There are plenty of warthogs in Africa, but truly huge ones are almost as rare as hundred-pound elephants.

Photo above: Boddington and PH Poen van Zyl with a spectacular warthog, taken in coastal Mozambique on November 16, 2025. With extreme length, nice curve, and good mass throughout, this is the best warthog the author has ever seen. He was shooting a Winchester M88 in .308.

Some of us care greatly about antler, horn, or tusk size. Others, not so much. I’m in the middle; I appreciate an exceptional animal of any species, but I rarely carry a tape. An extra-large animal can sometimes be taken through extreme effort. Hunting hard and long in the right places, looking, sorting, and passing. More often, it happens through blind luck.

In mid-November 2025, I took a huge warthog. Not just my largest–the biggest one I’ve ever seen. Also perfect, with thick, evenly matched tusks forming an attractive ellipse.

Among the hundreds of big-game species, greatness varies. With elephants, the milestone to greatness is 100 pounds of ivory on one tusk. I’ve never seen such a tusker. In days gone by, hunters spent weeks and months tracking elephants in Africa’s most remote corners, hoping for a chance at one. Few ever succeeded.

No one puts in the effort for a big warthog that is expended for a big elephant. Warthogs are common game, sighted daily in most areas. In fact, the warthog is probably Africa’s most widespread animal, found everywhere except the driest deserts and the deepest forests. East to west, Kenya to Senegal; north to south, Eritrea to the Cape. Although rarely at the top of any safari wish list, the warthog is a classic and unique African animal. They are on license in most areas, and most hunters will take one if an opportunity presents itself.

There are lots of good warthogs, and there’s a big difference between good and great. Among the most common animals, such as impalas, and warthogs, it takes an extra-big one to become great. In part, this is because many are taken, so the bar is high. Also, common animals like impalas, reedbucks, and warthogs are primary prey species. With a full suite of predators, not all can live to maturity and realize their full horn or tusk potential.

This is especially true with warthogs because they are long-lived and slow-growing. A huge warthog is eleven or twelve years old. This means it has to beat the odds and evade two and four-legged predators for many years, and must also have the genetics to grow big teeth. In rocky terrain, tusk wear is accelerated and breakage is common. Throughout their vast range, exceptional warthogs are almost as rare as unicorns–or hundred-pound elephants.

“Exceptional,” of course, is a matter for conjecture. A lot of warthogs are lopsided, with one or the other tusk broken or badly worn (likewise elephants). Some hunters like that, others don’t. The SCI system uses length and girth of both tusks. Rowland Ward uses the length of the longest tusk. In both systems, the major or upper tusks must be withdrawn from the skull to be measured. With warthogs, the length inside the upper jaw usually adds about two and a half inches to the exposed length. The Rowland Ward world record is a tie between a monster from Sir Edmund Loder’s collection, dating back to 1921, and Chris Kruger’s giant, taken in northwestern South Africa in 1996. Both measured 24 inches.

That’s amazing, far beyond exceptional. Rowland Ward’s records date back to 1892. To this day, Rowland Ward lists only six warthogs with one tusk exceeding 20 inches. None of us are likely to see such a pig. The minimum for entry is 13 inches, a slightly more possible prize, and perhaps a suitable milestone for “exceptional.”

On my first safari, naturally, a warthog was on my list. It had been dry on the Tsavo Plain, and warthogs need water. Over time, I would learn that warthogs suffer in dry years, and big, older boars seem to go first. Although it was good warthog country, we saw few and it was late in the hunt before I saw a decent boar. On that safari, we started up on Mount Kenya and my shooting was awful. Then we moved to the more open Tsavo thornbush. I straightened out and was doing great until the warthog. I missed him running, more than once, then connected. Although not exceptional, he was a good boar, the kind of warthog most of us take and are justifiably proud to have.

I’ve had a thing for warthogs ever since, and am always on the lookout for an extra-large one. One of the best places I’ve seen was along the Aoukele River in Chad. Dry country, but there were pools along the river and every pool held warthogs. There was little game in the area, lots of poaching. The local people were Muslims and didn’t eat pork, so they left the pigs alone. My hunting partner Chris Kinsey shot a whopper, and I shot a good boar with one worn tusk. I wish we’d had more; that was a chance for greatness, but I didn’t yet know how rare big warthogs are.

The biggest warthogs in Rowland Ward, the ones with 18-inch-plus tusks, come from all over: Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, Senegal, Uganda, Zaire, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. South Africa has produced more big warthogs than all the rest put together. In part, this reflects a numbers game. There is more hunting in South Africa, especially today, than anywhere else in Africa. Warthogs are common, and much of South Africa has developed and thus permanent water. Namibia also has huge numbers of warthogs, and it’s still a numbers game. Any area that has a lot of warthogs will have big ones. However, much of the country is arid, so numbers go up and down. Much of Namibia is also rocky, so worn tusks are common.

