In December of 1992 I was talking on the phone with a friend of mine. He owns the Records of Exotics Record Book and also runs a hunting and guiding business I was telling him that I wanted to add as large a Black Hawaiian Sheep as he could find and that I could afford. He told me that he'd be on the look out and call me if he found a likely candidate. I waited and waited and kept waiting. I was beginning to think he had forgotten about my request. About two or three months crept by and I was about ready to to break down and and call him back. But, my waiting was over as a couple of days later my phone rang and it was my friend saying he had found a ram for me.

He proposed a special deal for the hunt. He said that he was looking to make a hunting video to use in his booth at hunting shows. His deal was that he would give me a special on the price of the ram if I would allow him to film the hunt and use it at hunting shows. The price was right, so a date was set and when the time came we were on the road to the Texas hill country near Mt. Home, Texas.

We were to stay on a ranch called the Duderstadt. Unknown to me was that the hunt was to take place on that same ranch. The next morning Thompson showed up and we found out that we were hunting the same place we had slept on last night.

The ranch is a mixture of deep sand roads, with deeper sand to drive thru as we crisscrossed pastures thick with heavy cedar and occassional openings. Filming, sometimes shakily, we moved through the acres of sand and cedar.

Finally as the day lengthened my wife Shirley was driving slowly through the thicker areas and Thompson and I were in the pickup bed filming and watching for the ram. Finally we spotted him in a dark green culdesac. While the camera ran I eased up for a shot. My gun was my trusty old model 700 Remington, 30/06, loaded with Remington 180 grain soft point bullets and a Weaver 3 - 9 scope on it. This old gun had taken many animals of all types in the 30 plus years it had been with me. My guide said " take it whenever your ready". So I took a deep breath ,let half out, and held the rest as I slowly took up the slack in the trigger. At the shot the ram bolted forward into a dense thicket. We waited with camera rolling and all of a sudden the ram appeared again performing a backward fall that would do justice to a stunt man. We all agreed that of all the animals we had seen taken,over the years, this was the first time we'd seen that. The rams horns were 32 3/8 X 32 2/8 long with close to 9 inch bases. After scoring he went into the gold medal class for the record book. And we got it all on film too!

Written by Steve Mahurin on April 23, 1999.