Time To Get Out of Town...

[Treylog]

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[cookemerkel]

Awesome stuff Gents. Congrats on a couple stellar animals and what looks to have been a fantastic trip.

[Treylog]

We pulled up and the guide and the cook came out to greet us. After a few a minutes of introductions they asked if we’d like to grabs our bags, relax, have a drink, sight in our rifles……..approximately 15 minutes later we had thrown our bags in a room and were at the range shooting at a 100 yard target. Dale shot first and all things said “go”. I shot next. First shot. Can’t see it….appears to have missed paper. Second shot. The same. WTH?? A few weeks earlier we made a trip to the deer lease to sight things in for this hunt. I had never taken a shot beyond 175 yards or needed to. Surprisingly enough after a few shots I was feeling good at 300. We jumped into the hunting buggy to check the target I was already making plans in my head to pull out my backup rifle. We pulled up to the target and both shots were near perfect center 1.5” high but hidden by the vertical black line of the target. I looked over at the guide with a sigh of relief and it was game on.

Turns out we may have been the fastest hunters to actually hunt upon arrival. Within about 1.5 hour of showing up we were glassing the front “hills” looking for the ram the guide had spotted a few hours earlier. We didn’t find the ram but did get a small sample of the vast environment we were about to experience. Plenty of mule deer on this place.

First night after a nice dinner we hung out by the fire with the guide and cook. Funny thing was we had to coerce them to join us. Apparently some of the high falutin clients don’t always like to mingle with the staff. We quickly assured them that wasn’t the way we roll. We flipped a coin and turned out I was the first one up to shoot. Even after a few whiskeys I had a hard time falling asleep that first night.

[TildenHunter]

That looks like a place I would like to go to and stay........for a long time!

[Hornet Hunter]

I'm sure Chance will do the honors, he cusses me otherwise. But in his defense he probably cusses me anyway.


The sheep were properly celebrated...


Now it's time for that long road home.





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I used to work on the ranch directly across the county road from the Beard's. We also had a pasture on the west side of the road, which would border that front pasture to the North. Huge Mulies in there. Quite a few antelope as well.

Did the pipeline disturb the ranch much?

[Saltyag15]

Thank y'all for the awesome stories and pictures. Looks like it was a great trip!

[Treylog]

They actually had surveyors out mark spots all over the ranch for a future seismic survey.

[Treylog]

Breakfast came about 730….eggs, bacon, toast, coffee. We were heading farther back to the higher country. Come 830 they had the vehicle loaded with drinks, lunch, guns and everything we needed to survive a day long trip.

I rode up top on the way out of camp. The air was chilly the first morning. As the sun continued to rise the high peaks of the mountains caught the light first. The views were truly unbelievable. The dirt/rock road just seemed to wind further and further until we practically surrounded by mountains. We passed small groups of mule deer standing not 50-75 yards from the road. Our guide would stop from time to time and would glass the rock ledges in the distance. Each time I would pull up my binoculars in the same direction like a young child copying his father’s every move. Finally the guide pointed out a few sheep on top a sheer rock cliff in the distance. I struggled to find them and would ask Dale if he could see them. It took us awhile and finally found them. Even through the binoculars they appeared like little ants on these sprawling mountains. It wasn’t until day 2 that I began to adjust and more easily spot these critters. The height of some of the mountain peaks made them feel a lot closer that they actually were.

We had glassed a few canyons Ringcon and Horse Thief. While entering Horse Thief we rounded a corner and there on top of the cliff were about 50 sheep. They spot us and began slowly retreating down the edge of the cliff. Then another 50 or so sheep appear and did the same thing. There were a few good ones up there but no effective way to get to them. It was super cool seeing that many sheep a few hundred yards above us. We continued the rocky journey past an old house way back in the canyon and then went another 45 minutes or so back to a dead end to glass some more. We found one really nice ram across the canyon standing with a few ewes on the edge of the opposite canyon ridge. You could barely seem them through binoculars but he looked to be a giant through the spotting scope. I’d guess he was at least a few miles from us as the crow flies. Again no way to really get to them. In hindsight it would have probably taken us the better part of the day to get there and back. This country is truely breath taking. After glassing and grabbing a bite we retreated back to Ringcon.

[Treylog]

Heading into Horse Thief


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[Dale Moser]

I used to work on the ranch directly across the county road from the Beard's. We also had a pasture on the west side of the road, which would border that front pasture to the North. Huge Mulies in there. Quite a few antelope as well.



