A New Deer Season

Yesterday morning, when I got up and looked out of our kitchen window, not over a hundred yards away, two bucks had been fighting right out in the field behind our house! The loser walked, dejectedly away, with head down, across the field. To claim the prize, the winner ran up to the fence, but a bigger buck was already courting the doe that had caused the earlier skirmish. The two ran away into the thick stuff and the “winner” resumed his search for a hot, doe.

Of course, my camera was in my office in the old ranch, house!

I’ve heard that the best blind is on your porch, maybe not this morning, because I”m in the “Corner Blind”, at least until 9:00 AM, then I’m off to San Marcos to see a Grandson play football and then back to Killeen (if the game, postponed from Thursday, will be played at all) to watch a Granddaughter, who is a cheerleader.

Maybe I’ll get back in time for the afternoon hunt?

More Outdoors Pictures, November 6, 2009

Some, of the many, pictures that folks send to me are really neat! Unusual things from the outdoors, fine trophies and some spectacular game cam “shots”. Today’s post has them all.

Warren Blesh at RRR Ranch sent me this one of a young lady with a trophy buck she shot last Saturday during our State’s youth hunt. She and her Dad had visited Warren to harvest one of his many does, but this fine specimen walked out of the brush and hung around too long and finally Warren told her, “Merry Christmas, take him!”

Dayton House, a Church friend, sent this picture of a hog killed on October 28, 2009 in Mobile County, Alabama. The hog was six foot, eleven inches long, forty-four inches high at the shoulder and had almost four, inch lower, tusks! One of the largest free roaming hogs yet shot!

Everett Simms, one of my softball buddies, sent me this sequence of pictures taken on his low fence, ranch in Jackson County, Texas. The ranch is outside of Port Lavaca, an area not known for monster deer. He’s growing some good ones on his ranch!

    

This first picture is of “the” ten pointer taken in July with the deer still in velvet.

This picture shows “the” ten pointer with a buddy, a very nice eight.

Everett told me that he’d send me the picture of “the” ten when they shot him!

The “Bull” Goes To Colorado

On October 29th I posted a picture of Warren Blesh’s, 5X5, Mule Deer that he shot on a hunt in Colorado. His Outfitter, Randy Pfaff, wrote the following story about the hunt. Warren sent the story to the local paper,{ The Goldthwaite Eagle} and to me for posting on this blog. It sounds like that it was a good hunt and a great time!

The Bull Goes To Colorado
By Randy Pfaff
“The Bull” and I drove into the Colorado canyon. Water was still flowing in the bottom. A small creek had not given way to the winter cold and ice. Although only a trickle, a few inches deep, it was still fighting, struggling to keep running. We were thankful for this, as we were soon to find out it would be the natural attractant needed for “The Bull’s” success.

Scouting, November 3, 2009

Yesterday was a “no work” day that I devoted to scouting on my place for deer. What a nice morning it was, no wind, forty-five degrees, with a bright blue sky! Walking out to the blind at 5:30 AM, the sky was so illuminated from the moon that I didn’t even use a light and I almost needed sun glasses! I believe every star in our hemisphere was out too! With it so bright and clear, the deer moved at night and I really didn’t expect to see much early in the day.

It was very slow, so slow that I took this “shot” of a male, cardinal.

 

Soon an, almost fawn, yearling, showed up and started picking up the corn outside of the feeder. He was hesitant to jump on in.
Then the little one started getting nervous and took off for parts unknown and out came, an almost spike.

 

This one barely had the horns outside of the skin, but he was bigger so he ran off the smaller one.

The eveninAg watch was much of the same. On my way in I jumped several deer and on my way out several. But, nothing came around the tree stand that I was sitting in.

Maybe I’ll sit out on my front porch and see how many I see tonight?

Sean’s First Deer

The weekend before the opening of firearms deer season, our fine, State holds a two, day youth hunt. This past Saturday, my Son, Randy and Grandson, Sean, age 9, took advantage of this special hunt to bag Sean’s first deer. This past week Randy picked up a Youth Hunting License for $7.00 that includes fishing and Sean was ready to go.

Last year Sean tried his hand at shooting Randy’s .243 but the gun was just too big and he wasn’t ready. It was a different story this year. He had made his mind up that he would master the .243 and get his deer. His efforts on the practice range showed that he was ready. Friday night, as he was going to bed, he drew this picture of his aim point on the deer.


At 6:45 Saturday morning, the coolest of the year at thirty-nine degrees, Sean and his Dad climbed into Maw-Maw’s blind and got ready.

They saw a lot of skittish deer, but none came into the feeder and as the morning passed, Sean’s eyelids got heavy and he went to sleep.

Sure enough, with Sean being asleep, here came a spike into the feeder. Randy shook Sean awake and his eyes popped at the deer calmly picking up the kernels of corn. Sean steadied himself and aligned the .243 just behind the spike’s front shoulder, and bam! The deer shuddered at the impact but jumped out of the feeder, ran a few yards then dropped!

Sean’s first deer! No cut off shirttail for Sean, just the bloody fingerprint on his forehead, (a family tradition) denoting a successful, first kill!

During his future hunts Sean will get bigger animals, but he will always remember this first one.

Nothings better than a Son getting his deer on his first hunt!