Hunted in LaSalle county on the El Mino Ranch again this year with good friend and AR member, M16. We were there the 13th through the 15th of December. The rut was in full swing and with the cool temperatures in Texas this year the deer were running on every sendero! I took two nice bucks on our trip, a 7.5 year old 10 pointer that scored in the 40's and a nice 12 point that pushed the '60's. My Dad took the oldest buck of the trip, a 9.5 year old heavy horned brush brute! He was shooting his favorite custom in .264 Win Mag and I shot my HCR .280. A good time was had by all! Thanks again for a great father/son trip Larry! And a big thanks to Ron, Larry's partner for letting me hunt his sendero for the big 12!

Dad's buck taken the first afternoon on the ranch... 34" of mass measurements!

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My 10 pointer taken the next morning at about 150 yards with my HCR .280 shooting 150 grain Nosler Partitions.



And my 12 pointer taken at 125 yards the last afternoon of the hunt.



Some of the bucks we saw while hunting...

Congratulations on some great deer! I sure miss hunting South Texas.

Nice Bucks for sure!!

With your dad, good job !
Those are some real nice bucks and the memories are priceless.

Man, I sure miss hunting those south Texas bucks. Looks like you cashed in with some pretty nice ones!

Impressive bucks, every one of them. But the sad part of it is (and I say this as a lifelong Texan) that deer hunting in TX has become strictly a money proposition. Every deer pictured in this thread has a price on his head. Maybe not specifically, but the price is there none the less.

Deer hunting in my home state long ago priced me out of the game, and at one time I grossed over 100K/year.

Those are really good bwana. I really like your 10 point and that last buck picture too. I always expect Jan rut down in S Texas, but as you say this weather has changed things up some with more extended cool than we had had in awhile. Those deer have some big bodies too. Thanks.

Yes, there is a cost associated with hunting on private land, but when you add up what it takes to acquire the property, the time it takes the landowner to get bucks old enough to harvest, and the time out of your own hunting schedule to host folks like my Dad and I, the landowner is not even breaking even on his investment. It really boils down to the love of the stewardship of the land and the wildlife on it. While certainly not "barefoot", the two partners that own and manage this piece of property are regular guys... you wouldn't pick 'em out in a feed store or gun shop as anything else.

quote:

Originally posted by Doubless:
Impressive bucks, every one of them. But the sad part of it is (and I say this as a lifelong Texan) that deer hunting in TX has become strictly a money proposition. Every deer pictured in this thread has a price on his head. Maybe not specifically, but the price is there none the less.

Deer hunting in my home state long ago priced me out of the game, and at one time I grossed over 100K/year.

I fuss at times about the cost of it too. Not so much just for me and many of us, but more for the younger guys in their late teens or 20s and 30s that are upcoming and trying to hunt and have families growing too.

But most guys still can find some deer in Texas - but they aren't all the biggest trophies . Public land of course really isn't there.

One thing is I am not sure how to moderate some of the costs. A couple of guys I know spend some pretty fair money on the upkeep, food plots etc. And the State of Texas and local areas aren't helping either. They keep raising taxes and re-raisng taxes and finding even more ways to add in some tax which encourages landowners with quality game to try to recapture some of those monies.

Heck this happened on our small family land too . In some ways just paying for a good hunt can be better, and costs less, than it would to have a lease, or even your own land. Much less when you add in the time requirements for your own land if you aren't there every day such as in farming and that kind of activity. It took us a couple of years on our land and I had to buy a new tractor, then build a new barn, did all kinds of work, feed, etc etc then had to pay taxes on those improvements . Then guys ask " Hey can we just drop over and get a few deer ? It doesn't cost you anything ... Why are your frowning . "

You beat me to it bwana .

Ahh but you said it much better than I. Especially your comments regarding your own ranch! How true...

And thanks to everyone for the compliments.

quote:

Originally posted by Doubless:
Impressive bucks, every one of them. But the sad part of it is (and I say this as a lifelong Texan) that deer hunting in TX has become strictly a money proposition. Every deer pictured in this thread has a price on his head. Maybe not specifically, but the price is there none the less.

Deer hunting in my home state long ago priced me out of the game, and at one time I grossed over 100K/year.

You should have bought land when you were making that 100K and then you could hunt your deer for free, not including taxes, tractors, fencing, stands, shredding, feeders if you use them, and the time required to do above. Free deer ain't free.

quote:

Originally posted by Doubless:
Impressive bucks, every one of them. But the sad part of it is (and I say this as a lifelong Texan) that deer hunting in TX has become strictly a money proposition. Every deer pictured in this thread has a price on his head. Maybe not specifically, but the price is there none the less.

Deer hunting in my home state long ago priced me out of the game, and at one time I grossed over 100K/year.

I don't buy it. I was starting my career when I lived in Houston and I certainly didn't make $100k, but I was able to hunt South Texas every year on my own dime. It seems to me this is more of a case of champagne taste on a beer budget.

Nice bucks Russell!!!!!! Coming from Nevada where we're a mule deer only state, it would be nice to kill a nice whitetail buck sometime! Growing up in Utah, we were the only other mule deer only state, until a few years ago when whitetails started moving into the state in the northeastern part of the state of Utah from Wyoming. Along with the whitetails came racoons as well, another oddity.

quote:

I don't buy it. I was starting my career when I lived in Houston and I certainly didn't make $100k, but I was able to hunt South Texas every year on my own dime. It seems to me this is more of a case of champagne taste on a beer budget.

