Opening day in TX

[Bitmap]

I think I have enough pics here to justify a thread to myself. I have more pics but I'm only allowed 6 per thread.

I hunted in the new blind for the first time on opening day for whitetails. The week before I was there with my two oldest (7 and 6) and my dad for youth season but the kiddos just couldn't settle down so we didn't see anything.

My dad had put a new box on the feeder and it was set for 0700 which was way before daylight due to the overcast. I've never seen a deer at the feeder before but a whitetail doe came and started feeding. At first she was very skittish and looked around at every sound but after 20 minutes or so she calmed down and didn't look up from eating. Then from the other direction I noticed a buck approaching, followed by another buck that looked equal to the first.

The first buck came right up the road you see in the pics. When he decided to turn to his right off the road I decided to take him. He made a huge jump and then another and was out of sight in the trees. I noticed as he made his second leap that there was already a red spot on his rib cage.

When I looked back at the second buck he was looking after the first buck. The he looked around and sort of started a little dance by lifting each hoof one at a time then setting them down. Finally, he decided something wasn't right and he turned and made a couple of big jumps and ran. I was surprised that he never raised his flag when he left.

I looked back over at the feeder and the doe was still there feeding. I waited about 10 minutes before starting to climb down. She left as I came down the ladder.

I walked down to where the buck was walking when I shot him and looked around. I saw him piled up about 50 yards away. There was too much brush around to measure with a laser but that is my best guess.

The week before we were covered in wasps in the blind but I didn't have too much trouble with wasps that early - only two in the blind.

I took the deer to Diamond-P Processing in Clarendon. The phone number is 806-874-3083. Tell them David sent you. Unfortunately, they don't do summer sausage but for normal stuff they are great.

Now for the pics.

I know the experts say you shouldn't show a bloody mess in your pics but I like to take some of the deer where and how it was when I found it.


Here are a couple of me with the deer. I moved the deer out in the open to get better light for pics.



Here is just the deer.


Here is how the deer made his way to the butcher shop.


Here is a view from the blind showing the buck's location when I shot him. Range was 70 yards.

[humanoid]

Gratz. Thanks for sharing your story and pics.

[H&R088]

When you use a feeder is it hunting, trapping, or a combination of the to?

[Capp35]

When you use a feeder is it hunting, trapping, or a combination of the to?

If you are trying to criticize him, at least do it with proper grammar.
The word is two, not "to".

[Yithian]

Its harvesting.

Not to downplay it that much... meat is meat.

To hunt requires spot and stalk, IMO.

[Bitmap]

When you use a feeder is it hunting, trapping, or a combination of the to?

When there is a 200 acre wheat field on the east side, a cattle operation with special irrigated grass on the west side, a 30 acre alfalfa patch 1/4 mile to the south and a river 2 miles to the north is it hunting, trapping or harvesting?

Maybe that's why I was surprised to see a deer at the feeder - because I've never seen that before.

Maybe I should ask the farmers and ranchers around my farm to stop growing stuff just to make my hunting more of a challenge so it will satisfy people like H&R088 and Yithian. I probably should go shoot holes in the water tank as well - I wouldn't want to do anything to attract wildlife because it wouldn't be hunting.

To hunt requires spot and stalk, IMO.

That's funny. My farm is 160 acres. 120 in CRP. 40 in "native pasture" which means overgrown with elm trees, plum thickets, prickly pears, and grass burrs. The 40 is split into two parts separated by 300 yards. Spot and stalk is funny in a compressed area like that.

ETA If I have a game trail on my farm that looks like a small bulldozer has come through the area I shouldn't sit and wait to ambush a deer because that would be harvesting instead of hunting?

What about rubs? On another farm I've got 4 or 5 cedar trees in about an acre that all have limbs rubbed bare. 50 feet from them is a spot about 20'x50' where the mule deer have been fighting so much that the ground looks like the results of carpet bombing photographed from 3000 feet. Waiting for deer in that area would be unsporting. I should be out walking around looking for one instead.

