South Texas Nilgai DOWN!!

[trophy8]

This started about 4 months ago. The company I work for had an auction for the United Way and one of the items was a Nilgai Hunt on the El Sauz ranch which used to be the southern most portion of the King ranch. Right on the gulf. I’ve wanted to hunt them for years and decided to go for it.

I usually hunt with heavy magnums but was pretty nervous about not having enough gun. I’ve heard these things are tanks and just flat out soak up lead. I found out....

I was told I could bring a guest. Me and my dad don’t get to hunt together much anymore and this would be a special hunt. Perfect!! This isn’t the part of the ranch you can buy package hunts on. This is a membership type deal that Brett donated for the auction. (Not including last names as I don’t want his info posted everywhere). It’s a super nice place. Full cook staff. Furnished rooms. Pool. Cleaning and processing on site with walk in cooler. Great food and great people.



So we arrived at the ranch before lunch Friday to start hunting that afternoon. We met Brett(super nice guy from work) and our guide, Mondo. Got unpacked. Checked the rifles. And headed out. We decided to go east and hunt right on the coast. We were in the pasture maybe 10 minutes and saw a group of 3 young bulls. They went from 0 to 1000 MPH immediately. I knew they were skittish but dang!! We saw a bunch of animals that evening. Lots of cows. Several young bulls. A couple big mature bulls but in the wide open with no way to get even remotely close. I was enjoying seeing new country. Thousands of birds. Waterfowl, all kinds and colors of birds small and large. Varmints. Deer. Hogs. Nilgai. A very cool place to be. We hunted from 1:30 till dark. No shots fired. Ate dinner. Drank some whiskey by the fire then went to bed to hunt this morning.






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[ItsLeo]

Loving this. Gonna try it someday!

[Wence]

Okay. Don’t stop now, you’ve got my phone interest.

[Wence]

I don’t know why phone got put it in there.

[deerwatcher51]

Looking forward to the results.

[trophy8]

This morning started out cold and foggy. We were headed to the southeast part of the ranch. A long drive from camp. Real long. The fog finally started lifting about the time we got where we were going. We hopped out of the ranger and took off to start making our way around a ridge on the gulf to glass. We immediately spotted a group of 6 bulls. Too young but a good sign. We walked up on a whitetail. These aren’t normal deer. They just sit and watch you haha. Didn’t have a care in the world that we were there.
We hunted on. Went several hundred yards and I had stopped to glass an area and Mondo kept going a little ways up. I heard a heck of a commotion when I headed to catch up to him. Apparently there was a young Nilgai bull bedded up and he almost stepped on him LOL. Idk who was more scared. The bull or Mondo. Quality entertainment for sure!! We kept going.... we split up to glass some more. Saw a pack of 3 coyotes. Their lucky day that we were chasing Nilgai or it would have turned into a coyote hunt!! They were huge!!

Mondo motioned us over his direction. He spotted a lone bull. He was right on the edge of some thick brush by the water and we couldn’t tell what he was. We watched him for awhile. The sun was in our eyes so it was hard to tell how dark he was but he had good horn length. Big body. And solo like mature bulls are. We decided to make a move on him. This is where it gets western. Dad and Brett stayed put to watch the show. Mondo and I started the stalk. There was y’all grass in between us and the bull. Nothing else except a single mesquite. He didn’t know we were there. Wind was in our face. Mondo wanted me to move when he did and stay close hoping that bull thought we were another bull coming at him. It worked a little too well. We got to 225 yards and he pinned his ears back and bowed up and started coming at us. I was nervous nor did I have the shakes until this happened. I had my sticks up and was ready. But Mondo wanted to push our luck and get closer. We finally stopped at 165. I got the gun up. He was slightly quartering to us. I put it low on his front shoulder and let it fly. Boom THUD. IMPACT!! Drilled him. I was shooting my 300 win mag with a 200 grain hornady ELDX. He took it like a man and took off running but obviously hurt. I racked another one in and sent it. Impact. Racked another. Sent it. Impact. He’s still running....i had an empty mag so I grabbed another out of my pocket and threw it in. Mondo shot. Impact. He’s shooting a 250 grain bullet in a 338 rem mag. I shot again but missed just in front of him. He finally fell. He made it about 100-150 yards from the initial shot. The first shot would have killed him but he was running towards the water. 2/3 shots off sticks on the run ain’t bad!! I was running the bolt like a machine gun!!

We headed over to him. He was done. The following pic is looking from where he fell to where we started the stalk by the brush. You can see how close he was getting to going in the mud and water. Glad he didn’t make it.


After multiple high fives and cheering we called it in to pick him up. USDA highly regulates this ranch due to deer ticks. They have hundreds of feeders they use for medicated feed for the deer to remove ticks and keep them healthy. It’s apparently a large problem down here. Each animal killed must be checked by the USDA before they will release it off of the property. They must stay for 48 hours. Strange having to have someone come get it. And it took awhile being so far from the lodge but it is what it is. I was pumped. I had my bull down.
We hunted the rest of the day looking for deer and pigs. Not much was moving. Dad shot a tiny little hog lol. We saw a huge bobcat. They are off limits to prevent someone from accidentally shooting an ocelot. So nobody bothers them. It’s been a great trip. I’m very thankful to have enjoyed it. The ranch personnel were amazing. Brett was awesome to hunt with and I’m very appreciative that he donated the hunt and took us around on his buggy. It was a blast. I will have to hunt them again!! It was a great time with my dad as well. We both really enjoyed it.






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[trophy8]

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[DPElite]

Hail of a Blue Bull man absolute stud congrats on the good time

[Bone Thug]

Cool deal. Congrats!!!

[popeandyoung151]

Congrats Matt!

[Briar Friar]

Awesome critter! Well done. Thanks for sharing your hunt.

[Wence]

Congratulations on a great blue bull!!!

[kd350]

Congrats! Lots of good eats in your future

[freerhunter16]

Beautiful animal! Congrats on a great hunt!

[TexasCanesFan]

That is an awesome trophy. Congratulations.