Although I’ve always got an eye out for an extra-large boar, I haven’t seen many exceptional hogs. When I have, I’ve usually been hunting for something else of more immediate importance. This is a mistake. Few African animals are as uncommon as huge warthogs. See one and pass, and that opportunity may not come again for a long time.

Over the years, I’ve seen very good warthogs all over Africa. Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia. In recent years, the best place I’ve seen is coastal Mozambique, around the mouth of the Zambezi. This is interesting because Mozambique is poorly represented in Rowland Ward’s listings.

I put this down to timing. Mozambique’s first hunting period, before her civil war, was short, from 1960 to 1975. Back then, all safaris offered multiples of the Big Five. Less time was taken sorting through the non-dangerous species, and trophy awareness wasn’t what it is today. In the wake of war, not much was left from 1990 into the 2000s. Since then, wildlife populations have been rebuilt by pioneering outfitters managing them with care, conservative harvest, and aggressive antipoaching efforts. Also, postwar, predators were as scarce as prey. 

I started hunting in that area twenty years ago. I’ve seen all the species rebound. Warthogs were among the first because the mosaic of floodplain and forest is ideal habitat. Well-watered, with no periodic die-offs. And soft soil, where boars can grow long tusks. Today, the reintroduced lions take their toll, living primarily off warthogs. Still, it’s normal to see hundreds of warthogs daily. Look at enough warthogs, and there are bound to be a few big ones.

This year, with a small wish list and plenty of time, hunting with Poen van Zyl, I got serious about an exceptional warthog. Poen’s been hunting the area since he was in school, and has a warthog fetish to match my own. He’s guided hunters to many exceptional warthogs, including several in that extra-rarified 18-inch air. He even took one for himself, after the season was over and clients were gone.

So, this year, we put in several days looking for such a pig. We saw one right off the bat, walking out of a pan into the trees. I had the cross hairs on him at 60 yards, as he was walking straight away. Shooting a .308, I probably could have gotten away with the Texas heart shot. But maybe not. I kept thinking he would turn, but he kept walking away, those wonderful tusks curling outside his body.

Even smart old pigs are surprisingly habitual, taking the same paths to and from water, often at much the same time of day unless disturbed. We probably disturbed him, because, despite effort, we never saw him again. We saw two other exceptional pigs, both already running for cover when spotted.

Late one morning we worked a mostly dry riverine, finding reedbuck, waterbuck, the odd bushbuck, and warthogs at every pool. Poen spotted a pig lying in mud at the edge of a pool. Even at distance, the gleam of ivory was obvious. We made a half-circle to get the wind right, came in through some trees, and Poen put up the sticks at 130 yards. The pig was almost facing me, looking as impressive as a hundred-pound elephant. I put the cross hairs under his chin and dropped him. Although Poen’s personal best is a bit bigger, this is the biggest warthog I’m ever likely to get—a trophy possibly even rarer than a hundred-pound elephant.

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Africa’s various reedbucks are interesting antelopes that make for challenging quarry.

Photo above: This is a very old common reedbuck ram, with ribs and hip bones showing. He’s no giant, but his horns have good shape and decent length.

The first reedbuck I ever saw was in the Matopo Hills of old Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). We were traveling at speed along a good ranch road through a grassy plain when one of Barrie Duckworth’s trackers made an amazing spot. Not the whole animal, just the upper third of one black horn sticking up among tall grass stems, more than a hundred yards out.

It took me forever to see it, but when I finally did we made a quick approach. When we got close (really close) the buck jumped from its bed and sped away. I missed it more than once as it bounded through the grass, and finally got it down at a couple hundred yards just before it vanished into cover.

The reedbucks, genus Redunca, are a widespread family of antelopes found, in one variety or another, throughout sub-Saharan Africa—but very discontinuously. Reedbucks have short, thick ringed horns that curve forward and taper to needle points. Uniquely, reedbucks have soft, bulbous bases of incipient horn growth, which boil away during skull preparation. They come in small, medium, and large: mountain, bohor, and common reedbucks. They are almost always found in grass or reeds, usually near water. All have fluffy coats of soft, fine hair, ranging from almost yellow to gray, with lighter (sometimes white) underparts, and a longish fluffy tail. All have meat that is tender and tasty, good camp fare. Also, perhaps the reedbuck’s most distinctive feature: All have prominent black glandular spots beneath the ear.

The largest by far, with the longest horns, is the common or Southern reedbuck, R. redundinum. Common reedbuck can weigh up to 170 pounds, so they are almost into the medium-antelope class. The Rowland Ward record is over 19 inches, a giant, but any common reedbuck with horns in the teens is a fine trophy.

