Pecos 45,

Been reading your postings and stories of old haunts. You wouldn't have been from the Carlsbad area by any chance?

I've "haunted" and hunted a lot of places. Carlsbad was on the list. What do you know about the place?

[ 07-02-2002, 00:35: Message edited by: Pecos45 ]

I was born and raised there. One of your stories about shooting turtles brought back memories of my childhood hunting adventures there. Shot many of them out of stock ponds. One of the most entertaining things to do for a young man with a drivers license.

I'll drink to that!

Carlsbad is a southwestern suburb of Lovington.
Andy

Pecos,
I bought a lot of mules from Elmer Hepler in Carlsbad, and one of my best friends used to ranch out of Carlsbad, Clarence McDonald...I also remember a guy named Carlsbad Bob, who I went to several Rodeos with..Bob Walker was his name and he may be a deputy sheriff there, don't know. Left a lot of tracks down that way when I was a young man. I was rodeoing then and the Carlsbad dances were famous..

A.C.Recurve: Lovington. I drove through there many times, I just wasn't aware anyone really lived there.


I went to Graduate school in Portales. The kids use to love to watch for antelope on Arkansas Junction. Back when I was a DA I got to meet many of the locals there at the County Courthouse.

Mr. Atkinson, I know many of the Hepler family. Quite prominent in many areas. We just had our annual rodeo down here this past weekend. Lots of fun.

What is this? Old home week? Atkinson, I never dreamed you stepped foot in New Mexico, now you 'fess up!

As for you 2nd, I went my 1st two years at Portales and then ultimately graduated from NMSU over Las Cruces way. I was out your way about a month ago and the poor little antelope I saw were starting to look sort of "reptilian" cause everything was so dry.

2nd, what was that drive-in close to the Carlsbad high school that used to make them good tacos?

I'm actually an Artesia boy. Or at least that's where I got my mail. Most of the time I was out hunting varmits or playing in that infernal river that runs thru the country out there.

Ya'll ever hear the old cowboy expression something to the effect of: "The good cowboys go to hell when they die but the bad one's just get sent out to a ranch on the Pecos."

Anyhow, don't start me "recollecting" cause I've got to go to work and you all know how I look forward to THAT.

Artestia?? I used to have a girl friend in Artesia, and I rodeoed with Tommy White and Alan Carraway and a couple of others...I know half the population of southern New Mexico but I don't know where they all settled and most of them were probably shot crawling out a window or hung for stealing horses...If not they should have been.

Alright guys, we are on home turf now. I am sitting in Artesia as I type this. I found my wife up here (darn, should have went to Roswell instead). Wife's grandfather owned a drug store here.

Pecos: I graduated from CHS in '85, went to ENMU from 85-86 and 95-96. I believe that the drive-in that you are talking about is "Jay's Drive-in". Also, an Artesian probably would have stopped at "Becky's Drive-in" down on the "drag" since that's where all the local girls would have been hanging around. To say that it is dry in this part of the country is an understatement. Temperatures have been hovering around 105 degrees for the past month with no real rain to speak of. (By the way, the Cavemen still can't seem to find a way to beat the Bulldog's in football).

Atkinson - When was the last time you were in Artesia? If it's been awhile, you probably wouldn't know the place. And you're right about most of the old crowd in Artesia ending up in "Boot Hill" for various no good reasons. Seems the life expectancy for Artesia boys isn't good. Something in the water out there, (besides sulphur, calcium, gypsum, sand and a few other things ) that seems to cause mild cases of insanity among the males.

2nd - You're just a pup! Class of 85. I was class of 59. Although I don't know if in my case it was really a graduation or just a way the school system in Artesia found to get me out of town. Anyhow it worked.

If you're working in Artesia, I'm guessing you got something to do with the Yates? Do you know a lawyer in Artesia named Ralph Nix Jr.? He was one of my class mates and a nice fellow. (Course he's a lawyer now and may be shiftier than a snake. )

I'm also betting you eat pretty regular over at "The Wellhead." What's your favorite brew there?

