Special shot permits once in a lifetime deal
Darren Brown’s legs felt like spaghetti. And while climbing the steep, craggy ridges of the Sierra Diablo Wildlife Management Area in far West Texas, he got winded. The lawyer from Port Neches also was surprised to see blood staining the inside of his socks around the tops of his boots - the work of ubiquitous cactus needles. “Everything out there will poke you and stick you,’’ he said. “It’s rough country.’’ But Brown would go back in a second if he could get another chance at a rare Texas bighorn sheep.
During his hunt, Dec. 16-18, he bagged a ram through a special permit issued by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Just a few decades ago, no one could hunt desert bighorns in Texas. The “Texana’’ variety of the sheep had disappeared by the 1960s, victims to unregulated hunting and diseases from domestic livestock.
But now the wild sheep are enjoying resurgence in West Texas, the result of a massive effort to import bighorns from other desert states. And sheep habitat improvements such as water “guzzlers’’ have been funded through a collaboration between TPW, private landowners and the Texas Bighorn Society. The partners celebrated a milestone last summer when nearly 1,000 of the sheep were counted in helicopter surveys. These tallies help the state determine how many rams will be available to hunters each year, said Mike Pittman, project leader for TPW’s Trans Pecos wildlife areas. “Most all year, these sheep are subject to predators, old age and accidents,’’ Pittman said. “During the breeding season (August through October) the rams do a lot of fighting and they butt heads. “It’s not uncommon for them to suffer some pretty good injuries.’’
There were 12 hunting permits issued in 2006, Pittman said. Nine went to landowners who charge as much as $10,000 per hunt. The other three were used for the TPW “Grand Slam’’ hunt, another hunt auctioned off by the bighorn society and for the special drawing won by Brown. The lawyer said he was amazed to learn the auctioned permit fetched $105,000 at the bighorn society’s banquet last spring. Proceeds benefited the state’s bighorn projects. “If someone was willing to pay that much, with all of it going back to the sheep, I just thought I’d donate it back,’’ Brown said. “I thought they could sell it again, but Mike Pittman told me there would be too much red tape.’’ And for that, Brown is grateful.
He said the accommodations at a ranch house about three miles from the hunt area were first rate, as was Pittman’s cooking. He also credited guide Clay Roberts and his spotters for putting him on a nice ram. Brown took the bighorn at about 80 yards with 7mm-08 round, tipped with a 140-grain bullet. Its Boone & Crockett score only reached about 150, considerably less than the biggest trophy ram taken so far in Texas, which scored 183 5/8 in 2005. But points don’t matter to Brown, whose recent experiences inspired him to join the Texas Bighorn Society. “He’s a trophy to me,’’ he said of the ram. “I don’t care what his score is. “I heard that 2,000 or more people each paid $10 for an application to the drawing. I got lucky. “It’s a once in a lifetime deal.’’ For information on the special permit hunts, go online at www.tpwd.state.tx.us.
