Well my brother and I both came home with nothing. But we had a great time and really worked our butts off, so it definitely wasn't from a lack of effort.
I left work Tuesday evening at 5 from Killeen, drove all night, and got to the park about 11:30 that night. My brother already had camp set up at a campsite at the campround, a fire going, and a bourbon on the rocks ready for me when I arrived.
Orientation was at 9 the next morning, where we were informed all about the Official Texas State Bison Herd and general info for the hunt. There were 6 areas, ranging from about 1500 acres to almost 3000 acres. We drew the biggest unit on the northern part of the park, with the wheat field just across the county road from our unit. There were a couple of nice looking canyons running N/S that were in the central portion of our unit, so we decided to hunt these the first evening, accessing the unit from the south, and head north directly into the north wind that was blowing that evening. We decided that we would hunt the interior portion of our unit for the first evening and next morning, and then hunt over next to the wheat field the last evening and morning if we needed to as a last resort.Those canyons in the interior of our unit looked fairly nasty, and I just knew that we'd find a big muley or 2 in them. If we had decided to hunt the wheat fields, we were essentially cut off from the rest our unit due to topography.
My canyon the first evening.
This was where I saw the 120s 8 point that I passed on. He was narrow, but tall and heavy. I had been sitting at the top of this canyon, glassing for about 30 minutes, and he just jumped up from about 30 yards right below me and took off. He stopped right in the bottom for several minutes, where I got a good look at him and opted to pass. I was after a big muley. My brother only saw a couple WT doe the first evening.
The next morning was pretty uneventful. But I did run into this big fella.
I was walking up this horse trail and noticed a brown spot in the tall grass, but really didn't pay it much mind. It was barely sticking up above the grass, and I just figured it was some dead vegetation or cedar. As I got closer (about 15-20 yards), I noticed movement, and glanced over to the right to see this bull stand up. A park rule stated we were not supposed to be within 50 yards of them. He had his head low to the ground, eyeing me very sternly. I immediately backed out and gave him some room, then took some pictures. He never acted aggressive, but he clearly didn't like me being there.
This was taken with my Iphone through my binoculars after I gave him his space.
These are various other canyons I glassed that morning.
And we never saw a deer that morning. So around noon, we made the drive over to the wheat fields, where we had to park on County Rd 29 and then belly crawl under the electric fence (which was for the buffalo) onto the park. A short hike took us to the canyon rim, where we would face west into the sunset and glass all the small canyons and gullies that the deer came out of to access to wheat field. Or so we hoped.
My view from the rim that evening.
And while up at the rim, I was sitting in front of the small cedar hunkered down in the grass, and there was a heavily used trail off to my right, as seen here.
Just after sundown, a WT doe came out at the far left of that previous pic. I watched her a few minutes, then she disappeared. About 10 minutes later, I look up, and she is on that trail headed right toward me. She comes all the way and stops right behind that cedar to my right, and she is directly downwind at that point. She is 10-15 yards away, and starts snorting. I then hear a very loud grunt, and look down that trail and see that big 140s WT buck trotting right down the trail toward me. A few seconds after I see him, he is right beside that doe 10-15 yards from me behind that cedar. They both snort a couple times, then take off right back down that trail away from me. I stand up and loop around to other side of the cedar, shoulder my rifle, and holler and try to get him to stop. But he disappeared into the cedars. I got up and went after him and saw him in the next canyon over. But it was past legal shooting time, and he never offered a shot anyway.
We went back to the exact same spot the next morning (and last sit of the hunt), but didn't see much of anything. I saw 2 WT doe about 500 yards away, but that was all we saw. We sat until the very last minute, but it just wasn't in the books.
