This has been an unusual hunting season.
Over the last several years I've had three spots on two different ranches. Could take 10 deer plus hogs, turkey and exotics However this year my income is off about 60% and I'm only on one lease.
On this ranch, we have a 1,750 acre pasture out of a 30,000 acre low fenced ranch north of Uvalde Texas. However the ranch owner has been clearing Juniper and brush in order to increase grazing land. He's been doing this since July and it has played hobb with our hunting. Add an incredible acorn crop and we've seen very little game. The hogs have even disappeared. I've shot one hog this season where I usually shoot a dozen or so.
Having said that, my son and I each took pretty good bucks, considereing we hunt a low fenced non-managed,Texas hill country lease

My oldest son, who has been hunting with me since he was five,took this buck the second weekend of the season. We stayed late Sunday evening as we had had no luck, hunting all day Saturday and Sunday morning. He shot it about 20 minutes before sunset.
After he shot the buck, and went down to look at it, Glenn found a horseshoe laying abuout two feet from the bucks' rack. We're calling it "The lucky Buck"
GWB



I took my buck late Saturday evening the 26th. It was at last light. I had dribbled some corn down a game trail. He was coming down the trail and stopped to nibble the corn. I shot him with a 25-06 using 110 gr. accubonds at about 50 yds. He ran about 50 yds and piled up. He had the blackest tarsals of any deer I've ever shot. He'd pissed all down his legs and you could smell him 15yds away. When we skinned him out he didn't have an ounce of fat on him. I'd say he probably lost 20 lbs in the last couple of months from rutting.



Oh well, just 8 months till bow season!
GWB

Nice bucks! It is great you can hunt with your son.

quote:

Originally posted by kudu56:
Nice bucks! It is great you can hunt with your son.

My feelings also. Congrats.

Way to go. Good bucks. Sounds as though you hunted near the area I did.

Nice bucks! Cooper 25-06? Good looking rig.

Congrats to you and your son.

quote:

Originally posted by kudu56:
Nice bucks! It is great you can hunt with your son.

+2

Congrats

Tony,
The ranch we hunt on is one of Dolph Briscoe's. It is about 5 miles south of Concan, near Reagan Wells. Our pasture is about 6 miles in from Hwy 83.
For some reason I was thinking the area you hunted was near Medina or Bandera, which is probably 40 miles as the crow flies, northeast.
GWB

Even though you didn't match the sheer numbers of previous seasons, it sounds like you still had a great year hunting-wise as spending time with family makes things all-the-more memorable.

And those are some excellent bucks, by the way.

Geedubya,

I was directly west of you, one highway over.

The ranch is on CR 405, off Hwy 55 about 1/2 way between Uvalde and Camp Wood.

I had put these maps in the thread about the bobcats. The red dot in the first one is about the location, and the circled buildings in the 2nd is the main ranch building(s). The place to the lower right with the lake is a commercial hunting operation. There's more pix of the ranch in the Got 'er Done in Texas - More Photos Added! thread.

Tony,
thats a great area. Several years ago we hunted a ranch (The Southern Cross) on the east side of Hwy 55, about 12 miles south of Rock Springs, north of Camp Wood. Lots of Axis, exotics, Audad, even an occasional elk that had escaped from a game ranch. Very remote, had to have four wheel drive to get to it. Loved it.
Glad you had a good time here. Hope you return to do it again.
GWB

Geedubya,

Doug, the ranch manager, actually lives in Montell, just south of Camp Wood. He owns only 10 acres, but he said he has axis and several other exotics that he hunts on that small unfenced parcel.

He invited me to go there for an axis buck and suggested either May or June as a good time.

At least I wouldn't need a heavy jacket.

Tony, supposedly Axis shed their antlers on their birthday. You'll see a lot of axis in velvet during the regular "whitetail season". May or June seems to be a great time for Axis. However, bring lots of beverages and a sweat rag. It can be in the 90's then. The nice thing about that area is the low humidity. It can be 90 degrees out but you can sit in the shade and when the wind blows you can get a cold rush from the sweat evaporating off your body. Axis meat is great table fare. I usually make butterfly steaks out of the backstraps, roast and jerky out of the hinds. The tenders never make it out of camp.
You can shoot your Axis, the run over to ConCan at the low water crossing, take a dip in the Frio and ogle the women.
GWB

Should be more like "the not so lucky buck" congrats them is two nice deer.....