Was able to slip out to our family ranch in Lampasas County to do a little hunting with my dad. Got to help my old man harvest a real nice 10. We've got a couple bigger ones running around, but they are at least a year or two younger than this old guy. Pretty great to harvest an old deer on a low fence hill country ranch. We've been watching this guy for a couple of years, and been trying to kill him since last year. He has always been a wary deer, very jumpy and stays in the thick river bottom for the most part. He will come into the food plots, but not until right at dark or after.
The wind was fairly quiet today, and in a good direction. I suggested to my dad that we try and slip down into the river bottom and find a good place to set up. We never really go down in there, because it is a funnel between a little sanctuary (a spot on our lease we don't allow anyone to go in, ever), and several other parts of our ranch. We try to leave that river bottom alone, because so many deer travel down it. We mainly hunt the trails splintering off this main corridor. But, we knew there were a few good buck cruising down in there, so with the wind just right we thought it was worth the risk.
We slipped down in right after lunch, tucked in tight to the bank and brushed ourselves in. We could see about 80-90 yards upstream, and about 40 yards down around a bend. Deer coming from their afternoon beds would have to pass us before they could smell us, so we thought this might just work. There are several entry/exit points as well, so deer were hoping in and out all afternoon. Nothing ever busted us, thankfully. We saw several bucks, most for just a brief moment or two. Saw one really nice 11 pointer (we had never seen him before), that was at least 20" wide, but he wasn't very old, so he got to walk.
Finally, this guy came creeping along, about 20 yards behind some does/yearlings. I think he was using them as a screen or something. My dad was able to lay him down just before the does got close enough to bust us. Was a tricky little operation to pull off, with tight quarters and so many eyeballs, but we got it done. Shot at about 70 yards with a muzzleloader.
Would have taken some more photos, but it got dark quick tonight. We had to drag him up the bank and out of the river bottom to get enough light for this pic.
Well, this will probably be my last thing to hang on the Meat Pole this year. I *might* be able to take a CO buddy down to the ranch in TX during the late season, but we are still trying to work something out. Gotta work sometime, I guess... ha ha!