They are found in grassy plains from East Africa southwestward but, again, very discontinuously. They were on license when I hunted in Kenya, but I never saw one. I can’t recall ever seeing one in Tanzania, either, though they surely occur. They are found in all the countries of southern Africa, but only in their specific grassy habitat. I’ve seen them in Namibia’s Caprivi and in northern Botswana, just about the only regions in each of these arid countries that offer ideal habitat. In coastal Mozambique, which also offers perfect habitat, they replace the impala as the most plentiful medium-sized antelope, roaming the floodplains of the Zambezi Delta in the thousands.

Despite their numbers, they seem to rarely grow large horns there. In fact, like many common antelopes, big ones aren’t common anywhere. The best place I ever saw to take an extra-large common reedbuck was in hilly, grassy farmland in Natal. However, big reedbucks are rare. It’s an animal that will almost never be on a hunter’s primary wish list, but if you see a big one, better take it if you can. It might be a long time before you seen another like it. The curve of the horn is typically back and up, then curving into forward-facing tips, usually with a wider V than the others.

The bohor reedbucks are the medium-size variety, much smaller at maybe 100 to 110 pounds, with narrower forward-slanting horns that almost never exceed 12 inches. The bohor reedbuck, R. redunca, is thus the type specimen, I assume because they were identified to science first. They are also yellowish to bronze in body color, but with more muted underparts than the common reedbuck. They range from East Africa westward across the savanna and sahel, north of the forest and south of the Sahara.

We divide the types of bohor reedbucks into regional groupings for record-keeping, but visual differences are subtle and minimal. I shot an East African bohor reedbuck in western Tanzania, and this race seems plentiful and widespread in Uganda. Typically, all the reedbucks are hunted by spotting and stalking, but along the reedbeds of Uganda’s Kafu River north of Kampala, we often see them while sitting in machans for sitatunga.

Steve Hornady took the best bohor reedbuck I’ve ever seen in this fashion. While we weren’t seeing any sitatungas that morning, we had this giant reedbuck feeding in front of us along the edge of a sitatunga haunt. It took some doing to talk him into taking it, but he’s glad he did. 

Off to the west, the Nigerian bohor reedbuck is frequently encountered along riverines in northern Cameroon and Central African Republic (CAR). Again, it’s an unlikely animal to be high on any wish list but it is frequently taken as part of the bag on Derby eland safaris.

Westernmost is the Nagor reedbuck, found above the forest zone west of Nigeria all the way to Senegal. Benin and Burkina Faso, neither currently hunted due to political unrest, were the most likely places to take this variety. When I hunted in Burkina Faso I was really collecting countries more than animals, but the Nagor reedbuck was an animal found there I hadn’t taken elsewhere, so we put in the time and I got a really big one.

There are two more bohors: Abyssinian and Sudan. The Sudan bohor reedbuck, likely with the longest horns, is plentiful in Sudan’s East Equatoria province east of the Nile. With constant civil war, South Sudan hasn’t been huntable since 1983. Strife continues, so there is not much chance of hunting that one.

The Abyssinian bohor reedbuck is a bit of an anomaly. It is visually similar to the other bohor reedbucks and is definitely not of the mountain reedbuck species, but it’s found up in the Ethiopian high country along with, and at equal elevation to, the mountain nyala. I saw some on my first mountain nyala hunt in 1993, but I didn’t have a license, and I hunted them when I went back in 2000. I assume they must be found in suitable habitat in Ethiopia’s low country, but I have no experience. The Danakil Depression is too dry, and I never made it to the Omo Valley.

The mountain reedbuck, R. fulvorufula, is among Africa’s few genuine mountain species. You don’t really find them up in the rocks like klipspringers. Instead, look for them on grassy knolls and in higher basins, and listen for their sharp, trilling alarm whistle. They are much smaller and very gray in color, again with white or pale underparts. A big male weighs about 55 pounds, with horns shorter and straighter than the bohors. About eight inches is a dandy, above nine inches highly unlikely.

We divide them into three regional races—Southern, Chanler’s, and Western. The Southern mountain reedbuck is primarily a South African specialty, found in most mountains and taller hills, with a few spilling over into suitable habitat in surrounding country. Chanler’s mountain reedbuck of East Africa is smaller yet, occurring in scattered mountain ranges in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and probably into southern Ethiopia and Sudan.

I’ve only had one chance at a Chanler’s mountain reedbuck. Michel Mantheakis and I were hunting on the Tarangire Plain in Masailand. That region has a lot of isolated mountains; Kilimanjaro is the largest. We passed by a small but significant promontory and Michel knew there were some reedbucks up there. We climbed up, heard them whistling, and I got a quick shot on a nice buck.

