I just returned from a quickie whitetail hunt in Oklahoma up on the Kansas border. PRDATOR who posts here helps the landowner get a few clients each year and he does some of the guiding:

Here's the report:

I flew out of my home airport on Delta's ASA commuter airline. TSA was friendly and happy with my TuffPac with a TSA lock upon it. I made all connections and was only a few minutes late arriving in Oklahoma City.

PRDATOR was at baggage pickup and after getting groceries and fueling up, we headed north for the Brown Ranch. On the way, I learned that it is 6000 acres just north of Freedom and is a working cattle operation. It's rolling prairie with lots of creek bottoms and stock ponds. The owner has planted a dozen food plots with chicory and winter wheat.

We arrived at 4:00 p.m. and quickly changed clothes and drove to a blind that overlooked a green field and a pond full of ducks. I got settled in, found some distances with my rangefinder and tried to stay warm in the 22 degree weather and 40 mph wind.

Shortly before dark, a 130 class buck appeared at the head of the field and hooked a bush or two. He is still walking around, I reckon, but that's another story.

On day two, I saw nothing in the morning, but froze my bottom off as the wind was still whipping at over 30 mph. The forecast was for the afternoon was only gentle breezes and it proved correct.

I decided that the morning spot was a good one, even though I'd seen nothing on the first try, so I unpacked a blind/chair that I'd sent ahead from Cabelas. When I openned it, I discoverd that it was not the same as one I had used at home, but what the heck? It seemed just fine.

I had a couple of little bucks visit the food plot I was watching. I guess the rut was still on, because they just passed through as if on a mission. I could see 7 or 8 does up on a hill half a mile away and it was fun to watch through my binoculars and see the yearlings jumping around and chasing each other.

Shortly before dark, I looked through the window of the blind and saw movement. Using my 8x30 Binocs, I could see a buck in the plot, but only barely since there was lots of brush in the way. After about five minutes of straining to figure out his size, he stepped in the open and I discovered that he was certainly a shooter. Maybe 145 B&C ??

I had a shooting stick with me and tried to get the crosshairs on the deer, but had real difficulty because I had to get the rifle pointed out of the side window and that entailed first sticking the stock out of the opposite window (kind of over my shoulder), then work the barrel out of the side towards the deer.... then twist my body around in the chair (with arm rests).. By the time I accomplished all that, the buck was back behind the brush. None of that would have happened with the chair-blind I have at home because it is wider... anyway...

I kept glassing for the buck while the light faded, only to catch movement up the hill to the right. The buck had slipped out of the field (in plain sight during my occupation with the rifle, I guess) and was feeding directly away from me at 125 yards. I flipped the blind over the chair and put my rifle on the sticks. (As an aside, I was using a Winchester Featherweight Classic in .270 WSM. I'd shot several 1/2 to 3/4" groups with Federal ammo and it refused not to hit where aimed. Ironically, I had bought it from PRDATOR in an earlier transaction.. just good stuff from the AR family).

I didn't want to shoot the deer in the butt, so I waited for a better shot. Unfortunately, the buck, for reasons unknown, began a purposeful slow canter up the hill and stopped broadside at about 400 yards and showed me his skylighted horns. That late in the evening, I decided not to try to hit and find a deer almost a quarter-of-a-mile away. Maybe next year?

My last morning was spent overlooking a draw with a food plot. I saw no bucks, but 8 or 10 does and yearlings. I got really chilled as the wind had picked up and was grateful with being picked up early.

Though unsuccessful, I was having a great time with PRDATOR and the landowner. The food was simple but well cooked. I particularly liked
one supper of pot roast, homemade rolls, spicy gravy, fresh cut green beans, baked potatoes and apple cinnimon pie. The fact that there was a half gallon of Pinch available for a toddy was another winner.

After lunch, we rode around some, glassing for bedded deer to stalk and saw several does, but no bucks were tending them. We did pass by a draw that was full of bulls (the mooing kind) and I wondered out loud if the deer ever came into what was called, logically, the Bull Pasture.

PRDATOR told me that the south end of the pasture was fenced and there was a little green field there that hadn't been hunted all year. We rode up and checked it out. It looked great, but the the setting sun would be in the face of anyone down wind from the field. I decided to hunt it anyway.

I tried to slip into the blind that was east of the plot at 3:30 that evening. A spike buck was already feeding and he caught our movement immediately when we came over the hill top. He wasn't too alarmed and just faded into the brush to the west. I set up a chair behind a couple of pieces of plywood that were set up in a "V" to break the wind. Since no one had hunted there that year, I had to snap off some thorny brush to make sure I wouldn't hit a branch right in front of the blind... and I rearranged the cedar tops that camo'ed the plywood. I ranged distances, got out The Appeal (a good read) and settled in drinking an occasionaly sip of coffee and munching on a power bar and reading about judicial shenanagans in Mississippi.