Did the pipeline disturb the ranch much?

Didn't even notice it.





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[Treylog]

Old house leading into the canyon


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[Treylog]

The large ram and ewes were sitting atop a cliff on the other side of the canyon.


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[Treylog]

It had started to warm up and I decided to take lose a layer and take off my long sleeve shirt. That was a mistake. As we rolled deeper into Ringcon we came around a point and found 5 sheep. I guess we had spooked them and they slowly began to stroll off around this small mountain. From behind there appeared to be one nice ram in the group. The guide jumped out of the vehicle and said lets go. I jumped out grabbed my pack, rifle and turned to see the guide already heading after them. He went straight in to a creek but surrounded by 5-7ft brush. I’m not a plant guy and don’t know what all the stuff was but ever **** one of them shrubs had something to poke, stick or cut you. Doing my best to keep up with Jon we found them. The had rounded a ridge crossed the creek bed we were in and headed up the next ridge over. At this point I remembered I had left my shooting sticks back at the lodge. I found a fragile stick to try and use as a bipod. By this point they were about 274 yards up the next ridge. With sweat in my eyes, trying to catch my breath and a crappy stick for a rest I just couldn’t keep steady enough for a shot at that distance. We had to just watch as they walked up over the ridge and out of sight. Disappointed we headed back to vehicle and back through the creek of daggers. We made if back to find Dale glassing a few sheep on the opposite ridge. My arms were both bleeding and looked like I had been in a fight with a ****** off house cat. Lesson learned….keep your sleeves on and next time bring gloves.

We made it to the back Ringcon and did some more glassing. Our guide spotted what we believed to be the same group of sheep we had just gone after. They were slowly traveling the top of a far off ridge and heading down to what they called the Peninsula. The Peninsula basically separated the canyon we were in from one of the main ranch roads. We made a plan to get back to the main road and try to cut them off as they came down the Peninsula.

[Treylog]

A poor attempt of a pic through he spotting scope.


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[Treylog]

We made it to the road and sure enough spotted the sheep. We again jumped out and took off up the mountain. Dale stayed with the vehicle and would like to be able to watch this go down. I also grabbed the guide’s spotting scope tripod to act as rifle rest. We finally made it to the top and stuck around a point off the peninsula. The wind was swirling up there and we didn’t have the best position to take what would have been a 308 yard shot. We decided to circle back around the top of the peninsula. There was one white faced ewe which the largest ram was tailing. She made it a little easier to track him as he was always two feet behind her. She had made us and stared us down as we stood behind a decent size bush at 150 yards. I had a good rest with the tripod but my legs were a bit wobbly from the trip of the side of this peninsula. The guide gave me the go ahead as the ewe turned quartering away and walked through an opening. The ram then followed. As he did I took the shot and the ram hit the dirt. A bit of adrenaline kicked in at that point. I rifled another shell and we gave it a few minutes to make sure he didn’t get up. It was the first day and after two stalks I had killed my ram. I was a bit excited to say the least. As we walked up to the ram I remember thinking wow I thought these animals were a bit bigger than this. Don’t get me wrong, he was a beautiful ram but I just started to question its size. Not only the horns but the overall size. What do I know? This is the first time seeing these critters up close and in person. I thanked the guide and didn’t say much about it. We caped him out and again made the long trip back to the vehicle. Dale was there standing guard on the vehicle and congratulated me. The shot wasn’t in view but he had watched some of the earlier stalk take place.

We made it back to camp and the guide took to finishing the caping job. I was looking around at all the other horns laying around the cleaning shed and in the lodge. It became fairly clear at that point that this was not the ram I come here hoping for. With the stretch of the tape he just barely met the 25” mark. That’s when a whole other set of emotions came over me. I had waited several years, researched and paid a premium to hunt a place to get a chance at a trophy class Aoudad and this was only the first day of the hunt. I may have mentioned it to Dale with a few choice words  but then felt like an ***** for saying anything while he hadn’t even attempted a stalk yet. I decided to settle down and not say anything for the time being. We went in for dinner. We started dinner and the guide showed up about 15 minutes later. He had been on the phone with the outfitter. He sat down and said “Well I guess yall need to flip another coin. That one was a freebie.” I said they’ll be no more coin flipping I’m tired and Dale’s up! The guide owned it and after dinner I shook his hand and I told him I really appreciated it. Things happen and there was no guarantee we'd get on another one, but his actions told me a lot about the guides character and the outfitter. They best we could figure is that we came up on a different group of sheep that second time up.