I doubt if the exact range of the Western mountain reedbuck is even known, but there are significant hills—if not mountains—in the Central African Republic and northern Cameroon. We were driving to camp along a big ridge and saw a family group. They are not on license; the only person I knew who got one was Dick Cabela, on a rare museum permit. Very little is known about this reedbuck.

My best mountain reedbuck was taken with Charl van Rooyen in northern South Africa, where Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces come together. We spotted him bedded above a little face, stalked up from the bottom, and shot him at about 60 yards. We weren’t hunting for a reedbuck. It didn’t matter. Charl knew he was unusually big and insisted we drop whatever we were doing. With reedbucks, when you see a giant, you go after him.

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Fall is here, and it’s the best time of year.

Best of all he loved the fall, wrote Ernest Hemingway in an epitaph for a friend. Don’t we all? For hunters throughout the Northern Hemisphere, this is our season. Summer heat is abating, leaves are starting to turn, and animals are feeling good.

Like Robert Ruark’s hunter’s horn, autumn sounds earlier for some, later for others. I’m at the farm in southeast Kansas in early October. Fall isn’t here yet, but I’m seeing the first signs: morning temps in the 50s for the first time in months.

We don’t see our deer much through the summer. Sure, they go to agriculture at night, but our country is mostly climax oak forest. There are plenty of good groceries in the woods, especially in this year of heavy rains after four dry years. Just yesterday, we were out checking stands and clearing shooting lanes. We saw a lot of deer, so they’re feeling the fall, too.

There are rubs in the woods, but we probably won’t see scrapes for a couple of weeks. With all the rain, it’s still so thick and green that trails aren’t yet well-defined. Every year is a bit different, and it always depends on where you are. Far to the north and west, aspens and tamaracks are turning golden and elk are bugling. I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks in elk country, hoping they’re still bugling.

We North Americans don’t have a patent on that wonderful mountain music. A few years ago, I looked out across a valley at a sea of gold, heard bugles drifting up from the trees. Closed my eyes, I thought I was in Montana. Then I realized I was in Mongolia. The trees weren’t tamaracks, but almost: Siberian larch instead of western larch, the bugles coming from Asian wapiti, not the American version I’ll be hunting next week.

Farther west across the great land mass of Eurasia, there won’t be bugling. Instead, from the British Isles and Spain eastward to the Caucasus, the red stags are roaring. Though they are kissing cousins to our elk, their challenge is an altogether different sound, a deep guttural bellow.

The wapiti adapted to Asian steppes and American plains while the red deer were (and are) creatures of forest. I’m told that the elk’s bugle carries better in open country, while the red deer’s roar resonates in thicker cover. Either way, the sounds are amazing. Around the Northern Hemisphere, this is our season, and hunters are working out their strategies.

Depending on latitude, autumn comes at different times, and may be short or long. Much farther north, tundras are bright crimson. I won’t be up there this fall, but at this time of year I remember many fine autumns. I heard from Alaskan buddy Dave Leonard a couple days ago, as he was finishing a fine caribou season down at the tip of the Alaska Peninsula. We caught it perfectly a few years ago, tundras in full color. In 2024, I went up for the October bear season. Still autumn, but late, days getting shorter, best colors faded.

Instead, there was a different harbinger. We camped in a valley that was flooded with ptarmigan, the greatest concentration of any upland gamebird I have ever seen. Glassed at distance or when a flock took flight, it looked like a sea of bright white. Up close, they were still turning to winter colors, russet heads and necks, brown backs, lower bodies and wings Tide-washed to the whitest white. With near-constant wind and rain, we didn’t get a bear that trip. I didn’t pack in a shotgun, but I got a huge kick out of watching the ptarmigan. Now and then a big flock would swoop over our tent, wingbeats loud like breaking surf.

For most American hunters, autumn means deer season. For the majority, that means whitetails. Out West, mule deer. As autumn comes at different times, our various deer aren’t on the same schedules, nor are our seasons. With our southeast Kansas whitetails, we’ll have good pre-rut activity in October, with the peak of the rut usually just before Thanksgiving. If the weather is right they’ll still be chasing when rifle season rolls around a week later.

The rut varies from north to south, usually earlier to later, and sometimes varies within larger states. In the Southwest, Coues deer rut much later than northern whitetails, in January and well into February. Mule deer also usually rut later than whitetails, December into January. There’s a reason why a notorious mule deer poacher was called “Mr. January.”

