Desert Bighorn: A Great Way to Start Sheep Hunting

This article was first published in my email newsletter in August of 2026. While it was written to describe a specific hunt availability (a Desert Bighorn hunt in Mexico), I've added it to my website, because I think much of the information is useful in general. If you'd like to keep up with the latest hunting information, including my open dates and available hunts, you can subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of this page.

Late last year, I wrote about two grueling hunts that allowed me to complete the North American Grand Slam of sheep hunting. The Grand Slam includes four animals — Dall Sheep, Stone Sheep, Rocky Mountain Bighorn, and Desert Bighorn — and I wrote about my final two hunts, a Stone hunt in the Yukon and a Rocky Mountain Bighorn hunt in Alberta, Canada.

If you read about those two hunts, you know that they were extraordinarily rugged. Those hunts were a great way to wrap up my Slam. By the time I had finished them, I knew I had accomplished something. I was exhausted; and I was pretty proud of myself for pushing through it.

But it doesn’t have to be that hard to start, and that’s what I want to talk about this month.

WHY A DESERT BIGHORN HUNT IS USUALLY EASIER

If you’re considering a first-time sheep hunt, or if you’re ready to start your own Grand Slam, the best way to get your feet wet is with a Desert Bighorn. People assume that all sheep hunting looks the same: a brutal, high-altitude, endurance contest. That may be true for three of the four, but a Desert Bighorn hunt is generally considered an easier hunt — the easiest of the four.

The reason for the difference is that Desert Bighorn are physically engineered for an easier-to-hunt environment. They’re built for the arid mountain ranges of the American Southwest and northern Mexico, where water is scarce and vegetation is sparse. They can travel long distances between water sources and obtain much of their moisture from the desert plants they browse. Their relatively smaller body size also helps reduce water and energy requirements, while their agility allows them to navigate steep, rocky canyons with ease.

That means they can survive and thrive at the lower altitudes of the kind of mountainous terrain where all these sheep live. The other sheep require you to hike high into the mountains where you’ll encounter a lot more obstacles — like forests, brush and, often, snow.

Bottom line, Desert Bighorn habitat is generally more accessible and more open, with broad vistas and comparatively little brush or timber.

For hunters, that openness normally makes Desert Bighorn country less physically demanding than the habitats of the other North American wild sheep. Long hikes and steep climbs are still the norm, but travel is more likely to be over exposed rock and desert slopes, rather than through deep snow, thick timber, or tangled brush. Spotting sheep from great distances is often easier as well, allowing hunters to spend more time glassing and less time pushing through difficult terrain.

I'VE GOT AN AVAILABLE HUNT

Finding an open slot for a Desert Bighorn hunt can be difficult. It’s been more difficult in recent years, due to a form of pneumonia that’s carried by domestic sheep and aoudad and has spread to the Bighorn in many areas, including here in Texas. So I’m really excited to have a Desert Bighorn hunt available in Mexico for the upcoming season. I expect to schedule it for sometime in February, March, or April.

This hunt is on the same ranch where I usually do my Carmen Mountain Whitetail hunts. This ranch doesn’t usually offer Desert Bighorn hunts, and there’s a special reason they’re doing it now. The money they make from this hunt will go to a program aimed at containing or eradicating that aoudad-carried pneumonia. So it’s not only a good hunt, it’s a good cause.

THE RANCH

This ranch sits in Coahuila, which butts right up against the Big Bend country of Texas --- Del Rio, Eagle Pass, over to Boquillas. The Sierra del Carmen there is a real mountain range, a "sky island" that rises straight out of the Chihuahuan Desert floor and tops out close to 9,000 feet. It's rugged, high-desert country, not that different from West Texas: flat ground for miles, then a big rocky mountain erupts out of nowhere. The sheep don't live at the top, though. They stay mid-mountain, mostly in that 5,000- to 6,000-foot band, below where the timber starts.

The hunt itself is straightforward. You'll ride around in a high-rack truck glassing, get out and cover ground on foot once we spot a ram worth chasing, and come back every night to a real camp --- good beds, heat and air conditioning, and chef-prepared meals that'll surprise you for how good they are, when you’re that far out in the desert. You are going to hike, but you're not spiking out and living in a tent for a week to do it.

GETTING IN AND OUT OF MEXICO WITH YOUR RIFLE

Some of my hunters are concerned about getting into Mexico and, especially, about bringing their rifles. None of that is really a big deal. First of all, you don't need a visa in advance --- you get one right at the port of entry. You will, however, need a form that proves ownership of your rifle when you cross the border. For that, just take your rifle and scope to any US port of entry before you leave, and a customs officer will record the make, model, and serial number of both your rifle and your scope. You carry that form with you the whole trip, and it's what proves the rifle is yours when you come back through customs. (Suppressors don't cross into Mexico at all, so leave those home.)

On the other hand, if you don’t want to bother with that, you can also use one of the ranch’s rifles, Remington model 700s chambered in 30-06 with Swarovski scopes.

THE BOTTOM LINE

If you're not sure sheep hunting is for you --- if the idea of a Dall or Stone hunt sounds like more suffering than you're ready to sign up for, but you want to know what it's like to hunt a genuine wild sheep on his own mountain --- this is the one to start with.