The Fat G Ranch

[Duane]

Just read this thread start to finish. Such a good read. You are the handyman that most deer camps wish they had! Amazing how much work you guys have put in (planned and certainly your fair share of unplanned) over the last year. I'll be checking in more regularly now that I've found this thread. Good luck on bagging that shoulder mount worthy axis buck in July, and congrats on the new baby to come!

[CentralTXHunter]

Just read this thread start to finish. Such a good read. You are the handyman that most deer camps wish they had! Amazing how much work you guys have put in (planned and certainly your fair share of unplanned) over the last year. I'll be checking in more regularly now that I've found this thread. Good luck on bagging that shoulder mount worthy axis buck in July, and congrats on the new baby to come!

Thanks! I wish I could hunt it as hard as I want to this summer, but it’s probably going to be one 3 day weekend trip and that’s it, but I wouldn’t change it for the world with another little girl on the way.


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[DUKFVR]

Lookin Great!
Thanks for the updates!

[CentralTXHunter]

I have done a poor job of keeping this thread updated. We had our third baby in early August and I’ve been a little busy, lol.

Quick rundown on leading up to the season. Ranch had a ton of rain. It’s lush and green and the animals look healthy. Virtually all of our Axis bucks had damage to their horns from the freeze in February. That didn’t allow us to harvest any trophies this summer. We whacked some pigs, some Aoudad ewe’s, and a few Axis spikes and does. We got the ranger repaired and back to the ranch.

Keegan went to the ranch before rifle opener to top off feeders. Ranger broke again. This time the lower ball joint. This didn’t allow him to get around and fill/fix everything.

Rifle opener came. Keegan and his son Truitt headed out Friday morning. I came down with our good buddy Pat. He runs a gun store and hasn’t made a rifle opener in probably a decade. My son, Cooper, had a few birthday parties to attend and couldn’t come. He wanted to do both, which wasn’t an option, but I let him make the choice. He stayed on the assurance that he would get to come for every other trip this season.

Made the required stop at Cooper’s in Llano for lunch.




We got to the ranch fairly early in the afternoon. I knew we had a bad motor at the “Across the Canyon” feeder. I went there first and replaced the motor and discovered the solar panel was gone too. I replaced that as well, set the timer, and tested. Good to go. Rolled over to the “Airstream” and this feeder was bone dry! I put 5 bags in and got it rolling. Pat and I parked with the intention to check Matt’s feeder on the way to “3rd Rock” for the evening hunt. We must have had a heck of a storm. Matt’s control box had shifted down and all the corn had blown out of that feeder. Irritated, Pat and I continue on to 3rd rock. We get settled in and wait. Pigs show up and we decide to 1,2,3 Boom them. Well, at Boom! my gun shoots, but Pat’s doesn’t. Clean primer hit, but no bang. He racks another round as one little pig circles back and shoots that one. Not a real good start to the weekend.

Keegan and Truitt had hunting another location and has 11 Axis milling around, but nothing else. We get back to camp for the evening. Oh, I forgot to mention our water well is out. I thought it was possibly the control box, so I intended to hard wire the solar to the well pump and bypass the control box. I got up on the ladder and popped open the control box. Only to discover it is already direct wired and our control box is nothing more than a $600 junction box. I was irritated and left it alone without doing any other diagnosis. We had a nice bowl of axis chili (no beans) for supper, a few adult beverages, and some domino games before bed.

We all get settled in for the morning hunt. Which for most of us was uneventful. Truitt had a hard time seeing game with his eyes shut.




Make it back to camp for breakfast. Then on to the work. Spent a couple of hours underneath the ranger replacing the lower ball joint and discovering that the axel was bad too.





Didn’t have an axel so we left the ranger alone and went to work filling/fixing feeders. We attached some galvanized strap material to the feeders we’ve had issues with the lower units shifting down. Hopefully that resolves that. We also set up a hand corn spot on a tripod that we found a few weeks back. Ends up a long day. We tune into the A&M game while riding around fixing things and before you know it, it’s time to get into the stands. I set up in 3rd rock again, Truitt was at his hand corn spot, and Keegan and Pat hunted near camp. I saw nothing, but the feeder I fixed across the canyon was covered up and I decided I was going to hunt there in the morning. Truitt didn’t see anything worth shooting. Pat and Keegan had a ball. Pat whacked 3 doe and they claim they saw as many as 16. Get them picked up and back to camp we go.



