jburman
FNG
After I drew a NM oryx tag in 2020, I looked on the forums here a lot for advice and what to do since you cant scout, it's a short hunt, and it is Once-in-a-Lifetime. There was some good advice, and I figured I would add my 2 cents for anyone that draws in the future.
First I want to say I am NOT a guide and don't have a ton of experience with this, so likely there are better ways or people to ask, but this was my experience.
After you draw your hunt, you will get a lot of emails though the spring, summer, and into fall about what to do for background checks, FAQs, gear lists, etc. The folks down at WSMR really do want to help you as much as possible and give you all the info you need. My particular hunt was Stallion Range, the last weekend in January, 2021, so pretty late in the season (second to last hunt IIRC). We stayed in a hotel in Socorro, NM, but if you have a camper of some kind there was land just outside the gate that people were set up on. The ~30 minutes from Socorro wasn't bad though to get to the gate for opening time. First day, Friday, there was a long line of vehicles outside the gate ready to go in, and the staff at WSMR went down the line ahead of time to give people hunt packets to read and sign, waivers, ID cards, make and model of gun and ammo, etc. Don't worry if you aren't in the front of the line. Once the gate opened, everyone was directed to a parking lot and there was a briefing on the newest map that was in the hunting packet, rules, check in and out procedures, times, etc. This year being fun with COVID, everyone stayed in their own vehicles and they broadcast the briefing on an FM radio channel. IMO this worked excellent as I am somewhat hard of hearing and we could roll up the windows and turn up the volume as opposed to standing in the wind and listening to a loudspeaker or something. I don't know how they did it beforehand, but the radio transmitter was a great idea.
After the brief, we were allowed to hunt on Friday, though this is apparently not always the case due to military training, your experience may vary. When they released us, it was in the same order we came in the gate to file out of the parking lot. Time difference between the first and the last vehicle though was only about 5 minutes, so again, don't sweat if you're not first in line. Driving down one of the main roads, we saw oryx within the first 15 minutes. Once you see one and know what exactly you're looking for against the background there, they aren't terribly hard to spot. As we drove down the paved road, vehicles would periodically turn down dirt side roads and two tracks to wherever they thought would be a good place to start their hunt. It's a very large area, so after the first 20 minutes or so, people were pretty wide spread. We only had close contact (vehicles passing or coming up on each other) with maybe a half dozen other hunt parties the whole weekend after getting in the gate. This is the part of the hunt where good glass is very helpful. Drop the money to get yourself a good pair of binoculars if you don't have them, because you will use them a lot. That said, $1000 glass is not an absolute requirement either. My wife was along as part of the hunt party and was using an older pair of Bushnell 10x50 Permafocus binoculars, and she spotted plenty of oryx before myself or my friend, whose truck we were using, did using much better binos. You will probably be able to identify and guess the size of oryx much better with better glass, but I think this would only really be important if you are doing a broken horn hunt where you must be absolutely sure it has a broken horn. Speaking of vehicles, we were using a smaller truck, I want to say Tacoma. A truck or high clearance vehicle is, again, very helpful, but we probably could have done 95% of the hunt from a stock SUV. The only part that would have been more difficult, but not impossible, would have been the actual retrieval. However, if it had rained recently, all of those dirt roads and two tracks may have been a lot worse, again, your experience may vary.
After driving around a bit, we spotted and stalked on several groups or oryx, from small groups of 6, to a large herd that was likely 100+. If you can, stick to the smaller groups, it's less eyes looking around to see you. Much of Stallion Range has very little topography to use to hide behind when stalking, and not much vegetation either, mostly sagebrush bushes. There are some areas that had more hills, and some sections that had joshua trees, but where we saw the most oryx was quite flat and open. Be ready for a lot of bent over or crouched stalking. Decent gloves are very helpful, and kneepads may be good as well. I had them, but did not use them, myself. The herds we stalked ranged anywhere from 3/4 mile, to about 1.5 mile stalks and we were able to get to a little over 400 yards on the biggest group before the wind shifted and we were busted. Be prepared for heavy winds, both when considering your stalk, and your shot. 15-20 MPH gusts were normal in the afternoon. We finished out Friday afternoon unsuccessful, but having learned a lot about what to look for, where the animals seemed to be, and how to go about finding them again. When we checked out close to the cut off time, only about 10 oryx had been reported harvested.
Saturday you get to start hunting early. For us, that meant the gate opened at 0630, which was also the start of legal shooting light. WSMR checked vehicles, IDs, and who was hunting as we came in the gate, but again, it was very efficient and first to last vehicle through likely wasn't that long and would have made very little difference in each persons hunt. We tried to go to the southern edge of the zone where there was more topography to start, but only saw one oryx in that area, and it trotted off at a good clip. Working our way back in from the edge, we ended up in the same general area we had been on Friday. Lots of glassing, and again several short, unsuccessful stalks. We tried a couple tricks others had told us about, like dropping the hunter off the vehicle and then driving a little further up the road. The theory being that the oryx would keep watching the truck and not notice the hunter as much. For us, that did not work.
