All About Exotics

Blackbuck Luck

submitted by AAE member, Reed Gardner

When most of my friends are headed to the beaches of Mexico or Florida for their school graduation celebrations, I was fortunate enough to get to spend my time hunting the West Texas Hill Country for blackbuck antelope with a good friend of mine, Shane Hill.

Lee Puckitt, a close family friend of mine and a Texas Tech Alum, was gracious enough to allow my friend Shane and I the opportunity to spend a weekend hunting the crafty critters on his Puckitt Ranch about twenty miles north of San Angelo, Texas.  This would be a hunt like none other that I had ever been on.  No guide, no feeders, and no vehicles.  Shane and I didn’t get to sleep in a comfortable cabin and certainly didn’t have a cook fixing up our meals.  We were to camp along the Concho River in a tent and cook our own meals over an open campfire.

We spent that first night talking about all the things that young men talk about, anticipating the sunrise the next morning and getting our first hunt underway.  We awoke the next morning before the sun rose.  It was as if our excitement wouldn’t allow us to… (more…)