I was exhausted and went to bed early. Heck, I didn’t even eat dinner. The others stayed up a good bit. We roll out the next morning. I dropped Keegan and Truitt at his hand corn spot and eased to across the canyon. I get situated. Feeder went off at 6:30. Immediately I had a young 8 and two does. Then a buck comes out we hadn’t seen before. I could tell he was wide with good G2s. I grabbed the rifle instead of the binoculars, confirmed I wanted to take him, and boom! It was all over by 6:36. After the shakes wore off, I eased down to put my hands on him. He had more mass than I thought which was nice as I’m accustomed to ground shrinkage. Took a couple of pics and loaded him up. I took him to the A-frame we have at Airstream so the others could still hunt to get him caped out and quartered. Get back to camp and we clean up and head home. On the way out, Keegan decides he and Truitt are going to stay for the evening hunt. We had to get a little creative to get Pat’s does into my truck. Manage to get that done and head out. Dropped two of his does off in Sonora at Rough Creek for processing. Stopped in Llano at Hills of Texas to drop off my deer for Taxidermy and made it home safely. I’ll do a better job updating this from now on.

Here’s my buck





Here’s our doe transport, lol



Here’s my boy with the antlers when I got home.



Follow along. There’s a big deer around we are chasing and you never know what will walk out in this country. I’m headed to Big Spring this weekend to continue working on my Nana’s estate after her passing. Keegan, Stephen, and their boys are at the ranch this weekend. Hopefully they have some good to send me to update.


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[sticknstring]

Impressive-Just read the whole post...caught up and subscribing!
This place will forever be etched in you and your boys memory banks!

[CentralTXHunter]

Impressive-Just read the whole post...caught up and subscribing!
This place will forever be etched in you and your boys memory banks!

Thanks! It’s a special place. I love it out there. It’s tough country and very hard on equipment, but it’s beautiful. The experiences are great though. Especially for the boys. When you’re this remote you have to learn to fix things on the fly with whatever is available. Those life skills are great for the kids to learn. Heck of a lot better than Fortnite.


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[SaltwaterSlick]

Livin' large sir!! Thanks for taking us along on this continuing journey!

[gingib]

Thats awesome! Love this

Do you think the landowner will sell it once you fix it up? That would be my worry

great buck

[CentralTXHunter]

Thats awesome! Love this

Do you think the landowner will sell it once you fix it up? That would be my worry

great buck

I don’t know if you’ve read the whole thread, but our LO passed away suddenly last October. His wife is the current owner now. These are people we have known 30 years. She has no interest in the property as it was Mike’s passion, not hers. I fully expect it to sell at some point, but it’s possible it might be to us or that we make out other arrangements. Nothing is off the table at this point or final. We’re just enjoying it for what it is and maintaining it the best we can in the meantime.


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[CentralTXHunter]

The Fat G Ranch

Got a good bit of updating to do. I didn’t go the second weekend of November. Keegan and Truitt went and brought along our buddy Stephen and his twin boys Carter and Everett. The twins had been out before, but this was Stephen’s first trip and he loves the place. Joe also came down for a brief trip. Trip had some good, bad, and ugly to it.

Stephen got the Ranger up and running. They were also able to diagnose our water well. Turns out it for sure was the pump that’s bad. Stephen made a great shot on an axis doe.



The twins put in some work and built us some stairs.





They also whacked an Aoudad Ewe. It was hot and movement wasn’t great. The Ranger broke, again. This time the upper A-arm on the passenger side. They managed to get it up on the trailer and hauled home. The boys had a lot of fun. I didn’t get near enough pictures from them on their trip.

Ranger got hauled home and repaired this past week. We also got some extra parts in so that we can at least repair almost the entire front end at camp. Keegan also spoke with our LO about the water. She said to get it done. Water guys said they’d be out Friday morning and Keegan needed to meet them. He hauled out at 4AM. I pulled my son out of school at 10 and we hit the road hauling the ranger.

New pump getting installed:





Cooper and I were running late, so we pulled into the last gate and went straight to the stand. Evening hunt was uneventful. We enjoyed some Aoudad stew for dinner and then Matt got a wild hair to drive in that night. I was stone asleep when he arrived with his son Owen and Truitt.

Morning hunt was also uneventful. I observed a good size Aoudad that had a leg injury 400 yards down in the canyon, but that was about the extent of our sightings.

After breakfast, me and the boys went to work topping off all our feeders and bumping up our morning feed times. It’s dang nice to not have to carry corn or winch a feeder, lol.







Saturday evening was also pretty uneventful for most of us. Owen drilled an Aoudad ewe on the 110. Lots of high fives were given.



I showed Owen how to remove the straps off her.



Matt brought some great steaks for dinner. We all hung around the fire telling lies and played some dominoes.














Morning hunt was also slow. Finally started seeing some game around 9. A little after 10 I thumped an axis doe.



This is what the boys did while I cleaned her.



Cooper and I had to roll out, so we jetted out around noon. The rest of the crew stayed for another day. Owen thumped another ewe.



