I thought y'all might enjoy some pictures. I went to the Camp Cooley Ranch near Centerville, TX on Wednesday afternoon to take some pictures and visit with Alen, the wildlife manager. He has done quite a bit with the wildlife in the past 3 years.

Here are a few pictures of some Red Lechwe. I didn't get any really good pictures of them, but you can see the one REALLY wide bull.





Here are some pictures of the main herd of White Bearded Wildebeest. These were taken from about 250 yards away.........they wouldn't let us get any closer.





Here's a small group of Elk with a young 3-4 year old bull.







To give an idea of the habitat.........roughly half of the property looks like this.



Yaupon HELL!!



Here's a bachelor group of 4 Wildebeest bulls.









Now.........here's the best bull Elk we saw. I'd say he's a good'n. I'm not an expert on judging Elk, but if I had to guess............I'd say he's in the 350-370" range. He had incredible mass.





Same bull............different angle.





Here's an absolutely ANCIENT Barasingha buck. The poor guy is so old he can barely walk and as you can see, he only has two little stumps for antlers.



Lastly, here's a picture of the lake on the property. I think it's somewhere around 10-12 acres.



I was happy to see that Alen has been managing the animals well. The last time I was there, which was back in November 2003, none of the smaller species like Blackbuck, Axis, Whitetail, Fallow, and Impala were doing well. I found out why. Alen said that in the last 2 years, they've killed over 100 coyotes and 380 hogs..........all in the high fenced area, which is 1,000 acres!! HOLY CRAP!! No wonder none of the small animals were doing well. All the young ones were getting eaten by either coyotes or hogs.

Anyways............hope y'all enjoyed the pictures.

When I saw the title of the thread, I was hoping you were posting some pictures of their Brangus cattle. They are much more interesting to me than exotics in a high fence.

Nice pictures though.

Nice Pics,
I'll seen that old bull, he was there for YEARS, back before you could shoot a 'singhga, and before it was just alot of paperwork...

notice, no pics of deer or eland, aoudad, hogs, the 2 cape buffalo there (yeah, two) blackbuck, etc...

Jeff, if it was of their cattle (which is basically all AI from Ultimate Genetics (just down the road, and owned by them) it would be off topic.

Oh, that little yupon island ain't even CLOSE to thick... it's rough 150 acres more or less open, with yupon islands, and the rest is heavy brush hell

jeffe

quote:

Originally posted by Eland Slayer:
I'm not an expert on judging Elk, but if I had to guess............I'd say he's in the 350-370" range. He had incredible mass.
pictures.

He is more likely in the 290-310 range because he has just average length to all points. -TONY

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:
Nice Pics,
I'll seen that old bull, he was there for YEARS, back before you could shoot a 'singhga, and before it was just alot of paperwork...

notice, no pics of deer or eland, aoudad, hogs, the 2 cape buffalo there (yeah, two) blackbuck, etc...

Jeff, if it was of their cattle (which is basically all AI from Ultimate Genetics (just down the road, and owned by them) it would be off topic.

Oh, that little yupon island ain't even CLOSE to thick... it's rough 150 acres more or less open, with yupon islands, and the rest is heavy brush hell

jeffe

Oh...........just so there isn't any confusion. They were Water Buffalo, not Cape Buffalo. They're both dead now. One died of old age and Alen just shot the other one not too long ago because it was looking really bad.

They've got the Eland herd down to about 30 now. We saw them for only a few seconds and it was way in the back in all the woods.

They've got a lot more Blackbuck now (probably around 100), along with about 20 Impala, 20 Lechwe, 25-30 Axis, 50-60 Fallow, 40-50 Sika, and 60-70 Whitetail. The Elk herd is up to 100 or maybe a few more. They just shot a bull a few weeks ago that was 428" with a 14" drop tine!! Here's a picture of him and another bull in velvet from the website. I'm almost positive that the bull on the right is the same bull I took pictures of. So that gives you something to judge him by. If the bull on the left scored 428", I would think the bull on the right would go a lot more than 290-310".

That bull might go 315...............my 2c

Like I said, I'm no expert on judging Elk, but I do think he probably scores quite a bit higher than you first think. Even though this is a Texas Elk, the bulls on this place are not small bodied at all. Alen said that most of the trophy bulls they kill weigh around 950-1,100 lbs.

