Dad is all smiles, and his son, the lucky hunter, is beaming over the very nice, mature, buck he shot in late, December at the {RRR Ranch}, here in Mills County. The buck scored a gross of 130 B&C and netted 126.
The buck has a very wide spread for Mills County, but these older deer look much different post rut having slimmed down and lost up to 30% of their body weight.
Now for ‘the rest of the story’.
Pictured are the 2007 sheds for this deer.
This year’s gross score 130, last year 126. Base in 2008 was 4.2 inches, 2007, 4.0. G-1 was 3.1 this year and 3.0 last. G-2 in 2008 was 11.1 last year was 10.0. G-3 in 2008 was 9 last year was 8.3. This deer had reached maturity and had added no points but 4 inches overall!
This was a real nice trophy for the young hunter!
Monthly Archives: January 2009
A New Blog
{My Hunting Buddies} is a new blog on my list and it has good hunting stories, tips and pictures. I thoroughly enjoyed my ‘trip’ around it!
Weather
Getting up yesterday morning and “putting another log on the fire”, I looked outside and noticed moisture, sleet/rain, was falling and the temperature was 31 degrees. Locally, for the past 4 months, we’ve been without any significant rain, so this steady fall was a blessing! Having to drive over to Brownwood, 33 miles west of Goldthwaite, on my trip over and back, there was ice all over my truck and I noticed patches of ice on the highway that held my speed to under 55 MPH. It rained and sleeted all day and the temperature never exceeded 32. Not a good day for any outside work.
Opening up my e-mail, Randy Pfaff sent me a picture of the snow at his place in southwestern Colorado.
This reminded me that we had snow here in Goldthwaite on Easter day of 2007 and Layla and I went out and took some pictures of the blue bonnets and Spanish daggers. That year our bluebonnets, the State flower of Texas, were beautiful! In 2008, no rain in the fall and no bluebonnets!
This picture shows our tractor ‘marooned’ in the snow. Layla’s batting practice, pitching screen is in the background. At that time, we were already 3 tournaments into our 2007 softball season, so this snow caught us off guard!
Snow is a lot ‘more funner and prettier’ that sleet and ice!
Cats
The last couple of weeks several of my friends have sent me pictures of cats in the wild.
Dave Lazor started it with a picture of a big, mountain lion in central Washington. Dave and I spent a lot of time together playing senior softball and fishing for speckled trout, but he’s moved back home to Washington. No more speck fishing but the lucky guy gets to fish for steelheads and salmon!
A local Goldthwaite man, Clayton Gist, sent me a picture of a big, 28, pound, female Bobcat he trapped the last week of December. 
This is the second big one he has trapped in the past two months. November 30th I posted a story,{“Clayton’s Bobcat”} along with a picture of the cat.
Randy Pfaff followed these up with a picture of a fine, mountain lion he shot in Colorado. Randy was Warren Blesh’s guide for the nice muley that Warren shot in November and it was pictured along with several other pictures from Randy, in {“Pictures from Randy Pfaff, Outfitter, Colorado”.}
Mills County has a lot of sheep and goats and they draw bobcats like “flies to honey”. We have one that lives around our place and , maybe, I’ll get a shot at, or of it, this turkey/predator season?
And, we also have a lot of cattle and deer, and they draw mountain lions. The closest lion was killed 2 years ago about 20 miles south of my place. They haven’t moved any closer, but who knows, maybe this year?
Paul’s First Deer
Paul’s First Deer
Layla and our 2 Daughters, along with 2 of our Grandchldren, Colton, age 2+, and Mikayla, Age, -1 were visiting at our house in Houston, while Mike Mitchell and Paul Culbertson, our 2 Son-In-Laws and I had taken this opportunity to crowd in a day and a half of Deer and Quail hunting at my “Big Country” lease at Millersview, in Concho County.
Driving to Goldthwaite, I picked up the boys and we hurried the 55 miles to the lease. Arriving, Mike who had been working all day, decided to take a shower, while Paul and I choose Deer hunting.
During past hunting trips to the lease I had scouted for Deer extensively and had come up with several spots that showed promise. One of these was a dead mesquite that overlooked a game trail leading to the stock tank 200 yards south, and as Paul scrooched down behind the tree, I spread out several hands full of corn along the trail to, hopefully, coerce a buck to stop and take a bite. I headed a half mile, to the north, along another game trail, spread some more corn and climbed into a 15 foot Deer blind, tower.
The wind picked up from the east, 12 to 15 MPH, as I checked my watch, 4:15 P.M. and began to scan my immediate area. Here came a Turkey, he’s got a beard, so I just watched it nibble at the corn. The rancher leases the ranch to a Turkey outfitter in the spring and doesn’t allow us to shoot one. The 2,000 acre, ranch had hundreds of the wily birds, so all I could do was watch!
The wind picked up and here came more Turkeys, toms and hens, and they vacuumed up all of the corn I had put down. Counting over 40 big, birds, I continued to scan for horns. No luck, I only spotted several does, no bucks, so when it became too dark to shoot, I climbed down and walked back toward Paul.
Hearing no shot, I didn’t anticipate the smile on his face and he’s not behind his stump, but standing beside a downed Deer. Walking up to him, I saw it was a nice buck and counting 9 points, I said, “I never heard you shoot!” He replied, “Around 5:15 the buck came walking along the trail, stopped and took a bite of corn, and bam, down he went. I’ve been sitting here admiring him.” Below is a picture that Paul snapped the next morning of his first Deer hanging on my windmill.
We headed back to the camp house and found Mike dressed and packed. He had just gotten a call from Laura that Mikayla had pneumonia and they had checked her into the hospital and for him to come to Houston, 5 ½ hours away, ASAP!
We hurriedly cleaned the Deer, packed, loaded up, stopped the Deer and Paul off in Goldthwaite and headed on to Houston. Mikayla recovered nicely and today she is a beautiful, 7th grader!