For some reason I was thinking the drive-in place where I got good tacos and met some cute Carlsbad girls was called "The Arrowhead."

And THE drive-in for Artesia when I was young and even crazier than I am now was called "Macs."
I wish I had a dollar for every car that's cruised thru "Macs."

Right now I'm stranded in San Antonio...literally. Can you believe most of the west is drier than a popcorn fart and we are flooding in San Antonio. Have had over 8 inches of rain here in the last two days. Meanwhile my poor brother is in Colorado surrounded by forest fires. Wish I could share with all of you. But I figure next month we may be on fire and you guys flooded. Never a dull minute in the west.

Carlsbad... Isn't that in North Texas?

Crosshairs,
Yes, that is correct....

Pecos,

No on the Yates. I work for the LEO academy there. My favorite at the Wellhead is the Blue Corn Enchiledas washed down with a little Wheat Beer.

North Texas? Use to leave in Texas, unfortunately, this ain't no Texas.

2nd - Yeah, I know about the academy you're talking about. And I know about the blue corn enchiladas.

Have you ever tried their Roughneck Red? That's lip smackin for me...but I'm an Amber and Dark Ale fan. If their cooks are having a good day, the Wellhead is an awesome little restaurant.
(Also owned by the Yates family, by the way.)

By the way, I believe in the old days the Wellhead used to be an Auto Parts store if I remember right. Wish I still lived out there.
It will always be home for me. It was paradise for my wild, restless nature.

[ 07-03-2002, 21:43: Message edited by: Pecos45 ]

Amen on the beer and the Wellhead. Local muley population seems to be starting to recover and I have just started introducing my 9 and 4 years old boys to the local jackrabbit population. My 9 year old drew a youth only tag for the Brantley Wild Life Refuge for muley, so he is a little excited. Can't wait to introduce him to the joys of being a teenager, driving a beater truck, and saving your lunch money for .22 shells!!!

[ 07-03-2002, 22:25: Message edited by: 2nd Amendment ]

2nd, Man, if only the jackrabbits were still like they were when I was a kid! I remember stepping out of the truck, firing a shot and thinking the whole earth was starting to move there were so many J-Rabs. By the time I was in high school I would go out with 200 rounds of reloaded /06 and come back when I ran out of shells. It was like fighting a war.

I have never seen too many deer EAST of the Artesia/Carlsbad highway...but the one's I've spotted were HUGE. I've seen some big devils out around Cedar Lake...a few miles east of Loco Hills too. A kid growing up in New Mexico that loves guns is living in paradise.

Let the old Pecos River teach your boys about shooting at moving targets. I still enjoy tossing sticks out in the water and shooting at them as they float away.

Good luck with your boys. Wish I were there to watch them shoot.

Hey 2ndAmendment,
You're right--very few people actually live in Lovington--mostly just high school football players who like to win lots of state championships........guess Artesia would like to know about that, huh?
Later,
Andy

AC - I taught school there for 3 years and policed 1. Sure hope you weren't one of my students. Nice people. Nice town.

Do you scuba dive in "Lake Lovington?"

Pecos45,
Naw, I wasn't one of your students--I was born in Bryan, TX and grew up in Canyon, TX. Lake Lovington isn't deep enough to dive in----besides, there are too many of Todd E's bogus "facts" on the bottom. You see, that water comes from the sewer plant!
Have a good one!
Andy

ACRecurve:

I only work in Artesia, I still live in C-Bad (Where the football history is even more checkered)LOL. I think that the Chicago Bears would definitely agree with you on the football talent coming out of Lovington!

Recurve, I was pretty sure you weren't one of my old students as most of them couldn't manage a sentence.

Since you don't dive in picturesque "Lake Lovington," have you ever been in Bottomless Lakes over by Roswell? I assume they still let people dive in them.

