FishN4Eyes
Well-known member
My 13 YO daughter, Ally, was lucky enough to draw a New Mexico oryx tag on the White Sands Missile Range.
The hunts are used to control the population of oryx that were introduced to the WSMR in the 70's from Africa and are an incredibly unique hunting experience.
These are tough, wary animals and a ton of fun to hunt.
We flew in to Albuquerque on Wednesday night and drove down to Alamogordo on Thursday to meet up with our friend and guide, Shannon Owen of SO Hunts. Shannon is a fantastic guy to hunt with and knows the WSMR like the back of his hand, I'd highly recommend him if you are lucky enough to draw this tag.
The hunts are only two to three days long so I wanted to give Ally the best chance to succeed in the limited time we had so that is why I chose to hunt with Shannon, in addition to the fact that he is funny as hell and fun to hang out with.
We attended the mandatory hunter orientation on Friday morning and they didn't have any military exercises planned so we got the bonus of hunting on Friday afternoon so off we went.
We saw several decent oryx and made a couple stalk attempts but were foiled by swirling winds and the acute eyesight of the oryx a few times.
About an hour before dark we spotted a few feeding in a stalkable location and off we went.
We were able to move into shooting distance and Ally got set up on the shooting sticks and took the shot. The oryx was hard-hit but moved off into the thick brush. We were able to position ourselves for another shot and Ally hit it again hard and down it went.
These are incredibly tough animals and she had to put in two additional finishing shots before it was over. We were able to take a couple quick pictures and quickly field dress it and headed out at dark as we had to be off the base at a specific time. We returned the next day to cape, bone out and pack the meat and cape out about a mile to the truck.
Here are a couple pictures of the 36" oryx, pretty dang good for anyone and certainly great for a young hunter.
Rifle was a .280 Remington shooting 150 gr. Nosler Partitions.
The hunts are used to control the population of oryx that were introduced to the WSMR in the 70's from Africa and are an incredibly unique hunting experience.
These are tough, wary animals and a ton of fun to hunt.
We flew in to Albuquerque on Wednesday night and drove down to Alamogordo on Thursday to meet up with our friend and guide, Shannon Owen of SO Hunts. Shannon is a fantastic guy to hunt with and knows the WSMR like the back of his hand, I'd highly recommend him if you are lucky enough to draw this tag.
The hunts are only two to three days long so I wanted to give Ally the best chance to succeed in the limited time we had so that is why I chose to hunt with Shannon, in addition to the fact that he is funny as hell and fun to hang out with.
We attended the mandatory hunter orientation on Friday morning and they didn't have any military exercises planned so we got the bonus of hunting on Friday afternoon so off we went.
We saw several decent oryx and made a couple stalk attempts but were foiled by swirling winds and the acute eyesight of the oryx a few times.
About an hour before dark we spotted a few feeding in a stalkable location and off we went.
We were able to move into shooting distance and Ally got set up on the shooting sticks and took the shot. The oryx was hard-hit but moved off into the thick brush. We were able to position ourselves for another shot and Ally hit it again hard and down it went.
These are incredibly tough animals and she had to put in two additional finishing shots before it was over. We were able to take a couple quick pictures and quickly field dress it and headed out at dark as we had to be off the base at a specific time. We returned the next day to cape, bone out and pack the meat and cape out about a mile to the truck.
Here are a couple pictures of the 36" oryx, pretty dang good for anyone and certainly great for a young hunter.
Rifle was a .280 Remington shooting 150 gr. Nosler Partitions.
