There are probably enough posts on how great WTHO is, but I am still going to post my experience (great). I am normally one for self guided DIY hunts we opted to get this one guided because we had now idea what we were looking at.
Day 1. We left El Paso after a great breakfast and headed down to Van Horn. From there we met up with Colt and got to the hunt camp early afternoon. After doing a quick unpack, we screwed on our suppressors, confirmed zero and ballistics, packed our packs and headed out for a late afternoon session. We were 2:1 hunting out of a 6 seater SxS. It wasn't long before we were able to get our eyes tuned to the landscape and put glass onto some sheep. The wind was blowing and we found a group of sheep hiding from the conditions but with nothing too exciting for the first day we moved on. Around dusk we put eyes on another group of sheep which allowed us time to get comfortable with each other. We got up to 400 yards from them, and as I laid down into prone on the gun we started calling out which ones were which. This was a really comfortable setup and gave us a good run down of the flow of everything. Ultimately there were some 29"s in the group, but again, nothing for day one of a hunt.
Day 2. After a great breakfast from Paul we headed out of camp under headlamp and began a long drive up the wash to the far edge of the property. We worked this fence line for most of the morning heading to another property corner. Not a sheep to be found, but given what we saw the day before, we were not too stressed. We worked that fence line until about lunch when we started cutting towards the center of the property. After lunch we were headed back towards one of the larger roads and ran into a group of sheep about 30 strong. Like the day before, Darren and I started setting up firing positions while Colt was glassing the situation. The sheep were on the move and while we were ready to pop one off of a choke point on the ridge at 595 yards, nothing in the group was worth early day 2 of a 5 day hunt. We let that group get out of sight before packing it up and moving on. About an hour after that, Colt glassed up another larger group of sheep about 1200 yards out. In there were some definite shooters and you can hear it in Colts voice. We went on foot to close 500 yards or so, but without any real cover the were starting to get antsy as we got closer. 600 yards out and they knew something was up and were on their way out. They completely disappeared and after another hour of trying to figure out where they went we moved on.
The rest of the afternoon was pretty quiet until the last hour or so of light. This is when things got a little more interesting. As day light was running short and we were heading back towards the camp we spotted 4 sheep about 1300 yards in front of us just in sight on an opposing face. With not much time to do anything else, we headed out on foot after those 4 not being able to see what was under them due to the terrain. We closed 1100 yards pretty quickly. We started to slow down and get into trigger pulling mode as we started to crest the ridgeline. As we snuck up and peaked over we were not looking at 4 sheep but more like 80 sheep. The problem being we were looking at them at 150 yards and they were looking right at us. They started moving pretty quickly. I got down onto the rifle and as Colt had told us "you will know one when you see one" There were three absolute pigs in the group that stuck out like a sore thumb. The whole group was on the move, we were trying to talk each other onto the right ones, but it was absolute chaos and we didn't have the time to square one away before they headed up over the next ridge. We dropped down below the ridge we were on and ran to the next ridge to see if we could cut them off. After about a 400 yard sprint we were at the next ridge and had in fact caught up. They were a little calmer in their new position but they were still moving and grouped up tight. I saw the two that we wanted right at 425 yards, but they were tight in the group and we never had a shot opportunity before they crested the next ridge. So rinse and repeat. This time we sprinted right towards them after they were all out of sight. We closed another couple hundred yards. As we crested the ridgeline the sheep were coming up from a cut to an opposing face at a perfect 400 yards. They had a couple of choke points that put them into single file and while they were moving quickly we had a little better opportunity to get a shot. We both got onto the same ram pretty quickly because he was pretty distinguishable. I jumped down into prone and without any time to spare the ram jumped up onto a rock. I held just over his back for the 400 yard shot and I squeezed the trigger of my Nomic Arms 300 PRC. I hit right where I aimed. Which was perfect windage and right over his shoulders. Not knowing how I missed a 400 yard shot and everything moving out we were unable to get a second shot on that guy. When the sheep were out of sight I figured out what happened. In the second sitting where we had a little more time I had dialed for that 400 yard shot. We picked up and started running so quickly I never put my optic back to zero. So on my actual trigger pull I held over on a dialed optic. Rookie. Ugh. That was a nice sheep. Colt said he thought he was north of 33". We had a long quiet drive back to camp in the dark.