Lhook, just exactly how far back was that? I, too, hunted S. TX as a young man, when prices were what I would consider reasonable. But to state an example, I offer this:

I have a good friend who owns his own electrical company, as does his brother. The brother found a place in Dimmit County: 2000 acres, year round. There is electricity and water on the place, but no amenities other than that. The rules are these:

The limit is 15 deer total. You bring a guest, they shoot off your tags.

You are allowed a "trophy", a management, and a cull buck for each license. The management and cull bucks must be photographed and submitted for approval. Once approved, assuming the animal comes back, it can be shot.

A "trophy" is considered anything of 140" or greater...!!?

Lessee is required to feed year around; he/she is required to be feeding protein as of March 1 and corn as of September 1.

Now: what would you expect to pay for a place like this?

The price is $9800/gun/year, and all that gets is the key to the front gate.

I looked at trail cams and photo cards, and I have never seen the like of ratchet horns and trash in all my life. It will take ten years to clean that place out and get the genetics where they will need to be to really start producing the potential for book deer. You won't do it by killing nine bucks a year on 2000 acres.

Tell me again it isn't about money...

Doubless,

It was 2000-2005. The first couple of years my buddy and I hunted around Refugio then we got on a lease south of Sonora. The last year I was on a lease in the Panhandle that was a little over $4k per gun, but all the previous years I never spent more than $1,800 per year on lease fees. I never saw any deer like the ones pictured on the low priced leases, but I had a great time and got my fill of hunting and venison every year.

Beautiful bucks, Sir. Congratulations on a good hunt with friends and family. That always makes it extra special.

I have a lease currently that is 13,000 acres with 10 guys total. Price is $2,500 per gun. Nice thing is that it's 23 miles from my front door. We have good Whitetail, turkey, dove, ducks, pigs, and varmints. Certainly not out of most moderately successful hunter's budget.

Personally, I'll pay to hunt private land every year over the lottery system that is drawing for Western tags and taking the chance that there'll be NO hunting that year, and if I do draw a tag, there'll be an orange vest behind every tree! I'm not buying the 100K earnings and being priced out of hunting Texas.

Just to give an example of the type of bucks we harvest on this $2,500 per gun lease, I took this one earlier in the year prior to going into work that morning:

That is a hell of a deal per gun for that much property and that's a beautiful 10er!!!

Nice bucks Russell & Todd!

Nice buck Todd. Shoot that with the Blaser???

That is just a great and really nice aesthetic deer Todd. Wonderful trophy and I bet he looks great after mounting too.

It is no wonder so many hunters want to come to Texas for deer.

quote:

Originally posted by bwanamrm:
Ahh but you said it much better than I. Especially your comments regarding your own ranch! How true...

And thanks to everyone for the compliments.

Congrats on some great whitetails and thanks for sharing the pics! Always love seeing more pics than just the animals harvested. It looks like there are some great whitetails on that piece of property.

Congratulations very nice bucks. I´ll go to northern Tamaulipas the day after tomorrow here the rut has just started. Good hgunting and a happy new year ro you and your dad.

Another VERY nice buck! Thanks for the photo.

Good Stuff Russell, congrats!!!!

My family has had a farm and ranch in "central west Texas" --San Angelo area-- for better part of 110 years. Land ownership is expensive and going up all the time, our family farm and ranch is about 5,680 ac owned and we lease another 1,650 (grazing and farming)...we have had the same 2 guys lease our land for the last 14 years...hell they may even be AR members and I don't know it. They pay 8 dollars an ac (for about 1850 ac and a house.) and shoot what they want to that is legal in a 2 buck county that we are in. They bring their kids--and now their grandkids--they don't over shoot and take care of our place. My dad ask them one time--why don't you guys just buy a place--and the simple answer they told my dad---Who is going to take care of it why we are working? Valid question and answer! My great great grandfather, my grandfather, my dad, and now my brother still work and live on the land--and take care of it. We have good hunters that take care of it and provide a nice extra income for my family--its a good working relationship. Is it expensive-- $7,400 each sounds like a chunk of change for me--but for the 7-8 deer and few turkey and hogs they take a year I guess they look at it money well spent. They both have about 30,000 worth of gear they drag down--so I guess the lease is a small price to pay.

I too am a little turned off by big dollar whitetail hunts--but also grew up on 6,000 ac I could hunt everyday. I have shot a slew of 130 and 140 class bucks--more than my fair share. Would I like to bust a 180 class deer--yes--- will I have to pay for it--more than likely--.

Boy--what a rant sorry--to get back to the subject--nice deer Russell! Looks like a good hunt!

Doubless is right about the hunting. It is only about the $$$ for the most part.

Near one 2000 acre lease that my brothers and I had there was small cafe with the rancher's version of the breakfast club. You could go in and sit down near a group of them eating breakfast and listen to them bitch about the hunters. They hated everything about hunters but they still leased their land and took the money even if the hunter saw nothing.
Many of the old SOBs inherited their ranches and never had a W2 form in their life. In Stephens County in that area most of the ranches had oil and gas. The way the ranchers made a living was to go to the mail box and pull out their oil royalty checks.

We finally told our land owner no more when he came back wanting us to shoot only 10 point and greater bucks. That property had been heavily hunted before us and there were NO 10 pointers and the rancher knew it. We went a number of seasons passing on smaller bucks before the rancher pulled that little stunt.

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:
never had a W2 form in their life.

I'd take that as a compliment.

Ed