Saturday morning, October 10, 2015 Xavier Koury seized the opportunity given him by taking a trophy elk on Game Management Unit 24 at Fort Bayard. (Courtesy Photo)
Xavier is the 12-year-old son of Michael and Carolyn Koury of Silver City. Taking advantage of the once in a lifetime privilege of drawing a Bull Elk hunt in Fort Bayard’s Special Management Area’s Youth-Only hunt, Xavier took his time, aimed, cool, calm, collected and fired his 30-378 Weatherby Magnum rifle to successfully take the huge bull elk.
Size matters in this sport, and it measured 380. The scoring, which is done systematically among game hunters, measures the antlers' main beams, spread, and mass from both sides to get a starting point of 200 for most big bulls. Then, the tine lengths would be added on. Therefore, this guy certainly was a prize.
Xavier and his younger brother both participate in Grant County 4-H’s shooting sports program, which encourages firearm safety and instruction. Funding for the 4-H Shooting Sports program is primarily from the Friends of the NRA and supplies hard to find ammunition for 4-H youths in shooting sports.
4-H enrollment for the New Year began Oct 1 and will continue through December 18, 2015. For more information, please contact the Extension Office at 388-1559.