

At lunch I learned to make tortillas in the kitchen (cucina) with the two senoras there to take care of our meals. I made a batch of dough and let it rise on the stove for an hour. Then rolled it into 50 golf ball size balls and pressed each one out by hand with a tortilla press. Onto the wood stove they went until browned and then stacked up. It was quite a process. (Gatehouse, you would have been proud!)

After the siesta time we drove again to the northeast and Roman and I walked for three hours in a large semicircle not seeing anything.

Dinner was chicken tomales and macaroni. The four of us ended up sampling the Mexican libations till around 10:00. Grea fun.

[David Heitsman]

Day 5

We were told by the rancher for all of us to avoid the hayfield as they felt that they needed a rest and were hoping that maybe some bigger deer would come in. We drove staight thru the flats and spent the whole morning riding in the hi racks. John drew on a coyote in a river bed but needed a few more seconds to get an accurate shot off. Had lunch and a nap on the trail and then Roman and I walked a beeline thru the desert
once again not seeing anything.
John had walked for miles and we drove over to retreive him and traded places as he rode and we walked again till dark. We saw 13 head of deer
but the best we could see was a 3 X 3.

Dinner was stuffed chicken breasts, mashed potatoes and of course they were learning to always have beans and tortillas on my side of the table.

The crew must have been tired tonight as the generator went off around
9:00 so we turned early.

[Tyler96]

this story needs more pics and less bean and nacho talk :lol:

[David Heitsman]

It takes too long to post pics here. I can do it in 5 seconds on Facebook. Why can't it be similar format?
As to the food, Well that was my second favourite part of the trip and one of the reasons we all rebooked for 2012.

[dana]

With how bad the situation is down there right now, there are safer places to kill a giant muley, like right here in BC! I've heard of 8 hunters killed down there and several missing. I believe it was last spring an outfitter was killed as well. If nothing else, the prices have dropped and a lot of the ranches that were over hunted in the past should have some solid monsters in the next few years.

[David Heitsman]

Not much drug issues in Sonora. It's farther east. Not saying it doesn't exist but probably more murders in Abbotsford than Pitiquito.

We went thru a militry drug check on the freeway north and south and were waved on both times. We were expecting a firearms check at the minimum.

At one point we were taking a siesta and I was sleeping on my pack when a vehicle rolled up and past and I realized my rifle was in the truck 50 yards from me. From then on it was always leaned into a cactus whenever
I was resting away from the ranch.

We mentioned the issues to our translator but he said that most of the problems were in Tamaulipas and Chiapas, closer to the Texas side.

I spent an extra day wondering around Hermosillo and I never noticed any kind of a ominous or malicious feeling from the people. I just felt bad for them since gas is the same price and they are lucky to make $12 US a day so you know they aren't saving any money. Food in the grocery store wasn't that much cheaper either.

[Deaddog]

thanks for the story david, enjoyed the full meal deal!! sounds like an enjoyable time.

[srupp]

dido..... what Jim said..always enjoy your adventures..hhmmm hmm usually more photos..:mrgreen: but we will leaarn to live vicariously through your adventures..

cheers AND THANKS


Steven