Here in the States, our hunting seasons aren’t necessarily set for the best time to hunt our various species. Many seasons are pre-rut. Throughout the West, most mule deer seasons come and go before the rut gets serious. Some, like our Kansas rifle deer season and all later elk seasons, are purposefully post-rut. Thanks to our awesome North American Model of wildlife management, game managers walk a tightrope, maximizing opportunity while avoiding excessive harvest. Thus, relatively few of us have the luxury of seasons that coincide with the “best” times to hunt, when our game is most vulnerable.

It doesn’t matter. We all know when our seasons are coming up and we know the challenges their timing brings. Right now, in October, some of you are in the middle of your hunting season. Others, like me, are still looking ahead. Some of us are blessed with long seasons. We can study the lunar calendar and plan on hitting it hard when the moon is dark. Many American seasons are short and we don’t have that luxury. Our Kansas rifle deer season is just twelve days, the timing set in stone for decades. I don’t even look at the moon phase anymore, since there’s nothing I can do about it.

We can’t do anything about the weather, either. We can look up the norms and averages, but we can’t predict what the weather gods will bring. When a hunting season rolls around, it’s often the weather that will make us or break us, perhaps more than any other factor. Now, in early fall, we can look ahead to hunts and seasons still to come and imagine that the weather will be perfect, realizing it probably won’t be. Of course, we’ll play the hand we’re dealt, and hunt as hard as we can.

Nothing wrong with being optimistic, hoping for the best. Too warm makes things tough, and that’s common with these late falls we’ve been having. Hard rain is also bad–just hope that it stops. When it does, it doesn’t matter what time of day; the game is going to move. Strong, gusty wind is probably the worst of all. Animals can’t hear and can’t smell, and will usually hunker down.

Perfect for me is crisp and cool, with a light, steady breeze that I can feel and manage. A good tracking snow would be nice. I remember a couple of mule deer hunts when overnight snow changed the game and got deer moving. Naturally, there can be too much of a good thing. On a mule deer hunt in Alberta we were caught in a terrible blizzard, where the roads drifted shut. We were hunting a great ranch that held monsters, but I doubt we could access 10 percent of the country we had available.

Northern hunters—and the animals they hunt—are used to extreme cold. I don’t like it, can deal with it if I must, but cold can also be too much of a good thing. On another Canadian whitetail hunt in early November the temp dropped way below zero. I thought it would be wonderful. The deer thought otherwise. It was the first major cold snap, and it shut them down; we hardly saw any tracks until it warmed up a bit.

My southeast Kansas whitetails are fair-weather creatures. For the early December season, still a long way out, I want calm, frosty mornings, warming as the sun comes up. Naturally, I’ll take what we get, and it could be anything. A few seasons back it was perfect the day before opening day. Overnight, a weird warm front came through and it was 75 degrees F at dawn. We couldn’t buy a deer for three days, then it cooled down and we filled our tags. And I’ve seen the opposite: First time it drops into the teens, our deer shut down.

With a foot of crunchy oak leaf litter on the ground, stand hunting is the only option we have. My fantasy is to wake up opening morning to a foot of fresh, fluffy snow. Then, at least in my mind’s eye, I could sneak into his bedroom and give Bucky a surprise. It’s never happened. In the twenty years we’ve had that farm, we’ve never had more than a light skiff of snow during rifle season. Maybe this will be the year. I hope this is also the fall your hunting dreams come true. 

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The UK and Ireland are among the best places in the world to be a deer hunter.

Image above: Most of the large red deer in England are in deer parks and on estates, like the ones above. However, there are a few pockets of free-range red deer in England, and there are plenty in Scotland.

If you’re a deer freak, you need to spend some time in the British Isles. I doubt there’s a similar-size region in the world that offers such variety of antlered game. A half-dozen free-range deer species, plus more in parks and on estates.

Throughout the UK and Ireland, bird hunting is the most common field sport. Deer hunters (stalkers in the local lexicon) are a small minority. This creates both problems and opportunities. Without enough hunters to keep them in chec, deer numbers continue to grow, creating agricultural issues in many areas, and escalating road hazards 

If I believed in reincarnation, I’d want to come back as a deer stalker in the British Isles. Unlimited opportunity through a long season. Mind you, there is no “free” public land hunting. Some landowners don’t allow hunting, while others accept that overpopulation isn’t good for anyone, including the deer. Typically, arrangements are made with local deer stalkers to manage the herds. Game meat is sold, with ready markets to restaurants. Thus, deer stalking is a harvest, proceeds defraying crop damage and lease costs. The stalkers I know harvest a lot of deer.

The primary entities of the British Isles are the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), and the Republic of Ireland. Seasons, species, and situations differ, but there is deer stalking in all, and visiting hunters are welcome. From our smug American viewpoint, we think of gun laws over there as draconian and repressive. Yes, to a degree. No handguns or semiauto rifles. However, temporary permits for hunting are surprisingly simple. I’ve taken rifles into England, Scotland, and Ireland with no problems. Considering the amount of shooting deer stalkers do, if you choose to borrow or rent a rifle, you’ll be handed one well-suited to the country and game. 

