nmtaxi
Active member
After a horrible 2011 hunting season, this year started off right. My son had his youth off-range oryx hunt start on Friday. Thursday night we headed south with expectations of long, dusty miles, hot days, hours behind the glass, and burning through fuel like it was free. Friday morning was meeting those expectations.
The desert was in full bloom, helping to break up the monotony of the landscape.
We hit the all the water holes and found a lot of water. What we didn't find was any sign of oryx. I never would have guessed that areas that held a lot of oryx just two years ago, would be void of them completely now. Especially with them having two months off from pesky off range hunters.
We decided to hit a new area around 10 am, and on our way we ran into a herd of about 8 oryx. Being over 10 miles from the range, we weren't even in oryx mode. Jr, deciding that it was too easy to shoot an oryx next to the road, decided to give them a warning shot instead (insert sarcasm here). We watched as the herd made their way in the distance into the thick brush that oryx hunter know so well.
It was getting hot, and we decided to push on closer to the range and see what kind of activity there was down there. We did see some singles, and tried an unsuccessful stalk on one of them. Jr. found this spent shell along the way from some sort of military weapon. We find .50 cal shells all the time, but this thing dwarfed those. Here it is next to a .30-06.
More miles and glassing through heat waves, we decided to head back to town for a meal and regroup. Over a Big Mac, we decided to head back to where the herd was we saw that morning, and get on their tracks. We couldn't imagine they went too far in this heat.
We got to the spot around 5pm and picked up their trail easily in the soft sand. Following the trail slowly and glassing ahead in the high thick brush, we looked for white faces and black horns. A little less than a mile on the trail, there they were. Two oryx. One was a double broken horn, and the other a respectable cow. Suprisingly, they hadn't seen us yet.
Using the brush, we closed the distace to around a hundred yards. Jr. was standing with his .30-06 on the sticks, waiting for the bigger one to give an open shot through the brush. What was probably less than a minute felt like an eternity knowing that at any moment they would walk into our scent. Finally the cow cleared, and Jr. put her down with one shot. The cow was just over 30", but definately an off-range trophy.
The desert was in full bloom, helping to break up the monotony of the landscape.
We hit the all the water holes and found a lot of water. What we didn't find was any sign of oryx. I never would have guessed that areas that held a lot of oryx just two years ago, would be void of them completely now. Especially with them having two months off from pesky off range hunters.
We decided to hit a new area around 10 am, and on our way we ran into a herd of about 8 oryx. Being over 10 miles from the range, we weren't even in oryx mode. Jr, deciding that it was too easy to shoot an oryx next to the road, decided to give them a warning shot instead (insert sarcasm here). We watched as the herd made their way in the distance into the thick brush that oryx hunter know so well.
It was getting hot, and we decided to push on closer to the range and see what kind of activity there was down there. We did see some singles, and tried an unsuccessful stalk on one of them. Jr. found this spent shell along the way from some sort of military weapon. We find .50 cal shells all the time, but this thing dwarfed those. Here it is next to a .30-06.
More miles and glassing through heat waves, we decided to head back to town for a meal and regroup. Over a Big Mac, we decided to head back to where the herd was we saw that morning, and get on their tracks. We couldn't imagine they went too far in this heat.
We got to the spot around 5pm and picked up their trail easily in the soft sand. Following the trail slowly and glassing ahead in the high thick brush, we looked for white faces and black horns. A little less than a mile on the trail, there they were. Two oryx. One was a double broken horn, and the other a respectable cow. Suprisingly, they hadn't seen us yet.
Using the brush, we closed the distace to around a hundred yards. Jr. was standing with his .30-06 on the sticks, waiting for the bigger one to give an open shot through the brush. What was probably less than a minute felt like an eternity knowing that at any moment they would walk into our scent. Finally the cow cleared, and Jr. put her down with one shot. The cow was just over 30", but definately an off-range trophy.
Last edited:
Makes it far more exciting.
