LRGV NWR-Teniente

[TXFireFighter]

A few pics...
Morning sit and one of the Nilgai dung piles we found.

[JohnG.ATX]

My buddy says he just got a shot on a cow. Going to meet up with him, give her some time, and get to looking.

[TXFireFighter]

Muzzy100 got him one! We just got in . Story to come (probably tomorrow!)

[rwkiel]

Very nice! Way to go! I can't wait to hear about it

[Cprothro]

Outstanding

[JackRyan]

Awesome, congrats!!

[rwkiel]

JohnG- did y'all find that cow your buddy shot?

[Muzzy100]

The story!

So this hunt started back in December when we were actually drawn for the archery permit. Like many hunts the first day was spend scouting. We ended up finding a good spot that we all managed to see animals at. Unfortunately we ended up going home empty handed. We just were not able to get anything within archery range. However, we found out while we were down there we had gotten drawn for the rifle hunt in February. Knowing what we knew from the previous hunt the itch was there to come back due to having seen multiple nilgai. The hunt was planned.

Upon our arrival we basically went right in and hunted our previously scouted area. We we were a little disappointed to discover the animal sign was much less than the last hunt. The Friday morning hunt didn't reveal much but txfirefighter saw some whitetails moving through. At lunch we went in and scouted other areas but I never saw anything that I wanted to return to. We thought about it and ultimately decided we would return to the original spot for the Friday evening hunt. We got in and sat down and the over cast rainy weather rolled in. I hadn't seen anything all sit and daylight was fading into the last 15 minutes of light. I had started to mess around on my phone and was not looking around as much. I knew if they came for the most part which direction they would be coming from. One trail would bring them out in front of me the other one would bring them out to my left which was a jacked up shooting position for me. Well as my attention span was fading for the evening I glance up and sure enough a nilgai bull was standing in the wide open about 50 yards away on the jacked up left side. Frozen in place I watched this beastly gray shadow stand. It acted like it didnt want to continue through the open knowing something was up. It ended up turning around and walking back into the brush walking away from me. I could see a semi clear hole in the brush it was walking towards. It veered into the hole exposing its shoulder for a split second. I knew it was now or never I sent off the 7mm mag frehanded twisted up and hoped for the best. The bull jumped spun around and ran back the direction he came from straight into the brush.

Having read numerous horror stories on how tuff and impossible nilgai were to kill I was concerned to say the least. At this point it is the last 8-10 minutes of light. I wait all of two secounds before looking for blood. Found blood at the impact location and a decent path leading into the thick brush. Txfirefighter and I linked up and began what I just knew was going to be a long iffy recovery on this what I thought was impossible to kill animal. After walking a meer fifty yards txfirefighter slaped me on the back and pointed to the downed bull. I was pumped, public lands hunts are hard but when you succeed they are rewarding. I will remember this hunt with friends long before that of just shooting a deer under a feeder back home.

[JohnG.ATX]

JohnG- did y'all find that cow your buddy shot?

No, I ended up getting to him in before dark and ranged the shot at about 230 yards. Didn't find a drop of blood on the road or any of the grass where she took off. Fairly confident the shot was just too far and he missed. Oh well... got him sitting pretty close to the same spot this evening.

[Muzzy100]

Knocked down a big sow tonight pictures to come. Everyone in our group saw pigs tonight no nilgai better luck in the morning.

[TXFireFighter]

[rwkiel]

Dang man- you're cleaning up out there!

[rwkiel]

Anything else taken while y'all were out there?

[Muzzy100]

Not that we know of but we did hear some shots there at the end

[rwkiel]

The day is finally here! We leave this afternoon and start scouting tomorrow!