ColemanFarrington
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This year started out a little different than most, I've been able to go on two hunts so far that I consider dream hunts. Even though it was my boss? wife, Stephanie, behind the gun on both hunts, I couldn't have been more eager to go. The first was a NM aoudad, the second a NM Ibex. This writeup will be about the Aoudad, but I'll post the Ibex story next week sometime.
Going into this Aoudad hunt we knew it was going to be tough, even tougher because we were filming it all for TV. The area we were hunting has very few Aoudad and they are extremely spread out. We?ve hunted elk here in the past and have seen a few giant 30?+ rams while hunting elk, but very few overall. We knew that there was a chance we wouldn't even see any Aoudad, but we knew we'd have a good time trying!
We left South Texas early in the morning, and began our 12.5 hr drive. We picked our second cameraman up in Amarillo and made it to camp late that evening. We ate dinner, made a game plan, and headed to bed in hopes of getting some sleep before opening morning.
We left camp just as it was getting light enough to see. Our plan was to cover a lot of country and glass anywhere that looked promising. We drove and glassed for several hours, along the way capitalizing on a couple chance opportunities at coyotes, and barely missing the chance at a shot at a bobcat before he slipped into a ravine. So far the hunt was going great, but we hadn't located any Aoudad yet. We decided to go back to camp, eat lunch and regroup before we headed back out again.
After lunch we decided to go to an area we hadn't been to yet. It's a large mesa, with another smaller mesa on top. We had a couple guys glassing intently with no luck. We then decided to pack up, and move on to another area. As we were packing up one of our cameramen decided to take some pictures and footage of the mesa as it would make a great scenery shot to add to an episode. As we finished gathering our stuff and hopped into the truck he said, ?I see an Aoudad.? We all immediately thought he was full of it, but sure enough, he had spotted a ewe and a lamb at least half a mile away through his camera. I was a little embarrassed to say the least. I had scoured that mountain for the last half hour with a Swaro 85, and didn't see them, but he caught them right as they were feeding out from behind some rocks.
We got the glass back out and began watching this ewe and her lamb. We were really hoping they were with some other sheep, and we were willing to sit there and wait as long as it took to find the others or confirm they were alone. After another 15 minutes of glassing another sheep fed out from behind some rocks. My heart skipped a beat for a second, but it turned out to be another ewe. False alarm. Just as that ewe scrambled up and met up with the other ewe and her lamb another Aoudad popped out. There was no mistaking it, he was a giant mature ram! He had the build of a linebacker. He walked around like he owned the place. Now we just had to figure out how to cut the distance for a shot.
This mesa is so steep that in most places it's impossible to climb. There?s three draws around the mesa that are the only places you can hike to get on top. We knew that it would take a while to get there, but they seemed content where they were at and we had plenty of daylight left. As we climbed the initial rise of the mesa to the bench we lost sight of the sheep as the fed around the top. We quickly made our way to the top and headed in the direction we last saw them. As we came around the back of the mesa we were able to get eyes on them again, and continued our stalk. After about an hour of walking slow, and trying our best to stay out of sight, we were 150 yards below them, with a perfect shot opportunity.
Stephanie had a perfect rest for her rifle, and said she felt good about the shot. She slowly squeezed one off, and I watched as a rock right behind the ram blew up upon the impact of the bullet. She had just barely shot over his back, and the sheep began to run off. They went around the mesa and out of sight. We thought that the opportunity was lost for sure. We sat there discussing our next move when amazingly the sheep made their way back into sight up on top of the second mesa that sat above the one we were on.
We discussed our options and decided that our best bet was to move around to the other side of the mesa and come over the top. If everything worked as planned we would have a shot around 100 yards. When we finally made it around the other side of the mesa and slowly started to move up to see the sheep, tensions were high. We weren't sure if they were even still there or if they'd run at first sight of us, but as moved up we saw all of them right were we saw them last. They were 110 yards and staring right at us. Stephanie quickly positioned herself for a shot, and squeezed one off. The shot was perfect, and after running a short distance the ram was dead.
We all knew he was big, but we couldn't believe just how big he was. Each horn measured right at 32? and one side was heavily broomed. He had a ton of scars on his face and was clearly an old warrior of a ram. We all felt very fortunate to have the opportunity to harvest him. We quickly took some photos and began the work. After caping and quartering the animal it was late, and we decided to come back and pack him out in the morning. The next morning we climbed back up the mesa, and found him just how we had left him. After a couple hour pack out we could all relax a little, and enjoy the feeling after a successful hunt.
