Photo By Staff Sgt. Wheeler Brunschmid | U.S. Army Veteran Chance Bailey hikes the rough terrain across the vast grounds of...... read more read more
Subscribe
Soldiers may not realize it, but there are substantial hunting opportunities right in the backyard of Ft. Bliss! With over 1.1 million acres of land, Fort Bliss is a haven for outdoor enthusiasts. Nestled between the Franklin Mountains of El Paso, Texas to the Organ Mountains of New Mexico, Fort Bliss offers a unique hunting experience with thriving exotic species like the Barbary sheep, better known in the Southwest as the Aoudad. I recently had the privilege of joining a Barbary Sheep hunt, which was an unforgettable experience!
The Aoudad Lottery System: How It Works
To hunt Aoudad sheep on Bliss, you must enter a lottery. Typically, there are two lotteries, one in March and another in August. To hunt Aoudad on the Texas side of Fort Bliss, you must enter a lottery in August. The spring drawing that closes in March is for the New Mexico side and is run through the New Mexico Game and Fish Department.
Half of the available tags for each species are awarded to active-duty military personnel, and the other half are awarded to civilians or youth entrants.
Over the past three years of lotteries, there have been 300-400 military entrants each year and 800-900 civilian or youth entrants. Draw rates have varied due to the number of tags awarded each year.
• Military Oryx draw rates: 1.74% - 2.08%
• Civilian/Youth Oryx draw rates: 0.66% - 1.05%
• Military Aoudad draw rates: 1.06% - 9.12%
• Civilian/Youth Aoudad draw rates: 0.56% - 3.30%
Veteran Chance Bailey was among the 3% of civilians awarded an Aoudad sheep tag for the 2024 fall season and let me go along with him to document the experience as part of my Department of Defense skill bridge internship with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Importance of Family
Chance, a seasoned hunter, approached the Aoudad Sheep hunt with an open mind, saying, "I’d be happy just to see one." His cousin, Gary Price, an El Paso resident and fellow veteran, sparked Chance's interest in the Aoudad Sheep lottery offered through bliss.isportsman.net.
Chance and Gary grew up hunting and fishing for small game, white-tail deer, and waterfowl in the eastern flatlands of Texas. Recent family losses, including Gary's father in a motorcycle accident and Chance's father-in-law to cancer, had fragmented their family. Both men remembered the importance of family to their fathers and sought to reignite family connections through hunting experience.
Chance enlisted in the U.S. Army with aspirations of joining the Special Operations community and eventually became a Combat Engineer. He deployed to Iraq during the Global War on Terrorism and, after four years of honorable service, transitioned to a career in the offshore oil and gas industry. This new career allowed him to balance family life and his passion for hunting, spending two weeks on a ship and two weeks off. This year, Chance thought this hunt fit perfectly into his fall hunting plans.
The Aoudad Adventure
Day one of the hunt began properly caffeinated and filled with anticipation. We discussed a game plan as we entered the military land owned by Ft. Bliss.
Bouncing around in our seats, we held onto our coffee cups to absorb the bumps and avoid spilling our energy source. As we arrived at our grid coordinates, the steep mountainous incline to our glassing location was a nice warm-up and introduction to how this hunt would play out.
These mountains reminded Chance of going from Ft. Rucker, Alabama, his first duty station in the Army, with an elevation of under three hundred feet, to deploying to Iraq, with mountains as high as nearly twelve thousand feet.
We climbed to the mountain top with a ruck and weapon on Chance’s back, even more like his military experience in Afghanistan. Gary took off at a pace I could tell was only sustainable for a short distance. Chance and I took a more consistent pace and eventually caught up to him.
“Gary, were you like the Soldiers who sprinted the first part of the run during the two-mile physical training test and then slowly crossed the finish line?” I asked.
“Yeah, that was me”, Gary said. “A mentor helped me pace myself later in the service to get my fastest time, but I obviously need to work on it still,” Gary replied.
Gary entered the military as an Infantryman and eventually served as a Courier for the Old Guard. After four years of service, Gary landed in El Paso, TX.
