The one buck will score really well...... the other buck lacks tine length however he sure put it on width wise! The bucks ears on this particular ranch typically are 18" so you can do the math and he is on the hit list for this year........
Well, its game on. The fun has started. One of the first bucks to hit the ground is a deer we have watched for 5 years. This buck has always had incredible spread and we estimated him to be 8/9 years of age. We asked one of our long-time guests if he would be interested in hunting a 'Wide' deer. He jumped at the opportunity without seeing any pictures. Of course, the buck sensed immediately we were after him and disappeared. Five additional cameras and 41/2 days our hunter finally connected.
Main frame 8 with a 3" inline beam drop right side. 305/8ths inches outside. One heck of an mainframe 8! For those that care about score 168 and change.....
A couple of months ago I posted a hunt available on another ranch further south. That hunt took place a couple of days ago. I'll just say we underestimated this great buck considerably..... This was the big deer (fuzzy pic) i put out there to hunt a couple of months ago. The hunter made a great shot and has a super trophy now. The buck scored 2141/8...... Congrats to the successful hunter.
On certain bucks we do post postmortem's - sometimes due to injury (as in the case with the deer last January) or if we want to gain a better understanding as to what made them special from an antler growing perspective. This was the case with this buck. His body was longer than the typical buck deer on this ranch and he was heavier than most. He was a native deer. The ranch had years of history with this buck. He was a fighter-not a very good one. He was always busted up by Thanksgiving. The old saying -genetics, nutrition, AGE....... Below is his jawbone.... He jumped 30" from last year.
Well, November was a busy month as has been the first part of December. We took a slight detour from the Whitetail world all the way up to SE Utah in early November to chase Mule Deer for a few days. Fortunately our aim was straight and all of us harvested some very nice deer in addition to seeing some beautiful country! Below are the pictures of those bucks.
Additionally, I just got back from the ranches down south. We harvested some very nice native whitetails. The rut is in full swing. I'll start posting those pictures tonight as time permits.
We've had some really good deer hit the ground already from our hunts that we have conducted. This first buck scored 173 and was taken at 257 yds coming into an oat pivot. An interesting note - there still not hitting the oats very much due to the native browse and forbs coming up from the recent rains.... This buck was trailing a doe. The second buck scored 159 7/8 missing 4" of his brow guard on the right side....
This buck has been on our harvest list for the last three years however he has proven to be an absolute ghost. Any little bit of pressure and he goes underground for a week. We have spent hundreds of man hours hunting this particular deer. We have had 11 cameras out monitoring his travel patterns. To say he had become a nomad might be an understatement. In the span of four hours recently he covered 4.25 miles and visited four different stand locations. In the last week with the approaching rut he narrowed his area down to two stand areas but then only at night. Just before our group came in we got a daylight picture of him. Then another along with some girlfriends. Could a pattern be developing? At least long enough to slip in and kill him....
Our group arrives, we take care of the necessities and our guide and guest hike in over a half mile to minimize any disturbance. The does came out about 4:40 pm along with a few other bucks. At about 5:10 The buck comes slipping out along the edge of the brush line on high alert. Its very evident he doesn't like being exposed -our guide whispers to our guest that's him -Kill him now -he's about to leave! Our hunter made a great shot and the rest is in the photo's and he now has a tremendous trophy!
We had one of the best hunt weeks we've had in a long time. It was tough because the bigger deer were out of their pattern but good because they were on the troll and visible which made them kill-able. The first buck was seen only once last year during the hunting season. We got him on camera a number of times this year and then one of the guides actually filmed him briefly. He does not stay in any one place long so it was game on. They started hunting him where they had seen him only to find he had moved 3/4 of a mile to another location where the buck made a mistake and took a dirt nap! The first two photo's are of the ghost buck. This bucks scored 1843/8ths for those that care....
The second buck had been on the watch list for a couple of years and almost always at one particular stand area. He ended up being harvested over a mile from where he normally lives the majority of the year. This deer grossed 153.....
Another nice buck hit the ground this past week. We had been watching this buck on camera for weeks and when we slipped in to hunt him he became a no show. We surmised he was in lock down with a doe. Lots of other bucks were being seen just not the target buck. On day three we made the decision to go in late morning and try and rattle him up. Much to our delight it worked perfectly and he almost ran over the guide who was rattling however the hunter was not positioned to make the shot. At least we found out several key things.... 1) He was still in the immediate area 2) He was not busted up So the vigil continued. That evening another big deer came in that was on the harvest list however he had obviously been fighting since he was missing some 20" of bone. So he now gets a pass until next year. The next morning hunter and guide are back at it with the other guides sitting in other nearby blinds looking in case this buck moved during the night. Shortly after daylight the shot and hit are finally heard. The buck materialized making a scrap almost in the same spot he was rattled up in the day before! You love it when they grow after they hit the ground....... Mainframe 9 with trash - 18 score-able points. One heck of a deer-one heck of a hunt- one happy hunter! For the score hungry 1835/8.....
On certain bucks we do post postmortem's - sometimes due to injury (as in the case with the deer last January) or if we want to gain a better understanding as to what made them special from an antler growing perspective. This was the case with this buck. His body was longer than the typical buck deer on this ranch and he was heavier than most. He was a native deer. The ranch had years of history with this buck. He was a fighter-not a very good one. He was always busted up by Thanksgiving. The old saying -genetics, nutrition, AGE....... Below is his jawbone.... He jumped 30" from last year.
Great question. Sid is thinking 8/9 based on the number of years he has watched him. I'm thinking 7/8 if you solely go off of teeth. We are learning on our other ranches that aging by teeth is not an exact science. In fact we are now extracting the two front incisors out and sending them out for further analysis. We have already learned that even this is not fool[proof though...
Back to the original question though ....... the ranch has 'soft' soils which could attribute to the wear pattern. Not a lot of grit where this buck spent the majority of his time. Regardless, with the years of history that Sid had on this particular buck I think he's probably on age wise. Thanks for the question.
Well, I'm not quite sure where to start. I've been on the ranches for the last 9 days guiding and its been phenomenal. The big deer have changed their patterns due to the rut, constantly on the move, showing up at weird times. We rattled up over 100 bucks in 21/2 days. It was absolutely crazy at times. We had big deer come into 12 yds crashing to a stop foaming at the mouth. All I can say it was crazy hunting and our hunters have some very vivid memories. To say they are spoiled might be an understatement.... Anyway out of all these deer we only harvested three. We had to make sure they were mature and then be able to make ethical shots. One of our hunters probably heard no 70 times (to young, to small, not a good shot, before he heard kill'em)! Anyway below are the bucks we were able to harvest while rattling. And we did find another ghost BIG 8 we had not seen before. I have a few more pictures I will post later.
A few more of the deer we harvested last week during our two hunts. As I mentioned in the previous post the normal patterns evaporated however we were still successful in finding good bucks. The first buck scored 191", the second was an 8x8 that had great mass and touched 176" and the third we caught up to at dark with a doe at the edge of one of our oat pivots. It was a great time to be in South Texas Texas!
Its not to early to book for next year as we have plenty of carryover deer!!
I've had a cancellation on my family ranch east of Sonora during the week of January 24th. This is primarily a whitetail hunt although I do have axis. This hunt can be for a 130 up to a trophy class type buck since we have plenty of deer. If your seriously looking please PM me. I do not post my pricing. The enclosed is the type of quality deer I have......
