About a year ago, I received a phone call from my great friend Glenn Minardi. He asked me, “Gary, will you go hunt an aoudad with me?”
My answer was a quick, “Hell yeah!”
I immediately made a phone call to Greg Simons of Wildlife Systems in San Angelo. I have hunted in Texas with Greg a number of times and have never been disappointed. He is certainly “Mr. Texas” when it comes to hunting there. He sent Glenn and me to the Monarch Ranch. This is a property about 20 minute north of Comstock, Texas.
In late March of this year, we made our trek to the ranch. We flew into San Antonio and drove about 3 hours to the ranch. Upon arrival, we met the ranch manager, Doug, and checked our zeroes on our guns. We quickly unpacked and got ready to hunt that evening.
As we drove around the ranch, my initial thought was that this could either be a very easy hunt or turn into an extreme hunt—quickly. You see, the area has extremely rough terrain consisting of steep mountains, rocks, and cacti.
Just before dark, we ran up a hill and checked a waterhole. BAM! We found these two rams standing side by side.
I shot first and was immediately followed by a shot from Glenn. Our hunt was complete on the first day. It will never happen that easy again.
The next morning, we slept in until about 7:00 a.m. The plans for the next 2 days was to check out the history of the ranch and fish the Devils River.
Located inside the ranch are the remains of Fort Hudson. This fort was to aid and protect travelers on the way from San Antonio to El Paso, a path known as the Chihuahua Trail.
The ranch is also home to Fern Cave, arguably the largest bat cave in all of Texas. It’s the home of millions of Mexican free-tailed bats.
Last but not least is the Devils River. The limestone in the area makes the water in this river incredibly beautiful. It also grows some amazing smallmouth bass.
This was a very memorable hunt. We got the hunting over quickly and spent a lot of time enjoying what this incredible area has to offer!
