Thursday evening and all day Friday were spent celebrating
a belated Christmas with the in-laws. We got home
around midnight on Friday night, and after packing my
gear, it was pretty late when we finally got to bed.
Nevertheless, I still had trouble going to sleep because
of the anticipation of the hunt. I tried to convince
my wife to let me leave right then, but she wouldn't hear
of it. Probably a good thing, anyway. I
finally drifted off to sleep for a few hours, and then
woke up again at 5 a.m. I tried to go back to sleep,
but just couldn't do it. Thinking she might be in an
incoherent state, I gently woke my wife and asked her if I
could leave yet. "One more hour," came her
reply! I let her drift back to sleep and then got up
to take a shower. . . scent free of course!
I tried to kill time as best I could. I tried to
log onto my favorite internet website, TexasBowhunter.com,
but for some reason the site was down. By the time I
contacted the web host and got the problem corrected, it
was time to go!
My dad, step-mom and brother, Mark, had been at the
ranch since Thursday, and I was looking forward to
spending some time visiting with them. However, my
dad called and informed me that a long time family friend
had passed last night, requiring them to leave today in
order to attend the funeral. That means that I'll
likely be spending the majority, if not all, of the week
hunting alone.
I arrived at the ranch by 2:30 and quickly set up my
Brush Country camo'd ICE Blind about 15 yards off a
sendero. I returned to the cabin for a quick bite to
eat and a shower. I donned my brand new Brush
Country field shirt and cap and made my way back to the
blind. I did have a mishap on the way. I made
a turn off the main road onto one of our ranch roads, and
as I did, I hit a bump. I was concerned about my
bow, which I had set on top of a couple bags of corn, and
I turned to make sure it had not bounced out.
As I turned my head, my pickup drifted ever-so-slightly to
the right and I hit relatively hard into the wooden gate
post. I got out to inspect, and while the post
suffered no damage, the corner of my bumper was bent
pretty badly, enough that when I tried to make a left
turn, the bumper would rub the tire. I was
sick! I decided to continue my hunt and deal with
this problem later.
Once inside the blind, I dozed on and off until I heard
something munching on corn. Several javelina were
enjoying quite a feast. I opted not to attempt a
shot, since I don't particularly care to eat them.
They eventually moved on, only to appear again a short
time later. Actually, I only saw two the second
time, and they were chasing and biting each other
viciously! In fact, they came within 5 yards of the
blind on two different occasions. I was certain that
they were eventually going to end up in the blind with me!
Moments after they disappeared, I spotted several deer
a ways back in the brush. I couldn't make out what
they were, but I could tell from the body language that at
least one was a buck chasing a doe. I heard
crunching once more. My excitement built as I
anticipated a big buck showing in my shooting lane.
It didn't take long, however, to figure out that the
source was hogs! And one of them was huge!!!
I contemplated shooting one. Initially, I decided
that I wasn't going to take a big one, but rather a good
eating sized sow. Then I decided that I'd attempt to
take the largest one. I got a little greedy waiting
on a perfect video shot, however. Although the hog
presented a broadside shot on a couple of different
occasions, I kept waiting until I could see the pig's
whole body on the screen, instead of the head being
partially obscured by brush. Unfortunately, I waited
too long and the two larger hogs spooked and ran in the
brush. Two smaller sows remained, and again I
positioned for a shot. I was just getting ready to
draw on a nice red one, when for whatever reason, the got
nervous and left! Oh well. I'm sure I'll have
plenty of other opportunities to see hogs!
A while later, a doe appeared in my shooting
window.
At 12 yards, she looked at the blind for just a second
before deciding there was no imminent danger, and then
began to feed. My excitement level again
peaked as she kept looking nervously behind her. A
few minutes later, a second doe came in. She was
really nervous, not about me or my blind, but about
whatever it was that was chasing her!
Finally, I saw antlers! I could only barely see
them in the viewfinder of my camera because I wanted to
stay hidden from the deer's view inside the window.
He was a decent buck, but not a shooter. The buck
seemed really nervous as he kept one eye on the doe in
front and the other cautiously on my blind. One of
the doe became nervous about something and ran off, and
the buck decided to retreat as well.
Click on the image above to see the video of this
scene.
Although there was still a bit of shooting light
remaining, there was not enough for quality film, so I
left the blind a little early to look down the road to see
what might be moving. I saw another decent quality
young buck, and though I managed to get him on film, the
quality was shaky, at best, so I'll refrain from posting
it.
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