In the biggest animal miss thread I mentioned a big buck when I was taking customers hunting. Creekrunner mentioned how different customer hunting could be. I think it was about 5 years that I did customer hunting as a host, and brother I do have some good stories. I’ll share one:

As an oil trader, I invited a fellow oil trader from a company based on Long Island NY. My scheduler invited that fellow’s scheduler, and they all rode with me on my old Jeep number 6. Neither of the guests hunted, so we were just on a sightseeing drive, though I did bring my 270 along. Cold crisp day. We had coffee and a slow cruise down senderos, looking at wildlife. But the short wave radio crackled, and it was the old guy that managed the ranch (50,000 acres) that we leased. He said that we needed a doe or three to feed the guests we had (I wasn’t the only host, but was the best hunter and shot). The guests heard the radio chat about killing a few deer, so I offered to take them back to the ranch house, which was a good ways off. They elected to stay with me, and the lady scheduler said she just wouldn’t look when I shot the deer. Ok, that works, so off we went. In short order, there was a fat doe at maybe 100 yards. The lady put her hand over her eyes as I shot. We loaded the deer and went looking for another. She said “this time I think I’ll watch”. Ok, that works, so I found one, shot it, and loaded it in the Jeep. We took the deer to the skinner and the ranch manager said I needed to get one more. The lady guest said she’d go back out with me. When I found a doe at a reasonably short distance, before I could take the shot, she said “can I shoot this one”? And she did. And just
Ike that, a new deer hunter was born. And she shot another deer the next day.

There are lots of interesting stories. Some I’ll share...

Your story about the deer you shot at with customers had me thinking.

A few times I had customers offer for me to kill their deer. Some due to being bad shots others just not caring to kill a deer but didn’t want to be rude to the host.

We had two guys from California who would come down to hunt, Mark & Steve. Both novices but Mark was a horrible shot. One evening we had about a 170” buck come out down the sendero and stop broadside at about 180” yards. He wanted me to kill the deer. I did the right thing and declined, convincing him to take the shot. He did, and hit the buck right in the leg.... never found that deer.

I can read between the lines. This is starting to read like an African novel. "Ohhh, Bwana!!!"

We had a company plane load of Californians fly in one year to quail hunt. It wasn’t good year for quail, and we sent them to the worst hunting area. My Jeep and customers were in the best area for quail, and we weren’t doing any good at all. But over the short wave radio the California crowd was bragging about limiting out. When we all got back to the main house, we found that they had shot a limit of Meadowlarks. They were ever after referred to as California Quail.

Much kidding and beer drinking followed.

'Only lady we ever had on our little company lease was the young wife of an older customer. She was a female lineman when he met her and had recently broken up with...HIS SON! And he brought his son too on the hunts! They all came multiple times, and I gotta say, it was one of the more relaxed times in the schedule. 'Cajun girl, and not a bad looker. All he had to do was take the shot, she handled everything else, including dragging it to the road. The dad was one of the nicest customers we ever had. The contractor doesn't even exist anymore, but I have to say, there are some good people in our state to the east.

Not my story, but a buddy...his father took a high value customer hunting to their company lease near Mason. Customer was a PIA, and on 2nd morning decided to sleep in late. When the other hunters returned, they found the customer sitting in a chair and shooting tweety birds out of the trees around camp - and he had shot a bunch. Of course, that is when the ranch owner decided to drop in for coffee. He saw the birds, informed the group that he was not pleased and the lease would not be renewed. If you hunt w/ strangers, keep an eye on them 'til you know...

our lease owners do not allow customer hunters - too much pressure on the lease member to shoot a deer that should not be shot -

I’ve had a few “customer hunts”. It was always interesting.

Hondo and Shatzie Crouch's son Juan was our "lease owner". He taught me a lot about "pressure".

My dad his uncle leased Hondo and Shatzie's place south of Fredericksburg in the 50's and 60's. He used to come by the camp and tell stories...quite a character.

If you're talking about the ranch 4mi. North of Sistersdale, we got it in '77, and again around '87 after Capital Aggregates had completely messed it up. Hondo was entertaining, but one mixed up, extreme narcissist.

We were on the place on 87 a few miles south of Fredericksburg. I remember hearing him talk about the Sisterdale place.

He was a champion swimmer from what I’ve been told

All American at Texas U

Mom was at "The University" around the same time.

Here's a good, but looong article that a friend sent me. Written by a Fbg. boy. 'Brings back a lot of memories, some good, some not so good.
>The man who dreamed up Luckenbach

Did you ever stop in at the Sisterdale Store back from 90 to 95?

I have one obvious question but will get roasted for asking, did she have a license ?

If you are asking about the NY woman that finally shot a deer, I never asked if she had a license.