Day 3. After a long day two write-up I will shorten up day 3. We drove around all day, at least 50 miles off road. We saw some sheep, but not a lot and definitely nothing worth going after. On our way back as the sun was starting to get low Colt spotted 4 rams on the hillside. We pulled over and grabbed the spotter to see if we could see what was up. There were 4 rams, but we were staring straight into the sun that was just peaking over the hill top that the sheep were on. Darren and I both got out guns out and set up just in case one of them was a shooter. We were struggling with getting the guns in a place where we we could actually see the sheep and not the sun. Colt was also having a hard time in the spotter. We all moved around to hide behind some random shade spots when we hear Colt say "yes, thats a shooter, lets go, get on him." Darren was up, and we were both trying to get setup so I could back him up. It was a struggle. I finally found that I took my hat off and used it to shade my optic which gave me half an optic of visibility. With Darren still struggling, I said I would take it. I dialed for the 565 yard calculation, held a .2 mil for the wind, told Colt I was ready, and squeezed. You could hear the definite solid hit, but I was pretty far off target after the recoil because I was using my left hand to shade my optic. Colt said "good hit, hit him again. He is the one bleeding." As I was getting back on target I was thinking to myself "great, the one bleeding, I could barely see through my optic before and now I am looking for some blood on a sheep at 565 yards into the sun" As I got back on target the sheep had gone 20 yards and was in a much better spot. Absolutely pumping blood. There was no doubting I was on the right one. I squeezed another one into the shoulder and dropped him. While that was great, Colt said, watch him. Thinking that 2 shots of 210 Bergers into the breadbox would be more than enough, Colt knew better. About 15 seconds later the sheep did in fact try to stand up again. I put one third and final shot right into him again and that sealed it. My first Aoudad!
Day 4: I will leave Darren's sheep story for another post. He did get one. A nice one. Before 0830 in the morning the next day. 505 yards. We cleaned up and got out of there a day early!
Day 1. We left El Paso after a great breakfast and headed down to Van Horn. From there we met up with Colt and got to the hunt camp early afternoon. After doing a quick unpack, we screwed on our suppressors, confirmed zero and ballistics, packed our packs and headed out for a late afternoon session. We were 2:1 hunting out of a 6 seater SxS. It wasn't long before we were able to get our eyes tuned to the landscape and put glass onto some sheep. The wind was blowing and we found a group of sheep hiding from the conditions but with nothing too exciting for the first day we moved on. Around dusk we put eyes on another group of sheep which allowed us time to get comfortable with each other. We got up to 400 yards from them, and as I laid down into prone on the gun we started calling out which ones were which. This was a really comfortable setup and gave us a good run down of the flow of everything. Ultimately there were some 29"s in the group, but again, nothing for day one of a hunt.
Day 2. After a great breakfast from Paul we headed out of camp under headlamp and began a long drive up the wash to the far edge of the property. We worked this fence line for most of the morning heading to another property corner. Not a sheep to be found, but given what we saw the day before, we were not too stressed. We worked that fence line until about lunch when we started cutting towards the center of the property. After lunch we were headed back towards one of the larger roads and ran into a group of sheep about 30 strong. Like the day before, Darren and I started setting up firing positions while Colt was glassing the situation. The sheep were on the move and while we were ready to pop one off of a choke point on the ridge at 595 yards, nothing in the group was worth early day 2 of a 5 day hunt. We let that group get out of sight before packing it up and moving on. About an hour after that, Colt glassed up another larger group of sheep about 1200 yards out. In there were some definite shooters and you can hear it in Colts voice. We went on foot to close 500 yards or so, but without any real cover the were starting to get antsy as we got closer. 600 yards out and they knew something was up and were on their way out. They completely disappeared and after another hour of trying to figure out where they went we moved on.
