When we turned on the main (dirt) road to the ranch it was not long before we saw something really cool. It wasn’t even a huge deer. It was black and I could see it on the left side of my car and the right side of my car. That’s right…it was stretching across the road and it was that big…what is it? It was a blue indigo. This is the largest snake in North America. Trust me, this one was big. I am guessing that it was around seven feet in length. I was not able to take a picture of it, but it was still cool. Since we didn't have a camera on the trip I got this picture courtesy of Google Images.
I was able to hang with Russel, Taylor, Brady and David for our hunting trips. Brady was on a mission to kill a buck this year. He got his first deer (a doe) last winter. So Taylor was working hard to get him the perfect shot on another doe, that way he would be warmed up and ready to kill a buck later in the trip. Despite all of Taylor’s effort he wasn’t able to get Brady a doe. Taylor moved on to bigger and better things with Jason. Now it was up to Russel and I. Russel took up the roll of being drive, guide, and entertainer. Entertainment usually included cacti and a lot of thorns in the boot. I couldn’t sit there and let him kick all of the cacti by himself, so I might have joined in here and there. In between kicking the desert plant life, we were hunting does for Brady. Russel finally found a good deer for Brady to shoot. Everything looked good and Brady got his shot off. We went looking for the deer but found no blood in the area that he shot. It was almost time to give up when I found the smallest speck of blood. I was able to follow the trail enough to know that we were looking in the wrong direction before. So Russel came to help. While I was looking on the ground following the blood specks, he just looking up and saw the deer about 20 yards away. Brady got his second deer! That meant that we were going to be eating backstrap that night! That is really good news for me. The next deer was going to be for David. He was also in the mood to kill a doe. So we started looking for him. After a long search we found the perfect doe. David came with me this time. He and I stalked after the deer for about 200-300 yards. Finally we came within range. It didn’t look like the doe was going anywhere so we got setup on the ground for a binocular-propped shot. The doe wasn’t really facing broad side but I could tell that David was ready to shoot. He knew that he was supposed to shoot behind the shoulder but for this deer it wasn’t facing right for that shot. So I told him to shoot right in front of the shoulder. As soon as I said “whenever you are ready” he shot. I knew that the deer was running dead. When we went to look for her David told me “I hope that we find her, that would be my 1st deer!” I couldn’t believe it. I had no idea that was his first deer. I made the assumption that he had killed before. That is why I had no problem with setting him up for a 137 yard shot with the deer facing right at us. I was then on a mission to find that deer. I knew from the way the deer ran that it was shot perfect. I just had to find the deer. We looked around where he shot and again, there was no blood from the .243 wound. I went into the brush to look around and found nothing. After about 5 minutes the rest of them gave up, I kept looking. I walked in circles while moving a little over each time I walked around. I finally came up on the deer! It was laying down next time a tree. I picked her up to find a spot of blood about the size of a quarter. The bullet did not exit, so there was no external bleeding. I came out of the brush and made David go in there to find his deer. He was so excited. It was a lot of fun to be the person to help him get his first deer. He was very acceptant of the tradition with the bloody face! All I could think about while looking for his deer was how hard Papa Bear looked for my first deer. We looked for my deer in the dark and in some think woods. I was so thankful when he found my deer, so I knew that I couldn’t give up on finding David’s deer.
Of course that was just a limited version of everything that went on during the hunts. Our hunts were usually filled with seeing really cool things. We were really interested in seeing a deer called “The Colts”. This deer was given that name from the very long horse shoe shaped brow tines. This deer has antlers going every where. It is thought that it could be the widest deer on the ranch. He also has a drop tine. Of course, I didn’t have a camera when we saw the deer. We actually were able to see the deer twice. The second time we watched the deer from about 100 yards away. He was nervous about seeing us, even though we weren’t pressuring him. He was next to a ten foot high fence when he decided that he was going to attempt to jump to the other side. It was a pitiful attempt and the deer hit the fence about mid-way up the fence. He came down hard on his back. He just got up and walked away. I think that he was embarrassed with his jumping skilz (or the lack of). So that was a really really cool thing to watch.