Anyway, hope Lovington is getting some rain.

P45

This thread is way damn spooky.

I was born in Portales. We were living in Elida at the time but apparently you couldn't get born there. We then moved to Roswell briefly, then on to Artesia where my father taught school. We lived on Dallas Street in a house my dad hauled in from Loco Hills. He built the house next door. My footprints and those of my two brothers and sister are still in the concrete of the carport. I checked them out 50 years after I laid them. My wife couldn't believe it. Neither could the people living in the house.

My brother was born in Artesia. My earliest hunting picture was of me standing by my dad. The buck was hanging on a telephone pole. My dad shot it near Pi�on; his one and only buck. I was almost two, that was in 1948.

I used to go with my dad and his friend jackrabbit hunting outside Artesia. I sat in the middle in the back seat as they cruised and caught hot hulls as they jacked them out.

Friends of ours was a Dr. Bunch. He lived at the corner of Heath and Mann.

We lived in Santa Fe and Clovis then ended up in Las Cruces where I graduated from High School and NMSU. My mother and sister still live there.

I worked out of Hobbs for a few years. Halfway Bar, The Caprock, and the Steven's Motel in Carlsbad were old haunts. (One of the biggest mule deer I ever saw was taken behind Halfway Bar.)

We used to load up on dove and blues off the Jal-cutoff, around Oil Center and north of Loco Hills. Made a few cockfights east of Jal, and ran the horses at Ruidoso.

Those were good times.

Kensco, you're right....this thread is getting more and more spooky by the minute!

Dr. Bunch was our family doctor and I went to school with his daughter. I've hunted all the same areas you are talking about and used to go up and work on a friend's ranch at Pinon.

Hell, you and I gotta be at least half cousins in law or something.

Besides that...you and I both shoot and love .41 Magnums! It don't get much better than that.

I suspect you've been down and splashed in the holy water of the Pecos River as well. I think once a guy gets some of that old Pecos River water on him, it don't never come off.

Like you say...them were the days! Lord, how I miss them.

Carlsbad, Artesia, Hobbs - sheesh! Didn't any of you guys ever hand around God's Country - Silver City - Gateway to the Gila Wilderness!

Juneau
Graduate Western New Mexico Univ.
Class of '70.

I was in Silver City last year.

When I was at NMSU I used to ride my motorcycle up to the cliff dwellings then pack in for a three day weekend. Walked through that Gila River at least six times coming and going. Packed in beer mostly. The Gila froze my feet, but never got the beer cold enough. I think we hauled it out and drank it too quick.

Pecos45,

We were over at the Bunch's a lot. I remember they always had home movies. We were too poor to have our own. We stayed at their cabin one time. I think it was near Cloudcroft maybe. Their youngest daughter had a funny name. I can't think of it right now. I'll have to ask my mother.

I started deer hunting in the Cibola National Forest around Winston, then hunted a few years west of Silver City. I also liked the area around Datil, Reserve, and Luna so I went back there some.

My all-time favorite mule deer hunting hole was south of Weed. I hunted there with my brother-in-law and his dad for about ten years straight. Salt Rock Canyon was my favorite. Got a buck there nearly every year.

I took my neighbor from Hobbs with me one time. He had never killed a buck. We camped in Salt Rock, then opening morning I sent him up one draw and I went up my favorite. By mid-morning I crossed over and found him. Asked him if he'd seen anything. He said nothing but a big bear. (Back then you had tags for a buck, a bear and a turkey; all for about $10.00.)

Obviously Ed hadn't killed him, so I asked him what happened. He said he watched it feed in some aspens for about thirty minutes, had clear shots at about 110 yards, but didn't know whether to shoot, or what would happen if he only wounded him. He said the bear finally wandered over the ridge. He said he heard shots. (I was thinking, "you dumbass")

Next week the Cloudcroft paper showed a smiling hunter with a 400 lb. black bear shot on the backside of Salt Rock Canyon. Such is life.

