Posted By: Texan0718
Hunter and his ram - 03/16/13 05:39 PM
Last weekend at the Exotic Wildlife Association's annual members meeting in San Marcos my friend Aaron Buckley, owner of Texas Hunt Lodge, invited me to bring my oldest grandson Hunter out this weekend to try and harvest a 33+ inch black Hawaiian ram on his ranch. As you can see from the picture, Hunter was successful in his hunt yesterday. And to make it better he harvested his trophy with a trophy shot. Aaron really wanted Hunter to take this big ram but we had to find him first. As we walked the ranch we saw other Corsican, Texas Dall and 4-horned rams but finally found the big black with a group of rams resting near a water hole at about 200+ yards. As we attempted to close the distance to around 100 yards the rams spooked and ran down the hill from us. So we continued to quietly stalk them until finally they stopped in a large oak mott about 100 yards away. Aaron put out the shooting sticks and had Hunter rest his rifle on them while looking at the rams through his scope. I stood a little way behind Hunter and when I looked through my binoculars the sight I saw was one that knew a novice hunter like Hunter could not make. There were several other oak motts between the one the rams were in and us. The only view of the big black that we had was of his chest in a small 1 foot by 1 1/2 foot roughly square hole through the trees with lots of little brushy twigs in the way . To top it off the black had his nose next to the tail of big 4-horned ram while a huge white Texas Dall had walked up and covered the back third of the black ram's body with his. Aaron later told me that both of these were $3,500.00 animals to hunt. I whispered for Hunter not to shoot as I thought it was way too tight for him to make the shot safely. Aaron hushed me and said let the boy take his shot! When I whispered that I didn't the money to pay for either the huge white ram of big 4-horn he said it is his call, so let him shoot. So, as I watched nervously through my binoculars Hunter made a shot that many grown men would not have taken and he was dead on. A clean heart and double lung shot! The ram whirled and only ran about 20 yards or so. So it seems that all of that time at the range learning how to shoot as well as the lectures from grandpa and momma on firearm safety and animal biology paid off as the was his second 1 shot harvest. In case you haven't guessed by now I am one proud grandpa. Oh, by the way Hunter turned 9 on January 31st.
