Got drawn for a nilgai rifle hunt at Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge--Teniente Unit for Feb. 20-23. This was the last of four consecutive week hunts in February so I knew the summ*****es would be spooky.
This was a solo hunt, more about that in a minute.
Arrived in Raymondville late Wednesday night after work. Monday - Wednesday was open for scouting, but wasn't going to burn vacay to walk miles and miles to orient myself. Teniente is basically 4K acres--a square--with three county roads bisecting it north to south. I'd worn out onX for a week or two and hit up the genius of TBH ahead of time.
The unit is pretty much thick brush with the only open areas being Fed-shredded senderos and two salt lakes on the north side. It helped that the mesquite and huisache hadn't started to leaf out yet. You can access the NWR by walking in at gates or through any of the four-strand barbed wire fences. Thursday morning at around 9 I parked at a cable gate. It was 38, overcast, and north windy all day long. Literally and figuratively, I was going in cold.
For the day I bumped along two senderos, sitting for an hour or two on a dove stool with the Bogpod tripod propped in front of me, minding the wind. A couple yotes, some deer and a covey of quail were all that were seen. Around 5:15 I made a move to the 800 yard sendero that, I decided, would be my last sit until dark. I went down it for a couple hundred yards so that I only had to walk 600 yards to the truck when legal ended.
I set up behind a mesquite stump that was chopped off at about 4 feet by a Fed employee on the edge of the sendero, looking west. I could see about 200 yards down the sendero and to the left through a swale of knee-high dead grass and leafless thigh-sized mesquites and huisache. Oh, the senderos were wide and shredded and beat down on the edges thanks to a dozer. With plenty of nilgai trails, tracks and dung piles. This was a good spot to hole up and watch.
5:30. To my right, off in the brush, the pigs stared making a ruckus. They were fair game on this hunt and after sitting for 9 hours and not seeing a nilgai I would have handsomely dropped one. A couple minutes later a jumbo black-and-white sow, and her sip-orange twin sister, stepped out 40 yards behind me. With about eight of their 20 pound spawn. I tried slowly to turn 180 degrees to pull the trigger on black-and-white, but before I could get set they had figured something was off-kilter and slowly sauntered off the sendero into the brush.
This no-shoot opportunity would prove fortuitous.
At about 5:45--it's heavy overcast and I'm looking west--the mesquite and huisache trunks look black. Yet in the grass and tree flat to the left in the sendero. That has to be a bull.
I rested the old Remington 700 .30/06 onto the shooting sticks and cranked up the old Leupold--yeah, gloss--to 10 and saw the white patch under his chin. Cranked the magnification back down as he was broadside but slightly quartering toward me, and squeezed off a 180 grain Nosler Partition (purchased the ammo from Choice Ammunition in Montana). He paused for a second and then slowly went to turn 180 degrees. I thought he was going to drop. But in true nilgai fashion he ran south for about 30 yards then went west until he was out of sight.
So I sat there and waited for 15 minutes and then went to where he was last standing. Stepped it off at 130 yards. From there I tried to re-trace his path. There was no blood. And no nilgai. Did this three or four times before it got dark.
Back to the motel room in Raymondville. In my head, I felt really good about the shot. But there was plenty of second guessing and lack of sleep. I had shot the Remi the weekend before and was an inch high at 100 yards, just where I wanted to be.
Friday morning I was walking back down the sendero to where he was standing when I pulled the trigger. Seventy yards out I see a caracara on the ground 40 yards to my right.
Thanks for tipping me off!
After the initial elation, self-high fives, and pic texts to friends and family, the harsh reality of solo quartering and pack out came into play. It was 500 yards from the truck parked on a county road (you can't drive into NWR land for any reason). Over the next six hours, it misted rain, and the beast was quartered and loaded into Igloos in the back of the truck. A game cart helped for the two hindquarters and head (the head alone with no cape probably weighed 40 pounds). A game backpack worked for two trips for each shoulder. The last, and worst was the two backstraps and trimmings in a bag on the backpack. At least it was cold during the packout.
