HUNT: Aoudad Hunting in the Mountains of Uvalde, Texas
November 14, 2024
“Up on that hill,” said my guide Kris slamming the brakes on the jeep. After riding for several hours with a few brief encounters I was relieved to see a large herd of tan sheep running up the hill side. With his eyes pressed into his binocular he advised me to quickly slide my gun barrel out the front opening of the buggy’s windshield. Within a hazy wave of the scope’s reticle, a bramble of sweeping horns slowly came into focus as I twisted the dial for a closer look. Heavy based horns, tight curves, some wider some longer than others made choosing a trophy aoudad from this group of thirty or more sheep a challenge. Moments before they were casually browsing at a much lower elevation until they spotted our jeep dusting along the ranch road causing them to bolt for higher ground.
After several minutes they eventually settled down along a thicket of brush near the top of the hill. Picking the largest trophy to shoot became the next challenge as a large mature aoudad can appear strikingly like one another to the untrained eye. Luckily my guide had an exceptional eye for spotting trophy sheep. “The older rams everyone likes are generally broomed off at the tips of their horns as they age which can lose a little length, but you still get that old mature look,” he explained. “Whereas there are some studs in there that may be a few years younger that are longer in length. It just depends on what you like. The best one for length though is that one standing to the left of the yucca plant where you can just see the top of its horns.”
After a few seconds several of the rams began to stand one being that long heavy horned ram to the left of the yucca. With the turret set to two, the 200 plus yard shot was vertically uphill. “He’s almost clear,” whispered Kris as now all the sheep were beginning to stand with only two blocking my view of the big ram. After a few more seconds it stepped forward and turned broadside offering me a momentary shot. I slowly squeezed the trigger, and the dust puffed from its shoulder leaving no doubt it was a hit good. “You smoked him!” said Kris as the herd exploded from the brush and took off over the top of the hill.
After a short hike uphill Kris discovered the ram expired within a patch of prickly pear. The gorgeous ram was huge, its heavy horns would tape out at 13 inches in circumference at the base and just under 32 inches in length. The barbary sheep, or aoudad as it is known throughout Texas, are a stocky built sheep with outward growing horns with long hair on its throat, chest, and the upper parts of its front legs commonly referred to as chaps. Native to the dry mountainous areas of northern Africa aoudad were introduced into the U.S. within the Palo Duro Canyon area of Texas around 1957, where it has become firmly established. Their range slowly throughout the Edwards Plateau, Trans-Pecos, South Texas Plains, Rolling Plains, and Post Oak Savannah regions as a result of private introductions. (The Mammals of Texas, Seventh Edition by David J. Schmidly and Robert D. Bradley, copyright © 1994, 2004, 2016. Courtesy of the University of Texas Press.)
On the huge ranch we were hunting aoudad in Uvalde, aoudad number in the hundreds in large reproducing herds thanks to conservation efforts by Ranch Manager and owner, “We have 18,000 acres to provide habitat and forage for over 70 species of exotics and Texas native game,” said the owner. Along with everything from Cape buffalo to kudu the mountainous terrain of the ranch offers an exceptional and challenging hunt for trophy class aoudad.
Dustin Catrett
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