Hntnhrd
Member
The following are all true events of my Oryx hunt last week on the White Sands Missle Range in New Mexico. What a great time!!.
We left the Bitterrot Valley with extemly high hopes of a good time, great weather and excellent hunting. We made it to Salt Lake City by 1:30 on Thursday afternoon. Since we were ahead of Schedule we figured we would stop at the Hunt Expo show and poke around, sign up for a few tags and see what there was at the show that we needed to have. After driving around downtown Salt lake for a while (actually over an hour) we finally came across the Sportsman Wharehouse bus. We figured that we would go the SW to get our 10$ off entrance coupons. After asking the driver for directions he said " Why don't you just follow me" I guess he must of known I have no clue how to follow directions. Or maybe it was the stupid look on my face when he was trying to tell me how to get ther. We followed him to the store got on the bus and went back to the show.
We went in and dropped a few hundred bucks on applying for tags. Can't win if you don't play. Now I am 0 for 93 on 2007 tag drawing. Anyway we went into the show and WOW. If you couldn't find someone there to find you any animal you wanted to hunt than you just couldn't hunt it. Well some how we immeadiatley made it to the FNWAS fund rasing booth. We were approached by a healthty young lady in a pink tank top asking us if we were single slammers or double slammers? My initial thought was " I LOVE SLC" After looking at the three healthy ladies working there I thought " Hell I would love to be a triple slammer". I ain't as good as I once was But I could be good once as I ever was
Unfortunatley the only thing I could say to her was that "NO I wasn't a double slammer yet! That was my highlight of the show. We spent a couple hours and left. Headed over to HOOTERS for the great chicken wings and a pitcher of beer. After refueling we cotinued on our way.
We arrived in Socorro on Friday. Check into the Hotel and went to try to Glass into the MIssle range.With my usual luck it started to snow as we wound our way through the BLM land to the fence. No Oryx Sightings the first night.
We were back at the Gate by 4:45 the next morning for check in. After getting through the gate we sat in a parking lot for 1:30 hours waitign for our prehunt meeting. WE were finally released to hunt just after daylight. It was like spped weeks at Daytona. We let the wannabe nascar drivers go zooming out into the snow. We started on our way and within 10 minutes saw our first Oryx. Few cows and one nice bull. I had waited to long to end this hunt already. Plus there were some other hunters looking at him also. We kept on driving.
We found a two track that had no tire tracks on it so we turned up it. Within 50 feet there were tracks int he snow. We spotted another herd running 300yards ahead. There was a huge bull in that herd. I definitely would shoot him this early in the hunt. They continued over the ridge. We hauled it up the road to the ridgeline and bailed out. We son spotted the herd at about 250 yards but they were in thick brush. Once they stared running we picked out the big bull but no shot was presented. The snow blew back in and visibilty went to zero.
WE went back to the truck and continued our search. We drove for about an hour before running into another herd. They were mostly broken bulls and shorter horned animals. We kept looking.
About 2:00 pm we found a herd about 500 yards off of a crummy two track road. We glassed them for a while and saw they were in a great spot for a stalk. We continued driving till we were out of sight. We bailed out of the truck and started our stalk. We came up in just the right spot and the herd of 10 animals were before us bedded. We glassed them and found that one cow had the horns I was looking for in a trophy. The rest of the herd had broken or deformed horns. My hunting partner kneeled up and they spotted him immeadiately. Could have been his footwear. I zeroed low on the front shouder of the animal I wanted and pulled the trigger. I broke both front shoulders and she still went about 40 yards. They are an amazingly tough animal. And amazingly beautiful.
The horns streched the tape to 38 inches long with 7 inch bases. I was hoping for an animal over 35 inches and well exceeded that.
Little did we know that the excitement was only to begin. We were not allowed to bring cameras into the missle range. We had to drive back to the Hotel to get the cameras and then drive back towards the range to get photos. As we were setting up to get soem good shots. My buddy noticed something in the sky behind us. You can just make it out in the picture. We coudn't beleive it. It looked like a UFO about 8 feet across. It buzzed us few more times as we finished up with pictures. So we loaded up the animal and got the hell out of there.
Another thing we found during the hunt that do to the cold that flip flops were not going to work. What we found at Walmart was something better. I think the Pink Color of our slippers was just the right combo to sooth the beasts and not spooking them. I also think they looked good on us. They were comfortable!!!
