We Have a Ranch Again - New Ranch - Follow Along

[cehorn]

I didn't get pics of all of our tanks but here is a pic of 1 of our smaller ones.

Here is a before the rain picture. It is hard to see how low the tank was but you can kind of see it. I took this picture to show the ice on the tank as it was cold the first weekend.



And here is the after. It went up a couple of feet.

[cehorn]

Views and Scenery

Here are a few pics I took of views from the top of the mountains and also of the leaves changing, etc.

[cehorn]

And finally a picture of my wife's deer. I didn't get any pics of his injury and I doubt y'all would want to see it anyway. But she was happy with him! I wish I had pics of my kids deer but hopefully I'll get to post those in the future. Fingers crossed.

[cehorn]

I just looked at the rainfall maps and looks like we got over 1.5" of rain this past weekend.
Nobody was up there this weekend so in addition to the drink of water, the ranch got a rest from traffic. I'm ready to finish the season strong, fingers crossed as we need to shoot about 10 does and 3-4 bucks. Hopefully they start moving.

No real updates on the cabin front as we are done with interior construction. I'll try to get some finished pics next week and post them up. We did get a load of 1" granite last weekend and spread under the overhang. It made a huge difference vs the larger rock we had. No more twisted ankles lol. I think we will get 1 more load to finish it out and then the only real thing we have left is outdoor electrical to add more light.

I won't jinx it but hopefully my next post will have some huge news for the ranch...

[DZM]

Great thread love following

[Hardware]

Looking great!!

[bgleaton]

Great thread!

[cehorn]

Great thread!

Thanks. I'm hoping after this year my thread will turn and be more like you where most of the updates are on improvements for the deer (food plots, tank expansions, etc) and hunting (blind set ups, feed pens, etc.). I think we are close to that point but the work never ends. That is the fun part.

[cehorn]

I hinted on it up above but I don't think I ever discussed our deer plan for the year. As much money as we have spent on the cabin and other stuff there definitely was not budget for a biologist, etc. So, I took my first crack at a deer survey and coming up with what we should shoot this year. I'm sure I'll refine the process more next year and I would like to get the Brown County biologist involved. I tried to get with her this year but it got too late and we ended up playing phone tag. Anyway, here is a link to the thread where I worked thru it all and came up with the plan for this year.

https://discussions.texasbowhunter.com/forums/showthread.php?t=849497

So, according to the numbers we should shoot 12 does and 5 bucks this year. As of now we have shot 1 buck and 1 doe. I have only seen 2 trophies (for us) on camera this year. One of those is regular (at night and when we aren't there) and the one my oldest shot and missed over Thanksgiving. The other was only there for about a week so he may be 5 miles away or at somebody else's taxidermist. I have a couple of culls on the list but we may not get to 5 bucks this year which I would be ok with. As other threads have stated, I think we are down antler wise this year with a lot of broken up deer as well. We may struggle to get to 12 does this year as well but I'm hopeful we can get close. We plan to hunt a lot between next week and the end of the season with my wife and kids off for Christmas break. I think some deer will start going down. Personally we don't need 12 deer in our freezer but I would like to put 8 in the freezer and we are currently at 2 (from a different hunting location). So, here's to hoping we can shoot 12-15 more deer by the end of doe and spike season.

[cehorn]

Whew, what a week it has been. Is it time for a beer yet? Last Tuesday I headed up to the ranch to meet somebody to take a look at buying my travel trailer. I was able to get a sit in Tuesday and Wednesday night but nothing worth shooting. I also took a look at the cams since I didn’t go up the previous weekend. Good news!! The deer my youngest shot a couple weeks ago and backstrapped showed back up. He is alive! Pic below. I was also able to sell my trailer as well so that is a huge bonus. As somebody once told me, one less set of tires to worry about. I also took a couple of food plot pics, see below. They are doing well with all the rain we have had. I headed home Wednesday night happy as could be about no longer having to worry about my travel trailer and the other happenings of the day.

I am still at home and won’t be able to head up until tomorrow. I couldn’t go last weekend because of my company’s Christmas party. My kids were able to go up on Friday though, so they have been up there since then. Saturday about 5 while I was getting ready for the party, I was texting my youngest son about his hunt, who he was sitting with, etc. I had told him he has to hunt the stand he shot the deer at and that was the buck he was to shoot. He was sitting by himself and complaining about only seeing a doe and then I get a text “my luck just changed”. Well….. He finally texted back and said he shot a buck and he thought it was the right one… What do you mean? It either was or it wasn’t. Well, it wasn’t. He shot a different deer. Definitely mixed emotions. It was his first solo deer so I was proud at that. It wasn’t the right deer. Before I could text anything he texted back and said “expletive, it was the wrong deer. I’m sorry!”. It was even tougher being 150 miles away and not being able to deal with it. I called him before I left for the Christmas party and told him I was proud of him for the solo kill but I wasn’t happy about the deer he killed. I wasn’t mad but I wasn’t happy. He understood and felt the same way. He was a little down on himself for not making a kill shot the previous time and he said this shot wasn’t great but the deer only went about 30 yards so it worked. I processed everything before leaving for the party and was feeling a little better. But then to make matters worse, as I was driving to my company Christmas party I realized a couple of other things about the situation I won’t post on here, but panic again. I was able to take care of everything as best I could once I got parked. So much stress, but it happens. I know my first deer had some ground shrinkage and a couple of more after that. I discussed that with him the next day to help him feel better. It happens and likely will happen again. The big thing is to learn from it.

So, Sunday was here, and my wife was going to head up to join the boys for the week. They made it up in time for the evening and my youngest step son shot a doe. 1 more down!! He hasn’t taken to hunting the way the other 3 boys have so it was a big deal for him to want to shoot a deer and actually do it. Pic below. They got the deer in the ice chest but needed ice. My oldest son headed to May to get ice. I get a call from my wife around 7 and he hit a deer on the way to town. $#@%!! He was ok and the suburban was still drivable. Why does everything have to go crazy when you aren’t there. He made it back and they got the deer on ice. The plan was to take both deer to Hamilton on Monday for processing. My oldest stepson left in the suburban around 10 to do that. About 1030 I get a call that the suburban was overheating and he had pulled over to let it cool down and couldn’t get it started. So, I spent a few hours yesterday setting up the claim, tow truck driver and all of the other fun stuff that goes with it. A pic of the suburban is below, it is finally at the body shop and hopefully we are on our way to nothing else happening over the Christmas break.

I’m heading up tomorrow mid-day to finish out the week up there. We will be up there for most of the rest of the year. We still need to shoot some more does and there are still a couple of bucks on the hit list. Fingers crossed we can make it without any more issues. I guess it is always an adventure!!

[cehorn]

Pics

Here is a pic of the deer my son shot a couple of weeks ago and was supposed to shoot this time. This pic is from last week, after the shot. I may let him walk for next year or see if one of the other kids want to shoot him.


Adios trailer. It served its purpose and I hope the next owner gets as much use out of it as I did.


Here are a couple of food plot pics.



Congrats to my step-son on a great doe!


And finally a pic of the suburban after hitting a deer.

[cehorn]

I forgot to mention that the kids put Tracker on both my son's deer and the doe. He "found" both deer on about40-50 yard tracks in the dark. They knew where both deer was but hopefully Tracker is learning from these tracks as well!

[TKRanch]

Always the adventure with kids and family and you are correct, it seems to be much worse when you are not around!! Glad everyone was ok with the deer vs vehicle!!

[hmbleservant]

That's a good feeling!

[Rwc]

Enjoy your updates.

Rwc