God forbid I shoot a deer out in my cotton field eating cotton!! That would be harvesting instead of hunting.

[paknheat]

Thanx for the post. Some folks are always going to have something negative to say, don't worry about them. If your methods are leagal where you live more power to ya. Meat in the freezer, mission accomplished. I like scout rifles a lot , what type is yours?Congrats on a fine kill.

[dbgun]

Some folks are always going to have something negative to say, don't worry about them.

+1

Great hunting story. I couldn't get my 8 year old out during the youth weekend, but we are going this weekend. I hope we have better luck than opening day. I only saw a doe last week, so I'm hoping for better luck this weekend. It would be nice if my daughter could shoot a buck.

Regards,
DBGUN

[davlandrum]

Thanks for sharing.

Before I retired from the Army, I had an opportunity to hunt in a lot of different areas of the country. This required me to learn a lot of different regs and local styles. It is easy to sit back and judge others when you don't have to walk in their boots, so to say.

Military base I hunted in Texas REQUIRED you to hang a feeder and keep it stocked all summer. Failure to keep it up and running could cost you your assigned area. Most expensive and labor intensive way to hunt I ever experienced!

[Bitmap]

I like scout rifles a lot , what type is yours?Congrats on a fine kill.

Steyr Scout. It had the extended mag kit on it when I bought it and I've just never seen a reason to take it off.

[FirstFreedom]

Nice job and nice rifle...

It is easy to sit back and judge others when you don't have to walk in their boots, so to say.

Yep.

[Austin Cowart]

He is a nice one! You know I prefer to drug the corn then just walk up while they're passed out and take the shot from about 6 feet away! Come on guys now thats not hunting. Anything where you actually have to aim and where there is the potential for the game to escape is ok in my book!

[PTS1]

Nice buck! For those nay-sayers out there giving you a hard time hunting from a blind and feeder let me try and explain. I live in S.W. Texas and I am a middle class man raising a family of four, in other words, I am not rich! I have loved to hunt my whole life, unfortuanltely, the only time I was able to growing up was when I was invited to hunt on someone's property which was a total of 4 times over about 8 years. You see, Texas is about 95% privately owned, and unless you know someone or have about $4000.00 to kill one buck, then you are SOL. Well, I didn't know anyone, and I am not going to spend that much on one deer, so two years ago I bought 10.1 acres and pay $150 a month on it. In texas, that is all you need to hunt. I set up a blind and a feeder one hundred yards away, as there is only so much spot and stalk you can do on 10 acres. Believe me, with so many others around you doing the same thing, waiting day after day for a decent buck to come along IS hunting! Took me two months of waiting and seeing doe after doe after spike before this came along.......

[kjm]

PTS1:
Amen. I have feeders but don't use them much as I can kill pretty much all I want when I hunt the river bottom. I only kill does (ratio issues), but I can kill 8 per season.

I then travel out to the Hill Country where my dad has only 20 acres on a nice little creek, and I swear that I could take more trophies there than the 400 acres he has where I normally hunt. That creek just draws them in, and out there there are axis deer, sikka, blackbuck and whitetails. I actually prefer to hunt just 20 over larger parcels where you really have to know where they are going to and coming from.

Hunting for free isn't rare in Texas if you're polite. We've had the same guy out for a decade and he's never paid a dime to us (low liability that way), but he's pitched in with labor when we needed it, cleaned up after himself and always brought food for my retired parents so that my mother didn't have to cook whenever he showed up. He knows to leave things like he found them, not to rut up the pastures, and if he does, he knows to tell us where he did it, when he will return to fix it (assuming it can't be fixed right away), and then he knows to actually do what he says.

That guy will be hunting there until he dies.

[castnblast]

When hunting w/ kids, you can't beat a deer blind and a feeder. I have a year old who only knows how to stomp...stalking w/ him is out of the question. So when i take him this weekend, we're sitting in a blind. Kuddos to all those who take their kids with them and find a way to get them in the field. Nice story...I'll check out the pix when I get home. they don't come up on the work computer...