Typically, hunters chase Aoudad during the cooler winter months. However, Chance's hunt occurred in the middle of the breeding season, when temperatures reached nearly triple digits by midday. These extreme conditions made it challenging to locate the crepuscular sheep, which seek cooler temperatures under yuccas or sagebrush during the day. Despite the heat, Chance saw this hunt as a way to get into "Elk hunting shape" and reconnect with Gary while exploring the Chihuahuan Desert.
The Search for the Aoudad Sheep
On top of the mountain, we found most of the glassing spots did not offer a comfortable place to sit without a cactus. A small chair, pad, or extra item of clothing would help a hunter sit longer on this hunt in the desert.
Not long after daybreak and the initial climb, we located a prospective Aoudad sheep.
“Oh, we’ve got one,” Chance said, pointing to where he was looking out his spotting scope.
“What I’d like to do is get over that knob, see if we can’t close the distance while having a good spot to glass,” Chance said.
Introduced in the 1950s by ranchers to provide hunting opportunities, Aoudad thrived in the West Texas region. Native to North Africa, Aoudad Sheep are classified as an exotic species by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD). This classification allows hunters to harvest these animals with fewer regulations and substantially lower costs than other states offering Aoudad hunts. One main reason for the open bag limit and low cost for barbery sheep in most of West Texas is the threat Aoudad poses to their native cousins, the Desert Big Horn.
Aoudad competes for the same resources as the Desert BigHorn, and the exotic sheep have been known to spread disease to the bighorn. With Desert BigHorn being reintroduced to the Franklin Mountains in El Paso, Texas, the Ft. Bliss lottery hunts help the TPWD efforts to secure a safer space with less of a threat of disease transfer from aoudad.
With my camera on record, I followed closely behind Chance and Gary, documenting each step, with anticipation that we’ll see a sheep once we get to the knob.
“I don’t see one; let’s move around this hill and keep looking,” Chance said.
Rocks crunching under our feet, we inched forward around a plateau. I’m stopped by Chance’s hand and immediately hit the record button.
“There’s one right there. It jumped out of a draw and is standing looking at us. Don’t move,” Chance whispered.
The Shot: Precision and Patience in the Field
“197 yards,” Gary whispered as he pulled up his range finder.
Slowly crossing his walking sticks into an x, Chance rested his Remington 30-06, loaded with a 150-grain bullet, on the sticks and took aim.
Locking my tripod down, I could see the sheep in my camera’s viewfinder, with the red record button on at the top right of the screen. The camera was on her just as Chance let out a round.
She lifted her two legs and kicked, a good sign she was hit.
Running off the screen, I hear Gary say, “She’s down”.
Shocked at how the event unfolded, I turned the camera toward the two Cousins' laughing and fist bumping, amazed at what had happened.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” Gary said. “The final push,” Chance responded.
With the temperatures reaching nearly one hundred degrees, we all made quick work towards the downed animal, located her, spent little time reminiscing about the situation, and started to quarter the meat and pack it down the hill. Each of us took a turn with the meat pack on our backs. We made it to the truck, checked in the animal with the iSporstman app, and got the sheep on ice.
A Unique and Rewarding Experience
Chance and Gary took the meat to a shop, and I pulled up the footage on the big screen to reflect on the incredible opportunity we could all have to experience and relive the hunt.
The lottery system at Fort Bliss offers hunters a glimpse into high-elevation, spot-and-stalk western-style hunting at its finest. Despite the challenges, Chance successfully harvested an animal after climbing mountains and battling the heat.
Fort Bliss offers unique and affordable hunting opportunities for the adventurous hunter. Whether you're a local or willing to travel, the chance to hunt Aoudad amidst stunning desert landscapes is a rewarding experience. Disconnect from the daily grind and find solace in nature while creating lasting memories with family and friends.
For more information, go to: bliss.isporstman.net
| Date Taken: | 12.12.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 12.31.2024 13:54 |
| Story ID: | 487323 |
| Location: | EL PASO, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 197 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, U.S. Army Veterans Hunt on Ft. Bliss, by SSG Wheeler Brunschmid, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
