41 Mag
Member
Well it got the fire lit under us when we pulled the game cam cards week before last. We have a small family farm of about 118 acres and with a bit of management we have been able to hold a few does to it year round. IT is all low fenced East Texas sandy loam and red clay. We might have 30 acres of combined trees on the whole place the rest is open pasture dedicated to hay and cattle. As such we sectioned off the most wooded pasture of about 15 acres and set it aside strictly for the deer. Even at this it probably only has around 5 acres of trees and brush, but we have kept it thick so they have somewhat of a sanctuary. We run one protein feeder and one motorized and try to keep something in one or the other or both if possible year round. Added to this we also try ad put in around 4 acres of food plot, but with the drought that was a dismal failure this year.
Even so there are still a few nice bucks that come around from time to time, and this one was what we found Friday before last, in the rye grass patch within 20yds of my bow stand,
Well with a 10yr old grandson, I was REALLY hoping he would get fired up and want to hunt this one exclusively. He was interested, but not overly so, but his mom however was hooked at first sight. We have always been competitive and she and I are always tweaking each other to see who can get the "big one", before the other. Being this is low fence and a small property with hunters all around us, the chances of anyone but us getting him was very high. Well she didn't get to hunt due to work and having kids and such, and I came up on vacation for the week last Friday as mentioned when I pulled the card. I had other things which needed to be taken care of, as well as going hunting with a good friend on his place, so combined with that and the weather we had I simply left things alone here on the farm. Then on Thursday morning I pulled the cards again and found this one,
This really put her in a frenzy as we were all heading over to my inlaws for Thanksgiving dinner and we knew there wouldn't be time to hunt when we got home. All the while we wee there I was yanking her chain about ow the "big one" was going to end up in someone else's sights, or that me and the oldest grandson were going to slip out there and get him before she had a chance too. Most men do not have the patients she has once she sets her mind to getting a deer. She will hunt them relentlessly with all the spare time she can possibly put towards the effort, and that is precisely what she did.
The grandson and I talked it over on whether he wanted to stay here or head over to my friends place and hunt with them. Their place is 1500 acres of prime river bottom with plenty of deer and hogs which he simply loves to go over and hunt or simply watch the deer. He knows that even though we might not shoot one, he has the chance to see some really nice ones, and that is what he chose. So at 04:00 we loaded up and hit the road headed to my friends as we were driving the daughter called and said she was headed to our farm. We saw some nice deer and a couple of other folks managed a few does. So our trip was turing out to be fun to say the least. Then at 11:15 I got a call, "big buck down at 10:53". She had hit the field at 05:30 and waited him out.
Here are the fruits of our efforts,
I am pretty proud of her, to say the least, but I might have been a bit more proud had the grandson picked him up instead. Like I said we are very competitive, and she wasted no time in starting to rub it in, on both me and the grandson. For me, it is a culmination of a years worth of hard work to try and draw them in from the other properties, and give them a safe harbor so to speak. We don't hunt the one pasture which is dedicated to them so they have a place to feel safe and bed down. We do however hunt the open pastures and wood lines surround the rest of the property, and at any given moment something can pop up that is totally unexpected. I usually have a pretty decent idea of what is hanging around as we're here on a VERY regular basis, and see the deer year round. This one however has eluded us right up until we caught him on the camera. The daughter said she thought it was one she had not been able to get on last year when she took a nice buck from our back woods. Even so he is a trophy of a lifetime for here, and is by and far the best we have ever taken. The place has been in the family since back in the 30's and I have hunted it all my life. I have seen a few that came close, through the years, but they always eluded us, and were usually taken by one of the neighboring hunters. Myself, I really don't "hunt" here on the place but leave what ever comes along to the kids. I just put in the work to try and make it as good as it can be for them. I might have to start rethinking this process however, since we have already seen at least one young one with this one's characteristics.
Sometimes though it all comes together, so now on to the next one....
Even so there are still a few nice bucks that come around from time to time, and this one was what we found Friday before last, in the rye grass patch within 20yds of my bow stand,
Well with a 10yr old grandson, I was REALLY hoping he would get fired up and want to hunt this one exclusively. He was interested, but not overly so, but his mom however was hooked at first sight. We have always been competitive and she and I are always tweaking each other to see who can get the "big one", before the other. Being this is low fence and a small property with hunters all around us, the chances of anyone but us getting him was very high. Well she didn't get to hunt due to work and having kids and such, and I came up on vacation for the week last Friday as mentioned when I pulled the card. I had other things which needed to be taken care of, as well as going hunting with a good friend on his place, so combined with that and the weather we had I simply left things alone here on the farm. Then on Thursday morning I pulled the cards again and found this one,
This really put her in a frenzy as we were all heading over to my inlaws for Thanksgiving dinner and we knew there wouldn't be time to hunt when we got home. All the while we wee there I was yanking her chain about ow the "big one" was going to end up in someone else's sights, or that me and the oldest grandson were going to slip out there and get him before she had a chance too. Most men do not have the patients she has once she sets her mind to getting a deer. She will hunt them relentlessly with all the spare time she can possibly put towards the effort, and that is precisely what she did.
The grandson and I talked it over on whether he wanted to stay here or head over to my friends place and hunt with them. Their place is 1500 acres of prime river bottom with plenty of deer and hogs which he simply loves to go over and hunt or simply watch the deer. He knows that even though we might not shoot one, he has the chance to see some really nice ones, and that is what he chose. So at 04:00 we loaded up and hit the road headed to my friends as we were driving the daughter called and said she was headed to our farm. We saw some nice deer and a couple of other folks managed a few does. So our trip was turing out to be fun to say the least. Then at 11:15 I got a call, "big buck down at 10:53". She had hit the field at 05:30 and waited him out.
Here are the fruits of our efforts,
I am pretty proud of her, to say the least, but I might have been a bit more proud had the grandson picked him up instead. Like I said we are very competitive, and she wasted no time in starting to rub it in, on both me and the grandson. For me, it is a culmination of a years worth of hard work to try and draw them in from the other properties, and give them a safe harbor so to speak. We don't hunt the one pasture which is dedicated to them so they have a place to feel safe and bed down. We do however hunt the open pastures and wood lines surround the rest of the property, and at any given moment something can pop up that is totally unexpected. I usually have a pretty decent idea of what is hanging around as we're here on a VERY regular basis, and see the deer year round. This one however has eluded us right up until we caught him on the camera. The daughter said she thought it was one she had not been able to get on last year when she took a nice buck from our back woods. Even so he is a trophy of a lifetime for here, and is by and far the best we have ever taken. The place has been in the family since back in the 30's and I have hunted it all my life. I have seen a few that came close, through the years, but they always eluded us, and were usually taken by one of the neighboring hunters. Myself, I really don't "hunt" here on the place but leave what ever comes along to the kids. I just put in the work to try and make it as good as it can be for them. I might have to start rethinking this process however, since we have already seen at least one young one with this one's characteristics.
Sometimes though it all comes together, so now on to the next one....