The sun was really a problem because both the scope and binoculars were almost unusable due to the glare. I made a tunnel out of the sleeve of my rain jacket and must have looked like the stupidest hunter of all time holding out the sleeve with my left hand with the body of the jacket over my head... it worked though... well kind of.

Finally, the sun began to sink below the opposing hill and a light show of golds and reds began to fade to pinks and purples. High cirrus clouds looked like Rubens or Titian had used them as palates for the hair of their subjects.

I got so involved with the beauty, I about forgot why I was sitting on a hill 1287 miles from home (my cell has a GPS feature, btw. You get bored sometimes in a deer stand.). The wind had dropped to nothing and I had lost my usual chill. I was in bliss.

Almost as an afterthought, I picked up my glasses and scanned the green field. Dang if there wasn't a good buck in it. Through the 8x30 Swaro's I could see that the buck had good mass, brow tines of 7 inches or so and G-2's and 3's of 8 to 10 inches. I estimated the spread at 20" inside and mainbeam length of about 22"... all this in about .2 of a second ( maybe should have looked longer). Heck, I had 10 more minutes to hunt and a 4.5 year old buck was 225 yards away.

I got a good rest and put the crosshairs of the Leupold 3.5x10 VariX III where the neck joined the shoulder of the slightly quartering towards me deer. At two pounds of pressure, the gun went off and I heard a resounding whap and the bullet struck home. The buck crumpled on the spot and other than a few ear flicks, never moved again.

I put my folding chair in its sleeve and packed all my stuff in my fanny pack, humming an off key, but happy tune and hiked down the hill to see my deer.

At first, I was a bit surprised and a little disappointed when I discovered that on the left side, the G-2 was broken off as was the brow tine on the right, but when I saw the multitude of old scars and fresh wounds on the buck, I decided that the character of the fellow made up for the missing points. He'd lived a tough life, I figured, and since no wounds were on his backside, he probably held his own. He wasn't a Boone and Crockett, and with the broken tines, probably wouldn't score 125 points... but dang if he didn't suit my fancy.

I'm probably going back next year. There are some much bigger bucks on the Brown Ranch, and I'm going to get me one.

Anyone want to go with me? The price is right, the deer are there and nobody on this earth is a better host than Spencer!

Judge G-

That's a great buck and a fantastic story.

Thanks for sharing it!

Nice looking buck.

Very nice. Good for you! I like his big burry bases. What is price?

Great story. I only wish I could have bought you a single malt on your way through OKC. I might care to join you next year. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Hey JudgeG, Nice story with excellent details and a fine Hunt.

Congratulations on a fine 1-shot Kill.

Hey Judge G,

Congrats on a nice hunt and a well crafted hunt report!! Oklahoma is one of those "sleeper" states for whitetails.

Bob

Loved the story. Great buck. I live in SE Oklahoma and love it here. We have some good bucks too.

Judge G,

THANKS..
I really enjoyed having you up to hunt!! Hope you come back next year.
We'll have the Pinch and a BIG deer waiting for you.

For anyone that wants more info it can be found here. www.redforkhunts.com
As with every thing I don’t know if the price will be the same for 2009.

Thanks
Spencer aka Prdator.

Congrats Ernest... nice buck! Spencer and the the Brown's are top-notch and this area of Oklahoma produces some great trophies. Unusual country for whitetails and a fun hunt at a reasonable price! Did the turkys run over you Judge, I saw some huge flocks on the ranch when I was there...

Bwanawrm:

I saw several flocks of turkeys, but none were close. Certainly there are a bunch of them around since we saw them every morning and evening while on the way to the stands or to town.

I really appreciate your recommendation to hunt with Spencer. One of the things that makes AR great is that, over time, even if you've not "face to face" met another member, you can get a feeling for what kind of person he (or she) is and get some pretty good advice on picking out a section of the world to hunt, a P.H., perhaps, and even a "quickie" whitetail hunt in an area about which you are not schooled.

Saeed:

From contacts on this forum, I've "found" great P.A.C. elephant hunts, learned about the fun at Dallas Safari Club each January, made trips to the Hill Country, bear hunts... In fact, just about every "traveling" hunt I've taken since 2000 or so has been discovered through friends made on AR.

And, I don't know how many times I've had the pleasure to recommend various hunts to those here who have inquired of me. I know several folks have thanked me for an introduction to DG hunting through hunt reports. I just have to warn folks, however, the addiction is expensive.
Thanks, again, Saeed!

My pleasure Judge... if you remember you turned me on to west Africa! Though I didn't hunt Burkina I hunted right next door in Benin. I owed you one! You are right about this forum being a fantastic place to find some great adventures...