hunter4life

Velocity and thus energy drops off pretty quickly with muzzleloaders. Keep your shots to a reasonable distance and you should not have a problem. I shoot a .45 caliber Knight in line with 200 grain Hornady SST sabots and have killed several coues deer, 2 antelope and a bull elk with this combination. I keep shots under 200 yards. The elk was killed at 150 yards broadside and the bullet stopped under the skin on the far shoulder. He only made it 2 steps after the shot. My brother also shoots the Hornady bullets in his .50 cal and has had good results. Good luck, hunting with a muzzleloader is challenging and fun. You will find yourself saying, "I sure wish I had a centerfire rifle because stalking in this last 50-100 yards is going to be tough."

Congratulations. I haven't hunted McGregor for oryx, but I have seen some pictures and read about other peoples hunts and they have had a good time and killed some nice oryx.

There are a few feral pigs down in the bootheel, but not a lot. Unit 34 and 36 have populations of feral pigs, but they can be tough to find because they move around quite a bit and get hunted pretty hard. The NE corner of the state has good populations but these are mainly on private land. Sorry but I do not know any private land holders that are looking for hunters for the feral pigs.

I would look further south around TorC or Hillsboro. I went to college in Socorro and never saw any around there or around San Antonio. I have a friend that has seen a few along the river by Bernardo, but he lives around there and still has only seen them a few times.

Here are a few more pictures. The jagd terriers did well. It ended up being a pretty short trail, maybe 3/4 of a mile.

Hi All, here are some pictures of a buck I killed in 2008. It was mounted by a friend who lives here in Albuquerque. He is a forum member here that goes by NMTaxi. It was a custom pose that we came up with that was somewhat based on a picture I took of the buck in 2006. He eluded us that year and the next. The base is a big chunk of mesquite that is laser engraved with the county, state and date of kill.

He scored just under 95". The back is made to look like rock. I am not sure what he used to make it.

Congratulations, that is a great buck!

Congratulations Courtney, that is a great NM buck.

Congratulations, that is a great buck.

Congratulations, that is an awesome muzzleloader coues buck. I have killed a few with the muzzleloader and it is difficult, but tons of fun to sneak in close.

Looks all muley to me. In that area the mule deer and coues can both be found up in the mountains. It is not one of these areas where the muleys seem to just stay in the low hills and desert.

Congratulations, that is a nice bull!! Better than most I have seen come out of the Valle Vidal.

Last weekend I went on a hike up in Northern NM to try and see some bugling elk. As I was hiking up the mountain chasing bugles, I smelled something dead and figured for sure it would be a wounded archery elk. I followed my nose and my dog and found this dead bear. He looked to be pretty good sized and had a big head on him. It looked to be a month or two old. I saw a few deer, including 2 bucks that were sparring. I then snuck in on multiple bugling bulls and saw a bunch of elk. Each herd had a bull and several satellite raghorns on the periphery. I managed to take video of a few with a little flip video recorder through my spotting scope. The last one I called in with a cow call. The video is without magnification and he came up to about 5 yards before my dog got a little nervous and let out a few quiet warning barks. She pretty much ignores elk, but one bugling at 5 yards was too close for her. Link to my video on you tube. I was making the title today and forgot that it was still September when I took the video. If you turn the volume way up you can hear the bugles.

Mountain lion meat is great. Like several people above mentioned, it is like a lean pork. By far the best meat of North American game that I have eaten.

1. If that bighorn is as tame as they are in NM, then just walk right in close and take the shot at 100 yards. It wouldn't matter if he has already seen you. 2. For me a 450 yard shot in that wind would be too far. I would sneak in closer.

Interesting article. But why the following statement? " Many states now support non-native game species on public lands. A few of these programs proved worthwhile; others, such as the unintentional introduction of aoudad that escaped from a private ranch in New Mexico, backfired. " Aoudad provide an excellent hunting opportunity, can survive in areas with domestic sheep, don't drop dead at the drop of a hat (unlike bighorns), and seem to not affect the local mule deer at all. In my experience some of the best places to hunt mule deer in SE NM also have good numbers of aoudad.

In my experience there are more elk in the portions of the unit north of Winston. There is more road access and the pack out would be a lot easier than in the bigger country down by Hermosa. Benbrown is talking about coming up to the top of the divide from the west side in unit 24 by Mimbres and then up the McKnight canyon road which goes all the way up to the black range divide and is the border of 21a and 24. You will have to work for one on this hunt, but it can be quite good if the rut is going on.

Awesome pictures! That leopard coming down the tree is amazing.

Looks like you had a great time. I can't wait to see the rest of your pictures. I hunted Zimbabwe in 1992 for 2 weeks and it was an amazing experience. Sure makes you glad to live in the USA, even with all the problems we have.

Congratulations, that was a pretty neat experience!

Nice cat! I don't think most deer hunters will understand why you let him go. They need to hunt lions a few times and understand that the thrill is in the chase, and that they aren't out there under every bush eating up all the deer.

There are plenty of oryx on Rhodes canyon, so you should have a good hunt. They have been hunted pretty hard in the past few years, so you actually do have to plan a stalk and sneak in on them. Don't worry about being the first out of the parking lot, it doesn't matter. It used to be pretty comical to see a bunch of fat old boys running to their trucks and peeling out of the parking lot to try and be first. I was there in January and the hunt coordinator said that if this continues to happen they may only let small groups of hunters leave every few minutes so it is not a safety concern for somebody getting run over. You can now bring a camera to take pictures of your oryx, this was an awesome change made late last year. Good luck. Here is mine that I killed on Rhodes canyon with a muzzleloader in January. 39 2/8" cow, pending new #2 in SCI w/ a muzzleloader.

Nice pic, it took me awhile to see the buck!

Congratulations!!!