texashuntingforum.com logo
Main Menu
Advertisement
Affiliates
Advertisement
Newest Members
nmmuledeerhunter, Dzia-Dzia, TraeMartin, Beatixre, MooseSteed
71989 Registered Users
Top Posters(All Time)
dogcatcher 110,788
bill oxner 91,416
SnakeWrangler 65,417
stxranchman 60,296
Gravytrain 46,950
RKHarm24 44,585
rifleman 44,461
Stub 43,769
Forum Statistics
Forums46
Topics537,031
Posts9,719,630
Members86,989
Most Online25,604
Feb 12th, 2024
Print Thread
Page 2 of 2 1 2
Re: Describe your early hunting experiences [Re: txtrophy85] #7880412 06/25/20 02:25 AM
Joined: Feb 2013
Posts: 4,683
K
krmitchell Offline
Extreme Tracker
Offline
Extreme Tracker
K
Joined: Feb 2013
Posts: 4,683
I’m going to guess this was ‘89. I shot my first deer and my dad grabbed a miller lite for me to celebrate at 0730 that morning. San Saba River Ranch that my grandfather owned. Great deer/turkey hunting memories out there. Second pic is from the house on the bluff above the San Saba River. We had almost a mile of river front. If that ranch ever comes back up for sale I’d sell everything I own to buy it.

[Linked Image]
[Linked Image]

Re: Describe your early hunting experiences [Re: txtrophy85] #7880428 06/25/20 02:54 AM
Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 5,025
J
jetdad Offline
THF Trophy Hunter
Offline
THF Trophy Hunter
J
Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 5,025
Gorgeous piece of property.

Re: Describe your early hunting experiences [Re: txtrophy85] #7880492 06/25/20 05:03 AM
Joined: Nov 2014
Posts: 132
D
Dove Murderer Offline
Woodsman
Offline
Woodsman
D
Joined: Nov 2014
Posts: 132
First deer, 9 years old sitting on my dad’s lap. Doe eating corn at ~75 yards. Dad sits the 270 through the blind window (on a rag or course to prevent scuffs/scratches.....I’ve inherited his OCD I think). Dad only allows neck shots, I’m about ready to squeeze the trigger and he waives me off, says another deer is coming from our right.

Button buck walks within 1-2 yards, I swear puts his nose into the blind window. 270 is shaking/squeaky all over the place. Ask dad if I should shoot....he says to wait til the deer is a little further.

The two deer meet up, I decide to kill the doe since she had a limp. Try the neck shot, whiff it, she bolts, dumb button buck stays. I’m devastated. Dad calms me best he could. I gather myself, aim for the neck of the button buck, squeeze the trigger, he drops like a “ton of bricks” ( dads words).

Over the moon excited, neck shot turned out to be a head shot, and I’m ecstatic that I’ve killed a buck.

I will never forget that day and the pure excitement of the moment.

Would’ve been ~1995 in Lampassas.

Re: Describe your early hunting experiences [Re: txtrophy85] #7880707 06/25/20 01:55 PM
Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 5,630
O
Ox190 Offline
THF Trophy Hunter
Offline
THF Trophy Hunter
O
Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 5,630
In the 80s my grandfather had access to an 18 Section ranch outside of Christoval, TX owned by a man with the last name Creighton. My mom has pictures of my Grandfather and Uncles taking me hunting with them in a car seat. Grandpa drove while my uncle's rode in the bed until they either spotted deer or found a spot they wanted to walk to check out. Up until I was 9-10 I spent a lot of time in November-December riding in the trucks with my family watching them hunt. My grandfather passed away when I was 12 and I never got to shoot a deer when he was alive. Luckily my step dad taught me how to shoot and we had a deer lease in Coke County. Shot my first deer (tiny doe) out of my step dad's blind when I was 13. I'll never forgot how much fun we had at deer camp, running around the woods in the off-season with a single shot .22 and a pocketful of shells. Seems like a lifetime ago but it was only the mid 90s. Luckily I have access to two small ranches owned by close friends that my 17 month old son will hopefully grow up hunting on.

Last edited by Ox190; 06/25/20 01:56 PM.

"There has never been an occasion where a people gave up their weapons in the interest of peace that didn't end in their massacre." Louis L'Amour
Re: Describe your early hunting experiences [Re: txtrophy85] #7880826 06/25/20 03:23 PM
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 39,481
R
redchevy Offline
THF Celebrity
Offline
THF Celebrity
R
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 39,481
In 2 words... killing deer!

Op you will know exactly where it was. My first deer lease is what is now George Ranch subdivision on FM 3009 and Schoenthal Road in Garden Ridge.


