By Lorraine Lawrence
For people with interests that are often solitary in nature or not many share, like hunting or fishing the internet can be a remarkable and sometimes helpful tool. Hunting often requires a leap of faith. It might require that you go to some ‘off the beaten path’ place hopeful that tracks you have scouted and signs will materialize into the creature of your dreams. Some of us push the limits of our faith even further in our quest. Even before the current perils of travel, hunters have traveled to remote, difficult and sometimes dangerous places on these adventures in search of the stuff of dreams.
Growing up I was considered intrepid, though from a small town where people had often not ventured counties away in their entire lifetime, my parents had thought nothing of putting one of us kids on a jet to be sent to visit a relative on the other side of the country for the whole of summer. It was normal to us. When an opportunity came to travel overseas while I was still in school nobody said “It might be dangerous” for a girl to be off with people the family didn’t know. We thought of adventure we had read about or seen in a movie. My parents had “Moxie” having been through the Great Depression and both having served in WWII. They had enabled all of us with being independent and capable. Qualities that I think personify most hunters.
The first time someone suggested the possibility of going on a safari to Africa I didn’t think about the obstacles, my thought was I had been elsewhere in foreign countries by myself so how hard could this be? And of course… The adventure!
Perhaps I look at the internet the same way. Not for all of the down side of pop-up advertising or the precautions I take to protect devices and accounts, or avoiding trolls, scams and bullies. But I think of the opportunity to find connections or adventure. A way to find something often hard to find. Making contact with people who share your interests and views no matter where they live.
I cannot remember how long we had all been friends on the internet but several of us had chatted for over a year about hunting, guns and other topics before one of us mentioned nilgai. It could have been me that mentioned them. I frequently do as I find these unique and elusive animals to be fascinating. I had hunted them a few times and considered them to be one of the best game animals in Texas.
I had discussed them with internet friends in India who had seen them all their lives. Dhavalsinh had even sent scans from the pages of old books from his personal library when I was trying to find more about them. So it was a real surprise to discover that someone who I was friends with lived fairly close to me and actually had access to a family ranch where these distinctive antelope ran free. My first reaction was “Holy Cow!” a little bit ironic as ‘Boselaphus tragocamelus’ though a true antelope is as it says in the book from India “are regarded as a ‘near relative’ of the cow and therefore sacred.” They indeed do have a bit of a strange look, having features that people describe as both “cow and horse like” in appearance. While the zoological binomial nomenclature and taxonomy places them a bit further apart than ancient Hindu scholars may have supposed. The Family “Bovidae” includes all cloven-hoofed, ruminant vertebrates; from bison & buffalo, all antelope, sheep, goats, muskoxen and cattle. Two thirds of the Bovidae fall into the next division, the Genus Antilopinae, which is where any similarity to cattle (Genus Bos) ends. The Nilgai has the distinction of being the only species in the further subgenus “Boselaphus” perhaps this adds to people being unfamiliar with the unusual animals.
I had not gotten in much hunting this past winter and while Whitetail deer season had drawn to a close with my freezer nearing empty, but all was not lost. My friend John sent me a PM saying we should meet and have lunch and talk about hunting and possibly getting a Nilgai on the family ranch. John wasn’t the first person I had met face to face after first ‘becoming friends’ on social media. I’ve actually traveled to different countries several times to hunt with friends who I knew first from social media. Sometimes you must take a leap of faith here too.
While some people can’t see what ‘all the excitement’ is about when it comes to Nilgai, you have to hunt them to really understand. It certainly isn’t the looks, as they lack the spectacular spiral horns of many antelope, though their appeal tends to grow on you the more you are able to observe them. I’m sure I couldn’t hide my excitement over the prospect of hunting one of these antelope from my friend John.
With the distance we would travel to deep south Texas and the possible difficulties in actually finding one. Not to mention dealing with the animal once you have it on the ground he had estimated two and a half days could be needed. I booked days off from work accordingly and we had an opportunity on the calendar. I packed like I was going to Africa. Including the big caliber rifle which John and I had both discussed over our lunch meeting. While I had perviously shot Nilgai using a 30-06 and .338 and you will find accounts of people using lighter calibers, its not always well advised. Both John and I had hunted in Africa and for big, durable animals. And Nilgai have a well deserved reputation as being hard to put on the ground. Large muscular animals who have slightly odd anatomy; hind legs shorter than the front give them an odd gate and put some organs not exactly where you might expect them. The heart slightly lower and more forward is more protected by the front leg and shoulders than some game animals. Great stamina, endurance and lung capacity.