This hunt was filmed for our show called Wildlifers on the Sportsman Channel. It will air sometime later this year if anyone is interested in watching it.
Follow me on Instagram to follow along on my hunts: @colemanfarrington
Going into this Aoudad hunt we knew it was going to be tough, even tougher because we were filming it all for TV. The area we were hunting has very few Aoudad and they are extremely spread out. We?ve hunted elk here in the past and have seen a few giant 30?+ rams while hunting elk, but very few overall. We knew that there was a chance we wouldn't even see any Aoudad, but we knew we'd have a good time trying!
We left South Texas early in the morning, and began our 12.5 hr drive. We picked our second cameraman up in Amarillo and made it to camp late that evening. We ate dinner, made a game plan, and headed to bed in hopes of getting some sleep before opening morning.
We left camp just as it was getting light enough to see. Our plan was to cover a lot of country and glass anywhere that looked promising. We drove and glassed for several hours, along the way capitalizing on a couple chance opportunities at coyotes, and barely missing the chance at a shot at a bobcat before he slipped into a ravine. So far the hunt was going great, but we hadn't located any Aoudad yet. We decided to go back to camp, eat lunch and regroup before we headed back out again.
After lunch we decided to go to an area we hadn't been to yet. It's a large mesa, with another smaller mesa on top. We had a couple guys glassing intently with no luck. We then decided to pack up, and move on to another area. As we were packing up one of our cameramen decided to take some pictures and footage of the mesa as it would make a great scenery shot to add to an episode. As we finished gathering our stuff and hopped into the truck he said, ?I see an Aoudad.? We all immediately thought he was full of it, but sure enough, he had spotted a ewe and a lamb at least half a mile away through his camera. I was a little embarrassed to say the least. I had scoured that mountain for the last half hour with a Swaro 85, and didn't see them, but he caught them right as they were feeding out from behind some rocks.
We got the glass back out and began watching this ewe and her lamb. We were really hoping they were with some other sheep, and we were willing to sit there and wait as long as it took to find the others or confirm they were alone. After another 15 minutes of glassing another sheep fed out from behind some rocks. My heart skipped a beat for a second, but it turned out to be another ewe. False alarm. Just as that ewe scrambled up and met up with the other ewe and her lamb another Aoudad popped out. There was no mistaking it, he was a giant mature ram! He had the build of a linebacker. He walked around like he owned the place. Now we just had to figure out how to cut the distance for a shot.
This mesa is so steep that in most places it's impossible to climb. There?s three draws around the mesa that are the only places you can hike to get on top. We knew that it would take a while to get there, but they seemed content where they were at and we had plenty of daylight left. As we climbed the initial rise of the mesa to the bench we lost sight of the sheep as the fed around the top. We quickly made our way to the top and headed in the direction we last saw them. As we came around the back of the mesa we were able to get eyes on them again, and continued our stalk. After about an hour of walking slow, and trying our best to stay out of sight, we were 150 yards below them, with a perfect shot opportunity.
Stephanie had a perfect rest for her rifle, and said she felt good about the shot. She slowly squeezed one off, and I watched as a rock right behind the ram blew up upon the impact of the bullet. She had just barely shot over his back, and the sheep began to run off. They went around the mesa and out of sight. We thought that the opportunity was lost for sure. We sat there discussing our next move when amazingly the sheep made their way back into sight up on top of the second mesa that sat above the one we were on.
We discussed our options and decided that our best bet was to move around to the other side of the mesa and come over the top. If everything worked as planned we would have a shot around 100 yards. When we finally made it around the other side of the mesa and slowly started to move up to see the sheep, tensions were high. We weren't sure if they were even still there or if they'd run at first sight of us, but as moved up we saw all of them right were we saw them last. They were 110 yards and staring right at us. Stephanie quickly positioned herself for a shot, and squeezed one off. The shot was perfect, and after running a short distance the ram was dead.
We all knew he was big, but we couldn't believe just how big he was. Each horn measured right at 32? and one side was heavily broomed. He had a ton of scars on his face and was clearly an old warrior of a ram. We all felt very fortunate to have the opportunity to harvest him. We quickly took some photos and began the work. After caping and quartering the animal it was late, and we decided to come back and pack him out in the morning. The next morning we climbed back up the mesa, and found him just how we had left him. After a couple hour pack out we could all relax a little, and enjoy the feeling after a successful hunt.
This hunt was filmed for our show called Wildlifers on the Sportsman Channel. It will air sometime later this year if anyone is interested in watching it.
Follow me on Instagram to follow along on my hunts: @colemanfarrington
