By: Tom Claycomb III
Photos by author
I recently had a Texas exotic hunt lined up. For the hunt I wanted to test a Mossberg Patriot Long Range Hunter chambered in the .300 Win. Mag. We were originally going to hunt multiple species of exotics on the Texas/Mexican border with Adventures, Missions and Retreats on one of their 10,000-acre ranches. At the last minute though the rancher called and told us that INS had stopped a rail car and 160 illegals had jumped out. They captured 67 but the rest were running wild across his ranch. With all of the helicopters, drones, illegals, INS agents, and I assume armed smugglers, it was chaotic. On day one they had two dead illegals and a day later the count was up to four. Despite what you may hear on the mainstream news channels, the border is in shambles and totally chaotic!
Needless to say, we had to tweak our plans, so we moved our hunt up north of the border a couple of hours and changed our plans to hunt axis deer and hogs.
I have been traveling like crazy and my life is about as chaotic as the border situation. I’ve been flying out for three weeks and home for a week for four years. So, I had to have everything lined up for the moment I touched down at home so I could be prepared for the upcoming hunt. For this hunt I had lined up the following items:
- The Mossberg Patriot Long Range Hunter .300 Win. Mag.
- Hornaday Precision Hunter 200 gr. .300 Win. Mag. ammo
- Sightron SI 4-12×40 G2 scope
- German Precision Optics Passion HD 10×42 Binoculars
- Elk Ridge knives
I arrived home and ran down to Idaho Guns & Outdoors to pick up the Mossberg rifle, which is the FFL dealer that receives my guns to test. I picked up a set of scope mounts while there and then ran home and mounted the scope. I like to use an Otis Range Box when mounting scopes, it helps hold the rifle stable while working on it.
The next task was to run out to the high desert country and sight in the rifle. So as to have a good rest, I used a Caldwell Stable Table Lite, Caldwell range bags and a Caldwell Hydro table since I was shooting a large caliber rifle with 200 gr. bullets.
I wasn’t getting as good of groups as I wanted but time was down to the wire. I had a deal I had to go take care of over in South Dakota so I took the rifle with me and also did the testing for the recent product review on the Silencer Central Banish 30.
I almost hesitate to state the groups that I achieved because of better past performances when shooting Hornaday ammo out of Mossberg rifles. It’s not fair to ding a rifle if you don’t test multiple brands and grains of ammo. I remember years ago I tested out a Mossberg Patriot 30-06 and at first, shot a 2 ½-inch group. But after testing 19 different blends of ammo and later shooting some Hornady 165 gr. ammo I was able to obtain a 7/8-inch group. So, would that have been Mossberg’s fault that I didn’t do due diligence on my end to obtain a good group? I think not. So with the 200 gr. ammo I was only getting a 1 7/8-inch group. But again, I was out of time and didn’t get to test out any other Hornaday blends.
THE REAL TEST
D-Day finally arrived and I jumped on a plane and flew down to San Antonio for the hunt. My buddy Bill Olson picked me up at the San Antonio airport and we headed to Uvalde. The next morning, we met with the Speer Ag group that sells fortified cotton seed to game ranches/hunters along with world-renowned whitetail biologist Bob Zaiglin. After breakfast we headed to Menard, Texas to the Clearwater Ranch.
The Clearwater Ranch has a beautiful lodge and a lot of history. Right by the lodge there are a lot of springs gushing out from a rock face which form the Clearwater River. Across the river from where we stayed is an old rock cabin. In the cowboy/Indian days a captain in the calvary lived there. While he was out of patrol a band of marauding Indians on the warpath came through the area and kidnapped his daughter. They were soon pursued and his daughter was retaken. Like I say, the ranch has a lot of history.
Scott Huggins, who runs AMR, and I did a spotting/stalking axis deer hunt the second day. While hiking through the pasture I saw an old dug-out hole in a massive rock. I’m sure that there is an official name for them but the Indians would dig holes in rocks to grind their grain in. I immediately recognized it for what it was and took a few pictures. We then resumed hunting.
Something that hits me as unique are the rock fences on the Clearwater Ranch. The guys that built them are some true artists. Whitetails jump the fences but axis deer jump on top of them and then spring off of them thereby tearing them down. Of course the ranch hands don’t appreciate this. These walls are about 3-feet tall and 2-feet wide.
Scott and I had gone up on a ridge above the lodge and were walking along one of these stone fences when Scott stopped and hissed, “Axis!” I saw its huge rack above the brush as it faded off. Scott started using his natural mouth calls and it suddenly drifted back our way.
I leaned on the old rock wall and within a minute I could outline him in the brush. Even though he had a group of does with him he couldn’t resist coming back to get into a fight as evidenced later by his broken main beam. Axis deer are aggressive fighters.
I had enough of a clear shot through the brush for a shot and touched off a round. When the 200 gr. Hornady hit him he did a back flip. Suddenly he jumped up and, in my haste, I missed a fast follow-up shot but dropped him on my third shot.
Two different shots of my axis buck.
Axis deer have the prettiest hides in the world.
Wow, what an awesome hunt. I had to keep rubbing my eyes to make sure that I wasn’t on an elk hunt. It was all the same. Spot & stalk, hear them calling and sneak in and do a set-up and call the buck in. The only difference is instead of bugling, the bucks roar.
What a great hunt. Due to the buck being a good 225 lbs., the Mossberg Patriot LR Hunter in a .300 Win. Mag. turned out to be a good choice. It later also flattened a hog. Great gun, great caliber.