King Ranch hunting pictures

[Matt Garcia]

Here are a few pictures from my King Ranch hunt from last week. For those of you who aren't from Texas, The King Ranch is the largest ranch in the U.S. and is legendary for producing big bucks as well as horses and cattle. My brother use to guide there a few years ago and still has connections with some land owners there and they gave me this opportunity. It's quite amazing to see so many large bucks as well as turkeys, hogs, coyotes and javelina. It almost appears as the deer there are overpopulated, everywhere we turned we saw a buck or a doe. We originally were hunting for bull Nilgai but we only saw a few. The two bulls that we saw were both on another ranch's property. I have to say those bull Nilgai are quite intimidating.

Even though I didn't have any success with a bull Nilgai I was able to harvest this nice 8 pointer that scored 132 B&C and had an inside spread of 17 1/2 inches. I took this one the last morning of my hunt and I am still stoked.


Buzzard on a foggy morning.





A few bucks by the ranch house.










Bunch of turkeys on a foggy morning.



Couple of big bucks.







My brother and I.



The hunting jeep.

[Timmy!]

Wow! Cool pictures! That hunting rig is quite the setup!

[NICKYPOO]

Nice shots Matt.

[talltigeguy]

That looks like a good time for sure. I am very jealous.

What is a nilgai?

With all the deer on the road, you did not even have to get out of the jeep. The guns look ready in this pic:


'Will you please turn the jeep a little to the right, so I can get a better shot from this passenger seat'

[ragboy]

Looks like a blast.

We get bucks wild turkeys like that on our lawn. We see doe all the time, but the bucks come out in April and November. Here is a quick couple of pics I took the other night from my iphone from the top of my driveway as I was pulling in. Bad pics, but you can see the buck.

The buck is on the right, you can see his antlers if you look closely. His "wife" was on the left.


One more.

[Tanner]

Matt which area of the king ranch were you on? I hunt the Encino side, within the Ball Ranch which is dead center of the KR. So far, every year I've hunted, I've taken a 170+ class dear.

[Tanner]

Tall, a Nilgai is kind of like a cow. It's an exotic from India and GREATTTTT eating. It's better than beef... and I'd go so far as to say it's the best meat around. They are considered a nuisance there... but great to hunt. Very elusive, tough to bring down, and if they see you they are GONE!!!!!! Kind of like deer, the cows aren't near as skittish as the bulls. Here you go.

I've pulled 3 blue bulls from there.... sorry you didn't get the chance matt.

[Matt Garcia]

Tanner, dead on description about the Nilgai. They are super wary! We only saw two bulls. The first one took off running on to the neighboring ranch as we were driving. The second one was running again about a 1000 yards away on another property. I did shoot at a cow Nilgai but it was 250+ yards away and missed. It was in a high grass field and could only see its neck, it was a tough shot and would have been lucky if I would have hit it. I think the division we were on was the Laureles Division. I have hunted the Norias Division years ago. Congrats on the bulls, post some pics if you can.

Tall the rifle was out like that because we where hunting Nilgai, once you see them you only have seconds because they are very wary of humans. Shooting them is usually a far shot or on the run.

Here is a bull Nilgai my brother shot last year about the same time on the same ranch.

[dogbert]

Nice pics! Looks like you are ready for a career doing those Mutual of Omaha documentaries

[thtrog]

Matt,
Thanks for sharing the pics - looks like you guys had a great hunt. I had no idea that game like the Nilgai are hunted in Texas. All the bucks shown are impressive!!!

[Tanner]

Matt,
Thanks for sharing the pics - looks like you guys had a great hunt. I had no idea that game like the Nilgai are hunted in Texas. All the bucks shown are impressive!!!

TX has lots of Exotics. The cool thing about exotics is there's really not a true season on them, since they are an introduced species. A few of the high fenced ranches introduced different types of exotics, then a few escaped, couple that with the fact that there are few predators of these species other than humans... and voila.... TX now has a viable/huntable population of exotics. New Mexico as well.... I went on an Oryx hunt in NM at the white sands missle base this summer.

[dingleberry]

Is wearing orange while rifle hunting not a requirement in TX?

Nice looking pics, though.

[Tanner]

Only while on public lands.

[Tanner]

I tried searching for my King Ranch Pics Matt but they are all on my old phone that the screen is busted on. This was my only pic I could find that I transfered over to my current comp Since my first visit there, I've since mastered the bump gate .... as it took out a quarter panel on me the first time. LOL

[ragboy]

Nice pics! Looks like you are ready for a career doing those Mutual of Omaha documentaries

Man, I almost forgot about those.