I had seen this resilience with someone I had hunted with before, an excellent well placed shot by someone who knew where to shoot. Reasonably large caliber; the guide and three experienced hunters couldn’t get a second shot or even catch up to the animal when the first shot had laid it on the ground. And then it was up and gone without a blood trail or much else to go from. That experience had me easily agreeing with John that it would be both sporting and we would not be ‘over gunned’ if we used our safari guns for this hunt. And a great opportunity to get them out of the gun safe! Other than for “Big Bore” competitions or letting friends who had never shot a .375 H & H have a try with it I didn’t have much excuse for my Steyr Mannlicher .375 H & H to make a trip out in the US. But Nilgai are the exception to a lot of rules.
Late afternoon and I had made my way with a fully packed vehicle over to the rendezvous point at John’s house. Fortunately he had packed more lightly so all our gear fit into one vehicle. We had discussed tag team driving on the long haul to the nearest city to the ranch, the thriving metropolis of Falfurrias Texas, population just shy of 5,000 folks. The drive seemed to go pretty quickly as we excitedly talked about hunting and told hunting stories to keep each other entertained. Finally off the main road we went on less improved roads until it became a caliche road. We passed gates to one or two well known hunting ranches on the way. Then we arrived at the gate to his family ranch… as our headlights raked the gates you could see the eyes of some animals glowing in the headlights…. Several stared in our direction before we made moves to unlock the gate and they then trotted off into the darkness. Headed to the ranch house that had been his parents we saw several deer, and more ‘eyes’ darting into the brush. We were in good Nilgai country as they prefer the lightly brushy grassland and rolling terrain with sandy soil that had made this a good cattle ranch for many years. “Pick any room you like…” John said with typical Texas hospitality as we unloaded the vehicle. We made a quick tour of the ranch house, looked over a few guns and double-checked that we had both brought our snake boots before turning in. It would be a fairly early morning when Albert the ranch foreman would be showing up to help with the hunt. Albert had been keeping an eye on where the big Nilgai bulls were likely to be.
While we were up early and eager to go, there is no point in starting out before daylight as the Nilgai are rarely up at night and stay active from morning until mid afternoon, they may lay up during the hottest part of the day though very heat tolerant, then feed again from the afternoon until early evening. Nilgai aren’t the kind of animal that comes to feeders regularly like deer, or even to water so much as they can go several days without water in cool weather. They both graze and browse, taking full advantage of a wide variety of plants so trying to find them near a food source is completely unpredictable. While there are exceptions, the method of “Safari style” or “Spot and Stalk” is the most reliable for locating a good Nilgai bull. The bulls are mostly solitary, roaming by themselves or younger bulls in small groups of two or three. Cows and calves will form slightly larger groups. They can be aggressive if crowded and bulls during breeding season, and are known to attempt charges if wounded or cornered.
Eager to get out hunting we loaded up in Albert the ranch manager’s work truck. Animals would be familiar with seeing it going around the ranch and often ignore it, though the “spooky” Nilgai rarely let it come very close before they head off in another direction. We headed off to a section of the ranch that he had been seeing some small groups of bulls. Before long we did start catching sight of Nilgai, but mainly small groups of females and yearlings. We stopped several times to approach pastures and places he had seen bulls on foot. Working carefully along and keeping close to scrubby brush we checked some of the huge piles of dung that the prominent bulls use to mark their territory with. While it was obvious they must visit regularly to maintain their territory Albert said he had yet to actually catch sight of a bull in the act of adding to its carefully placed mound. John and I both were carrying our .375 H & H in case we came up on a good bull. We had discussed that we would let each other take a “back-up” shot similar to what we were both familiar with on African hunts, as guest I had the option of going first. We were both keen on a good clean kill and not letting any animal suffer unnecessarily. And with Nilgai you could never tell.
I was ‘on point’ just ahead of John, moving slowly along between small patches of trees and brush, keeping as quiet as possible (nilgai are more dependent on vision and hearing than sense of smell) and using hand signals as we moved up to have a look at a small pasture clearing where several game trails seem to lead to when I came around the group of trees and found myself face to face with two adult nilgai cows not eight to ten feet from me just ahead. I quickly signaled John then froze in my tracks. Perhaps they were not alone. Although bulls usually didn’t herd with the cows, they were into breeding season so one might be tending a small group. A cow really wasn’t on our list today and 8-10 feet is hardly a sporting distance for these animals. It was a stand-off with each of us waiting on the other to make the first move. Finally I gently motioned for John to move up so he could get a good look at the cows too. Just as he did move up into position next to me the two decided they had enough and took off down one of the game trails. Interestingly not at full speed as I would have expected. As we threaded our way back towards the truck we discussed why they hadn’t really seemed so spooked. John reminded me that it had been some time since the ranch had seen any hunting pressure as up until recently its main focus had been cattle ranching. The last remaining cattle had only recently been sold off with the exception of a few stragglers that mainly stayed near the ranch house buildings. The Nilgai and other wildlife were now enjoying the full run of the place.
