New state record big horn

[bbbuck]

I’ve had the opportunity to hunt the mountain and can say it’s not a canned hunt at all. Nice ram.

[wytex]

That's an excellent idea. There are also aoudad in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park as well as on thousands of acres of land owned by the University of Texas that is leased out to ranchers. I wish there was someone out there actually working to open these lands up to public hunters.

Interesting, in Wyoming University land is state land and some folks have been successful in making the university let them hunt on appropriate lands because it is state owned and written into our const.
Maybe TPW could talk with UT about hunting their lands and get something set aside for you residents to have a hunt. Be a good push for some groups I think being that it is state land.

But hey I'm just one of those WY groupies on Rokslide.

OW is doubling down and sounding like a jerk but I sure wouldn't be saying anything about his ram, no need to belittle it. A little respect for the animal , any animal, taken is due in my book.

[wtx223]

Truly an amazing animal and would give my left nut to hunt sheep in TX, congrats to the hunter. Now, if we could just get TPWD on board with whipping out aoudad and putting more bighorns in TX we might be getting somewhere!

:

TPWD is on board, but issue is the limited mountain terrain where the deserts would do well that are not overrun by aoudad, and very limited desert sheep numbers to transplant from.

Target areas where sheep would do well is mainly private (another can of worms) and getting landowners to eradicate aoudad for a sheep herd that they might be able to hunt 8-10 years down the road makes zero economic sense for the landowner.

Plus these sheep are weak hearted animals. Doesn’t take much stress or disease to wipe out a mountain range in a few months. They look for any reason to lay down and die unfortunately.

[diamond10x]

Davis Mountains State Park is full of aoudad. 20 years ago I saw mule deer in DMSP but now all I see is aoudad.

I forgot about that state park!

But hey I'm just one of those WY groupies on Rokslide.

Surely you know the group I’m referring to and i definitely wouldn’t put you in with said group.

TPWD is on board, but issue is the limited mountain terrain where the deserts would do well that are not overrun by aoudad, and very limited desert sheep numbers to transplant from.

Target areas where sheep would do well is mainly private (another can of worms) and getting landowners to eradicate aoudad for a sheep herd that they might be able to hunt 8-10 years down the road makes zero economic sense for the landowner.

Plus these sheep are weak hearted animals. Doesn’t take much stress or disease to wipe out a mountain range in a few months. They look for any reason to lay down and die unfortunately.

Obviously they can only survive where there is legitimate mountains that offer everything they need to survive. My biggest issue is huge aoudad herds free ranging that live in prime BH habitat. Then you have ranchers and outfitters managing these herds only taking mature rams, you can’t fault them for it as that’s a big source of income for them. On the other hand, one BH ram is the price of 8-12+ aoudad rams, which is more than a number of places and people I’ve talked to. Another issue I have is aoudad being in MD and Carmen Mtn whitetail habitat. A place I’ve always thought would be great for BH would be the Carmen range.

Do you know if the chinati’s have BH? I know they have aoudad as there is some inaccessible state land there.

[wtx223]

Chianti’s used to have a herd of bighorn. Aoudad have overtaken them. Might be a handful of sheep left there. Aoudad numbers in Chianti’s are through the roof.

Where we have bighorn on us, we shoot every aoudad we see, driving around, or out of chopper. Neighbors do the same, so we only have a handful of aoudad in the entire mountain range.

The bigger issue than aoudad numbers is getting the bighorn numbers up enough to do transplants. Nearly an impossible task.

[Gumbo Man]

lol pathetic, and he bad mouths Texans fr a living!

Did he go ahead and shoot the momma too?

[wtx223]

Holy cow! What a ram!

And that OutdoorWriter dude is clueless - and jealous.

Calling photoshop on those pictures you posted. No way west Texas was ever that green….especially how it looks now.

[100%TtId]

"Outdoor Writer" doubles down on stupid:

It's always interesting to watch a thread like this devolve into personal ad hominins rather than stay on the issue, which in this case was the easy hunting of sheep on the 23K-acre Elephant Mt. WMA & research facilty. Instead of explaining why that is untrue, several cretins thought adding personal insults would do the trick. That's how 5th graders behave.

"... easy hunting of sheep on Elephant Mt..."

Sure, dude. Just ignore everyone telling you otherwise then accuse them of ad hominems while calling them "cretins".

[Shane]

Calling photoshop on those pictures you posted. No way west Texas was ever that green….especially how it looks now.

Yeah, I remember being shocked at the green. Y'all had had 6 or 8 inches of rain the week before our hunt, I think. I guess that's a whole year or maybe two years' worth of rain. So all the sheep that had been up on top near the windmills before the rain had scattered back down into the roughest parts of the canyons, just in time for our hunt.

I was expecting 100 degrees and dry. It was green and 75-80 degrees - and humid. I didn't really care what the weather was. I was sure excited to get the opportunity. What a great lifelong memory for Zach and I. It was awesome to be able to take him along with me.

Your family and others in that area are truly doing some awesome stuff with the bighorn program. I only wish more people could experience it first hand. It's special.

[Quackerbox]

I think its funny that the outdoor writer guy says its an easy canned hunt etc but then when hes called out on it he says its taken to a 5th grade level.

its clear he didnt have a clue about the subject and thinks texas is covered in flat ground and tumble weed

[Drop Tine]

I’ve been hunting mule deer in that area for six years and that’s some rough country. Nothing canned about that. Experience of a lifetime for the hunter! Thanks for sharing.

[diamond10x]

Chianti’s used to have a herd of bighorn. Aoudad have overtaken them. Might be a handful of sheep left there. Aoudad numbers in Chianti’s are through the roof.

Where we have bighorn on us, we shoot every aoudad we see, driving around, or out of chopper. Neighbors do the same, so we only have a handful of aoudad in the entire mountain range.

The bigger issue than aoudad numbers is getting the bighorn numbers up enough to do transplants. Nearly an impossible task.

That’s Awesome to hear that y’all are trying to exterminate them exotic sheep out of there. I would love to be able to help out hands on with putting sheep in all those mountain ranges besides sending donations to TxBHS and WSF. When you only make so much money you gotta pay bills and only get so much PTO. Since y’all are in the Chinati’s, do you know why the state land there isn’t open to any recreation? Especially hunting for aoudad.

[Texastaxi]

Wow!

This is the stuff dreams are made of.
Huge CONGRATS to the hunter and to TPWD!

[lmartin5]

That is a beast...beautiful animal!

[donpablo]

Interesting, in Wyoming University land is state land and some folks have been successful in making the university let them hunt on appropriate lands because it is state owned and written into our const.
Maybe TPW could talk with UT about hunting their lands and get something set aside for you residents to have a hunt. Be a good push for some groups I think being that it is state land.

But hey I'm just one of those WY groupies on Rokslide.

OW is doubling down and sounding like a jerk but I sure wouldn't be saying anything about his ram, no need to belittle it. A little respect for the animal , any animal, taken is due in my book.

I'm just guessing but I bet those ranchers lease the hunting rights too. If so, they would scream bloody murder about the government stealing their livelihood (and I agree that's big money). But I can't help but feel that land owned by the state should at least be open to some public hunting. Even if it were a draw for one group of 4/year.