A member of the antelope family this animal resembles a cow,the word "gai"in Urdu means cow whereas the word "nil" means blue.The colour of the animal is greyish blue hence the name nilgai.The cow is a sacred animal in India,home of the nilgai,and as such is revered.Hunting it in India could lead to serious repercussions ,as a result their nos. have increased to quite an extent and it has become a problem for the local farmers.
In the border areas of India and Pakistan the animal strays or is pushed by the Indians into Pakistani terriotory.Ironically the Pakistan govt.has also banned hunting of this animal but special permission to hunt can be obtained from the Border Rangers. An influential friend of mine managed to get this permission and we took off for the border.After flying into the city of Lahore we travelled to the border,a distance of about 25 miles,crossed the Ravi river on small ferries capable of transporting one vehicle at a time.At the Rangers post we picked a local guide and started our search.It's a densely wooded area teeming with wildlife such as hog deer (bara singa)wild boars,rabbits and ofcourse the nilgai.Hardly 15 mins. into the search we spotted a trophy size hog deer and although did not have permission for deer decided to take it and hell with the consequences.My first shot with the 270 brought the animal down.It was a great trophy.
Another 20 mins. of roaming around and we spotted 3 nilgai one of which was truly big.The nilgai is a very tough thick skinned animal,perhaps the toughest of all antelopes,requires a heavy cal.to down it.Min.requirement,in my opinion,is a 7mm.mag.while the 300 WB mag.would be ideal.My friend using a 7mm.mag ,150 grs.bullets brought the animal down with a well placed shot.Now it was my turn and as i was carrying a 270 had to be very careful in shot placement.Having spotted another fine animal standing about 50 yds.away i took a daring decision to go for a neck shot.Luckily it paid off as the animal dropped in it's tracks.
The hunt was over in just about an hour and we then started on the wild boars for which we had permission to shoot as many as we liked.Having depleted our ammo. in the next couple of hours after downing about 25 boars we headed back.The deer which i had shot posed a few problems but we were let off after paying a nominal fine.