My grandfather drew out for the December Coues deer hunt in Unit 23, the dates of the hunt were the 3-11th. Unfortunately we werent able to hunt the first part of the hunt because I had finals (I go to NMSU) and my grandpa was wanting me to go with him due to him having a knee replacement 8 months earlier and rotator cuff surgery 2 weeks before (Trust me, nothing will stop him from hunting).
Finally on the 8th, i took my last test and I hit the road for a 3 and a half hour drive from Las Cruces up to meet my grandpa at the place that we were hunting. About 15 miles outside of Las Cruces i spotted 6 desert muleys just off the interstate with a HUGE buck in the group...I hoped this was a good sign for the hunt. I got to where we were hunting with only a couple hours left of daylight, so we just settled into camp for the hunt and would begin hunting on the 9th. My luck would have it that I caught a bad cold or flu that first night. It was a LONG night with minimal sleep. Finally the morning arrived and we started our drive up the mountain to Coues deer country.
It took about an hour and a half to get to the top of the mountain where we had seen Coues deer before. We took a little walk to a water hole to look for deer tracks to see if any were even in the area. All we saw were bobcat and lion tracks. So we decided to drive back along the road a little ways and take a short walk.
We walked about 600-700 yards from the road and my grandpa spotted 3 deer across the canyon, we didnt get a good look, but they were all big bodied, so we figured they were bucks. The deer actually crossed the canyon and came out on top on our side about 150 yards from where we were walking. As soon as i saw the buck, I knew it was a nice one so i told my grandpa to shoot. And just like that, his hunt was over. It was a nice buck that he got, not the biggest Coues deer he's gotten by any stretch, but its still a a good looking one....not bad for starting hunting almost a week after the hunt had started. haha.