All in all, it was a great weekend. We got some work to do still, but having water again is great. Hoping our animal movement picks up again soon. We should be ground checking in December. Seems to be when we see a lot of WT activity and our large Aoudad rams show up. A crew should be there over Thanksgiving weekend. I’ll be bowhunting the in-laws in DeWitt county. I’ll update again soon.
Boys had a blast and this is what it’s all about.



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[NotJose]

Very cool!! Love seeing the boys enjoying themselves so much!!


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[JB77]

Excellent thread and thanks so much for sharing! Hard country out there but you and your crew are extremely handy. May be time to retire that Ranger. Happy Thanksgiving.

[CentralTXHunter]

Excellent thread and thanks so much for sharing! Hard country out there but you and your crew are extremely handy. May be time to retire that Ranger. Happy Thanksgiving.

LOL. I feel the same way. I honestly think whoever did the lift on it screwed up the geometry on the front end. There should be no reason for all the failures we’ve had with it. It would be one thing if we were driving it around like idiots. The dang thing has literally broke going 5mph on a straight road with two dudes in it and no load in the bed.

All that being said, it’s ranch property and they allow us to use it. I’d rather tear their stuff up and fix it than haul another ranger down there. Most of the place is accessible by truck. The ranger gets to a few spots I won’t take my pickup and it’s more convenient, but it’s more of a luxury than a necessity.


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[CentralTXHunter]

I was at the in-laws bowhunting and visiting family over the weekend, but a good size crew made it out to the ranch. Animal movement was tough again, but they had a great time. Kelly had a run in with the Aoudad I saw a week ago. His injury was worse and she said he could hardly walk around. She drilled him.



He’s not a giant, but a dang good ram. Really awesome photo of most of the group though. One of the twins whacked a little pig too.



Blair had a nice 8 dead to rights at 30-40 yards. He was so close she needed to scoot up to get the angle from the elevated stand. Chair bumped and he was gone. One of those life lessons of hunting, but she’s got the fever now and wants to kill something with horns, lol.

Keegan’s youngest, Tatum, picked up the horn of a nice ram that got hung up in a fence some time back and died. He would have been a good one.



Apparently she was carrying that thing all over the place, lol.

Not a lot of killing, but a bunch of memories made. Cooper and I will be down this weekend. I think Joe and Keegan will be down during the week next week. We’re trying to get all the guys down New Years weekend for 4 days or so. Some chasing was going on this past weekend with the younger bucks. Hopefully it’s on fire here soon.


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[CentralTXHunter]

Cooper and I headed down this past weekend. It was great to just have me and him in camp. I love a full camp house and a domino game, but 1 on 1 time with your boy is priceless. Goal was to get him on a deer so we sat at all our spots with a close(r) shot. Friday evening sit was uneventful except a couple of WT across the canyon and one big black boar. I had brought a batch of chili, but he wanted Spaghettios, so I obliged.



Saturday morning we hunted Truitt’s spot. We had a yearling 6 come in and a 2yo 8. He was pretty tired when i rolled him out that morning and fell asleep in the blind.



Got back to camp and ate breakfast. Then we FaceTimed momma. My 2 yo, Clara, got an ear infection so my wife took her to urgent care Saturday. Then Cooper and I got to a little ranch work.

Our water well guys apparently only connect to power to show you it works. They don’t do electrical, so it was a mess.





I got it run in some conduit and tidied it up.



Rewired our road feeder and fixed it. Then Cooper and I corned some roads and checked game cams. The boys put all the SD cards in backwards over thanksgiving, so no pictures to even look at, lol. Fixed that and carried on.



High fence neighbors got some new animals and we spotted some wildebeest and zebras. Cooper was fired up when we saw them.



Evening hunt was uneventful as well. Saw an axis doe across the canyon and a good up and coming Aoudad ram.



It was hot. 88 degrees by noon. We got back to camp, ate dinner, and had an early bed time. We hunted Keegan’s spot by camp Sunday morning. It was DARK when we got up. Overcast skies make it pitch black out there with no light pollution. It was lower 60’s, overcast, and misting. Would have loved to sit all day, but we had to get Cooper back to school Monday. We had a good looking 8 cruise in Sunday morning. Would have been a fantastic first deer for him. I asked if he wanted to shoot and he got all nervous and said he didn’t want to. Not going to pressure him to shoot, so we just watched him for a bit. He’s worried about wounding or missing so we will get some more practice in and build some confidence. No rush. It’ll happen when it’s ready to happen. Here’s the deer.



We packed up camp and rolled out. Had 5 deer on the roads on our way out. I flat wore him out this weekend and he passed out before we made it to 277.



Joe is headed up today to hunt for a few days. I’m headed to Big Spring to continue cleaning out my Nana’s house. I’ll be back at it the following weekend. Thanks again for those that are following along.


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