A Hunt of a Lifetime

Last week I shared that I was taking a week off to recharge and spend time in the wilderness, hunting, huddling over a fire, and enjoying the west Texas stars with a little whiskey. This is an annual retreat I take with my brother from another mother - Tom. It's meant to unplug and recharge - completely disconnecting from work, tv, email, and the revolving door of demands on my time.

The intent of the hunt was for mule deer, but opportunity knocked and provided us something else. Aoudad! These exotic animals are not native to west Texas, but were introduced in the 1950's and have flourished. They are also known as Barbary Sheep originating from the rocky mountains in North Africa.

Tom and I were glassing valley to valley looking for game below.

This involved leaving camp at 5am and spending 1.5-2 hours on four wheelers to get to the top of the ridges - a very cold ride at 34°F!

Just after day break we were on our fourth valley, when I picked up movement below in a draw. As everyone knows, the heart rate increases and the excitement builds once you spot game.

Their movement was picked up with binoculars, then we transitioned to the spotting scopes to get more magnification and verify the animal size (ram vs. ewe). See red arrow for animal location.

We confirmed two rams moving together, grazed far below. I pulled out my rangefinder and measured both animals, one at 704 yards and one at 728 yards. Using a Kestrel we sampled the wind and decided that we would take the shot.

We were 520 feet above the animals, and were able to take our time pulling equipment off the four wheelers and get setup on the cliffs edge. We were at 5,241 feet and the animals were at 4,721 feet elevation.

Next, we reviewed our ballistic data tables to verify the dope we required to make the shots. I dialed in on the 728 animal while Tom did the same on the 704 animal.

We simultaneously chambered a round in our rifles and held to find a cadence in the wind. As we felt ready we initiated a 3-2-1-fire count down. When we hit "fire" my gun/trigger malfunctioned and would not strike the primer, Tom's rifle went off and he impacted his animal on the first shot. I quickly racked the bolt and chambered the next round, same failure to fire, I racked a third round, same result. At this point my Aoudad was running down the valley, from Tom's shot. I chambered my 4th round (from my emergency side mounted 2 rounds). I had to lead the animal to "guess" with wind and his travel speed.

This time my rifle functioned (insert sigh of relief) and I made the shot!

The shot placement contacted the ram in his hind quarters with a full pass through. The animal dropped. During the next 2 second I pulled my final and fifth round and held for a perfect lung/heart shot. I sent the round with a perfect wind hold and the ram collapsed instantly.

At this point celebrations, cheers, and pure joy were exchanged between the two of us. This is where the real works started though. The climb down the mountain would be a serious event, the steepest grade we had to traverse was near 60° and all small rock slides.

We took a selfie to document what we looked like before decent! The decent took 3.5 hours with 5-6 falls down the mountain.

One fall resulted in my hand going into a Lechuguilla. One of the 10 needles or thorns went through my glove into my thumb - penetrating 3/4" and going through the tendon. As I fell I broken the needle off in my thumb and ended up with a 1/2" piece through the tendon broken off inside the thumb.

This resulted in a 26 hour ordeal with a drive into a local (insert joke about local as we are 4.5 hours down dirt roads) ER to help resolve the issue; but that isn't what we are hear to talk about!!

With many cold weather layers removed and my hat drenched in sweat, we found our prizes in the valley! The ram! This guy was bigger than any ram I have previously shot. The satisfaction of the shot and the adventure was overwhelming.

This is a view from the ram to our position on the cliffs - where we shot from.

Another shot of both rams and rifles :)

Before you ask: Left 6.5CM & Right 338LM

Now began the real work of hiking out with a 90 lb. pack carrying meat/head + all gear. This resulted in 5-7 more falls (one of which went off a 7' drop and resulted in a badly twisted knee).

A selfie at one of our many breaks on the accent.

The final 60° incline had to be basically crawled up on all fours.

This round trip retrieval process took 7 hours.

When we finally summited we shared the biggest hug and cheered! Final selfie!

• 2 rams
• 3 shots
• 7 hours
• 14 miles
• 7,500 calories
• 10-12 falls