The rest of the afternoon was pretty quiet until the last hour or so of light. This is when things got a little more interesting. As day light was running short and we were heading back towards the camp we spotted 4 sheep about 1300 yards in front of us just in sight on an opposing face. With not much time to do anything else, we headed out on foot after those 4 not being able to see what was under them due to the terrain. We closed 1100 yards pretty quickly. We started to slow down and get into trigger pulling mode as we started to crest the ridgeline. As we snuck up and peaked over we were not looking at 4 sheep but more like 80 sheep. The problem being we were looking at them at 150 yards and they were looking right at us. They started moving pretty quickly. I got down onto the rifle and as Colt had told us "you will know one when you see one" There were three absolute pigs in the group that stuck out like a sore thumb. The whole group was on the move, we were trying to talk each other onto the right ones, but it was absolute chaos and we didn't have the time to square one away before they headed up over the next ridge. We dropped down below the ridge we were on and ran to the next ridge to see if we could cut them off. After about a 400 yard sprint we were at the next ridge and had in fact caught up. They were a little calmer in their new position but they were still moving and grouped up tight. I saw the two that we wanted right at 425 yards, but they were tight in the group and we never had a shot opportunity before they crested the next ridge. So rinse and repeat. This time we sprinted right towards them after they were all out of sight. We closed another couple hundred yards. As we crested the ridgeline the sheep were coming up from a cut to an opposing face at a perfect 400 yards. They had a couple of choke points that put them into single file and while they were moving quickly we had a little better opportunity to get a shot. We both got onto the same ram pretty quickly because he was pretty distinguishable. I jumped down into prone and without any time to spare the ram jumped up onto a rock. I held just over his back for the 400 yard shot and I squeezed the trigger of my Nomic Arms 300 PRC. I hit right where I aimed. Which was perfect windage and right over his shoulders. Not knowing how I missed a 400 yard shot and everything moving out we were unable to get a second shot on that guy. When the sheep were out of sight I figured out what happened. In the second sitting where we had a little more time I had dialed for that 400 yard shot. We picked up and started running so quickly I never put my optic back to zero. So on my actual trigger pull I held over on a dialed optic. Rookie. Ugh. That was a nice sheep. Colt said he thought he was north of 33". We had a long quiet drive back to camp in the dark.
Day 3. After a long day two write-up I will shorten up day 3. We drove around all day, at least 50 miles off road. We saw some sheep, but not a lot and definitely nothing worth going after. On our way back as the sun was starting to get low Colt spotted 4 rams on the hillside. We pulled over and grabbed the spotter to see if we could see what was up. There were 4 rams, but we were staring straight into the sun that was just peaking over the hill top that the sheep were on. Darren and I both got out guns out and set up just in case one of them was a shooter. We were struggling with getting the guns in a place where we we could actually see the sheep and not the sun. Colt was also having a hard time in the spotter. We all moved around to hide behind some random shade spots when we hear Colt say "yes, thats a shooter, lets go, get on him." Darren was up, and we were both trying to get setup so I could back him up. It was a struggle. I finally found that I took my hat off and used it to shade my optic which gave me half an optic of visibility. With Darren still struggling, I said I would take it. I dialed for the 565 yard calculation, held a .2 mil for the wind, told Colt I was ready, and squeezed. You could hear the definite solid hit, but I was pretty far off target after the recoil because I was using my left hand to shade my optic. Colt said "good hit, hit him again. He is the one bleeding." As I was getting back on target I was thinking to myself "great, the one bleeding, I could barely see through my optic before and now I am looking for some blood on a sheep at 565 yards into the sun" As I got back on target the sheep had gone 20 yards and was in a much better spot. Absolutely pumping blood. There was no doubting I was on the right one. I squeezed another one into the shoulder and dropped him. While that was great, Colt said, watch him. Thinking that 2 shots of 210 Bergers into the breadbox would be more than enough, Colt knew better. About 15 seconds later the sheep did in fact try to stand up again. I put one third and final shot right into him again and that sealed it. My first Aoudad!
Day 4: I will leave Darren's sheep story for another post. He did get one. A nice one. Before 0830 in the morning the next day. 505 yards. We cleaned up and got out of there a day early!
Very fun animals to hunt!