As the overcast sky began to clear we started to see more nilgai activity and sighted several bulls. We made a few more stalks but they were able to give us the slip or get far out of range. I’m good for a decent distance, 347 yards being my longest shot on a moving animal that I was able to stop in its tracks. But I’d hesitate to try that sort of distance shot on a Nilgai even with plenty of smack-down power.
We had just finished such a stalk and were almost at the truck when John spotted a huge bull that was moving parallel to us along the tree line across the small field on the other side of the truck. Perhaps because of some short brush and where the truck was parked he hadn’t noticed us at all or if had seen the truck he though nothing of it. John reached for the shooting sticks in the truck and pulled the telescoping legs to full length… or tried to. Just then discovering that one of the clips was broken taking the shooting sticks out of commission. This is where having competed in several Big Bore competitions paid off. I had practiced shooting “off hand” and had done it many times, particularly with my .375 H & H. I took a good solid stance, and while John and Albert focused on the animal I put the crosshairs of the Swarovski scope on the animal as he moved along, matched his speed, then moved the crosshairs to just ahead of the “sweet spot” behind the point of his foreleg crease and gently squeezed the trigger. Wham! He rocked back slightly and quickly spun around, initially taking a few strides across the field towards us. I chambered another round but before I could come back onto him he veered off into the tree line. Both John and Albert now had their rifles, John was carrying his Winchester model 70 also a .375 H & H. We made a quick jog across the short grass field to the point near the tree line where the shot had connected. They had both seen that he had been well hit, but there was no obvious blood trail. Not uncommon for these animals… we followed some hoof prints to where he had disappeared into the the trees and stopped to listen. With Albert to my right and John far to my left we moved as a slow parallel line deeper into the wooded area looking for blood or broken plants that would give a clue to where to find him. We had barely been searching five or seven minutes before we heard the report of John’s rifle. Followed by him calling out that he had found the bull. He was just a short distance through the thick woods to my left. The fine bull was laying at John’s feet when I walked up. He told me that he had found the animal pretty quickly once we spread out and that it was laying down completely, but it had raised its head just as he came up so he gave it the final “coup de grâce” for insurance.
Now came the hard part. Back to the ranch house and barn and in short order the guys were back with flatbed trailer on the truck and more importantly the tractor with a fork on the front. After creating a path to get the tractor into the woods the loading was simple with the right equipment. Then off to the game processor in Kingsville.
The following day having had the successful hunt we took the opportunity to just drive around the ranch. We started out late as we had no real agenda and no pressure to locate a game animal. We were prepared in the event we saw hogs… so of course we immediately started to see Nilgai almost everywhere we went. After about the fifth large bull we started to count them… and we got better at spotting them a long way off. In a few hours going into more remote areas of the ranch with the smaller Toyota FJ we spotted over 30 bulls of various ages and plenty of Whitetail deer. The ranch was obviously being well managed and having had cattle didn’t affect the quality of the wild habitat.
There are several excellent places to take big game for processing in Kingsville. I had used El Campo Game Processing before and they had provided great service and came well recommend by a guide I had trusted. The bonus was that they can produce tamales in addition to cuts or various sausage and jerky. Something that is very popular in South Texas.
The back story is that several weeks later we would be “locked down”. I was both pleased and surprised to get the call from the folks at El Campo that my order was ready. “How much meat had it come to’? I asked, making mental calculations as to what coolers to take to transport the frozen goodies for the return part of a roughly six hour round trip… “Just about 200 pounds…” came the answer. I started to try and recall how many pounds other large animals had produced in boneless meat. A deer completely processed into boneless meat fit easily into a regular sized cooler. But how many pounds was that? I resolved to put as many of the biggest coolers I had into my vehicle. Better to have them and not need them than the other way around. The large Igloo Marine Coolers were each 94 and 100 Quart size. Then I remembered the frozen head… that would have to make a trip to the taxidermy shop. Heads could be difficult and often take up more room than you expected. The highway was almost empty except for the big rigs and a few hardy souls towing boats down to the coast. So I made the trip in good time. Finally seeing the amount of meat was a bit shocking. Lucky I had brought as many coolers as I had. It filled them ALL to capacity. Thankfully I had friends with freezers who I could share what didn’t fit in my large upright freezer.
After all the whole adventure had been made possible because of friends.