I killed my first buck with a Ruger .41 Mag. in the Sacramentos south of Weed.

Kensco, I know the weed area well. Sadly they've had lots of fires around there the last few years, with the latest out of Wills Canyon and headed towards Mayhill. They stopped it a couple miles shy of Mayhill. Poor devil who accidentally started this fire felt so bad about it that he shot himself.

I never hunted Weed area. I usually worked a little lower areas.

Mildred was the Bunch girl I went to school with but she was their oldest kid. I think they had a younger daughter.

You wouldn't recognize the town if you went back. Not sure you approve of all the changes either. But you ought to go and just remember the old days.

[ 07-10-2002, 00:42: Message edited by: Pecos45 ]

No guys, you probably wouldn't recognize Artesia anymore. When I was an ADA for Eddy, Chaves, and Lea counties, my job was to prosecute drug dealers and...Artesia was the hotspot. It seems to have been taken over by gangs (yes, in a town of 12,000) who prefer to do nothing more than dealing dope and having drive-by shootings. It's certainly a shame, because there are still a lot of good people here who would like nothing better than to give some of these young damn punks a little small town justice!

I wish that small town America still existed in SE New Mexico, but as an ex-LEO, I can tell you that it doesn't. On the bright side, rain has returned to the area, so maybe the drought will start to diminish.

By the way, the mule deer hunting in the Sacramentos has drastically gone down hill, but the elk population is through the roof!!!! Game and Fish has decided to rectify the situtation by reducing the herd from 4000 down to 1500, so if you want to hunt elk in the area, better do it quick

[ 07-10-2002, 00:53: Message edited by: 2nd Amendment ]

That's funny how well elk are doing compared to mule deer. I'm afraid CWD is going to get them all one of these days.

My nephew killed a cow somewhere around Cloudcroft or Ruidoso last season. I never saw an elk in all the years I hunted there. The Mescalero's had plenty, and big bulls, but I never thought I'd have the money to hunt them.

I hunted elk in Colorado a few times. In 2000 I hunted them in New Mexico northeast of Las Vegas on Ft. Union Ranch, a Cabela's hunt. Saw some fine antelope and shot a good 6x6 bull the next to last evening. Talk about fun. The bulls were screaming. We called in a few raghorns to about 30 yards. It was a thrill. I had my bull mounted and shipped directly to storage in Plano, so I haven't even seen him.

For hunting and growing up, New Mexico is hard to beat. After graduation from NMSU I went to work in Texas. Talk about a shock. No public land. Not much real hunting, mostly shooting over a feeder. I was embarrassed at first.

Once I moved to Odessa and got a good job, the hunting perks started coming. A lot of vendors had hunting camps and leases. In Texas if you don't know somebody, you're screwed.

I'd get in your football debate except the Odessa Permian Panthers have been a little weak lately. That Mojo hadn't been working too good.

I hope to get back to New Mexico or Texas in the next five years or so. I keep telling my wife I'm going to retire and buy a Ponderosa, couple hundred acres, and shoot coyotes and prairie dogs off the porch. I think she's got other plans for me. She's damn persuasive too. Probably end up retired in the shadow of some damn mall.

I've enjoyed the thread as well, since I live in Deming. I've never spent much time over in the Artesia area yet. Speaking of dope and drugs, I have a co-worker down here that was Clovis PD. I can't believe some of the bust he's been in on. I've only been in NM for 5 years and really enjoy it's freedom's. I am however disappointed in the deer populations. I hear that it was great hunting in the 60's. I still keep dropping the Barbary sheep line, but I guess I'll have to visit over your way and do my own homework.

I've had several people tell me the deer hunting is much better over in Weed and Mayhill area. Is there any benefit to having a horse?? Can you glass up deer? How many plates AREN"T from Texas??

