STEVEN BOTHWELL/COURTESY

STEVEN BOTHWELL

Special Correspondent

It all started in August with a simple text message from a hunting buddy. “Have you checked your email?”

Putting work aside I quickly checked my email and there it was in my inbox from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department with the subject line “Congratulations – drawn for hunt category EXOTIC.”

This meant only one thing. Me and three of my hunting buddies – John Phelps, Derek Wade and Ira McCullars – had beaten the odds and had successfully drawn permits to hunt aoudad at Palo Duro Canyon State Park in the Panhandle. Even though we had to wait until February to hunt, we were excited to say the least.

For those unfamiliar with the Texas Public Hunt System, for as little as $3 you can apply for hunts in any number of hunt categories. Once successfully drawn you simply purchase a permit for $80 or $130 depending on the length of the hunt you drew. High demand hunts like the aoudad sheep hunt are hard to draw and could take years or even decades to be drawn. Other lesser demand hunts can be drawn every year or every few years.

We knew it would be physically demanding to get where we planned to hunt so the next few months were spent running, weight training and hiking. There were also plans to be made.

When it finally came time for the hunt my buddies and I loaded the truck and headed northwest for three days of free-range hunting in the Palo Duro Canyon. We arrived the day before the hunt started to settle into camp. We woke early the next morning and headed to park headquarters for our hunt orientation.

This is standard procedure for public hunts.

The staff goes over rules, limits, assign hunt compartments, etc at these hunt orientations.

We were assigned one of the most difficult to access hunt compartments within the state park.

The orientation lasted until noon so we all agreed our goal for day one was to find a navigable route in and out of our unit. This would allow us the ability to get to our unit before daylight and to hunt until dark the next morning.

Starting the slow and methodical decent into Palo Duro Canyon we stopped often to take pictures and to mark the route. Upon reaching the bottom of the canyon we had enough daylight to do a little glassing. We looked over every rock, mesquite bush, and every other piece of cover we thought an aoudad could hide behind.

As the shadows started to get longer Phelps noticed a small band of rams close enough to make a move on with the daylight we had left. From a pre-hunt decision everyone agreed whoever spotted the aoudad got first choice on a shot if they wanted to try for the aoudad or not.

It didn’t take long for my buddy to take off and begin a stalk on the group of rams with us close behind. We were able to move within a few hundred yards of the rams without them noticing us. As my buddy setup for his shot on the ram the rest of us did a quick game of rock, paper, scissors to determine who shot next. Just in case the unthinkable happened and one of the rams stopped to look back after the first shot. I won and have never been so excited to win a game of rock, paper, scissors in my life.

The two of us readied for our shots. The others setup to track the ram or rams to make tracking easier in the fading light. Once we were all ready and setup. Phelps took his shot. His ram folded and didn’t move a muscle. After a round of high fives and congratulations we looked up and to everyone’s surprise one of the rams had indeed stopped to look back. I quickly got back behind my gun and shot. The ram buckled and made it just out of sight before going down.

We all looked at each other in amazement. We had just done the unthinkable, two nice rams on the first day of a do-it-yourself free-range aoudad hunt.

We quickly took pictures and as the saying goes that is when the work began as we processed the two rams and began our trek out of the canyon. Being from East Texas none of us were physically ready for the pack out even though we thought we were.

We eventually arrived back at camp well after dark physically exhausted. After a short group discussion we decided that two aoudad on the first day was good enough. So we slept in on day two, loaded up the truck, and headed home to loved ones with stories to tell.