By Terry Houin
I wasn’t quite sure what to say to Wes as the big ram casually joined the herd at the top of the ridge. There was no indication of a hit as he was looking back down the hill to report the rifle. The old ram reacted at the second shot, but it was clearly another miss. As the herd meandered over the hill, I went to the video to determine what happened. Upon review, I could clearly see the bullet trace arc harmlessly six feet over his back, and my quick public school math told me that was about 20 MOA high. Hesitantly, I reached down and spun the turret back to zero, which was a full rotation off from the actual rifle zero. This is a lesson I’ve learned more than one time but when I grabbed the rifle, I failed to confirm it was zeroed. As it turns out, the boys were shooting at some javelina the day before and spun the turret to the closest zero.
Now that we were reset and had a few laughs at my lackluster guiding skills, we loaded up to make another play as I had a feeling the sheep would stay close by and continue to feed. After a short three mile loop around the mountain, and a hurried hike to the top, we were back in business—the herd of roughly three dozen below us. After finding our target ram and getting setup, checking the wind, and dialing the correct DOPE for the shot, Wes let it rip. After a quick follow up shot, his first ram, on his first guided hunt, was down. While we were basking in the victory, Wes’ father, Bud, along with Steve and Trent located another small bachelor group of rams right below us hiding in the cactus. So not only did we find success, we had the best seat in the house to watch the nerve-wracking stalk as they inched their way into position until they finally found a small hole and Bud made an excellent shot. Two rams within 500 yards of each other and a happy father and son team going home after a successful Outrider trip.
The Barbary sheep, commonly referred to as aoudad here in the states, originated in Northern Africa and are their own species of goat-antelope, though, their likeness to sheep has made most hunters refer to them as such. I guess it sounds sexier than hunting a desert goat. The aoudad we now hunt in West Texas were either released in the 1950s from overpopulated zoos, or they were imported to a few ranches after soldiers in WWII encountered them in Africa. I like the soldier hypothesis myself. Aoudad in Texas are classified as a non-native invasive species which means you can hunt them year round with no limits outside of what your wallet can handle. Where we run the Field Ethos Outrider Adventure hunts in the West Texas mountains, we target mature rams, and during our rut hunts, you can see upwards of 1000 sheep a day. It’s awesome, but as a guide, it can be very frustrating trying to talk a hunter into the correct ram when there might be 30 mature rams in the herd of 300 sheep.
The inaugural FE Outrider x The Precision Collective Aoudad hunt in West Texes was more than just a hunt. Nine participants signed up between the two groups to be subject to my world-class shit talking and some instruction both on the range and in the field. The trip starts with a four-step shooting course to get everyone comfortable shooting. It starts with proper rifle fitting along with setting eye relief and understanding parallax—an overlooked step for many shooters. Step two covers shooting fundamentals, zeroing, and gathering the ballistic data for each rifle and load configuration for each hunter. Step three teaches each participant how to take the data gathered on the range, along with the environmental information, and build a ballistic profile and range card. Step four is more fun. After learning the fundamentals and gathering all the data, we confirmed all the ballistic profiles by stretching the rifles out to 1000 yards, and several of the guys took it out farther for the hell of it.
After Wes and Bud’s successful hunt, the second group of hunters had seven rams to look for, so we opted for an abbreviated class to leave more time for hunting. I’m a proponent of being flexible and going with what the hunters want to do, as long as it matches what I want to do. The first morning started out hot with two rams down before lunch, but on day two, the West Texas wind was blowing 30 mph most of the day. Even with the poor conditions, we put a couple more in the cooler before our luck turned south. The same slow pace continued on the third morning. It wasn’t until that afternoon that we found, and shot, two more good rams.
On the last day, we needed two more rams and it was going to take some effort—but it’s not over ‘til it’s over. With three different guides busting their ass to locate shooters, we located a decent herd shortly after sunup and made a stalk. Unfortunately, we got too close to the big ram and ewes as we were looking at the wrong group of sheep and almost stepped on them before they busted out of the country. Several more stalks and we finished the day with a last-minute ram. Between the two groups, we ended up going eight for nine—and we added in several old ewes and some javelina for fun. Not bad numbers.
Pros: Mix awesome animals with a great learning environment, and it’s a trip for anyone from the first-timer to the experienced hunter looking for something to chase in the off season.
Cons: You have to put up with my bull shit while I teach you how to kill animals and sling lead at ridiculous ranges.