It was defintily a hunting trip I will never forget.
We left the Bitterrot Valley with extemly high hopes of a good time, great weather and excellent hunting. We made it to Salt Lake City by 1:30 on Thursday afternoon. Since we were ahead of Schedule we figured we would stop at the Hunt Expo show and poke around, sign up for a few tags and see what there was at the show that we needed to have. After driving around downtown Salt lake for a while (actually over an hour) we finally came across the Sportsman Wharehouse bus. We figured that we would go the SW to get our 10$ off entrance coupons. After asking the driver for directions he said " Why don't you just follow me" I guess he must of known I have no clue how to follow directions. Or maybe it was the stupid look on my face when he was trying to tell me how to get ther. We followed him to the store got on the bus and went back to the show.
We went in and dropped a few hundred bucks on applying for tags. Can't win if you don't play. Now I am 0 for 93 on 2007 tag drawing. Anyway we went into the show and WOW. If you couldn't find someone there to find you any animal you wanted to hunt than you just couldn't hunt it. Well some how we immeadiatley made it to the FNWAS fund rasing booth. We were approached by a healthty young lady in a pink tank top asking us if we were single slammers or double slammers? My initial thought was " I LOVE SLC" After looking at the three healthy ladies working there I thought " Hell I would love to be a triple slammer". I ain't as good as I once was But I could be good once as I ever was
Unfortunatley the only thing I could say to her was that "NO I wasn't a double slammer yet! That was my highlight of the show. We spent a couple hours and left. Headed over to HOOTERS for the great chicken wings and a pitcher of beer. After refueling we cotinued on our way.We arrived in Socorro on Friday. Check into the Hotel and went to try to Glass into the MIssle range.With my usual luck it started to snow as we wound our way through the BLM land to the fence. No Oryx Sightings the first night.
We were back at the Gate by 4:45 the next morning for check in. After getting through the gate we sat in a parking lot for 1:30 hours waitign for our prehunt meeting. WE were finally released to hunt just after daylight. It was like spped weeks at Daytona. We let the wannabe nascar drivers go zooming out into the snow. We started on our way and within 10 minutes saw our first Oryx. Few cows and one nice bull. I had waited to long to end this hunt already. Plus there were some other hunters looking at him also. We kept on driving.
We found a two track that had no tire tracks on it so we turned up it. Within 50 feet there were tracks int he snow. We spotted another herd running 300yards ahead. There was a huge bull in that herd. I definitely would shoot him this early in the hunt. They continued over the ridge. We hauled it up the road to the ridgeline and bailed out. We son spotted the herd at about 250 yards but they were in thick brush. Once they stared running we picked out the big bull but no shot was presented. The snow blew back in and visibilty went to zero.
WE went back to the truck and continued our search. We drove for about an hour before running into another herd. They were mostly broken bulls and shorter horned animals. We kept looking.
About 2:00 pm we found a herd about 500 yards off of a crummy two track road. We glassed them for a while and saw they were in a great spot for a stalk. We continued driving till we were out of sight. We bailed out of the truck and started our stalk. We came up in just the right spot and the herd of 10 animals were before us bedded. We glassed them and found that one cow had the horns I was looking for in a trophy. The rest of the herd had broken or deformed horns. My hunting partner kneeled up and they spotted him immeadiately. Could have been his footwear. I zeroed low on the front shouder of the animal I wanted and pulled the trigger. I broke both front shoulders and she still went about 40 yards. They are an amazingly tough animal. And amazingly beautiful.
The horns streched the tape to 38 inches long with 7 inch bases. I was hoping for an animal over 35 inches and well exceeded that.
Little did we know that the excitement was only to begin. We were not allowed to bring cameras into the missle range. We had to drive back to the Hotel to get the cameras and then drive back towards the range to get photos. As we were setting up to get soem good shots. My buddy noticed something in the sky behind us. You can just make it out in the picture. We coudn't beleive it.
It looked like a UFO about 8 feet across. It buzzed us few more times as we finished up with pictures. So we loaded up the animal and got the hell out of there. Another thing we found during the hunt that do to the cold that flip flops were not going to work. What we found at Walmart was something better. I think the Pink Color of our slippers was just the right combo to sooth the beasts and not spooking them. I also think they looked good on us. They were comfortable!!!
It was defintily a hunting trip I will never forget.