Good to have some locals here. Hasta Luego

Kensco, if I see you've been one more place that I have been, I'm going to get an injunction against you for stalking me! I graduated NMSU in 1966 with one of the most "involved" BS degrees in history.

Jesse, I am thinking Deming used to be a pretty good coyote stronghold? Can you hunt deer on horseback. Yes. It's a very good way to hunt them IF...you stay out of the higher mountains and forests. You can't see much up in that country from horseback and too many guys taking "sound shots" at anything that moves.

There are several little back country roads between Pinon and Duncan that are good horseback hunting areas. Mostly not too steep for horses and pretty open, so you can do a lot of glassing. But it is long range country. You can get some really long shots...although from a horse many deer will let you get pretty close.

And it's true what the guys are saying about the elk. It does seem the deer are down and the elk have taken their place...but I haven't heard of many east of Mayhill. And there were always some elk down towards Guadalupe Peak. Up on the ridge down there should be excellent horse country as well.

New Mexico muleys can fool a guy. Many people think of deer as only living in the mountains but I have seen some MONSTERS just a few miles southwest of JAL, NM, if you can believe that.

The foothills, the very LOW foothills south of Hope, N.M. contain deer as well. I would suggest you start scouting some "unlikely areas" for sign. There are a lot of BIG deer in unlikely places. There won't be many, but there won't be many people looking for them either.

I'm wondering as the elk have moved more into the high mountains if many of the deer have shifted east and somewhat OUT of the mountains? 2nd Amendment can provide the most up to date data as to where they are hiding out.

Kensco, if I have to retire in the shadow of the mall, I'm gonna use my last bullet on myself. I'm dying a slow death in San Antonio. It's living claustraphobia to a NM boy. I dream of standing on some hill in NM and not another human in sight for 50 miles in any direction.

As far as Deming being a coyote stronghold, I can definately vouch for that. Being a 30 year old kid and having all day to "patrol" the desert, I have a good number of "strongholds". I'll take any New Mexican for grins........Texans have to pay.........reciprication. It's about the only hunting that I am good at down here, but I am fishing from a very stocked pond.

I'm very interested in your intel on deer. I would just like to see some deer during the course of the day and enjoy my horse. I can spend hours glassing if I see something a time or two. Thanks.

Jesse, my intel is pretty stale as I haven't had the pleasure of living of even patrol flying over in New Mexico for several years now. All I get are a few annual visits to see family.

Here's an inexpensive way to get more ideas of where to explore than you can shake a stick at.
Go to the website for the U.S. Geologic Survey and order you some good topo maps for whatever area you are interested in. These maps are a hunter/prospecter/explorer's wet dream and will reveal things you never dreamed were there. I think each map is a little over $1. Or I've even got some regions on CD that I can print my own map. Be careful of the scale and get the scale that will give you the largest, most detailed map possible. But if you will order you some maps, you won't be short of ideas where to look for whatever turns you on. A guy with a horse should think he's died and gone to heaven with one of these maps. Just be careful and ideally go with someone. There is some mighty rugged, lonely country out there. No place to get hurt by your lonesome.

Well I was stationed in Alamogordo for 5 years. We were in a mobile deployment unit that was not yet operational when I got there in Jan 86. We deployed all over NM for the first couple of years shaking the bugs out of our gear and operational mission. We used to set up on BLM land, met some really terrific ranchers, some of whose wives would bring us baked goodies and tell us how glad they were to have us! Any of you guys remember some all tan and all white tractor trailer rigs along with tan crew cab dually pickups driving through all those small towns with government plates??

We got to see a lot of NM. I still remember the time we stopped our entire deployment in Hope, NM. We were passing through on to the east side of the mountain range. There must have been 50 of us, armed to the teeth that desended on that little mom and pop store on the S. side of the highway. I remember how nervous they looked until we all pulled out money to pay for our snacks and stuff, then they acted like it was Christmas...we must have bought every snack and soda in the joint! I remember they had that old cop car sitting in the vacant lot along the highway with a dead transmission or something in it. It didn't run but they left it there to try and get poeple to slow down through town, I believe they even paid some kid to push the car back and cut the grass under it.

