New poster first post!

Just wanted to post up a quick review for DB hunting ranch in Betram, tx. Had the opportunity to go out for a red doe hunt in late October and had a great time. Will write this as sequentially as possible .

This was my first hunting experience and I was really excited/nervous to get out there. Met our guide Cody, great guy, and he took me and the two other hunters to the ranch. Got put in the first stand at about 6:15ish still dark. Got my rifle savage trophy hunter in .338 winmag (More on this later) got out my phone and waited…feeder went off and in came the hogs! And I mean lots of them! Very nice looking Calico colored hog with a couple of piglets caught my eye she and a dozen or so others made quick work of that corn. About two or three minutes later just as the sun is beginning to come out a fallow buck and a couple does walked over and started to feed. Man he was pretty, then some sika does and a goat or two…but no red hinds.:(
Suns way up on the horizon now about 8:00 and the few hogs still hanging about are scuttling around the feeder picking up what the deer didn’t take. Then the buffalo approach and I mean they scared the you know what outa me. Came from behind my blind and kinda eyeballed me lol but I guess they figured I wasn’t so scary and they beboped on by to the feeder. Cool looking animals and big, I’ll say this I am a city girl for the most part so wildlife is a bit of a curiosity to me, and honestly just watching them feed and interact was pretty cool in and of itself.
About 10 or so Danny (owner) comes up in his ATV and takes me around the property to look for my Hind, place is about 400 acers or so but lots of cover and brush so it seems bigger than it is. Animals have a lot of hiding spots. We roll up on a group of sika does and since the Hinds are being elusive Danny says he’ll put me on two sika for the price of the red hind. Well from what I’ve heard sika are as tasty as Red Deer so I say cool and we commence to stalk them. Finally get a good shot of one separated from the heard and quartered away from us. Bout a 60-70 yard shot, I jump out and lean against the ATV for support aim for the spot just behind the shoulder and BANG! The doe leaps up the other two head for the hills and the scope knocks the living you know what outa me!

We roll up to where the doe was and have a pretty good blood trail to follow tracked her for about 10 minutes or so…that brush though thick mean and everywhere almost lost my good eye in that stuff scratched up my arms but adrenaline is got me going. Danny says load another round just in case so I drop the bolt…nothing casing is stuck in the barrel. SMH So like a caveman/woman I tap the butt of the gun against the ground and the casing falls out…not good. Well about 15 minutes after the shot we drop on the doe she’s DRT. Big grin and a fist bump and he drags her out.

We load her up in the ATV and head back to pick up the other two hunters and break for lunch. I decide to have her processed at DB’s and Kelly (Danny’s wife) helps me out great folks btw very friendly. He says after lunch we’ll go out for another doe and I hit the road to liberty hill for some Chicken Express. Come back after lunch and Danny says lets take a look at my rifle, we go out to another part of the property…load another round aim at a target and BANG…once again my scope decides to take a chunk outa my eye/forehead. Well after that I’m thinking this aint safe and Danny is on the same page, he says his wife has a .308 and he lets me borrow it plus some ammo.
This folks is above and beyond as far as I am concerned when it comes to customer service because quite frankly he didn’t have to go out of his way and do that. We head on out and find another group of sika Doe but I think they’re wise to us because the haul but and don’t stop. We stalk them for a while Get one shot off but miss so we wander around until we happen upon a fallow doe Danny says take a shot but we cant get a good angle so we wait until she gets in a good spot and I jump out of the ATV and head toward her. She quarters away from me chewing on some corn so I take aim at the sweet spot behind the shoulder and fire…hit and she runs off into that brush…where we proceed to locate no blood trail. I was convinced I hit her though those crosshairs were right on her so we track and we track and we track but after about 45 mins of crawling through that thicket we decide to head back to the camp. And come back out later.
We break and I sit in the lodge area and the other hunting group goes out on a hog dog hunt. At about 8p Danny’s son comes and takes me back to the blind to scout for my missing fallow I hang out up there until about 9:30p and the coyotes start to howl and Cody comes and takes me back to camp. He tells me he’ll try and find my fallow in the morning and call me when he does. I pay the remainder of my hunt fee for the two deer and for the skinning/quartering of my sika. And leave a tip. Next morning Cody calls and says he’s got my fallow and I tell him how I want her processed.
End of story
Overall impressions:
the good

On a whole I had a fantastic time and wouldn’t hesitate to go back or recommend to anyone else! Danny, Kelly, and Cody all treated me great and worked their butts off for me. Sad not to see a red hind but What I did get aint so bad lol. Plus it gives me a reason to go hunting again. The price for what I’ve seen on the internet and on here was pretty good Break down:
Sika Doe 350
Fallow doe 350
Skinning/Quartering/processing for both 440
Processing was a bit high but I’m not confident enough to do it myself and I got a lot of jerky/sausage made and that adds up pretty quick.

The bad:
The brush my nemesis!!!!!! That place is covered up in that stuff it makes the hunting/stalking tougher by my goodness it is everywhere.
The area where the overnight guests stay had a bunch of trash left over from a previous group
No dedicated restrooms just a port-a-potty.
Not a whole lot to do in the downtime but I just took a power nap so to each his own lol

Anyway great to be here on the forum and had a great time at DB’s