The following weekend hunt ended up being one of the more eventful weekends out at the hunting ranch. Coined “Farmageddon,” the hunting party ended up shooting only one very small deer. But we did harvest a few other animals. Most notable among them was an Auodad, which is one of the many African exotic animals that were imported to Texas for one reason or another. Some Auodad hunts can be in excess of $5,000.00 per hunter, so to find one roaming around and harvest it for free-plus-bullets-and-gas was quite the experience.
The Auodad was spotted roaming around a hillside with a small herd of regular feral goats by one of the hunters, Alex, who came running excitedly back from cleaning the small deer shot earlier that morning to the cabin to grab his rifle. I scooped up my own rifle and, figuring the herd was not too far away, left the cabin with four bullets in my rifle (poor choice) and Crocs on my feet (worse choice). While Alex chose to sprint to the cabin, the other two hunters chose to drive back, putting them at the cabin at the same time as, and considerably less tired than, Alex.
As we all piled into one of trucks, I opted to ride in the bed of the truck with another hunter, Chris. As we bounced down one of the trails in an attempt to get closer, Chris and I ended up exiting the truck a bit earlier, and significantly rougher, than we had expected. I went prone as Chris took a knee, an we lined up our shots from a considerable distance. As we set our sights on the Auodad, it became clear that there was a smaller, black goat standing directly below the Auodad on the hill. Doing some quick range guesstimation, I figured the distance to be a bit over 300 yards. Compensating for the bullet drop, I pulled the trigger, followed shortly by Chris.
Later investigation with a Nikon rangefinder would reveal that the distance was in excess of 500 yards, which would explain why when I took my shot, the black goat beneath the Auodad reacted instead of the Auodad. Chris, however, called his shot behind the Auodad’s shoulder. After the first volley, Auodad took off running, which we gleefully chased with several subsequent volleys from our rifles.
The Auodad continued to run across the hill, and even escaped over the crest only to return. I presume the Auodad was acting as the “herd Billy/bull” and was trying to protect his chances at succeeding at life (from an evolutionary/biologic perspective, the purpose of life is to survive long enough to pass your genes on to viable offspring). Eventually, Alex connected with the Auodad and he tumbled partway down the hill.
Because of the ambiguity of who killed the Auodad, a small debate carried on for a day, or at least until some butchering would reveal that Chris’s round would have eventually proven fatal, having entered behind the right shoulder and pierced the lung. This round was most likely fired by Chris, as he called his shot placement immediately after firing. To Alex’s credit, however, during the butchering of the left front quarter, which is primarily the left shoulder, I discovered an additional .30 caliber bullet had broken through the muscle tissue, fractured the shoulder blade, and had become lodged in the thick muscle layer underneath the shoulder blade. It is highly unlikely that this round would ultimately have proven fatal. The final round, however, was fired by me, with a 9mm Glock 19 pistol from arms length to put the Auodad out of its misery.
In order to collect the Auodad, we returned to the truck and drove to the top of the hill where I had shot the large brown goat several weeks prior. As we drove, the debate over who was ultimately responsible for killing the Auodad began, and would rage on for at least until I could get close enough to shoot it with my pistol. So despite what Chris or Alex say, we all know who actually killed the Auodad. Despite the forensic evidence, Alex still tends to argue, rather fruitlessly, that his round was the one to ultimately prove fatal.
As we crested the hill, a few free-roaming sheep came into view. The events that followed are still a little foggy, as the truck was stopped so fast I hit my head on the seat in front of me. The doors sprang open, and Bud jumped out and took a shot at the sheep. Actually, he took several shots, and when it was all said and done we now had harvested two feral sheep, and one lamb who had been in the wrong place (in front of its mother) at the wrong time (when its mother was being shot at).
After we loaded up the sheep (and additional lamb), we took off down the trail to try to locate the Auodad.
It did not take us too long to find the Auodad from the top of the hill, as he really was huge. Unfortunately for us, however, we had no way of bringing him to the top of the hill where the truck was, instead having to drag him down the hill to the closest clearing where we could get a truck to it. Further investigation would yield the black goat from the initial volley had perished, but was riddled with festering, rancid cysts, causing us to opt to leave it there. I would not normally advocate leaving an animal you shot behind, but this goats carcass was so rancid that not even the buzzards wanted anything to do with it.
Upon loading up the Auodad, and adding a couple more scratches to the side of my pickup, we began the rather long process of cleaning the deer, auodad, two sheep, and a lamb. We made as quick work of them as possible. And then headed out for the afternoon hunt. Within a half hour of arriving in our stands, we were hit with a ferocious cold-front that none of us had dressed for, causing us all to abandon our posts for the warm interior of the cabin.
Chris opted not to stay the night, and headed back shortly after arriving back to the cabin. Alex and I decided to tough it out the next morning. With weather justifying the use of my Minnesota-grade hunting gear, we set out the next morning, only to be fruitlessly cold. After a couple hours without seeing any deer, Alex and I packed it in and headed back to the cabin to help get ready for our departure.
After getting back home, I opened the cooler to begin my meat management process. I had taken home most of the lamb, the deer, part of the sheep, and the Auodad front quarters. Rather surprisingly, some rapid acting form of rot had taken a hold of the sheep meat, causing me to have to move quickly in order to save what was left of the other animals. I was able to salvage a decent portion of the meat, although I also had to make some very cautious decisions leading to the disposal of a majority of the meat. Most of the salvaged meat was brought home over Christmas and either turned into fondue, as was the case for the lamb, or into jerky, which was the case for the Auodad.
All in all, it was a good weekend, but I still had my favorite part of the season to go.
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