I was sore as hell yesterday. Today is Sunday and it's worse.
Hell yeah, I'd do it again.
This was a solo hunt, more about that in a minute.
Arrived in Raymondville late Wednesday night after work. Monday - Wednesday was open for scouting, but wasn't going to burn vacay to walk miles and miles to orient myself. Teniente is basically 4K acres--a square--with three county roads bisecting it north to south. I'd worn out onX for a week or two and hit up the genius of TBH ahead of time.
The unit is pretty much thick brush with the only open areas being Fed-shredded senderos and two salt lakes on the north side. It helped that the mesquite and huisache hadn't started to leaf out yet. You can access the NWR by walking in at gates or through any of the four-strand barbed wire fences. Thursday morning at around 9 I parked at a cable gate. It was 38, overcast, and north windy all day long. Literally and figuratively, I was going in cold.
For the day I bumped along two senderos, sitting for an hour or two on a dove stool with the Bogpod tripod propped in front of me, minding the wind. A couple yotes, some deer and a covey of quail were all that were seen. Around 5:15 I made a move to the 800 yard sendero that, I decided, would be my last sit until dark. I went down it for a couple hundred yards so that I only had to walk 600 yards to the truck when legal ended.
I set up behind a mesquite stump that was chopped off at about 4 feet by a Fed employee on the edge of the sendero, looking west. I could see about 200 yards down the sendero and to the left through a swale of knee-high dead grass and leafless thigh-sized mesquites and huisache. Oh, the senderos were wide and shredded and beat down on the edges thanks to a dozer. With plenty of nilgai trails, tracks and dung piles. This was a good spot to hole up and watch.
5:30. To my right, off in the brush, the pigs stared making a ruckus. They were fair game on this hunt and after sitting for 9 hours and not seeing a nilgai I would have handsomely dropped one. A couple minutes later a jumbo black-and-white sow, and her sip-orange twin sister, stepped out 40 yards behind me. With about eight of their 20 pound spawn. I tried slowly to turn 180 degrees to pull the trigger on black-and-white, but before I could get set they had figured something was off-kilter and slowly sauntered off the sendero into the brush.
This no-shoot opportunity would prove fortuitous.
At about 5:45--it's heavy overcast and I'm looking west--the mesquite and huisache trunks look black. Yet in the grass and tree flat to the left in the sendero. That has to be a bull.
I rested the old Remington 700 .30/06 onto the shooting sticks and cranked up the old Leupold--yeah, gloss--to 10 and saw the white patch under his chin. Cranked the magnification back down as he was broadside but slightly quartering toward me, and squeezed off a 180 grain Nosler Partition (purchased the ammo from Choice Ammunition in Montana). He paused for a second and then slowly went to turn 180 degrees. I thought he was going to drop. But in true nilgai fashion he ran south for about 30 yards then went west until he was out of sight.
So I sat there and waited for 15 minutes and then went to where he was last standing. Stepped it off at 130 yards. From there I tried to re-trace his path. There was no blood. And no nilgai. Did this three or four times before it got dark.
Back to the motel room in Raymondville. In my head, I felt really good about the shot. But there was plenty of second guessing and lack of sleep. I had shot the Remi the weekend before and was an inch high at 100 yards, just where I wanted to be.
Friday morning I was walking back down the sendero to where he was standing when I pulled the trigger. Seventy yards out I see a caracara on the ground 40 yards to my right.
Thanks for tipping me off!
After the initial elation, self-high fives, and pic texts to friends and family, the harsh reality of solo quartering and pack out came into play. It was 500 yards from the truck parked on a county road (you can't drive into NWR land for any reason). Over the next six hours, it misted rain, and the beast was quartered and loaded into Igloos in the back of the truck. A game cart helped for the two hindquarters and head (the head alone with no cape probably weighed 40 pounds). A game backpack worked for two trips for each shoulder. The last, and worst was the two backstraps and trimmings in a bag on the backpack. At least it was cold during the packout.
I was sore as hell yesterday. Today is Sunday and it's worse.
Hell yeah, I'd do it again.
