DIY Barbary Sheep OTC Eastern NM part 2

arri1942

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jan 29, 2017
Messages
182
Location
NE Oregon
Part 2 If you missed part 1 it was posted yesterday.

By that point they had worked a bit up the mountain and the furthest range we could get to register above some rocks was 600 yards. We felt they were about 50 beyond that. We had a cross wind from left to right. Where we were at it only felt about like 5 mph. I adjusted my scope with my dope chart for 650 yards and wind for 5 mph. The first shot was just low and right off of the back foot of the ewe to the right. Knowing that, I changed distance to 700 and adjusted the windage a bit more to 10mph. I settled in and went through my shot process and pulled the trigger. The shot felt perfect. My brother exclaimed, “She’s down!!” Looking through the footage on the spotting scope, it was right behind her upper right shoulder. She bedded down and I put another finishing shot in her hoping to ease any longer suffering. She slid down the hill about 30 yards out of view behind some mesquite bushes.

I can’t figure out how to link video, if interested just send me a request through personal message and i can text or email it to you to watch. Or my tech savvy brother can embed it later.

It was honestly an unexpected outcome. Not that I don’t have confidence in my shooting abilities or hunting skills, but I had never hunted aoudad before and had minimal expectations due to the time constraints. The flood of emotions is hard to describe. From the elation as my brother and I high fived and acted like kids, to the play back of the footage, to the awe and “fear” of climbing the opposite side of the canyon, it was definitely an emotional high.

At this point it was about 2:30 in the afternoon and we knew the fun was over. We decided we would have to hike down to the base of the mountain near where the truck was and climb back the other side of the canyon to recover and pack out. We got back to the truck about 3:45. We ran into town about 15 minutes away and loaded up with some Gatorade and some more food and developed a plan on the onX maps where we felt we could safely scale and climb to where she was at. It took us about 3 hrs to get to the spot we thought she was at. It was dark and took us about 40 minutes to find her after gridding back and forth.

f43222961f80f750fde1c70b2faff1d0.jpg


9bd26c4a4bf57ef15a4bd0d75cfa3317.jpg


This picture shows where i shot her looking from where i shot from.

0f0e1fa51fa793a9a646095f4862a8b4.jpg


We field dressed her and decided to head down the mountain and got back to the bottom at about midnight. Progress was slow, not because the weight of the packs, but the constant side-hilling to only drop a little in elevation. It felt so good to get back to the truck. It was then that the entirety of the day and the awesomeness of the terrain and these awesome aoudad really stood out.


My quads are still recovering as I write this. It was an amazing memory that I will never forget and I feel no other better way to spend time with your brother than hunting together. I would recommend anyone looking for a fun OTC hunt to extend your hunting season check out the NM Barbary sheep hunt.

Realizations after the fact:

#1 I want/need a new rangefinder. Looking at Sig Sauer 2200LRH or the new Nikon Monarch 3000.

#2 I want/need a new pack. I have been researching and looking for last 3-4 months. Think I will go with an Exo 3300 or the new Stone Glacier Evo40/56. Whichever seems to have the best system for rifle carrying will win out I think.

#3 I need to get into better shape for next time. I am not in terrible shape, but being in really good shape would have made it easier.

#4 Aoudad are amazing animals

Hope you enjoyed the read.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

realunlucky

Super Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jan 20, 2013
Messages
12,629
Location
Eastern Utah
This is a bucket list hunt for me for sure. I've been applying for a draw tag but I'm unlucky. Otc tags I'll have to look into some

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
 

thinhorn_AK

"DADDY"
Joined
Jul 2, 2016
Messages
10,341
Location
Alaska
Very cool, I used to hunt these things fairly often years back. Reading your report made me think of the times when I Pack all my stuff on a Thursday night and leave it by the front door inside my house, head to work and pretend to do my job all day Friday, then sneak out ASAP, go home, throw my stuff in the old beater truck I had, stop at come crappy fast food and head south to hunt hard all weekend.

I got four or five aoudads on solo hunts the last of which was 8 years ago now, they are very tough and underrated animals to go after, I was just talking to my dad a few days ago about coming down south and going for one somewhere in Texas together.
 
OP
arri1942

arri1942

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jan 29, 2017
Messages
182
Location
NE Oregon
Mods,

is there a way I can link this to my original thread (part 1) from yesterday? Thanks. I am new to this.
 

d3ntalbliss

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Oct 31, 2016
Messages
194
Location
ID
Here is the video of the shot. At this time we didn't know if we were shooting at a small ram or a ewe, but I still refer to it as a "him". Also as I watched in the spotter with the phoneskope it looked to me like it was up by the spine, but it ended up being lower third. She was obviously not spined in the sense that she was paralyzed, but I thought maybe it entered high vitals just below the spine. Vapor trail is fun to watch. Honestly when we initially saw the sheep so far across the canyon I didn't think we had a chance in Hades at connecting with one. Ballistics and custom dope charts are legit and amazed me.

Congrats to my bro on the successful hunt!! I will be down in this area for another four months so if anyone needs someone to tag along, I'm game. I just got a new spotter I want to put to work!

I will say this. Hunting and shooting from distance it was super frustrating for both of us to locate the sheep because of the non distinct hillside and no great landmarks. As they moved up the hill it was very hard to find landmarks that we could use to communicate and describe where they were. We literally spent 10 minutes with my brother on the sheep and me searching with the spotter. He was telling me they were just to the right of the big square rock. As I looked at the big square rock in the spotter there were no sheep to be found. Finally after about ten minutes we realized there were two big square rocks about 50 yards from each other and I was looking at the lower of the two.

Also to add as far as gear review. We both had trekking poles and don't think we would have fared so well without them. They really helped sidehilling having a short one on the uphill side and a longer one on the downhill!!

[video=youtube;aSOoo9zjrm0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSOoo9zjrm0&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 

KHNC

WKR
Joined
Jul 11, 2013
Messages
3,426
Location
NC
i cant imagine eating one of the rams. We left a carcass out for a couple days, and not even the coyotes ate any of it.
 
Top