Another cool thing was getting orders from Rusty to protect his fish investment. He was having a bird problem on his new 200 acre lake. They were eating his fish that he just put in there. So we had to get out there and take care of those birds. After Russel and I went out there alone we quickly found out that we were going to need help. Without getting into too much detail, let’s just say that four guys with four guns and (seemingly) endless shells, we took care of a large part of the problem. I was glad that I was able to help with a job on the ranch.
Rusty gets the surprise Scott award for this trip. He starts talking on the radio about how he was going to take one of Kristen’s friends hunting in the afternoon. Both Russel and I started wondering who the friend was because we didn’t know who else was coming to the ranch. He then says that his (the friend’s) name is Scott. Again, I am still wondering who this person is. Then I realized that he was talking about ME! I was so excited that I was being invited to go hunt with him. I was very quick to accept the invitation.
That afternoon we took out the “top-drive” truck. This is the truck that can be driven from a rack that sits about 10 feet above the ground. It is on top of the truck and there are connections to everything in the truck so that you can drive from the top. On our adventure we saw two Ferrell hogs. Basically a wild pig, good meat! Rusty told me that he wanted for me to shoot the pigs. I was a little worried about shooting and missing. I didn’t want to miss because there were other people out there that missed and it is never fun to be the guy who misses. I took my shot and killed one of the pigs. He then tells me to shoot the other one (it didn’t run away). So I bolt another one into the .270 and shoot the other pig. Another kill! I was so happy that I never missed. I thought that they were going to be big pigs. When I got up to them, I realized that they were not big at all. They were some small-good-eatin’ pigs. Good for us! We continued our hunt for bucks that afternoon but never saw anything worthy. Although I was very happy to see some of the deer that Rusty was considering. There were a couple of deer that I had a chance for shooting, but they were too young. The deer were quite nice in rack size. It made me realize that I wasn’t going to be killing another gimp deer like last year.
Rusty and I continued our buck hunt the next morning. It wasn’t long before Rusty had an 8 pt. picked out for me. We got setup on the ground and waited for the deer to come out again. While waiting a 9 pt. walked out, Rusty whistled to me from behind giving me to sign to shoot the 9 pt. Again, I remind you that I am nervous about missing in front of Rusty. I shot the buck and he fell in his steps! I was so happy. He was behind me filming, so I looked back there with a smile on my face and he tells me to shoot the 8 pt. if he comes out. So we waited to see what happened for about ten minutes. No bucks came back out but there was a doe and two yearlings. Rusty whistles to me again, he wanted me to shoot the doe. So I took aim and I shot the doe. Now we had two dead deer. It was said about not getting the 8 pt. but I was happy about eating more backstrap from the doe. We road around some more just to look around. I wasn’t really counting on seeing any more bucks since it was so late in the morning. While riding around Rusty decided that there were too many does walking around, so he stopped, rolled down the window and shot a doe. It was very funny because it all happened so fast and so spontaneously. We drove back to the other spot that I shot my deer and we picked up those deer. We went back to where Rusty shot his deer and picked up that deer. We were heading back to the camp when we saw another buck quite a ways away. Rusty looked at it with his super binoculars and he was able to determine that it needed to be shot. It was really far away and it was steady walking away from us. We got out of the truck and started running after the deer. Rusty sent me ahead to go shoot the deer. I got within range just as it was slowing down its walk and starting to turn into the brush. I quickly got setup on the ground to shoot. I figured that I was on a roll (4 for 4) with my shooting, so I was just going to shoot the deer walking. Just as I was pulling on the trigger Rusty shouts out “HHHEEEEYYYYYYY”, this shout stopped the deer. As it stopped and looked our way I shot it. We marked off around where it was and started walking to it. It was about 300 yards away. It was a successful kill! I killed a really nice 8 pt.
This morning was most likely one of the most memorable mornings with hunting. I was so honored to be hunting with Rusty. I couldn’t, and still cannot thank him enough for taking me. What a blast it was (literally)! That was the last morning that I was hunting. We loaded up the deer and brought them back to get cleaned.
Here are some pictures of the two bucks that I killed that morning.
1 comment:
nice rack you got there
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