Don't know where the week has gone!

Back on Sunday, I was doing some chores around the house and noticed a young doe being chased by a small buck. Over the course of an hour it continued, but the string of bucks built to five following her around. I continued my chores until out of the corner of my eye; I noticed my hound dog squared up with another buck in my driveway. My hound is good, won't chase anything, but I could tell the buck was looking for trouble. I took a bit of effort on my part to run him off and briefly, I thought it might get personal.

I finished up my chores around three, my wife had a ladies thing in town, so I thought I might as well sit in a stand. Hadn't planned on it as deer stuff has been slow around here, but it seemed to be the thing to do because of the activity around the house.

There are two bucks on my list of possibilities, both eights. One is a 3 YO and the other a 6. The young one has sights on him as all my 3 YO plus are tens with a lot more features. The 6 YO is awesome, but since he turned four, he goes missing until sometime around December when he becomes a fixture in the pasture. Both deer hang out where a native grass pasture heads a riparian area down into a creek system. Right where the two areas meet, natives into riparian, I have a tower blind.

On the walk from the house, I hit and parallelled the drainage upwind while I trailed a scent drag behind me. I was about 75 yards off the drainage and followed it for about 250-yards uphill until it hit the natives. I left the drag out in the grass and settled in. Nothing seemed like I would have any luck, the temperature and food conditions downhill, but I thought it beat watching TV. I sat for two hours, not seeing anything when I noticed a sound under the tower. I thought it might be a large hog slowly coming out in the grass, but when it appeared, it was the younger eight point. I let him move out from the tower and shot him when he was about 10 yards from the drag as I knew he would bolt when he saw it.



We all have moments, and this was one. Last year, my dad who lives on my ranch, gave up hunting. He gave me his rifle, and this is the rifle that he hunted with since 1966. It is a 1964 Win Model 94 that he bought on clearance in 1966 for $25 at Gibson's in Corpus Christi. I did some work to it with his approval. It has been rebored/rechambered to a 35-30, and I found a period correct Redfield Jr. Scout Base for the barrel which I drilled and tapped. He came out to the pasture on the Mule to pick me up and was very pleased.

I was also grateful that the younger eight stepped out as I would have shot the older eight in a heartbeat. I'd prefer to let a young fellow kill it for his first deer, it didn't work out last year, and I think it would be a heck of a first deer. This is the eight last year.



Here he is this year, out on the far right of the picture approaching the feeder. This is the last picture I have of him this year and don't expect to see him again until around the end of November or start of December. The young fellow is lined up again for all of Christmas break. It will need to get done this year.



Final note, it is now Thursday afternoon and I haven't seen another deer since I killed the eight. Weird year for sure.

Great looking Buck

A doe cycling in early can get deer stirred up and moving very well. Congrats on the buck with the rifle that is a piece of family history.

Thanks fellows!

nice deer sir

great job on a very nice buck!

Hell of a younger deer to take! I say this while completely understanding the others you have around and what your trying to build.

Thank fellows!


I fully understand your comment. After years of working under the ARs, the choices are not getting any easier to make. The decisions have moved from "is he legal?", to "what's his potential?"; the undesirables have been weeded out unless they wander in. This guy was a super aggressive 6 pt last year at 2 YO and I sure thought about shooting him then as all his contemporaries were eights. It was too close to the 13" call for me. I guess he was still aggressive, he had been stabbed twice in the brisket by tines, deep. I was surprised that he had not been ventilated.

So, it's on to watching for the large 8 and figuring out a plan to put a young man on him.

Congrats! Dang nice buck.

Congrats on a nice buck!...Been several years since I hunted in DeWitt County, but I remember the nice bucks I saw out there.
I had the pleasure of seeing over several years what antler restrictions were meant to do, and it was working out there anyway.

Thanks, STX! Reference our conversation of starting over somewhere else, this weighs heavily against it. It has been a long road, 15 years, and I'm not sure I have the time to travel it again


Thanks, Jimbo. Yes, overall this county has done very well by them. West of the Guadalupe into Cuero and west of US87 out of the County to the south, the west side of the County, has a lot of potential. My perspective is that the ARs wore a lot of hunters out. If you didn't live by them, you ended up without any deer. It also brought on a whole new level of hunting skill requirements, shooting a deer older than 2YO, that some of these hunters did not possess. If you want to see deer, feeder hunting is easy but good luck seeing a deer that is 13" or greater. The success is also part of our GW's perspective, both the retired and the new guy, there is no magic to the 13" rule.

Very nice, love the height!

Great post! Nice deer!

Good morning and thanks, Guys! Had one of my large 3YO ten points working around a couple does here at the house this morning.

Yes it does weigh heavily when you get to a certain age. I used to not think much about managing for the future when I was younger since "time" was not that much of an issue. Nowadays "time" goes much faster and age/health goes with it. The deer get older one year at a time and so do we.

Congrats nice deer!

Congrats. Very nice.

wow man great buck

Thanks guys!

Good job, ranch dog. Great story too. Good that you're keeping Dads rifle busy.

Nice buck