[Yithian]

I wasn't trying to be negative.

I harvest deer myself.
I love the meat.


Maybe I watch too much Tred Barta. LOL

[Bitmap]

I wasn't trying to be negative.

I harvest deer myself.
I love the meat.

Sorry if I seem sensitive. I've seen a lot of posts on various forums lately with a holier than thou attitude like That isn't REAL hunting. The only REAL hunting is the kind that I do."

They are not always directed against blinds. Sometimes against dogs, sometimes against feeders. Sometimes a people will bust a guys chops because he killed a young buck with a number of points and "lots of potential" instead of not killing him so he can grow up. Of course the guy doing the busting doesn't know everything. Maybe that is the only weekend the hunter will get off work during the hunting season so he takes whatever is available. Maybe he hunts in a place with so many deer it doesn't matter. Maybe the hunter is looking for meat and doesn't care about the size of the antlers - if you say that then someone will complain "in that case why don't you just shoot does and save the bucks for the people who do care?"

I'm just tired of seeing people trash other hunters and the deer they bring home and the methods they use to do it. I really think some of the people on hunting forums are peta (pita?) members.

[Eghad]

Nice rifle...nice deer. putting out a feeder just means that the deer will come to it. You still have to figure out where and when they will come. You still have to have some sound discipline. You still have to make the shot. Enjoy your deer... especially those chicken fried back straps

[Bitmap]

putting out a feeder just means that the deer will come to it.

Like I said in my original post, that was the first time I've seen deer, whitetail or mulie, under a feeder there, in the 5 years I've been regularly hunting. There is so much food available they just don't come around, at least not regularly. The turkeys come to them some time during the day almost every day, but not on any schedule I can figure out. Pigs come to them also, but not every day or night.

The two bucks were 150 yards from the feeder and the one in front was angling away when I shot him.

[T-Ray]

Congradulations on your buck. opening day in hill country wasn't so kind to me. i saw one on my way from the tank but she was behind a brush pile and i didn't see her till she was running. then i waited by the road because theres a gate where they go through and they werent coming so i started walking and i saw another doe but it was getting dark and i couldn't tell if it was a deer or a coyote, so i decided that if i was asking myself that that i shouldn't shoot unless i knew it was a coyote, but it was a deer (found that out when it started blowing).


Nice rifle. What is it?

[Bitmap]

Nice rifle. What is it?

Steyr Scout.

opening day in hill country wasn't so kind to me.

LOL. I thought the hill country was where all the deer hung out.

[FirstFreedom]

Maybe I watch too much Tred Barta

Oh lawdy - Tred is a pompous schmuk if you ask me.

Man, lemme tell ya, feeders do NOT guarantee a harvest - not even close- When I kept feeders going, I never harvested a deer there - it was always 2 or 3 hundred yards from my feeders where I actually found the deer. I tried hunting the feeder, but saw nothing during the day - they come in there at night only, for the most part, except maybe fawns and really dumb yearling does.

[gedenke]

Bit, congrats on your nice buck.

[Yithian]

NP Bit.
I was just answering HR's question.
Nice buck btw. lol

FF
The way we used to get deer to our feeder was we sweetened the pot.
We added Buck Grub to the corn.
The morning dew helps it stick to the corn, I suppose.
Anyways, it worked.
I shot mine and 2 hours later, at the same feeder, ATTT got his.
Any powder would do I suppose, depending on what the deer need in thier diet.

The poor guy uphill from us, on the neigboring property, didn't get a shot in while we were there.
I would bet he didn't sweeten his pot either.

If the problem is getting the deer to notice where and when the feeder is going off, add some smaller feed to the corn.
Birdseed or millet should do the trick.
The deer will investigate as to why that spot is so popular with all the birds.
The problem is that cattle and pigs will notice too, and run off any deer.