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I had the very good fortune to be invited to a friend's south Texas ranch for a 3 day hunt. The ranch is located southwest of San Antonio and is about 2000 acres. Some of the ranch is leased out to a farmer who grows millet in a field irrigated with a pivot sprinkler system. A part of the ranch, 800 acres, is high fenced and has 5-6 deer blinds. The rest of the ranch is low fence and also has numerous deer stands. Other game hunted on the ranch includes dove, quail, turkey, ducks and hogs. The deer though are the main attraction.
The general deer season ran until January 16th. The remainder of January, is a special late season where only antlerless and unbranched antlered deer can be harvested. On the high fenced area, it is a MLPD property and bucks can be taken to the end of January via special tags. The Managed Lands Deer Program (MLDP) is intended to foster and support sound management and stewardship of native wildlife and wildlife habitats on private lands in Texas. Technically, we were hunting post rut but there was definitely some late rut activity observed.
We arrived at the ranch on Friday afternoon and took a quick tour of the place. It was a very warm day, about 85 F and the wind out of the south. Luckily, the weather forecast was for a big change. Unfortunately, there was a full moon this weekend.
Day 1 of hunting was Saturday. The wind was howling out of the north at 25-30 mph and gusts to 40. It was much colder too, around 30 F, so hopefully the deer might be moving. Legal shooting was about 7am and we were in the deer stand about 30-45 minutes before that. It was nice to be in an enclosed deer stand, out of the wind and cold. This was in the low fenced area of the ranch. I stayed in the stand until about 9:45am and had only seen 3 does. A slow morning. After a late brunch, I got a tour of the ranch and was shown a deer stand in another part of the low fence area. I was going to drive myself out to this stand for the Saturday afternoon hunt.
Saw maybe 20 does and 3 bucks but not a good shooter. A couple weeks earlier, a hunter took a very nice, heavy 11 point off of this stand.
Sunday was hunting Day 2. Another cold morning, but the wind had died down. I drove myself back out to the same blind (pictured above). It was pretty much a repeat of the prior afternoon. Lots of does and same small bucks. About 9:30am, I was thinking about packing up when I glanced out the back window of the blind. I saw a doe and a really large buck following her. It was maybe 30 yards behind the blind. Both continued to walk towards the feeder and I knew I just needed to be patient. Then I spotted a second large buck, following the first one. Both bucks looked really good! Before either one got into an area for a good shot, they diverted into the brush. That ended my morning hunt, but I planned to be back to this same stand in the afternoon.
I got back to the stand around 3pm. Legal shooting ends around 6:30pm. Within 30 minutes or so of getting settled in the stand, does and the smaller bucks started arriving. Around 5pm, one of the big bucks arrived. I was using my Winchester 7x57 with factory Hornady 139 gr GMX bullets. The shot was 90 yards and it dropped where it stood. After a few photos, I loaded the deer into the Polaris Ranger and drove back to the ranch house in day light. The 10 point buck weighed 160 pounds. A fabulous whitetail!
The general deer season ran until January 16th. The remainder of January, is a special late season where only antlerless and unbranched antlered deer can be harvested. On the high fenced area, it is a MLPD property and bucks can be taken to the end of January via special tags. The Managed Lands Deer Program (MLDP) is intended to foster and support sound management and stewardship of native wildlife and wildlife habitats on private lands in Texas. Technically, we were hunting post rut but there was definitely some late rut activity observed.
We arrived at the ranch on Friday afternoon and took a quick tour of the place. It was a very warm day, about 85 F and the wind out of the south. Luckily, the weather forecast was for a big change. Unfortunately, there was a full moon this weekend.
Day 1 of hunting was Saturday. The wind was howling out of the north at 25-30 mph and gusts to 40. It was much colder too, around 30 F, so hopefully the deer might be moving. Legal shooting was about 7am and we were in the deer stand about 30-45 minutes before that. It was nice to be in an enclosed deer stand, out of the wind and cold. This was in the low fenced area of the ranch. I stayed in the stand until about 9:45am and had only seen 3 does. A slow morning. After a late brunch, I got a tour of the ranch and was shown a deer stand in another part of the low fence area. I was going to drive myself out to this stand for the Saturday afternoon hunt.
Saw maybe 20 does and 3 bucks but not a good shooter. A couple weeks earlier, a hunter took a very nice, heavy 11 point off of this stand.
Sunday was hunting Day 2. Another cold morning, but the wind had died down. I drove myself back out to the same blind (pictured above). It was pretty much a repeat of the prior afternoon. Lots of does and same small bucks. About 9:30am, I was thinking about packing up when I glanced out the back window of the blind. I saw a doe and a really large buck following her. It was maybe 30 yards behind the blind. Both continued to walk towards the feeder and I knew I just needed to be patient. Then I spotted a second large buck, following the first one. Both bucks looked really good! Before either one got into an area for a good shot, they diverted into the brush. That ended my morning hunt, but I planned to be back to this same stand in the afternoon.
I got back to the stand around 3pm. Legal shooting ends around 6:30pm. Within 30 minutes or so of getting settled in the stand, does and the smaller bucks started arriving. Around 5pm, one of the big bucks arrived. I was using my Winchester 7x57 with factory Hornady 139 gr GMX bullets. The shot was 90 yards and it dropped where it stood. After a few photos, I loaded the deer into the Polaris Ranger and drove back to the ranch house in day light. The 10 point buck weighed 160 pounds. A fabulous whitetail!