Let’s look at deer stalking in the primary entities of the British Isles.

SCOTLAND: Scotland joins England to the north and is more sparsely populated, especially her wild and remote northern highlands. Also, quite far north, there is terrain reminiscent of southern Alaska. Scotland is most famous for red deer stalking, primarily in the north. European roe deer are also endemic, although they thin out to the north. Free-range fallow deer are widespread, but more localized than in England and Ireland. Just before Covid, Donna and I did a marvelous roebuck hunt in Scotland with Michael Gross’s International Adventures. It took place in June in central Scotland, and we hunted several properties, including the late Queen’s Balmoral estate. Gorgeous country, lots of roebucks.

In Scotland, the emphasis is on the stalk, and it’s a harvest. On red deer, this can be frustrating, especially for we antler-conscious Americans. Because of both northern climate and genetics, Scottish stags aren’t huge, but you must go in understanding that visitors are rarely allowed to take the best stags. Instead, you’ll take stags with mismatched points or poor antlers. If you’re looking for a giant red deer, Scotland isn’t for you. However, you’ll have a wonderful experience, with lodging ranging from old castles to picturesque local inns.

Roebucks are hunted in spring and summer, while red deer hunting focuses on the roar in September and October. Non-native sika deer are widespread in Scotland, free-ranging east to west, primarily in the north. I took a nice sika deer as an adjunct to a red deer hunt thirty years ago. Today, sikas have expanded their range and are a threat to forestry in many areas.

IRELAND:  Ireland was once home to reindeer and the huge Irish elk, both gone for about 10,000 years. Ireland is a separate island and roe deer are not native. They were introduced in the mid-19^th century, increased for fifty years, then vanished a century ago. Thus, the red deer is Ireland’s only native deer, joined today by widespread sika and fallow deer. Free-range populations of both species exceed 50,000 animals, though both are spotty. Recently, the Reeve’s muntjac was introduced from England and seems to be taking hold, so may eventually add a fourth Irish deer.

Red, sika, and fallow deer are found in both Ireland and Northern Ireland. I haven’t hunted in Northern Ireland, but that northeast corner is said to produce Ireland’s best red deer. Country-wide, there is an issue with interbreeding of reds and sikas, so you could say a hybrid red/sika is yet another Irish deer. We hunted in the low, rugged Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin with the Nolan family’s Glacial Valley Hunting in October, prime time for sika deer to be in the rut.

It was a magic hunt, lodging in a historic country pub nestled between ridges. Sika deer are secretive and sneaky, but there are plenty of them. Naturally, Donna shot a much better sika than I did. While we were there, our friend Megan Fonte took a red/sika hybrid, so I got a chance to examine this “other” Irish deer. Hers was an ancient cull stag with wicked spikes for antlers, hybridization obvious.

ENGLAND AND WALES: Wales is a block of 22 counties in the west of England. By road or train, travel between England, Scotland, and Wales is transparent. It’s worth noting that game regulations are set by county. Seasons are not necessarily the same, and some counties set a legal minimum of 6mm for deer, while in others a .22 centerfire is legal.

Red deer and European roe deer are the only native deer. The little roe deer are widespread throughout, easily the most numerous deer, overpopulated in numerous counties. Over the years, I’ve done several spring/summer trips for roebuck. With long daylight, typically you have “outings” in the early mornings and late afternoons, with a long break in between. Not all outings are successful, but I’ve shot several roebucks on each trip. Again, it’s a harvest; you shoot what the guide or stalker tells you. Most I’ve taken aren’t large, but England’s rich farmland produces good antlers; there are always one or two good bucks in the mix.

English red deer (Robin Hood’s deer) are potentially bigger than in the rest of the Isles. However, most red deer are on estates and deer parks, with just a few pockets of free-ranging reds. When I was in the run-up for the Weatherby award, I tried desperately to get one. First, down in the southwest corner. Could have shot a spike, but that wasn’t what I had in mind. Then, we went up to New Forest in south-central England. Probably the largest contiguous tract of oak forest in the country, but it’s a patchwork of small holdings. We saw a giant stag on the next property, bigger than any red stag I’ve taken anywhere. We saw him daily, but he never came onto the land we could hunt.

While there, Donna shot a free-range New Forest fallow deer in New Forest. Fallow deer were likely introduced during the Roman occupation, and are the most numerous of several non-natives, widely free-ranging and overpopulated to almost pest numbers in much of central England. Dating back to the Norman conquest, it seems it was in vogue for large landowners of the nobility to have deer parks on their estates.

