Aoudad are elusive and live in rugged terrain. Hunters should plan on spending several hours behind good quality glass and have a good pair of boots ready for the stalk.

Thirty years ago my father gave me a book of North American big game. I wore holes in the cover pouring over all the fascinating information. The book introduced me to the Barbary or aoudad sheep. Though not a native North American animal, the book listed the aoudad (pronounced OW-dad) because there was a huntable free-ranging population in the U.S., and the photos of these majestic sheep with long flowing beards and chaps made a lasting impression on me.

Aoudad (Ammotragus lervia) is the only native wild sheep of northern Africa. They are found along the Barbary Coast of Nothern Africa. Chad and the Atlas Mountains have been particular strongholds. First introduced in Texas in 1957, the sheep were released in many regions of the Lone Star State, but have adapted especially well in the Palo Duro Canyon area of the Panhandle, and the Davis, Glass and Chinati Mountains of the Trans-Pecos region in West Texas.

My aoudad fascination was rekindled a few years back while turkey hunting at a ranch in the Hill Country. There was a life-size mount of a big aoudad ram being pulled down by a cougar. I decided then and there that I wanted to hunt one of the magnificent creatures. I did not want to hunt aoudad on a game ranch, but through a bit of investigation I found that opportunities to pursue them on free-ranging areas were available.

Aoudad are fairly large and a very tough animal. The author chose a .300 Win. Mag. and 180-grain bullets that had served him well in the past for large mule deer and elk.

Hunter Ross, of Desert Safaris, has access to more than 140,000 acres in the Davis Mountains of West Texas. The terrain was quite rugged and this would indeed be a real sheep hunt--not a walk in the park. I reserved the last week of February as my hunt dates because it did not conflict with any other big game hunting plans.

I arrived at the remote ranch, some three hours' drive from the Midland/Odessa airport. The region close to Fort Davis, Texas, is part of the Sonoran Desert and the flats were covered in thorn brush, cacti and rocks. The Davis Mountains loomed in the distance and looked like sheep country.

After checking the zero on my .300 Winchester Magnum., T/C Pro Hunter, Ross explained the plan for the following day. The ranch we were hunting was 104,000 acres, and we obviously couldn't cover much of it on foot. The plan was to drive as high as possible in his Jeep and hike to vantage points or canyon heads to glass for sheep. Once we found our quarry, we would assess trophy quality and plan a stalk.