Out near Enchanted Rock during Thanksgiving week.

Shot two turkeys, one hog, one deer, and one aoudad.

The buck was one of several 8s, 9s, 10s I saw, and while it's a beautiful deer I'm happy to have shot, it's not one I would have shot if I was hunting alone. It's the second biggest deer I've ever shot but he still could have used another year, if I'm being honest. But I was hunting with my son and this was the first deer I've shot with him in the stand with me and I couldn't pass that up. So we had a great time with that.

And then the aoudad was a surprise, it's the first ram I've ever killed. We've had a few other ones shot at our place that were slightly bigger, but he was a hoss nonetheless. We don't see them very often so when he popped out, it was a no-doubter.

Helluva week!

How far are you from Enchanted Rock? Are these aoudad free-ranging?

If you're hunting low fence you might have never seen that buck again. I would have shot at it too. Very successful hunt.

8-10 miles maybe? I just use it an easy reference point. It's low fenced, yes.

Awesomeness!

I'm in the same general area. Goats wander through once or twice a season. That's a good one!

Awesome buck! Your aoudad has great chaps and I'd highly recommend looking into the wall pedestal mount that goes down to about the knee to show them off. I'll see if I can find a pic. Did you tape him out? Looks 25-26", which is a good ram.

We are doing a mount that will include the chaps. As for length, didn't measure but your estimate seems good. There's one in our office that is like 29-30" and that one looks to be a few inches longer than this one.

Perfect! It will make a great mount

Beautiful animals! Great job.

Do you eat the audad? I see conflicting reports on the taste/meat.

Very nice!

And on letting a deer go for another year, if it's fun and makes your heart rate increase, shoot!

You do not eat a ram, ever… if you have to eat Aoudad, you eat a smaller ewe. They all taste terrible to me and I've killed at least 30 of these damn things.

Nice ones!

I'm not dogging on this in any way, but you're basically just taking a trophy animal for the horns when hunting audad?

Can't imagine anyone is really going out of their way to shoot a smaller ewe if that is the case.

That's exactly what people are doing. They're extremely invasive with an estimated population of 80k plus in TX and it's only getting worse. They're preventing any chance of bighorn rebounding and they outcompete whitetail. Mature rams that I have put on the scale are 275-300lbs+

They're also very smart and have incredible eyesight. Very challenging animal to hunt at times.

I don't know how to tell you this but those aren't aoudad, those are mountain lions and you're in a lot of trouble.