I just had to show off my wife's oryx. She shot this nice bull yesterday on a population reduction hunt on the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Rifle used was a Ruger M77 in .257 Roberts with handloaded 100 grain TSXs. Nothing terribly exciting about the hunt (you're escorted to the field and basically told to shoot one), but it's nice to see the women out doing a little shooting of their own.

Well done! Nice Bull.

Do they let you "shop around" for a decent Bull or was this just luck of the draw?

Now you have some Gemsbuck steaks. Yummy!

Mostly it depends on your escort. Since their objective is to simply reduce numbers they're not overly concerned about trophy quality. The hunter's mission is to kill an oryx at the direction of the escort. Typically, it's just the first one that you come across. Ideally it's a cow, since bulls don't have babies. In our case, there were several oryx in the immediate area, so we probably could have tried for one that struck our fancy. The wife likes curved horns, so it worked in our favor that this old fella was the first one to present a good shot opportunity.

Thanks for sharing, nice photo. Man it is green down there. I thought all the west was brown and burned up like here.

I have always wanted to do that hunt. When is the draw deadline?

Congrats to both of you!!!!

Let me know when you get the steaks on the grill!!

Bob

.....oh, and we have not seen the color green in south Texas for a long time now either.

Congrats on a nice bull. I've been applying for the hunt for a couple of years but have yet to get drawn.

quote:

Originally posted by kudu56:
Thanks for sharing, nice photo. Man it is green down there. I thought all the west was brown and burned up like here.

It usually is, but this year's monsoons have been very generous. I haven't seen it this green in my life.

quote:

Originally posted by 300magman:
I have always wanted to do that hunt. When is the draw deadline?

Typically it's the first Saturday in February.

quote:

Originally posted by Bob in TX:
Congrats to both of you!!!!

Let me know when you get the steaks on the grill!!

Bob

.....oh, and we have not seen the color green in south Texas for a long time now either.

We've already grilled up a back strap, mmm, mmm good! The rest is in the chiller for a couple days.

sdeshazo, I feel your pain man!

Very nice.

Where can I go to apply for an oryx tag?

Nice:
A .257 Roberts? I've been reading on this site that
I need at least a .338 WM to shoot oryx.

TJ, my Namibian PH was convinced you could kill Oryx with a .25 cal bullet - provided you stuck it in the right place. He has a LOT more experience than I do, so who am I to argue with his assessment.

I will say this, though. Having shot somewhere around half a dozen of these critters, and of late having put a .25 cal hole in one, I have come to the following two conclusions for my own Oryx hunting. 1) the animals are exceedingly tough, and anything less than a perfect shot will not kill them immediately. 2) I personally find a .25 cal hole too small for these animals. Even if you get an exit wound, you won't have much in terms of a blood trail.

To each his own. As we can see from the successful hunter in this thread, killing Oryx with a .25 cal is possible. But for me not ideal. YMWV.

- mike

Moose-Hunter, you can apply through the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. Deadline for next license year will probably be the first Saturday in February. Get ready for sticker shock though, the non-resident license fee is $1,500. You can just about fly to Namibia and kill one for what it would cost you to get down here and kill one.

TJ, in my opinion, the .257 is a bit light for oryx. However, that's the rifle my wife has and is comfortable with. No amount of persuasion would convince her to go for a larger rifle. As you can see, she's not a particularly large women and is not overly fond of recoil. Shooting 100 grain triple-shocks, the rifle worked fairly well, and I did not recover a bullet. If it were me, I'd use my .338, which performed well on oryx in Namibia (though still didn't drop him with one shot - my fault).

Mike, I agree with your assessment - they do take a lot of killing, and (as we discovered yet again Sunday after the first shot went a bit low) one must get that bullet in exactly the right spot. The .25 caliber is a bit light, but any bullet placed incorrectly is going to result in a followup on these animals. This is my wife's second oryx with this rifle, so it does get the job done. As you say though, not ideal.

Very nice. Congratats!

What do NR tags run? $2000 or so? What are the odds? 1:10, 1:20 or 1:100? What about prefrence points?

Very nice! i put in every year and nada!

Congratulations to your wife on a job well done!

quote:

Originally posted by Ivan:
Very nice. Congratats!

What do NR tags run? $2000 or so? What are the odds? 1:10, 1:20 or 1:100? What about prefrence points?

$1,509 each. The draw odds vary by hunt area and residence status. Last year for this pop. red. hunt there were 2332 resident applicants and 36 non-resident applicants. The drew 495 residents and 5 non-residents, who were placed on the "list" to be called. I believe they called 78 hunters last year. The wife was #52 this year, so they may end up calling more. New Mexico has no system for preference points.

Check here for more information.