One Heck Of A Ride

75 The Texas Exotics For readers who are unfamiliar with the aoudad, these long-haired, goat-like mountain animals from North Africa were first brought to the United States in 1924 and released on the Hearst Ranch in California, and made their way to Texas soon after that. They can give birth twice in a single year, which means their numbers can explode when in suitable habitat. They’re also called “Barbary sheep” although they are neither a sheep nor a goat but something in between. Even though many experienced hunters call the sexes “rams,” “ewes,” and “lambs,” the proper terms are “billys,” “nannies,” and “kids” because they will hybridize with goats but not sheep. My next trip to Texas was in November 1991, when my daughter Paige and I traveled to Edwards County to hunt an aoudad with Texotics, a company owned by Thompson Temple, a Texas entrepreneur with a real “Texas twang” to his speech. I’d bought the hunt at our SCI chapter’s annual fund-raiser, and figured it would be a lot of fun if I added a hunt for a blackbuck antelope and an axis deer on another ranch. Paige and I spent the first day on Thompson’s ranch without seeing a suitable billy. I was impressed with how agile these animals were, though. They literally raced across the steep, rocky hillsides whenever we bumped them. Early the next morning, Paige and Thompson still were sleeping when I woke up. After a cup of coffee, I left the ranch house without waking them and walked up a low mountain and glassed from an aged gazebo on its peak. I spent the next half hour by myself, enjoying the beauty of daybreak in the Texas Hill Country and only half-heartedly glassing. Thompson had told me I would not find an aoudad with horns longer than 26 inches on his ranch, so you can imagine how surprised I was to look down and see a billy with heavy 32- inch horns looking up at me. He definitely was a shooter. “Now where did he come from?” I asked myself as I prepared to shoot. The billy had no idea danger was above him and I dropped him in mid-stride with my .300 Weatherby. He was mostly the color of sand and had a short mane on his head and shoulders, and flowing long hair on his chest, neck, forelegs, and tail that almost reached the ground. His SCI gold medal horns were smooth, thick, and curved like a mouflon’s. After Alfred Lera, my guide, got to the ranch This aoudad billy had been roaming the Hill Country, thanks to fences that needed repair. Texas 1991 we cleaned and hung the 225-pound animal. I truly was curious about where my big billy had come from, so after a bite to eat and a short rest, I returned to the gazebo with Paige and started checking the fences. The ranch had been in bankruptcy and had sat vacant for at least five years, and sure enough, two long sections of fencing were down and a couple of sections were missing. My aoudad had come from somewhere else besides Thompson’s ranch, but no matter where he came from he definitely was a beautiful old ram with 30- to 32-inch horns. He had been coming and going wherever he wanted, so you could say he was a free-ranging aoudad. That one shot ended my first great aoudad hunt.