We had aoudad on the ranch I hunted north of Van Horn for 30+ years. The local TPWD wildlife biologist told us to kill everyone of them we see, so I did my darndest to do just that. The biggest herd I saw was 30-40 animals and they eat EVERYTHING down to the rocks. They are fun to hunt, that's for sure. I helped a fellow hunters daughter try and kill a huge ram we called Casper (because he had the habit of disappearing). She was 8 months pregnant, but didn't complain once when climbing that mountain straight up. And I mean it was straight up. Got to the top, peaked over the rim and Casper was staring at me at 35 yards. Being 8 months pregnant, she couldn't hardly lean over to shoot, but when she did shoot she shot over his back.
We found another group the next day and this was another long, up and down stalk to get into position. When she finally got into position she squeezed off one with her 300 Win mag and killed the ram in his bed at 182 yards. Me and her daddy commenced to shooting at the 6 ewes he had with him. That guy couldn't shoot for squat. I killed 4 and watched the other 2 run over the top of the hill and disappear into the canyon. We climbed over to her ram and I found two ewes piled up, one on top of the other. The 140 gr. Barnes TTSX went through one and hit the other one in the head. Darndest thing I'd ever seen.
I sure miss hunting that ranch. The aoudad and varmint hunting was almost as much fun as the mule deer and quail hunting.