It's hell eatin em live
Re: Describe your early hunting experiences [Re: txtrophy85] #7881183 06/25/20 09:06 PM
Joined: May 2017
Posts: 5,157
S
Smokey Bear Online Content
THF Trophy Hunter
Online Content
THF Trophy Hunter
S
Joined: May 2017
Posts: 5,157
Squirrel hunting in a lawn chair with a 22 lr in a pecan orchard. Following a pointing dog down the fence lines with my first shotgun, a break action single shot 410 and thinking I had the best dog in the world. Still hunting the creek bottom down to a persimmon thicket the deer fed because I almost never got up in time to get there before daybreak. Carrying a hand me down 30-30 Winchester 94 that made me feel like chuck connors and waiting for a nice young buck that would make good fry meat. Putting out a set with my grandpa’s old weathered cork decoys and digging a trench in the family peanut field to lay in with an ironing board in it to keep dry and covering up with A tow sack with peanut hay woven in it for ducks and geese. My Grandpa laughing at me and saying “boy, you gotta learn to miss em to learn to hit em”. Laying on the back side of the tank damn for hours with my old olt mallard call trying to say what the ducks said to one another. Jump shooting mallards off the tanks after school with my good timing buddy if we were struggling to get them to decoy. Skipping a half day of school when the First flights of teal showed up and hunting the county water supply lake. Showing up late for school wet with our shotguns in a ready ranger rifle rack in the back window of the truck. Splitting the cost of one box of federal 2 3/4” 20 guage duck and pheasant with my buddy and going Rock Paper Scissors to determine which of us got 13 shot shells. The principal used to ask us if the birds were here and where we hunted before writing us a late slip and telling us to go on to class and make up what we missed. Of course we never gave up our true location to him.
Times have sure changed.

Last edited by Smokey Bear; 06/25/20 09:09 PM.

Smokey Bear---Lone Star State.
Re: Describe your early hunting experiences [Re: txtrophy85] #7881932 06/26/20 03:17 PM
Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 420
cheetah577 Offline
Bird Dog
Offline
Bird Dog
Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 420
It was opening day weekend,1969 in Wimberley, TX. My Pop and I were deer hunting with other family members and friends. I was 6 years old and it was amazing. It was a cool morning (40 degrees) and all I had to wear on my feet were cowboy boots. My toes froze! I learn a valuable lesson. We didn't get a deer that weekend, but a lot of other people did. I got to help skin and process over 10 deer. We ate like kings!
The next year we went back for opening weekend. My Pop had borrowed a WW2 Jap 6.5 rifle from a friend. It was cold, but I was prepared. I shot my first deer (doe) that morning. My Pop was more excited than me! That was 50 years ago.......


God bless John Wayne!
Re: Describe your early hunting experiences [Re: txtrophy85] #7881944 06/26/20 03:25 PM
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 21,370
B
Bullfrog Offline
THF Celebrity
Offline
THF Celebrity
B
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 21,370
First dove bunting trip I ever went on, I was 16. I’d been hauling hay all summer with some buddies. Best job I ever had btw. The land owner set up 2-4 round bails around all his ponds and they flew like crazy. I missed every one I shot at but had fun just being there.

End of the day, they all dump their pouches and all these birds are headless! I’m like WTH! I can’t even shoot their body and y’all are shootin’ their heads clean off?

They had me going for a minute. I’ve never felt so dumb roflmao


[Linked Image]
Originally Posted by machinist
Man if I knew what Oxner knows I could throw away what I know
Re: Describe your early hunting experiences [Re: krmitchell] #7882839 06/27/20 12:02 PM
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 19,498
E
Erathkid Offline
THF Celebrity
Offline
THF Celebrity
E
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 19,498
Originally Posted by krmitchell
I’m going to guess this was ‘89. I shot my first deer and my dad grabbed a miller lite for me to celebrate at 0730 that morning. San Saba River Ranch that my grandfather owned. Great deer/turkey hunting memories out there. Second pic is from the house on the bluff above the San Saba River. We had almost a mile of river front. If that ranch ever comes back up for sale I’d sell everything I own to buy it.

[Linked Image]
[Linked Image]

Looks like paradise.


