Indianhead Ranch, Del Rio, Texas

Safari Club International sponsors a number of very well run educational summer programs available to teenagers that provide education and experience on ethical hunting practices and SCI in general. I have attended two such programs, the American Wilderness Leadership School (AWLS) in Wyoming and the Advanced Apprenticeship Program at Indianhead Ranch in Del Rio, Texas. The latter offers the opportunity for young hunters to learn about all facets of hunting, from shooting rifles and bows, to tracking, to identification, to obtaining their hunters safety training. Furthermore, students are allowed to hunt a management animal of their choosing, or opt to pay the remaining balance for a trophy animal. My dad had told me earlier that year, “If you make the grades I’ll pay for the trophy.” With this further motivation, I met the goal, and had the opportunity to choose a trophy to hunt on this beautiful property.
My initial plan was to hunt an aoudad, and for the time allotted into our schedule, we hunted hard every day. At one point we came within five yards of two young rams fighting. How I longed for a bow! It is only because I am a hunter that I had this opportunity. Most people have never even heard an aoudad, let alone been five yards away from a wild one.
Having been unsuccessful and with the week wearing on, I decided to pursue new quarry. My fascination with the oryx family and successful harvest of a Gemsbok the previous summer turned my gaze to the herd of Scimitar Horned Oryx residing on the property. Their majestic sweeping horns are hard for any hunter to ignore. On our first stalk, we came in contact with a handsome old bull. One of his horns was well broomed, but he had beautiful mass In fact this animal that continued my trend of shooting animals with great mass, giving this site its name. Furthermore, I am a firm believer that an animal chooses you, not vice-versa. I lined up the sights on the single shot Thompson Center Encore .30-’06 and placed the bullet right in his shoulder. His front legs dropped immediately, and the scar on his nose is still visible in the mount. This beautiful animal signified the perfect end to a wonderful experience, and I highly recommend every young hunter apply and attend.

Posted on Wed, June 20, 2007 by Alec Janda filed under

1 comment (Add your own)

1. LIVIO wrote:: "You have shares in Mcdonalds?What is the dneffreice? Beef is about as common as it gets. Thousands of people get a share of the money Mcdonalds pays for beef"Wait! Wait! There's no scrap of intelligence there. Please rewrite it so it comes closer to making sense. " The only dneffreice is the declaration and protection of ownership. Right now, in PA it is done by the game comission on behalf of the common owners."The game commission is not allocating shares of common goods. You are off the rails here. How would I exercise my shares to vote against hunting?"You think the centrally organized game commission can do a better job than thousands of individual owners?"No I don't. Incentives matter. "Are they common goods because no one owns them or are they "goods" because they are in fact good, and we all have an interest in them?"They are because they are owned in common by everyone, so that invariably, we see the resulting ."Do you have a better idea, or is it that you see this leads to cap and trade? I imagine those texas ranches ahve to set some kind of cap on the hunting they allow."My better idea is that everything should be privately owned, and there would be no common goods that must be controlled and administered by central planning. If you understood the concept of original ownership, you would better understand why this should be so. "for a species genetically hardwired to kill, very few actually do so.The wiring must have shorted out somewhere." Division of labor, and the advent of farming and raising animals for food, has very recently in human history made it unnecessary for each of us to hunt and kill our own dinner."If we were genetetically hardwired to hunt and kill, we would be out doing it even if we don't have to."Duh, what do you think this post is about?"It is probably more accurate that we are programmed to ingratiate ourselves with those that do this for us."You mean like cozying up to lions and hyenas?"And, we actually subsist better on grains and fruit. "Now THAT is a demonstrably weak, if not false statement. Do you really believe that all the many arrowheads, spearpoints, stone knives and scrapers, found at archaeological sites where prehistoric humans lived were used to hunt fruit and grain?It must have been a much more hostile environment than I imagined.Likewise, how would you explain the many charred animal bones found at these same sitesd that appear to have been scraped and smashed perhaps as part of someones dinner?Without eating meat, early human ancesters might not have .
Sat, April 21, 2012 @ 6:17 AM

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