Most famous is the Duke of Bedford’s deer park at Woburn Abbey, southwest of London, with records from the 5^th Duke of Bedford in 1661. In the late 19^th Century, Herbrand Russell, 11^th Duke of Bedford, had a keen interest in zoology. He added some 42 different species, including sika deer, Chinese water deer, and Reeve’s muntjac. As the story goes, a huge tree fell during a storm and breached the brick wall surrounding the deer park. This is the likely source of both muntjac and water deer. Free-range muntjacs are now widespread throughout central and southwest England, water deer more localized in farmland near Woburn Abbey.

Sika deer are free-ranging in localized pockets, not nearly as widespread as in Ireland and Scotland. I’ve never seen a sika deer in England, but I haven’t looked for one. In May 2025, I was stalking roebucks in central England with friend Simon Barr and guide Alex Nielson. Lots of roebucks. We saw several muntjacs, but spring/summer is wrong for that little deer. Few bucks are in hard antler, and they’re hard to see in tall cover. Years ago, I did a wonderful February hunt for free-range muntjac and water deer. Late winter is the best time, cover as low as it gets. Hampered by cold rain, my muntjac wasn’t very big; I’d like to do that hunt again.

All free-range sika in the British Isles are considered the small Japanese race, but their origin is unclear and some get awfully big. There are also Manchurian sikas, hog deer, Pere David’s deer, all the rest—and who-knows-what-else—on estates, but that wraps up the free-range picture.

Regardless of species, big animals on estates are costly, though often less than under similar situations in New Zealand and Texas. Because the harvest is essential,and the venison pre-sold, free-range stalking throughout the British Isles is inexpensive and productive. Timing depends on the species and antler cycle, but there is some stalking throughout the year and it’s all wonderful fun.

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Aoudad hunts are fantastic mountain-hunting experiences.

Photo above:  A fine aoudad from the Davis Mountains of Far West Texas. This ram has excellent horns, but this photo also shows the sheer size of a big aoudad ram, and it shows off the mane and chaps on the front legs.

Want to experience a hunt for a great mountain animal without breaking the bank? Think about aoudad. Properly, the aoudad or Barbary sheep is neither a sheep nor a goat. One genus, one species, Ammotragus lervia is sort of a natural bridge between the two families, with some attributes of both. Personally, I think they’re closer to goats, but the aoudad is a strikingly attractive animal with thick, curving horns, long, luxurious neck mane, and those unique chaps down the front legs. It’s also sharp-eyed, wary, and difficult to hunt.

I may never draw another sheep permit, and there are many mountain hunts I can’t afford. But I can hunt aoudad, and I think they’re awesome. So, every few years I find myself hunting them. The world’s largest population is found in the rugged mountains of Far West Texas. One estimate suggests 25,000, although that could be low. I love to hunt them there, scenery right out a John Ford Western. It’s a real sheep hunt, in many ways like hunting desert bighorns. With two differences: First, you’ll probably see a lot more animals. Second, although the cost of aoudad hunts have increased (like everything else), they’re a fraction the cost of a desert bighorn hunt, and readily available.

Far West Texas is hardly the only option. They’re also found farther east, widely distributed in the Texas Hill Country and Edwards Plateau, both on fenced game ranches and free ranging. There are also populations in New Mexico and Mexico. There’s even a herd on California’s Central Coast, introduced by William Randolph Hearst.

In 2001, I hunted native range aoudad in Chad’s Ennedi Mountains, and they are now hunted in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains of Morocco, where some fine rams have been taken recently. I’ve hunted them free range in southern Spain and in arid mountains in South Africa’s Eastern Cape.

Although I don’t hunt them frequently, I’m enough of an aoudad nut that I don’t pass opportunities. In the last year I had two entirely different aoudad experiences. Last year, Jim Craig and I hunted them in Far West Texas with Jim Breck Bean’s High West Outfitters. Craig, from Indiana, has taken more North American wild sheep than anyone I know, but never an aoudad. He won this hunt in a Wild Sheep Foundation raffle so we rallied in Marfa, Texas on a hot September midday.

Most of my Texas aoudad hunting has been in late winter, January into March. Not because the weather was cool, or because that was the best time. Pure convenience, after the fall hunting seasons. Texas outfitters consistently tell me that early fall is best for big rams, when the males gather in bachelor herds. In October 2020 buddy John Stucker and I hunted the Davis Mountains and caught it right. The rams were yarded up in groups up to the dozens. First morning, John shot the longest-horned aoudad I’ve ever seen, an astonishing 37 inches on both horns. Usually, among a forest of horns, it’s difficult to pick out the biggest one. This ram stood out.