Eventually we spotted a smaller group against an old fence line that looked promising. We were able to circle around them in the truck and come in a different road that gave us better topography and wind angles. My wife stayed on a small rise with a spotting scope near the truck to keep an eye on the herd, and my friend and I started to stalk out after them. We did have two way radios with us, so I could talk to my wife, but I mostly kept it turned off and only turned it on to check with her and turned it back off so she, or someone else on the same channel, didn't accidentally give us away. The oryx we had spotted did see us, but we held still and didn't push them when they got up and wandered their way over the small rise we were working up. My friend did comment how absurd it seemed as we stalked across wide open land and at times were laying in what was likely a large, dried up water puddle with really nothing to hide behind. The key here though was that we DIDN'T push them, and just let them wander off. Once they were over the rise, we were able to move up along the old fence line after them. The fence line was a row of old cedar posts with the wire popped off them and just laying along the ground. IMO this helped us tremendously as we could move behind the posts and stop to pretend to BE a post if the oryx looked up and around. By this point in the stalk, we were using a range finder every 10 yards or so, trying to get a fix on them. Holding a range finder still enough to get a distance at 500+ yards is rather tricky, even with a big target like an oryx side. This is another place I would recommend having very good gear. I have an acceptable range finder that's rated for 500 yards. I could never get a range on them. My friend has a considerably better one and he was able to start to get fixes around 700 yards, but it took him quite a few tries, as well as using me, and/or my shooting sticks to try to hold still enough. Using that fence line, we were able to close inside 400 yards which was inside my comfortable shooting range. Had I been prone, fully supported and stable, I probably could have pushed a little beyond 500, but the closer the better IMO. I was using a .30-06, 180 grain bullet, with a scope set at 10x and bullet drop reticle. I used Winchester ballistic silvertip bullets for this hunt. It may not have been my #1 choice of round, but with the ammo crunch of 2020, it's what I could get enough of to reliably practice and hunt with so I knew at least my ammo was consistent. Leaning my shooting sticks against one of the fenceposts, I was able to improvise a tripod for max stability. The final shot was 360 yards. She didn't run far, maybe 10-15 yards, before she reared up and fell on her back while I was trying to line up a second shot. As soon as I saw that, I took off running straight towards the dust cloud she made. Even though there had been a shot, and now me running like an idiot in the wide open towards her, the rest of the group didn't run very fast or far before turning around and watching to see what was going on. Had we had a second hunter in the party they very likely could have taken one from the same group.
(oops, word count limit, finished in the next comment)
First I want to say I am NOT a guide and don't have a ton of experience with this, so likely there are better ways or people to ask, but this was my experience.
After you draw your hunt, you will get a lot of emails though the spring, summer, and into fall about what to do for background checks, FAQs, gear lists, etc. The folks down at WSMR really do want to help you as much as possible and give you all the info you need. My particular hunt was Stallion Range, the last weekend in January, 2021, so pretty late in the season (second to last hunt IIRC). We stayed in a hotel in Socorro, NM, but if you have a camper of some kind there was land just outside the gate that people were set up on. The ~30 minutes from Socorro wasn't bad though to get to the gate for opening time. First day, Friday, there was a long line of vehicles outside the gate ready to go in, and the staff at WSMR went down the line ahead of time to give people hunt packets to read and sign, waivers, ID cards, make and model of gun and ammo, etc. Don't worry if you aren't in the front of the line. Once the gate opened, everyone was directed to a parking lot and there was a briefing on the newest map that was in the hunting packet, rules, check in and out procedures, times, etc. This year being fun with COVID, everyone stayed in their own vehicles and they broadcast the briefing on an FM radio channel. IMO this worked excellent as I am somewhat hard of hearing and we could roll up the windows and turn up the volume as opposed to standing in the wind and listening to a loudspeaker or something. I don't know how they did it beforehand, but the radio transmitter was a great idea.
After the brief, we were allowed to hunt on Friday, though this is apparently not always the case due to military training, your experience may vary. When they released us, it was in the same order we came in the gate to file out of the parking lot. Time difference between the first and the last vehicle though was only about 5 minutes, so again, don't sweat if you're not first in line. Driving down one of the main roads, we saw oryx within the first 15 minutes. Once you see one and know what exactly you're looking for against the background there, they aren't terribly hard to spot. As we drove down the paved road, vehicles would periodically turn down dirt side roads and two tracks to wherever they thought would be a good place to start their hunt. It's a very large area, so after the first 20 minutes or so, people were pretty wide spread. We only had close contact (vehicles passing or coming up on each other) with maybe a half dozen other hunt parties the whole weekend after getting in the gate. This is the part of the hunt where good glass is very helpful. Drop the money to get yourself a good pair of binoculars if you don't have them, because you will use them a lot. That said, $1000 glass is not an absolute requirement either. My wife was along as part of the hunt party and was using an older pair of Bushnell 10x50 Permafocus binoculars, and she spotted plenty of oryx before myself or my friend, whose truck we were using, did using much better binos. You will probably be able to identify and guess the size of oryx much better with better glass, but I think this would only really be important if you are doing a broken horn hunt where you must be absolutely sure it has a broken horn. Speaking of vehicles, we were using a smaller truck, I want to say Tacoma. A truck or high clearance vehicle is, again, very helpful, but we probably could have done 95% of the hunt from a stock SUV. The only part that would have been more difficult, but not impossible, would have been the actual retrieval. However, if it had rained recently, all of those dirt roads and two tracks may have been a lot worse, again, your experience may vary.
