sw_hunter
Active Member
Well I went Oryx Hunting this past weekend and it was one of the best times of my life. I took my father in-law and his brother with me as my guests, I knew I was going to need all the help I could get with glassing and they are the best guys I know that can spot game miles away. as we drove to Alamogordo on Friday afternoon I spotting some very nice oryx on the side of the road near the small missile range. we glass them for ten fifteen minutes just to get a feel of what we were going to be looking for, the bull in that heard was a big one with straight v horns meaning a mature bull. we drove to the gate to make sure we wouldn't be late in the morning. at 3:30 Saturday we headed to the gate to get in line and do the orientation. as we left the parking from there we headed north and started to stop every now and then to glass the flats. We saw a few around 8:00am but were about 2 miles away walking away from us so we found the nearest road that headed in their direction! after hitting the end of the road and glassing the area we found a wash that they had walked thru so we didn't see them go by. as we left to get back on the main road we spotted a HUGE old bull but his left horn was broken about 3/4's of the way up, after he ran off my father in-law informed me that I could have had the tax fix it, I was not happy to say the least. Later that morning I spotted a pair of bulls hiding a wash, I got off the dirt road and crawled up to the brush line and asked my spotter the range, but he said 150, which didn't sound right but he hit it again and said 150. I set my scope line up the shot and BOOM right under him I never got a second shot at him, they didn't stop running until we could only see them in our bino's, it was a simple error with the mode button and not the power button be pressed, honest mistake. We tried to stock a few that had been jumped by a group of hunter in the afternoon but man they can cover ground so fast that 500-700 shoots were the only ones give to us, but as soon as they would see you off they went again. We called it a day at sundown and said we would hunt the west side of the area again in the morning. Sunday morning most of the oryx were in sight but that night they had moved to the base of the mountain the is the border of the west side of the range. I got a shoot at one in the cury canyon area, we had stopped to get down and get a cup of coffee. my uncle was getting down when he said looked up on the bluff of that mountain, there were three standing up looking at us. I got down set up and dialed in my scope 658 and took aim, as i was releasing the trigger i thought oh crap i didn't adjust for angle, the shoot went a few inches over her back and she was off running along this trail, we heard another shot come from around the mountain it stopped her and I adjust for the slope and shot, I hit a cactus that was blocking half of her front shoulder /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif. as we drove off we saw that someone had got a nice bull just around the corner /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif, if we wouldn't have stopped there. around 3:30 I thought it may be good to head the the south to check the bordering flats. We stopped every now and then to glass. as we drove heading south we met up with a game and fish officer and asked us if we were still hunt cause he had just spooked a heard that was running in a wash along the road. my father in-law said look their they are. we turned around and tried to cut them off from crossing the road. my father in-law cut them off but to good! they were right out side my door /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gifand game and fish was right behind so i had to get down and walk then run at them cause they started to run away when i got off the truck, I took a shot but they were running so no luck. I thought that was going to be the way my hunt ended but my spotters said lets go and turned the truck around and headed south after them. the game warden had called in the heard so we had 5 other trucks behind us going after the same ones. most of the trucks past us or pulled off the road to glass. we found a road headed west so we took it hoping to cut them off. we drove half way up and started to glass, the sun was getting lower and lower when they finally came into view, we knew that they didn't know we where there so we stocked them trying to close ground and get a better view cause it was so brushy that we would lose them from time to time. we duck walk for what felt like a mile and then heard the brush in front of us crackling, as i slowly stood up there was the heard walking right at me /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif the lead bull stopped about 120 yards away no shoot to much greasewood in the way and the rest of them kept walk at us! no shoot no shoot my unc said, by this time it was 15 minutes left of daylight. as I was still looking at the bull thru the brush the wind picked up and a medium sized cow picked her head up 75 yards away and looked right at us. she busted us and as she took her first step to run off I it her right above the heart dropping her right there, the shoot made them all run in every direction some at us some the other way and around us, I thought I was going to be run over my them. by the time we got the truck to her it was dark so no good pics, no time to even field dress, we just loaded her up in the truck and headed to the gate, we cleaned her up near the gate where they allowed us to.my cows 28 inch horns were not the longest nor the shortest but the hunt made her my trophy.