I also remember stopping at some small truck stop in I think (?) Truth or Consequences (that may not be right) and fueling up our entire convoy. The guy was tickled pink, laughing as he rung up about 5,000 gallons of diesel fuel. I think we sucked his tanks dry.

My wife and I rented a house in High Rolls, from a civil service couple that were assigned out of state. We had 7 acres, apple and cherry orchards, deer, pheasant, squirrels and skunks(!) on the property. I shot my biggest bull elk in the sacremento mountains in 88 with a muzzle loader. Weed used to be a great deer area, hunted there many times. The nice thing about active duty military in NM is you get to hunt like a resident. The comment about poeple shooting at sound is correct, one of only 2 times in my life of being shot at while hunting was S. of Cloudcroft. Bunch of road hunters flying down the road shot my truck (brown and tan, same colors the state police used to have!) as I was coming out of a logging road.

My wife went to NMSU in Las Cruces for a couple of years. I even took a couple of classes at NMSU-A.

Then we went operational and started deploying all over the world. We still deployed in NM state, but they were just auxillary deployments, the real stuff all happened overseas.

Big Bores - I believe the "cop car" is still there in Hope but I think the store has folded. I know all the country you speak of well Glad you enjoyed it.

I remember one day as a kid, my Dad had to go onto Holloman AFB to inspect something and I had to stay at an MP station in case I was really a commie spy. The guard there was a kid from New Jersey and I never forgot him looking out across the Tularosa Basin and telling me New Mexico was a wasteland and there was nothing there. I thought, "You ARE an idiot!" But I just smiled and nodded. I figured the sooner he got back to New Jersey, the better off all of us would be.

The N.M I grew up in was paradise. I could go dang near any place and DO anything I felt big enough to do. (Which was dang near fatal to my dumb ass more than once! ) I reckon a guy still can...it just isn't as easy.

Hey Jesse,
I've hunted deer over around Pinon since the early 80's--a couple of places off Pinon Draw called Elk Canyon and Lick Ridge. When I started hunting there the ranchers let us go through their gates to get back into that part of the Lincoln Ntl Forest. I used to see how early on opening day I could count 100 deer. Now it's locked up but you can still walk in--dragging a buck 3 to 5 miles is getting harder every year! The last 2 years I've seen about 15 deer per day--nothing like 100 by 9 a.m.! But the elk are everywhere. Last season a guy walked out of Lick Canyon just as I went by and he was carrying a set of 6X6 sheds that were long enough to use for crutches. I almost stopped hunting deer just to look for shed antlers!

There are still a lot of deer in the area--just driving around the backroads at night is enough to prove that. But the deer are hunted or hassled starting in Sept for archery, then blackpowder, then a couple of elk hunts, and finally a 3 day rifle hunt followed by a 5 day rifle hunt that starts 2 days after the first one. That gets to about the middle of Nov. or so. By that time the deer are acting a lot more like whitetails than muleys!

I live in Lovington now so it only takes me about 3 hours to get over there. I used to drive over from Canyon TX when I first started hunting over around Pinon, but I wouldn't drive that far to hunt there now. This probably didn't give you too much help, but maybe a little.

Good Hunting,

Pecos

Good suggestion on looking for mule deer in spots that you might not think would be productive. I remember once I was doing a little coyote hunting in the sage brush/cactus country just AFTER deer season around Red Rock (Grant Co.). I jumped the biggest buck I ever saw right in the middle of a flat expanse of "nothingness". I swear to God that big old buck was hiding behind a rock the size of a baseball!!

