I never miss.

What’s the name of that song, “Famous last words of a Fool” I guess I resemble that remark.


Yeah right! Well, almost never. This weekend I missed a stud Aoudad and a decent buck.

I develop my loads, shoot at least bi-weekly, chrono my loads and typically shoot and foul a barrel before I hunt. I generally know within a 1/2” where the bullet should impact, if I do my part.

Well evidently not this weekend.

We’ve been on this particular lease for seven seasons. I keep game cams out much of the time. Some of the other guys have said they have seen Aoudad up in the rocks, but I never have. In fact only one has been killed off our lease in seven years. So imagine my elation and surprise when I viewed these pix last Thursday night. Four Aoudad at one of my remote spin cast feeders. This location is about ½ mile off the road. Four images of Aoudad on October 19th. This was October 31. Was I jazzed. Hopefully they might still be in the area.
Friday night I sat in a stand that is another half mile back behind the feeder where the Aoudad had shown up. It was about 30 minutes before dark when, as luck would have it I saw them coming over the top of the hill directly across from the hilltop I was perched on. I watched them mosey down a ways. The big ‘un was in the lead. He walked out on an outcrop and turned broadside. I ranged him at 306 yds. My Sako carbine is loaded with 150 gr. Accubonds at +/- 2,750 FPS and as I’m a short range meat hunter, it was zeroed at a measly ½” high at 100 yds. Bummer, wrong rifle and wrong zero. What the heck. Seven years and no Aoudad. I decided to take the shot. I held about 6” over the top of his back, set the trigger and let fly. At that medium velocity and range it seemed like a couple seconds before I heard a solid “whop”. It looked like he hunched up and took off behind some juniper. I watched for about fifteen minutes. No movement. It was starting to get dark but I wasn’t about to wait till morning to start looking. Problem was, I had to go all the way down the hill, across a stream bed then climb a vertical incline lined with cedar, cactus and cats claw. To make matters worse, I was in shorts. Needless to say, by time I got near where I thought he might be it was almost dark. I had a flashlight, but no good reference point. By the time I got off the side of that mountain I looked like I’d been drug behind a truck. I looked for that dude off and on for two days. Aoudad meat ain’t the most tasty, but can be mixed with pork to make pretty fair jalepeno cheese salami. I didn’t mind not recovering the meat, but this guy was a stud puppy. I sure did want the head and horns. Would have made braggin’ rights for a good while.





Typically we have buzzards everywhere and they are on carrion within in a few hours much less days. This last weekend I don’t think I saw a one the whole weekend. Tonite’s Thursday and I’m still bummed.

The buck I missed was at 120 yds. I’ve shot a dozen or so hogs with the Nosler 325 WSM with ‘nary a miss. I didn’t check zero this last week before I went though. I decided to do a high neck shot on the buck, so as not to mess up any meat. I usually don’t do that on deer preferring a heart/lung or spine shot. I took the shot, heard the “whap” of a bullet hitting dirt rather than the “whop” of hitting flesh, and saw a cloud of dust as the buck turned and took off. I went to where I thought the buck was standing. I found the most tiny trace of hair. No meat and no blood. I spent about 30 minutes looking to no avail before I packed it in. Next night I shot a porker with the same rifle. POI was 4” lower than my POA. Either I can’t shoot anymore or I knocked the scope off zero. Oh well, its to the range tomorrow to make sure what’s the score.

But I did nail three hill country hoglets, so at least I did not come back empty handed



A "twofer" with the merkel.





Best

GWB