So last September, Jim Craig and I hunted a ranch southwest of Marfa. I’d been there before, on a February mule deer hunt. It’s tall, bluffy country, ideal for aoudad. We saw quite a few and one of our party took a fine ram, so I was excited to be there at the right time.

At first it seemed we were a bit early, still too hot, even at 7,000 feet elevation. We glassed high and low for a day, saw few, then aoudads started to show. There was no indication the rams were gathering, but most of the herds had rams with them. Now comes the hard part. Males and females have similar horns in relation to body size. It takes experience to sort the girls from the boys, and to identify mature rams. Fortunately, our young guide, Creed Cade, grew up in the area and knew his stuff.

On a blazing afternoon we spotted a big herd feeding above a tall cliff, big, dark ram among them. It was Craig’s stalk, so I stayed in the truck with Jim’s wife, LeeAnne. Just as well. The only way up was on the north end of the cliff, tough climb. I’m no spring chicken, and Jim Craig has ten years on me. In the steepest stuff, he was hands and knees both up and down. We heard his shot just before sunset. We couldn’t recover his ram until next morning, which worked out perfectly for me. At dawn, there was another group on the same cliff, mature ram among them. Jim’s ram was a real giant, the second-best aoudad I’ve seen. Mine wasn’t as big, but it was a solid, heavy-horned old ram, exactly what I’d hoped for.

I love the Far West Texas mountains. Because of numbers, aoudad hunts are highly successful, but not easy. It’s a real mountain hunt; footing is murderous in crumbling rock, spiny cacti everywhere. Farther east, on Hill Country ranches, it’s a whole different experience. 

Hunting aoudad on lower, brushier ranches is in some ways more difficult because there’s rarely enough relief for glassing. But it’s physically easier, often done from stands. It’s not necessarily more successful because aoudads are unpredictable and don’t require surface water. The driest, harshest piece of Texas probably looked like paradise to the first aoudads introduced. Where I hunted them in Chad, it may rain once in a decade.

Over the years, I’ve had Texas ranchers tell me, “I introduced aoudad years ago. Probably some around, but we never see them.” Son-in-law Brad Jannenga had a different problem on his Aspire Wildlife ranch near Hondo. There were no aoudad present until a group appeared in his northwest pasture. Crossed in from a neighbor, for sure. However they got there, they’re not wanted, but they’ve been there for two years. One good ram was shot, and then they learned how to vanish. I’ve hunted them on foot, sat for them, never saw more than a quick flash, no chance for a shot.

By this summer the herd had increased to maybe sixteen unwelcome guests demanding room and board, with at least one good ram among them, others up-and-coming. In June, ignoring the heat and taking advantage of the axis rut, gunwriter friend Lane Pearce brought his godson Kevin Roe and young son Lawson to the ranch to take an axis buck. Lawson got a fine buck the first evening, so with time on our hands we spread out in stands in the northwest pasture, hoping to whittle down the trespassing aoudads.

Good grief, these things had become like ghosts. That pasture holds other species, all seen. Nobody laid an eye on an aoudad. Then, on the last evening, Lane and I sat together, our box blind a sauna in 90-degree weather. Fun evening anyway. A herd of addax fed in front of us, and as sunset approached, whitetails in their red summer coats started to come out.

Lane was on my right, with a long, narrow clearing out his side window. Just after sunset I glanced past him and saw a big tan form at the end of his clearing. Not just an aoudad–a pretty good ram. I had the rifle, and I managed to climb over Lane and get to the window. The ram had good mass and reasonable horn length. But it was standing behind a stout tree, shoulder covered, no shot. Although 150 yards away in failing light, the ram must have seen my movement. In that instant he started to trot. Maybe he would have stopped, but it looked like he was headed out. I was shooting Lane’s Weatherby 307 in 7mm Backcountry. I swung with him, caught up, got to his shoulder when the rifle went off. In recoil, I neither saw nor heard impact, then he was gone into thick stuff.

I’d shot the rifle at the ranch range, knew it was on. I was certain I’d hit him, also sure the height was right. However, I also knew I’d hit him a bit too far back. Aoudad rams are stoutly built and extremely tough. This wasn’t good. I could only hope the 170-grain Terminal Ascent had done its job and exited. 

It was full dark by the time ranch manager Ethan Cook collected us, so we went to camp and gathered lights and thermals. There was not much blood, but young Lawson Roe found it easily. We found the ram almost as easily, down and dead just sixty yards into the brush. As I’d expected, my hit was a few inches too far back, about at the diaphragm, and the bullet had exited. I can’t say it was an aoudad hunt to match the mountains the mountains of Far West Texas, but I was pleased. I’d spent a lot of time hunting that ram.

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