I believe that Will Rogers said something to the effect that he never met a man he didn’t like. Well I can’t say that, but I can say I’ve never seen an exotic that I didn’t want to shoot.
One of the ranches where I hunt is just north of Lost Maples State Natural Area in the Texas Hill County. This is now an unfenced ranch of 3,000 acres surrounded by thousands of acres of other low fenced ranches. In the mid sixties through the eighties, this was a high dollar, high fenced game ranch. It had Axis and Fallow deer as well as Japanese and Formosan Sika. The owner also stocked it with Blackbuck Antelope, Mouflon, and black Hawaiian sheep, Spanish goats, Corsican sheep and Aoudad. The old man who owned the ranch died in the mid eighties and his widow had no idea how to run a game ranch.
Fast forward 20 years, and the fences are down and most of the animals have had the opportunity to disperse. The exotic game that remains is free ranging and not confined by high fence. Over the last four years I have observed free ranging Axis, Fallow and Sika Deer, Blackbuck Antelope, as well as free ranging Aoudad.
The rancher gave me and one of my buds permission to take a black buck antelope for free during the 06-07 hunting season. In Texas, you can shoot non-indigenous game year around. However the blackbucks are prime during the October through January which is concurrent with the white-tail deer hunting season.
Much of this ranch has seen the encroachment of Juniper, which we call cedar. It has taken over much of the pasture land on many hill country ranches. There is one particular pasture on this lease that is approximately 1,000 acres. It has an open area that has a diameter of 700 yds., give or take. In this area, there are no trees and no cedar, only native grasses. This is the area where several good blackbuck antelope congregate. However, being as there is no cover, you typically can’t get within 400 to 500 yds. of a mature male without him spotting you and taking off on a dead run for the oak motts and cedar that surround this open area.
Once I had permission to hunt a blackbuck, I knew where I wanted to hunt. One afternoon in December of 06 I had the opportunity to set up my ground blind on a rise near the center of this open area. I had entered the pasture on my 4-wheeler and all the bucks had scattered. Over the last couple of years I had gone with the ranch owner into this pasture many times to help him feed his stock or work on the well and pick up firewood, so I had seen a couple of really good bucks, and knew where they hung out. The biggest problem was getting close. Hence the ground blind. Anyway, this day I got set up and was watching in the direction I had seen a good buck run into the woods. I probably watched and glassed this area for a couple hours with no luck. In winter here, we usually head out for an afternoon hunt around 2:30 pm. It gets dark around 5:30 pm. I had engaged in this routine this afternoon. It was about 5:15 and dark was coming on. As I said I had been watching and glassing in the direction the buck had gone into the woods to no avail. All of a sudden, something caught my attention to the far right of my peripheral vision. Dang if I wasn’t two blackbucks walking side by side about 250 yds. away from where I was sitting. This is pretty unusual as blackbucks sole purpose in life seems to be eating and keeping their does for themselves. Evidently there was a swale that ran from left to right about 200 yds. in front of me that I had not noticed.
These blackbucks had been traveling along this swale and I could not see them due to the fact that they were below my line of sight. Now I was in a predicament. It was rapidly getting dark and these bucks were parallel to my line of sight. They were so evenly spaced that I could not shoot one without hitting the other. I wouldn’t have minded taking both, but I decided not to push my luck. These two old boys would walk about a hundred yards, then turn around and walk back in the direction from whence they came, all the time staying parallel to each other, affording no shot. Finally at last light they separated. I settled the crosshairs on the one I thought was the best of the two. I was shooting a 7-08 and 140 gr. Nosler accubonds. I took the shot and the buck I had shot at disappeared in the darkness. The other buck ran off. I knew where I had shot, so I waited a couple more minutes and went to see whether I had done any good, as I had not heard the bullet impact. Sure enough he was DRT. I walked back to the ground blind counting my steps. It was 220 paces to the blind. I was jazzed. I had shot a pretty good blackbuck off shooting sticks at a fair distance and he was DRT. Needless to say I loaded him up, took him back to camp and caped him out. Put the tenders on the grill later that night and celebrated with several shots of Patron and a good cheap cigar.
GWB

I think they are the most handsome of all the antelopes !A great hunt for you !!

Weidmannsheil on a successful hunt! I have always found BB to be one of the more attractive exotics around. One of these days, I'll get serious about it...

