My oryx pic

schmalts

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Wow, this was a fun hunt. Part lope, part elk!
The hunt was on the White sand missle range in NM for free range Oryx (gemsbok) that were introduced in the 60's. I took both my bow and rifle and after i saw the sparse cover and how well these things could see i left the bow in the case :D and with only 3 days to hunt i wasnt about to mess around. The first day we spent a most of the time in the flats. Saw about 15 orxy but nothing real good. Its not like the good old days from what i was told and the huge ones are far and few. in the evening i wanted to head to the mountains and found this one playing like around in desert bighorn country. first shot was 550 yards and i held over too high and missed. it ran around the corner of the mountain and i manged to get another glimps of him when i rounded the bend. I ran up the hill to intercept him and after about 10 seconds to get my wind back :rolleyes: i took one at 450 and hit him a little forward in the neck. He took off and i figured lets rock and pounded 2 more for a hope and prayer but no go. Then for some reason when he crested the hill he stopped to look back. well i let the last one go and he rolled down the hill with one through the shoulders at close to 500 yards. Man i tell you what, i dont hardly ever rifle hunt but it was cool to kill something that far away. Sorry about the lack of field pictures but cameras are not permitted on the range ;) what a cool looking animal, big, strong, amd just pretty neat with the long tail down to the ground.
He was just under 36 inches long and the next day my Buddy Tim got one that was 37" after a lost animal and a 2 hour track. but it all worked out for him as he got one of the biggest bulls of the 130 person hunt.
cape.jpg
 
Awesome!!! Congrats on a great looking animal. That thing will look gorgeous on the wall.

PS- You look mad. ;)
 
Schmalts

Congratulations on an impressive looking animal.
 
Wyodeerhunter said:
congrats!
How do you field judge them???
Its a little hard. for one, if they are feeding with the head down look for horns that are taller than the shoulders while feeding. Then look at he ears and multiply that as many times as to get the horn lenght. ears are around 7 inches.
 
congrats on the hunt. i drive by there sometimes and see them. they are a huge animal
 
Way to go Pat. Sounds like a big time. That thing will look great on the wall. Is it a boy or a girl? hump I don't remember how to tell the difference in the field. What was the success rate with 130 tags?
 
it was a bull. The cows have horns that are usually longer than the bulls, but slimmer. Thats the cool thing, i would have just as well shot a cow a couple inches longer than the thicker bull, the head mount would look the same. The hunts usually have a high rate of kill. This one did as well, around 90%. But only about 20% of the hunters kill a big one. I saw a few one horned animals taken, even small ones at that. There was one at the meat cutter that was the size of a WT deer...but there was 20 youth tags so maybe a lot of kids shot anything the last day. All in all it like a lope hunt i guess for most, but the difference was I opted to stay in the mountain area so it was more like a sheep or deer hunt for me.
The cost of this hunt was a little high but i still would recommend it to anyone that wants something really different to do. The meat of these i think is better tha elk!! no game smell or tatse at all. a little more grain to it though so i will have to see if the steaks are tough. The burger is awsome though, made some chili tonight and the wife was oh so happy when she was browing the meat and didnt complain about any smell. She actually told me to go get another one someday, but i told her it would have to be her since it is a once in a lifetime draw :D She may take me up on that she said hump
 
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