I arrived on Wednesday, October the 3rd and spent the afternoon relaxing with some friends after a long ride. We discussed the hot weather, rain in the forecast and hunting plans for the next morning.

Thursday morning found us eating breakfast a little late, but no one was in a big hurry, so no big deal. After breakfast, the plan was to scout an area to get an idea of what kind of critters was roaming around and decide if there was anything we wanted to pursue. Initially, my goal was to take a Fallow buck or a Blackbuck antelope. After finding out there were only three Blackbuck on the place and none were what I was interested in, I focused on the Fallow. Since we were only "scouting", I just strapped my FA 44 mag on my hip and grabbed my camera gear to head out.

We seen several rams and hogs early on then a few Fallow now and then. Most of the Fallow we were seeing were does and smaller bucks. Later on in the morning, on the way back to the lodge, we came upon a big heard of does with several bucks tagging along. Two were real nice, but one in particular caught my eye. He had a fairly narrow rack that wasn't very tall, but his palmation was different than most; he had lots of "trashy" looking points that I really liked. We watched and stalked the herd for a while, but I never could get in iron sighted distance for a shot.

We made our way back to the lodge for lunch to get a full belly for the afternoon "scouting trip". We decide to split up into two groups, two would go to one new area and two would go to another new area. At supper, we would compile our findings and decide what we would hunt the next morning. Our area had lots of Bison, Elk and Water buffalo, with a few sightings of Sika does and a few Fallow. One Fallow buck in particular was real nice! He was solid white with what appeared to be high silver to low gold head gear. He quickly made the number 2 spot on my list. If I couldn't find my trashy horned buck the next day, I'd revert back to the area with the white buck.

Friday morning was beautiful, but warmer than desired. Once breakfast was finished, I strapped on my scoped FA 654 and we headed out looking for the trashy horned Fallow.

The area we seen him the day before was just raining acorns and that's what had all those deer congregated to that area. We figured that would be a great place to slip into and set up for a while and see what might come in. Just as we got to where we were wanting to set up, we noticed some fallow does had beat us to it. They had no idea we were there, so we slowly made our way to a vantage point to set up. Just before we got to were we wanted, I notice some movement on a ridge about 150 yards away. It was several bucks making their way to the does and my trashy horned buck was one of them! We watched as he checked out a few does, feed a little and walked on out of sight.
By now, we're set up where we want to be and know it's just a matter of time before he'd be back to check does or feed on acorns. While waiting on his return, several other buck made there way into the area. You could definitely tell the rut was kicking in. After about 15 minutes, I noticed movement way down a draw the trashy horned buck had went into - it was him and a couple other bucks making their way back toward us. It seemed like an eternity, but he finally got within range. It took some coordination between the cameraman and myself to get everything right for the shot, but once I heard "I'm on him" and I could see him clearly too, I settled the FA 654 onto my trigger stick bi-pod. With the buck slightly quartering away, I placed the crosshairs just behind the on-side shoulder and began to squeeze......BOOM! I sent a 180gr Barnes XPB in his direction. As the gun came out of recoil, I knew it was a good shot. I quickly confirmed with my 10x Leupold bino's. The buck went about 15 yards and laid down. I ranged the spot were the buck was standing at 62 yards.

After a couple high fives and gathering our gear. We made our way down to were the buck lay. He was just as cool looking as I thought he was.




The X bullet done as expected: entered 3" behind the left shoulder and exited tucked tight behind the right shoulder.

Other than the hot weather, It turned out to be another great time at the Reeder Handgun Hunter Challenge. This was my third HHC and if the Lord's willing, it won't be my last.


PS... Video coming soon.

Video