Life is too short, as is. Don't chance it.
Don't text and drive.
Re: Describe your early hunting experiences [Re: txtrophy85] #7882843 06/27/20 12:12 PM
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 6,170
J
Jimbo Offline
THF Trophy Hunter
Offline
THF Trophy Hunter
J
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 6,170
Back in the early sixties deer season started in Bandera County on Nov. 16th whenever the 16th fell on the day, that was where the season started.
I was barely into my teens, and opening day seemed to always be chilly if not down right cold.
Without much fanfare my dad let me use his 30-30, sat me on a stump in the dark, and told me to watch the opening out in front of my makeshift ground blind, and I remember shivering as his flashlight slowly disappeared into the distance as he left me there in the dark.
I shivered from the cold, and more so from just being a little scared out there in the pitch dark, and all the sounds around me.
It began to get daylight, and I felt a little better and then having sat there for a short while I saw a doe and two small ones cross the clearing about 40 yards away.
My heart raced and then a buck crossed running behind them.
I couldn't see where they had gone, but kept watching to my left and the only opening I could see through the cedars was the trail that I used walking into my blind.
It was only about 10 yards to the trail where I walked in, and all of a sudden I saw legs as I peered under the cedar limbs.
It was the doe and the two small ones and as they passed I knew what was coming next so I disregarded the doe and the fawns and focused my concentration on what was going to follow.
Sure enough, here came the buck and as he stood where my trail entered my blind, he stopped and froze and looked at me, but my concentration was on that bead sight and the notch of the rear sight as I centered it on his shoulder and pulled the trigger.
BOOOOM, and the next thing I was staring up at the sky and the tops of the trees as I lay on my back looking at the sky. The recoil sent me off the log I was sitting on and onto my back.
I gathered myself and went to look where he stood, and all I could see was fresh dirt kicked up and so I began to follow the tracks.
About 20 yards I noticed blood, and as I crawled under to bushes where the trail led, I looked up and saw the 6 pointer lying there dead.
I gathered myself and after I somewhat calmed down I drug the deer to the road about 40 yards away from where the deer dropped which when he ran off he did me a favor by running about 100 yards toward the road where I would be picked up.
I had helped to clean deer before although never having done the job myself, only observing so I knew more or less what to do.
It took me a while, but I did the job, and I don't know who was more bloody, me, or the deer.
My dad had heard the shot, and he took his time getting to me, but I was all done with the gutting and I was proud, and I'm sure so was my dad.
With my dad, it was more expected since he wasn't one to give praise freely.
I wasn't a novice when it came to taking small game by then, having roamed the woods alone, I hunted with BB guns and .22's stalking the woods for birds and rabbits, but the deer was sort of a natural step, just bigger.
The rest is history!



Thursday at 12:45 PM
#33
Once i learned that i didn't "NEED" to kill something, and that if i did kill something all the fun stopped and work began, i was a much better hunter.
Re: Describe your early hunting experiences [Re: txtrophy85] #7883581 06/28/20 12:45 PM
Joined: Jan 2019
Posts: 3,586
1
10 Gauge Online Content
Extreme Tracker
Online Content
Extreme Tracker
1
Joined: Jan 2019
Posts: 3,586
Didn't grow up with a man in the house, but Grandma kept me in field and stream and my mom always made sure I had a decent pellet rifle.

I started out shooting birds with a pellet rifle, age 6. Tried several times to hunt cottontails with bowsI picked up at yard sales but I was never successful, could not get close enough or shoot well enough back then.

My (step) grandfather at the time used to fix fried rabbit and biscuits with gravy for breakfast every morning. It was literally exactly just like chicken to me back then.

First time I killed a cottontail, it was with a BB gun. Art, mom's boyfriend at the time, had a GSP named Snickers. He and I and she (Snickers) went rabbit hunting at his parent's place in West Texas with my BB Gun (Daisy Quicksilver).

Snickers eventually went off to do her own thing. We found a cottontail and it ran up in a pile of PVC in a field. Art expected this much, we walked over to the PVC and he began to stand the pipes up and shake them one at a time until a cottontail flew out of one. It hit the ground running and I hit it on the very first shot with the little BB gun. Didn't kill it but rolled it and the rabbit started screaming.

I began to run over to finish it off, Art stopped me. Before he could say anything, Snickers came out of nowhere like a flash, snagged up that rabbit and shook the life right out of it.

Instead of eating that cottontail, we used it to bait jugs. Apparently cottontail rabbit is good catfish bait, lol.

Art later admitted, he did not think the BB gun would work if I even managed to hit one.

They split up and I did not have another successful hunt (other than birds) until I was a teenager. When they split, and he tried to take snickers, she cried for me and i cried for her too. He let me have his beloved GSP.

The absolute best dog ever. Mom and Grandma could not whip me or even get cross with me unless they put her up. She defended me fiercely, the sweetest and most loyal dog.

Last edited by Bryan C. Heimann; 06/28/20 12:51 PM.

1 Thessalonians 4:11-14
Re: Describe your early hunting experiences [Re: txtrophy85] #7884533 06/29/20 11:16 AM
Joined: Jul 2015
Posts: 2,877
S
sbushee Online Content
Veteran Tracker
Online Content
Veteran Tracker
S
Joined: Jul 2015
Posts: 2,877
Early 80’s in central Texas with my 30-30. My dad didn’t hunt but he tolerated taking me until I turned 14 and started driving myself (we lived in the country). He’d put me in a tree and say, “don’t shoot it unless it has horns”. Back then doe permits were required. Man I loved sitting in the crook of a tree just waiting to see anything. To this day I’m still passionate about whitetail deer, and I still have that 30-30 from long ago.

Page 2 of 2 1 2
Previous Thread
Index
Next Thread

© 2004-2024 OUTDOOR SITES NETWORK all rights reserved USA and Worldwide
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.3