We used to always catch big muleys in the flats after the opening weekend. Once the hunters started running all over the mountains raising Hell, the deer would start feeding down the draws out into the flats.

I have one Hope, New Mexico story.

I graduated from NMSU in '70 and moved to Abilene, Texas. Three years later I get transferred to Hobbs. A day or so after I got there, I get a call to go to a rig south of Hope.

I load up and head out at my normal pace about 80+. After turning south of Hope on a dirt road and driving about twenty miles into those foothills I find a 6' rattler crawling up the road towards me. I've never seen one bigger to this day.

I get out and start grabbing rocks and trying to kill it. As the bombardment continues it crawls about twenty yards off into the mesquites. I'm grabbing and throwing every rock within 50 yards of him, and in the back of my mind is some story I heard about them traveling in pairs, so I've got one eye focused each direction. My heart's pounding. He's raising Hell trying to strike me.

Finally I get him stopped. He's dead. His head is flatter than a pancake and his lower jaw is 90 degrees sideways from the rest of his head.

I decide to leave him, head on to the rig and pick him up later.

I get to the rig, tell the whole story, take care of my business and leave.

About two hours later when I get back to the pile of rocks I left by the road as a marker, I get out, go over to where I left him..... and no rattler.

I start gingerly walking around looking in the mesquites and grass. All of a sudden he starts rattling. I'd gotten within about three feet of him in the grass. Here I go again, grabbing every rock I can find, pounding Hell out of him.

Finally he's dead, again. I take some limbs and flip him over to the car, put him in the trunk, and head for Hope.

All the time I'm thinking, "this damn thing won't die". "What if it's still alive?" "Be careful man when you get home and pop the trunk."

About then I get to Hope and turn right towards Artesia. Now that I'm on the highway I crank it up to 90+ and hit the first curve in that big left/right S-Curve west of Artesia.

I'm thinking "What if it works its way around the backseat BEFORE I get home?"

As I enter the curve, I'm struck hard on the heel of my right foot.

I jerk both feet up around the steering column and fight to control the car, stabbing at the brake , but not wanting to get hit again by that snake. I'm about to get control when I'm into the righthand curve still going too fast. Car fish-tailing.

The "snake" is all over the floor under my feet, and I head for the bar ditch and bail-out running.

I'm in the midst of a four-alarm heart-attack. I can't hardly stand up I'm shaking so bad, and I'm about to pee on myself.

I'm so mad and spooked I can't go near the car. I just watch the open door for that evil bastard.

Fifteen minutes later...nothing.

I build up my nerve, approach the car and start peeking around. There under the brake pedal is the "snake"; a 16 oz. Coke bottle that had sailed out from under the seat and struck my foot when I hit that first curve too fast.

I laughed so hard I damn near did pee on myself.

I got back in, thought about it, got out, popped the turtle, confirmed the real rattler was still dead, and drove home.

Man what a day.

Ah hell, since the rest of you NM boys are havin' fun I guess I'd better chime in. I was born in Portales, raised in Roswell graduated from Goddard in 94 worked a couple of years then came to Las Cruces for School which hopefully by this time next year I will have a degree in Wildlife Science(Lord help the coyotes)My mother was from Carlsbad and Dad was from Lake Arthur They live in Artesia( Dad works for Navajo). I had a friend who died in Bottomless lakes.I have swam in the red water of the Pecos and had many dates end up on the banks of that ol'river. A lot of those dates started out shooting rabbits (evil spotlighters. I still think Eastern NM has a lot of small town feel. The other night I was in Roswell visiting and half the restaraunt knew each other and everyone was talkin about who drew. ANd you gotta love whataburger in Roswell with all those bigass deer (replicas but who cares)and if ya'll are ever in Roswell and want to see some good pics stop in at Fuller plumbing supply on Virginia lots of sand deer and Barbary sheep.

jesse j if you could come up with a reliable source for off-range ibex I might could give you some tips on where you could find a sheep.