The public draw hunt starts at noon on day one. A cold front had moved through so the the temperatures where unusually cool, about 58°, as we moved back into the brush to set up for the evening hunt. The photo above shows what the brush country looks like. This is a walk in hunt on 42,000 acres so it is a bit strenuous and does require a bit of experience in navigating through the brush to get where you are going. There is no such thing as a straight line. If you what to go to a point a mile way you will at least walk two miles and will need to recognize on a source like google maps what is passable and what is not.
The country is really dry and the small canals that feed off the Laguna to flood the brush for water fowl were dried up which was a real blessing as we would not need to get wet and we wouldn't need to avoid the prolific gators. Mike and I used a narrow dry canal bank to set up on and watch a "rise" of brush tapering down to the canal (an elevation change of may be 2' to 3' in this flat country). We saw three great bucks come out of that brush but given the distance we would need to pack them, they needed to be a bit better. No nilgai. The morning of day two was back into the same spot. The humidity and temperature was back to normal which means a high in the mid 80°s. We saw no nilgai and decided to move elsewhere for the evening.
We found a patch of regrowth from a controlled burn (about three sections) and Mike set up on the closest edge as his knee had locked up the first day. Mike is truly a tough guy, a Texas Game Warden, and despite a knee that was locked, he never said a word about it. He hobbled in a half mile to where the brush ended in a slough of at least another three sections and I crossed it, another half mile. What a blessing in that it was dry as I would have crossed it even if it had been wet. It was a real luxury not dealing with snakes and gators. Two years ago, I had an encounter with a 12' gator at close range that could have gone very bad. I was three miles in and if he had dragged me under and towed me up under a bank of a levee, no one would have ever found a trace of me. Oh well, I would have still crossed the slough.
I crossed the levee (an interior two track) and saw an excellent finger of brush running up from the Laguna. Anything moving north or south might use it to move close to me.
After about an hour, I saw a large brown patch moving through the brush in the center of the picture. At first I thought it a very large whitetail. I quickly realized it was a nilgai cow calf and could see a cow ahead of it. At 65-yards, the break of arrow line above, I shot but the hammer fell on an empty chamber. She did not hear it and did not hear me cycle a live round because of the wind but at a normal walk these long legged critters are covering a lot of ground and she had moved off the left into the brush on to the road I was sitting on. I raised up and slowly pushed backward through the cactus, yuccas, and catclaw to where I could see down the road. She had heard me and was watching me at about 85 yards. I placed the crosshair on her front shoulder and squeezed the trigger. In the view of the scope, I watch that 425-grain bullet bounce of the road behind and beyond her, the bullet has passed through the brush I was in and deflected. She dropped off the road and the calf came up. I though about shooting her (it is referred to as "vealgai" as it is very tasty), she was about 200#, but decided I had made enough of a mess for one day.
When we moved locations we moved in the truck about five miles, there is only one road you can use, and the refuge requires that rifles be unloaded and cased. This is very foreign to me as living on a ranch I never unload a rifle unless it is going into the safe. When we where getting ready to head out from the truck, I was loading my rifle's magazine tube and stopped as another hunter in a truck had pulled up immediately abeam me to talk. i normally check things but it is tough to explain the fatigue level at this point. At three in the afternoon I had already covered at least 4 to 5 miles in some really tough country and was going to cover at least another two miles before I got back to the truck. Oh well.
Mike and I returned to our hunt location in the pitch dark of the morning. I was super glad the slough was not wet as I would not cross it with a light in that if a nilgai was out feeding in the distance it would know exactly where I was and avoid me. It was a beautiful morning, I was looking across about 1800 acres but it was quite and still. About 8:30 I heard Mike shoot and he had a cow down!
Mike had been sitting on a bucket because of his knee and had a buck come out at about 60-yards and immediately see him. He hid the bucket and laid flat on the ground. About 20 minutes later he could see upper tree limbs bouncing and raised up to see a group of four nilgai pulling mesquite beans out of a tree. He shot the cow at forty yards. He shoots a 280 Remington and shot her in the neck. She went down like she was hammered, kicked a bit, and was done. Mike had been worried about the elk sized critter but the difference is that they employ a coat of armor in their hide that protects them from tiger strikes in their homeland. It is tougher than that on the largest of feral hogs and most private ranches require belted magnums to hunt them because of it. The 280 Rem bullet did not exit the neck even at 40-yards. He made a good choice. With this, the work began.
Another hunt and another year is just about done. A bit %@*&$ at myself about my mistake of not loading or checking the rifle once in the hunt area but I also understand the effects of fatigue. This hunt is about like ranger training. At the midpoint, half the hunters have dropped out and on the last day another half is gone. Just to finish the hunt is an accomplishment. We saw some mighty bucks, feral hogs, javelinas, and nilgai plus some of the greatest and wildest country our Good Lord created, I can't wait for my next hunt!
