Shot this old Aoudad a couple of weeks back outside of Brackettville at our lease. The property is covered in hills and deep valleys and has an abundance of free ranging Aoudad throughout. We missed the morning hunt that day and were just getting outside on the porch of the cabin with our morning coffee around 8 AM. I usually pull out the spotting scope in the mornings and glass the hills for animal movement. I can usually spot some deer or sheep moving. Right off the bat I spotted a group of ewes at least 1000 yards away. We thought nothing of it as we usually see some ewes moving. I continued to watch them and noticed 2 males appear. Both rams looked heavy and looked to be starting to show interest in the ewes. We thought to ourselves the rut is coming up quick and we should probably go get a better look. My Uncle, my Dad and I jumped into the Polaris and headed to the base of the hill where we had spotted the group. Upon reaching the base of the hill they were no where to be found. We had bumped them into the next canyon. The wind was right so we quickly drove up to the top of the hill, parked the Polaris and set out on foot. Cutting through the brush we made our way to a glassing point where we spotted the group on the side of the next hill. At this point we were still a good 4-500 yards away. The 3 of us attempted to close some distance popping from cedar to cedar trying to be as stealth as a 3 man group could be. We closed to right at 200 yards but they were starting to get antsy. We could see the 2 males still with group. The younger of the 2 was a monster but to young to take but the elder was an old toad. He was wide with a good curl. I was definitely unprepared at this point as I was carrying an AR in 6.8 SPC which by no means was sufficient for this distance and for animal that size. Luckily my Uncle who rarely carries a rifle just happened to grab his 300 win mag. I quickly jumped into a prone position laying on an abundance of cactus and rock attempting to get settled. Getting about as comfortable as I figured I could get in a rush with a rifle I had never fired I found myself now locked on the old Aoudad who was now pacing on the side of the hill. He suddenly found a spot to graze and so I fired off a round hitting him. He rolled down to the next level of the side of hill. I had pulled the shot just hair and severed his spine. His back legs were gone. The old brute attempted to drag himself back up the hill. I quickly closed 50 yards and took another shot hitting him square in the shoulder and sending him plummeting further down the hill. We proceeded to get moving to go recover him as we had lots of clouds that morning and cool temperatures. We knew it wasn't going to be an easy task to drag him out of the canyon since we would be unable to get a vehicle down there. After hiking down to him we got our hands on him and realized he was toad and everything we thought he was. He measured at 28 3/4 on the left (broken side) and 29 1/2 on the right at 10+ years old. I felt truly proud of him especially due to the manner in which we got him. He was definitely a great trophy and great memory for the 3 of us. I thought myself it definitely paid off to stay in bed that morning.
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