After driving around a bit, we spotted and stalked on several groups or oryx, from small groups of 6, to a large herd that was likely 100+. If you can, stick to the smaller groups, it's less eyes looking around to see you. Much of Stallion Range has very little topography to use to hide behind when stalking, and not much vegetation either, mostly sagebrush bushes. There are some areas that had more hills, and some sections that had joshua trees, but where we saw the most oryx was quite flat and open. Be ready for a lot of bent over or crouched stalking. Decent gloves are very helpful, and kneepads may be good as well. I had them, but did not use them, myself. The herds we stalked ranged anywhere from 3/4 mile, to about 1.5 mile stalks and we were able to get to a little over 400 yards on the biggest group before the wind shifted and we were busted. Be prepared for heavy winds, both when considering your stalk, and your shot. 15-20 MPH gusts were normal in the afternoon. We finished out Friday afternoon unsuccessful, but having learned a lot about what to look for, where the animals seemed to be, and how to go about finding them again. When we checked out close to the cut off time, only about 10 oryx had been reported harvested.
Saturday you get to start hunting early. For us, that meant the gate opened at 0630, which was also the start of legal shooting light. WSMR checked vehicles, IDs, and who was hunting as we came in the gate, but again, it was very efficient and first to last vehicle through likely wasn't that long and would have made very little difference in each persons hunt. We tried to go to the southern edge of the zone where there was more topography to start, but only saw one oryx in that area, and it trotted off at a good clip. Working our way back in from the edge, we ended up in the same general area we had been on Friday. Lots of glassing, and again several short, unsuccessful stalks. We tried a couple tricks others had told us about, like dropping the hunter off the vehicle and then driving a little further up the road. The theory being that the oryx would keep watching the truck and not notice the hunter as much. For us, that did not work.
Eventually we spotted a smaller group against an old fence line that looked promising. We were able to circle around them in the truck and come in a different road that gave us better topography and wind angles. My wife stayed on a small rise with a spotting scope near the truck to keep an eye on the herd, and my friend and I started to stalk out after them. We did have two way radios with us, so I could talk to my wife, but I mostly kept it turned off and only turned it on to check with her and turned it back off so she, or someone else on the same channel, didn't accidentally give us away. The oryx we had spotted did see us, but we held still and didn't push them when they got up and wandered their way over the small rise we were working up. My friend did comment how absurd it seemed as we stalked across wide open land and at times were laying in what was likely a large, dried up water puddle with really nothing to hide behind. The key here though was that we DIDN'T push them, and just let them wander off. Once they were over the rise, we were able to move up along the old fence line after them. The fence line was a row of old cedar posts with the wire popped off them and just laying along the ground. IMO this helped us tremendously as we could move behind the posts and stop to pretend to BE a post if the oryx looked up and around. By this point in the stalk, we were using a range finder every 10 yards or so, trying to get a fix on them. Holding a range finder still enough to get a distance at 500+ yards is rather tricky, even with a big target like an oryx side. This is another place I would recommend having very good gear. I have an acceptable range finder that's rated for 500 yards. I could never get a range on them. My friend has a considerably better one and he was able to start to get fixes around 700 yards, but it took him quite a few tries, as well as using me, and/or my shooting sticks to try to hold still enough. Using that fence line, we were able to close inside 400 yards which was inside my comfortable shooting range. Had I been prone, fully supported and stable, I probably could have pushed a little beyond 500, but the closer the better IMO. I was using a .30-06, 180 grain bullet, with a scope set at 10x and bullet drop reticle. I used Winchester ballistic silvertip bullets for this hunt. It may not have been my #1 choice of round, but with the ammo crunch of 2020, it's what I could get enough of to reliably practice and hunt with so I knew at least my ammo was consistent. Leaning my shooting sticks against one of the fenceposts, I was able to improvise a tripod for max stability. The final shot was 360 yards. She didn't run far, maybe 10-15 yards, before she reared up and fell on her back while I was trying to line up a second shot. As soon as I saw that, I took off running straight towards the dust cloud she made. Even though there had been a shot, and now me running like an idiot in the wide open towards her, the rest of the group didn't run very fast or far before turning around and watching to see what was going on. Had we had a second hunter in the party they very likely could have taken one from the same group.
(oops, word count limit, finished in the next comment)
Attachments
Last edited:
