Texas Women in the Outdoors

Peggy York: Diverse Outdoors Lady

By Judy Jurek

Ajack of all trades is a multi-skilled man able to mechanic, weld, plumb, and more. In a similar sense, Peggy York is a “Jane” of all outdoors. This lady can shoot, hunt, fish, guide, track, kayak, write, teach, process and cook her bounty while ready to assist anyone with anything, and do so with a smile.

Peggy York, born and raised in San Antonio, is the oldest of three kids. Her dad taught her to fish, shoot, and hunt. After graduating business school, she moved around before meeting Ladale York, an Air Force man who spent his entire career in firearms from the range to instructing to writing and managing curriculum. They recently celebrated 36 years of marriage.

“Ladale says he never really had a job but always got to play,” Peggy said. “He’s an outdoors enthusiast who’s inspired and encouraged me more than I can explain. Ladale never gets upset. He just goes with the flow.” Early on as avid fishermen, they competed in tournaments before Peggy formed a ladies group and association with Bass ’n’ Gals. Documenting her adventures led to earning Texas Outdoor Writers Association awards.

This lady has great energy and determination. Peggy became an angler education instructor for when TPWD introduced the Becoming an Outdoors Woman program. A few years later, the agency approached her to be their shooting instructor. The Colorado Outdoor Adventure Guide School came to a South Texas ranch where Peggy earned a hunting guide certificate.

Currently she’s a certified NRA pistol, rifle, and shotgun instructor, a chief range safety officer, and a Refuse to be a Victim instructor. Peggy is a Lake Fork Chapter of Armed Women of America (AWA) and state chapter leader. Texas’ AWA has 15 chapters.

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Peggy proudly displays her 145 B&C mule deer, taken near Alpine.

“I’ve been fortunate throughout my life to be in the right place at the right time, accepting opportunities others wouldn’t,” Peggy said. She also held a full-time job working for the Department of Defense in civilian personnel management, initially linking paperwork to electronic files. Peggy retired as an information management specialist after 21 years.

After retiring, the couple moved from San Antonio to Alba, a small East Texas town near Lake Fork. Fishing once again gained their attention, because their longtime Rocksprings hunting lease had been sold.

“I’m up for any adventure. I love it all, but I miss spring turkey season calling in birds,” Peggy said. At 17, her dad took her turkey hunting, leaving her alone in a blind before sunrise while he went deer hunting. Peggy fell asleep but awoke to two dozen birds oblivious to her presence. She killed one with a .22 Hornet.

“I once had four hens come to my calling and perch in a nearby tree,” Peggy said. “As a gobbler approached, they began talking to him for me. I dropped him in his tracks. The moral of that story: I had a little help from my friends. It was awesome!” A photo of Peggy with a gobbler hangs in San Antonio’s Bass Pro store.

Peggy once took a Colorado non-typical elk, after practicing for months, shooting a 7mm gifted for the hunt. The recoil was brutal. Peggy could manage only three shots per session because each shot knocked her back several inches. “When the elk appeared, I fired, it went down,” she said. “Ladale asked about the recoil. I replied, ‘What recoil?’”

This past year Peggy booked a mule deer hunt near Alpine before New Year’s. The second day she missed a 250-yard shot

because her rifle wasn’t sighted for such distance. Locating another buck, one guide offered his 6.5 PRC, telling Peggy to put the crosshairs on its neck. She surprised both guides by doing just that—at 330 yards. Peggy said the mule deer hunt filled her “wall of horns,” Peggy York excels using all types of firearms from pistols and rifles although it’ll be months to shotguns for trap, five-stand, and sporting clays. before her mount is completed. At the moment, she has no hunting adventures planned. The couple concentrates on participating in next year’s Texas State Sporting Clays Championship. “Nowadays we’re converting our retirement funds into noise,” Peggy said. “Until COVID and Ladale’s health issues, we shot rifles, pistols or shotguns almost daily.” They belong to many shooting clubs and organizations, some which Peggy initiated as ladies-only events to engage more women into shooting. Together and individually, the pair has an impressive array of awards. Many of Peggy’s firearms are specifically customized for her. Currently, her favorites include a Glock 9mm pistol, a Ruger Precision .22LR for long range and standard silhouette matches, a Browning BT88Plus for trap shooting, and a Beretta A400 Xcel Multitarget for five-stand and sporting clays. She’s waiting on a Caesar Guerini Syren model Julia shotgun. “It’s pretty and classy,” she added. Peggy shares her advice for novice females desiring to hunt or participate in shooting sports: “Buy your own firearm, one fitting your hand, shoulder (rifle and shotgun), and pocketbook. Everyone handles a firearm differently. You must have one that fits the way you hold and shoot it. TPWD’s Becoming an Outdoors Woman and NRA’s Women’s Wilderness Escape are great courses. Go on every excursion you can afford. Learn everything possible. Journal your adventures for memories and history of your experiences. Join a shooting chapter offering various opportunities, as it keeps you shooting often.”

STORY

The author went to the mountains of Mexico to get this aoudad.

Everything started with a bad feeling. The hired hunting guides did not show up at 6 a.m. as they agreed to do the night before. So on Friday morning, May 2, 2021, I quickly had to rethink the plan for this hunt. By 7 a.m. at the El Candido Ranch in Coahuila, the owner, Jorge Delgado, secured new guides from the nearby town of Candela, approximately 25 minutes from the ranch. An hour later, Álvaro Robles, head guide, and his partner, el cuñado (brother-in-law) Arnoldo San Miguel, arrived in an old Ford pickup. After a short introduction, my hunting partner, Carlos González, and I got the feeling of familiarity, sense of humor and more important, the experience of these two men.

Right away we headed down a dirt road to the mountains of Pájaros Azules (blue birds) for that elusive aoudad. Carlos carried a short barrel Browning rifle, chambered in .308 Win. I shouldered my old and trusted Remington BDL in 7mm Rem. Mag. with a scope, a more suited caliber for this hunt where shot distances can be as long as 650 yards.

Half an hour later and deep into the low-fenced ranch, we spotted some aoudad, far up on a steep mountain about 1,000 yards from the road. We decided to go around from the back and do some climbing on the opposite side of the mountain, looking to get a better angle. This was our first climbing test, and it was exhausting, with the noon sun and temperatures above 95° F.

We stopped at the back side of the mountain inside a small canyon, glassing the top to look for more aoudad to show up. Every stop was also a chance to drink some water. With no luck, the guides advised us to go back to the truck and look farther inside the large ranch’s desert mountain territories.

Past four o’clock that evening we started up a dry arroyo (creek) to do more glassing, looking for aoudad. Ammotragus lervia, its scientific name, is not a sheep nor a goat. Biologists consider it biologically between a sheep and a goat. Its chromosome number is 58, and chromosome 60 is universal among goats.

Aoudads can hybridize with domestic goats, but not with sheep. Introduced in the north of México and Texas at the beginning of the 20th century, these animals are originally from northern Africa. They’re well adapted because they’ve done better than in their place of origin. They’ve developed thicker, larger horns and bigger bodies than their African brothers.

Our walk up the dry creek ended at approximately 500 meters from where we had parked the truck. An hour before sunset, we found a herd of five aoudad near the top of the mountain. They were around 800 yards away, and we knew if we approached them, nighttime would catch up on us. Excited to have located a bigger herd, we marked the spot and decided this was the place to start the hunt the next morning. We called it a day and went down the creek to our pickup.

Day two

My first aoudad hunt started out on the wrong foot but turned into a great opportunity with the help of one of the best hunting guide teams I’ve ever hunted with. Their dedication to finding the herds, and their confidence in how they walked the rough terrain, made us more motivated in every step we took forward on shooting a big trophy. The second day of our adventure started at 6 a.m. We arrived at the arroyo crossing a few minutes before sunrise, packed our gear, and started our way up in to the mountains, arriving at the spot we had seen the aoudad the night before in a 30-minute walk.

Right away we saw activity on the same side of the mountain. This time, more aoudad were on the top and rocky cliffs. We glassed for a while before Carlos and Álvaro went across the arroyo to climb the steep side of the mountain, while we waited and continued glassing.

Communicating with our walkie-talkies we receive the signal to climb up the steep slope and meet up Alvaro.

Arnoldo and I started climbing a little past 9 a.m., following Álvaro who was approximately 200 yards ahead of us. This was the starting point of the real challenge, step after step, up the most demanding climbing conditions for a hill that never ended. Finally making it to the top, we found a flat spot of ground with amazing views of grasslands full of small ash trees and encinos (oaks). By then Arnoldo had discovered tracks and I smelled the particular odor of wet hair and droppings.

Arnoldo received a call, and with a wink of an eye, told me Alvaro had spotted a big aoudad down in the valley and we should rendezvous about 200 yards down the side of the mountain. When we got there, we started to glass down the valley of palms, bushes, and oregano grass for the aoudad that was bedded inside a bush beneath the shadow of a palm tree. After locating the big aoudad, we planned our stalk for downwind along the side of the mountain and into the valley behind a small hill, up an arroyo.

Once we crossed the creek, in the back side of the hill that divided the valley where the aoudad was bedded, we rested for about 15 minutes. We drank water and cooled down in the shadows. We prepared for the best place to rest my 7mm, on a

Patiently waiting within the brush for a good shot.

rock beside an agave-like plant about 250 yards from the aoudad.

The 20-minute wait for the aoudad to stand up and give me a side-angle shot felt like 2 hours. The aoudad finally got up and started to climb. We saw the real size of this enormous aoudad and its massive horns.

Trying to control my breathing and heart rate, which seemed impossible as I looked in the crosshairs of my scope at this exotic beast, I slowly reached for the safety and placed my finger on the trigger. I waited for the right broadside angle, then my rifle ended the silence in the valley, sending a 139-grain Hornady SST bullet directly to the target. I immediately heard the distinctive thump of the hit.

“It’s hit! That animal is hit!” Álvaro shouted. What was a high-shoulder aim shot ended up hitting the aoudad’s quarter hind and it started to move away fast from us. As soon as it stopped around the 400-yard mark, I made a second shot, this time hitting the ground at about 1 yard from the animal. Then the injured aoudad got inside a bush far from us.

The guide quickly asked for my rifle and told me to follow him in a hurry down across the valley. We positioned ourselves closer to the animal and waited for him to show up. Crashing through all sorts of thorned bushes, we arrived and stood in position to glass the aoudad about 150 yards on the opposite hill, hidden in a bush. He started moving to my right when I made a third shot. Not knowing where my third shot hit, the aoudad kept moving to my right, 20 yards ahead. I made my fourth and last shot, aiming ahead of his body, hitting the side of his neck and dropping him to the ground.

Alvaro and I screamed with great joy on what we just had achieved, a once-in-a-lifetime trophy aoudad with impressive horns, long beard, and chaps. Its longest horn measured 36 3⁄8", while the animal scored 1524⁄8" SCI. The aoudad, without a doubt, is a magnificent game animal and most challenging in free-range hunting conditions. It was one of the most exciting and demanding hunts I ever experienced.