Colorado Bend either sex hunt

Was lucky to get drawn for this one, my only one of many places and species.... so was really excited. It was from Dec 11th to Dec 14th, and started very slow and admittedly a bit disappointing as I didn’t see but one buck the first two days, and it was when I was walking to a different spot after deciding my first spot was not looking good. I saw a great buck looking at me at about 30 yards, but I couldn’t do anything but freeze and look back as I was carrying a few things and had my gun slinged on my shoulder, it bolted as soon as I reached for it. I’m sure he was as surprised asI was to see me. I sat by a tree for the rest of the day and saw him way out about 350 yards in a clearing, and tried to sneak up on him but he was gone when I made it there.
The next day (Thursday) I decided to set a popup blind on a larger opening I saw on satellite image just beyond that clearing where I saw the buck, and around 7:15am a different buck and some does showed up, I shot the buck and the does ran a bit but stayed close and shot one of them, I was excited to say the least; I didn’t see anything the rest of that day, but Friday morning around 8:40am a lone doe showed up and completed the hunt quota.
I was hunting compartment 1, and from what I heard compartment 2 was the most productive with more deer taken as well as 3 or 4 aoudad. The buck I got was an 11 pointer with an inside spread of 15.5 inches. My personal best, super excited!

Really good deer for that area.

Congrats on a great public lands trophy.

Awesome hunt

Beautiful dark horned buck
Congrats, ya did good

Thanks guys, a really good way to wrap up the year.

The finished mount. Now to convince the wife for some wall real estate

Nice!

Very Nice! Congrats on the hunt and euro!

Very cool! Where did you get the Texas plaque?

X2

The plaque is from M&M Butcher Block in Lampasas, it’s near Colorado Bend SP where the buck was taken. It’s cedar, but they have other woods as well. They did my son’s mount a few years ago (from Colorado Bend as too!!), but they sell the plaques by themselves as well.

Great deer!

nice public buck!

Congratulations. Glad it worked out so well for you. Good looking buck.

Nice Deer.

Like that smile!!! Congrats.

congrats on a very nice buck, especially for public land!

Excellent buck!

Thank you everyone, and just for clarification the buck in the last picture was shot by my son also at Colorado Bend on Dec/2015 (his first buck), while the one with me (the old guy) was taken this past December. They do look pretty similar.

Colorado Bend SP is an awesome place to hunt. Beautiful trophy!!

What a great memory for you congrats!!!