Thanks for sharing. Nice pictures! I would enjoy driving around and seeing all the wildlife to.

For the "holier than thou" "high fence freaks", many RSA and Some Zimbabwean ranches are high fenced also.

ES: using your numbers, over 400 head of "wildlife" on 1000 high fenced acres...you must be asking for negative comments.
If they did not offer "hunting", I would not have posted my comments.

Great pictures, but your post is under "American Big Game Hunting".

I too think they have a great cattle (Brangus) operation...just out of my price range (sorta like their "wildlife" prices).

Greg

I recently wrote an article on this Colorado bull that Dennis Meitl killed while hunting with Atkinson Expeditions. It GROSSED 354 inches. Note the mass, inside spread and more importanly the tine lengths. -TONY



Front view

To my knowledge, the heaviest elk recored was just over 1000 lb. It was a cow elk that was caught during a study in colorado some years ago. Most people don't have any idea what elk weigh.The average weight of a mature bull is only 700lb. I killed a moose that went 1500-1700 in alaska in 03, and it dwarfed any bull elk I have ever seen!..............wapiti7

quote:

Originally posted by Mulerider:
ES: using your numbers, over 400 head of "wildlife" on 1000 high fenced acres...you must be asking for negative comments.
If they did not offer "hunting", I would not have posted my comments.

Great pictures, but your post is under "American Big Game Hunting".

I too think they have a great cattle (Brangus) operation...just out of my price range (sorta like their "wildlife" prices).

Greg

I'm not exactly sure what your objective of this post is. Why would I be "asking for negative" comments just because I posted some animal populations? I'm confused.

And FYI, there's actually probably more like 500-600 animals on the property. The habitat can and does support these numbers. This is actually the lowest animal population that has been on the property in a long time. 4 years ago when I was hunting Eland there, they had approximately 150 Eland. This ranch is in an area that gets over 40 inches of rain a year. The high fenced area is about 30-40% open and 60-70% wooded. All of the open area is planted in Bermuda grass and all the animals are fat and healthy.

I thought y'all might also enjoy these 2 pictures of a bull killed on the Camp Cooley back in August 2003. He scored 426".

I agree about the droptine bull not being 428" , just doesnt have the length of main beam for that, and the tines aren't as long as needed. Don't mean to ruffle any feathers, as I'd love to be the one who had killed him.

(for the heavy elk nay-sayers...)

My friend was on a hunt in Canada for elk and was up there with the tv show Western extremes (I think? It is on OLN) and he killed a 390" Bull and it weighed over 1,000lb.



How much does the place charge for the Elk?

Y'all are probably right about the droptine bull, but I do believe the bull pictured above that was killed in 2003 really did score 426". LOOK AT THE TINE LENGTH!! His 3rd points (G-3's??) were 32 inches long.

Buglemintoday,

They charge $150/day + trophy fees.

The trophy fee for Elk is $3,000-$10,000 depending on score.

Looks can be decieving. Eland slayers pics could be 426. There is enough length there. It probably scored that in SCI.

Livestock. Nothing more than livestock. I'd rather see a picture of a wild 2 pt buck than the biggest elk in the world behind a fence.

Just A Hunter: Those were some impressive elk pics you posted. And they were the real deal, free ranging and wild. Not a pen raised bull among them. I see you are in Rangley. I do a lot of hunting for cows in area 2 while I'm building the points for a bull tag. I've got 13 right now. I have seen some real monsters there including a big 7 point a few years back. He would have probably gone real close to 400. But all I had was a cow tag, so the girlfriend he was with bought the farm instead of him. A couple more years and I can hunt one of his offspring. He is long gone by now, but he was a hell of a bull.

Mac

"They charge $150/day + trophy fees.

The trophy fee for Elk is $3,000-$10,000 depending on score."

That and "Texas" explains the scores and weights. I tend to agree that the bull is not a 400" class bull and NO where near 1000 lbs. An old Rosie might push 1000, but not a RM.

They should require all farmed wild game to have their antlers tagged like sheep. That would put them in the place where they belong. On the wall of a shooter and not a hunter, and out of the record books. Not much of a trophy.
My2cents,
Dave

interesting pix, ES! thanks!

Thanks ES, those are some cool pics.