Any good hints for where to go for a good (colour and hornlength) Blackbuck??

- mike

Very nice, gorgeous trophy!

I am with MHO, just flat handsome trophies. Free ranging especially interest me. I may be crazy--or maybe it's photographic trickery, but it sure looks like TWO blackbuck capes giving you a kiss???

Who got the second one??

At any rate, they are handsome critters, your's especially so.

Good going!

Nice going! The blackbuck is truly one of the most beautiful of the exotic species. I was fortunate enough to take a 20 1/8th x 20 1/8th with a .250 Savage in an XP-100 a number of years ago.

He still graces our living room wall.

So tell us about the terminal performance of the 140 grain Accubond on the blackbuck...

Congrats again!

Congrats on excellent kills.

I was able to get one several years ago south of Junction Texas using 25-06 and 120gr Nosler Partition.

Nice trophy for sure, good going.

awesome

On the left, i bet he goes 63, and on the right, about 58 ..

I have a 58 and change, which is over my fireplace

the 4 curl is awesome..

remember, BB's are spiral horned, measured around-the keel+bases .. length sounds good, but not how sprials are measured for score
jeffe

replies;

MHO,
During the last ten years or so I have hunted the Texas hill country on property that I lease on a seasonal or annual basis. I have not been purchasing day hunts, so I could not give you reccomendations as to outfitter or ranches. There are numerous exotic preserves and ranches that feature exotic hunts in this state. The Y O ranch, and the "777" ranch come to mind. Black bucks are prime during our fall hunting season. I sure you coul do a google search to find anything you needed to know about there color phase change and hunting opportunities in Texas.

Fish,
My partner took the other one the next day in a different pasture. He too set up a ground blind and waited this buck out.

Bobby Tomek,
I load and take game with barnes, berger, hornady, nosler, sierra,and speer bullets, with nosler being the primary choice and sierra second.
I have developed loads and taken game with the 25 cal 110 gr. accubonds, 6.5mm 130 gr. accubonds, 7mm 140 gr accubonds and 338 cal. 225 gr accubonds. This weekend I hope to take hogs with my 9.3 x 62 cz550. It is loaded with 250 gr accubonds over 60 gr. of varget.
When I first started hunting deer and hogs in the hill country, circa 1998, I was loading nosler ballistic tips. I was getting a lot of meat damage on higher velocity rounds such as 7mag. Next I became a big fan of Nosler partitions. With paritions I always got complete penetration and a blood trail should I need to track, which was not always the case with ballistic tips. With accubonds I get the low price of ballistic tips, the accuracy of ballistic tips and penetration and controlled expansion of partitons. They pretty much have become my go to bullet unless I want to examine the terminal ballistics of new/different bullets. Last year I took a doe, a gobler and a couple dozen hogs with accubonds and did not recover any bullets. I like em.

Jeffe, I've got to where I don't really score my animals. I weight them before field dressing but thats typically it. I do remeber that my buck weighed 100lbs and my bud's weighed 101 lbs, so he claimed bragging rights. I think my buck measured somthing like 18-1/2 inches from base antler to tip of horn on a straight line. I am more a meat hunter. If something gets my heart pounding or has a particular feature that gives it character, I'll shoot it. I hunt where I do because of the landowner and the guys I hunt with as well as the enjoyment of the beauty of the hill country.
GWB

Excellent trophies!

I love Blackbuck

Those are beautiful animals.

Thanks for sharing!!

Good Hunting! I have also hunted in that area on the Haby ranch. A person can find free ranging exotics on some of the ranches in that area if he's willing to try.

What a trophy! I'm with you on those exotics. I just live where the only exotics walk on two legs and speak gibberish Congrats and thanks for sharing.
LDK

GW,
I forgot to mention that BB is the favorite meat in my house, and I frequently go take a BB doe for the freezer... both animals are excellent, and I haven't had the great blessing of taking a free ranger!

Geedubya,

Kudos on the BB. Sure is a beautiful trophy!!
My sons and I had the same problem you relate about Ballistic Tips, so we switched to Partitions with good results. Have not tried Accubonds yet as we're still feeding off a lot of Partitions we bought. But, will give them a try. Calibers are 257 Roberts, several 7x57's, a 284 and a 7mm Mag.
Thanks for the words on the Accubonds.

Don