We Have a Ranch Again - New Ranch - Follow Along

[cehorn]

Well, here is the good, the bad and the ugly from this weekend. In short, the ugly was the hunting as in 3 sits I saw a grand total of zero deer. The bad is the lack of deer sightings was likely self inflicted as we planted food plots all day Saturday. And the good, fall food plots are in the ground. Now for a more detailed write up.

So after last Sunday I had everything ready for this weekend. This was the most prepared at the ranch I have ever been going into the season. By everything I mean I was going to be the only one at the ranch, all feeders were full, all work was done, etc so driving around and disturbance would be minimal and I wouldn't be competing for stands with other family members. Then we got 4" of rain Sunday nigh/Monday. Dad decided that was enough to want to plant food plots this weekend. So 180 degree change. You can't have much more disturbance than 30 minutes of disking and 45 minutes of constant ATV commotion at each stand. I wasn't too happy about how it affected the weekend but looking big picture this should set us up well for the rest of the season.

As far as planting we planted about half an acre at every stand. We over-seeded and in all planted 500 lbs of oats and 150 lbs of the local feed stores deer mix. Looking at the tag the feed mix had oats, wheat, turnips and some clover. I got 2 plots done Friday when we got there and then dad plowed the rest on Saturday while my wife and I planted the rest by slinging seed and covering it with a harrow drag. Overall the plots look great and I think there is enough moisture in the ground from Monday to get them started.

Given the disturbance throughout the entire ranch and the amount of acorns on the ground, the hunting was terrible. But at least the weather wasn't too hot and the views were good. Pics below.
As always pics below.

[TeamAmerica]

Lose the battle but win the war! Keep up the hard work. Enjoying following along.

[skulleton]

Acorns are fresh on the ground everywhere out there on my place. Noticed 3 weeks ago they where dropping, I was surprised at how early it was.

[cehorn]

Here is the drag/harrow team. My wife, Chipper, Daisy and Tracker drug all of the food plots after/while I was slinging seed.


And here are the finished plots:

Red Tank

Cactus Stand




Border Stand


Big Tank


Comanche


View

Well

[cehorn]

And here are the sunrises from this morning and yesterday

[cehorn]

Lose the battle but win the war! Keep up the hard work. Enjoying following along.

Yes sir, that is the name of the game. Gotta keep looking at the long term and hope something good happens along the way. I did see a decent 10 point Friday evening after dark and my dad said he saw a huge deer this morning driving around. They are there, just have to be in the right place at the right time.

[cehorn]

So as I mentioned, other than filling feeders the work is done for the year. Well, I may plant some native sunflowers over Thanksgiving to see if they come up in the spring but other than that the work is done. The hunting has been SLOW but it picked up a little last weekend. I posted this pic in the youth weekend thread but wanted to add it here. My youngest connected on a doe last weekend so the fruits of MLD are already paying off. He doesn't sit by himself much for deer but he did this one all on his own. It was a rifle kill as he is not there with the bow yet but he did sport the Double G hat for the LDP.



I also posted a separate thread for this as well about 10-20-23/24. I wanted to memorialize that here as well. As the other thread said, I took a picture of the same deer, at the same bush/tree just on opposite sides, on the same day (October 20) with one picture being taken at 7:20 and one picture being taken at 7:29. 364 days, 23 hours and 51 minutes apart!! What are the odds?? Pretty neat stuff. Somehow we will frame these to put in the cabin.

10-20-23


10-20-24

[cehorn]

Our opening was one of the best we have ever had. We had a full camp including my parents, my sisters family, my wife and I, my oldest son and a friend and my youngest son and his girlfriend. Some including us got into camp Thursday evening and then others trickled in throughout the day on Friday. So in all we had 5 hunts over the weekend.

Hunt 1 - Friday Morning
This hunt was pretty uneventful as not much was seen and nothing shot.

Hunt 2 - Friday Evening
After checking cards, I saw my target buck had been showing up at a different stand so I picked that stand for Friday evening (bow) and Saturday morning (rifle). Friday evening I saw a couple of does and a couple of spikes and then after 7 I saw him coming in. It was too late for a shot but I watched him for about 30 minutes trying not to scare him off. Finally, something behind me spooked all the deer and I was able to get out of there. Prior to getting out my youngest texted me and said he had shot a doe. He said he found flood but not a lot. I told him to meet me a camp and we would grab the dog and go take a look. There was good blood at the shot but not much after. I got lazy with the track leaving the atv running with lights and having the kids follow me trying to find blood. It was too much distraction for my ADD dog and he made a loop thru the thick stuff and then went back to the atv. I was a little frustrated but I shut everything down turning off the atv and telling the kids to stay put and stay quiet. I took Tracker back to the blood and after a little bit he got interested again. Off we went. It was thick with lots of briar and shin oak. He took off down a "trail" and we kept moving into a canyon and got to a couple of places with 3' rock walls. We hopped down those and then boom, there she was. After a rocky start, this was by far his best track and there is no way we would have found this deer without him. I called my son to come down there to give us a hand. Actually, I made him drag it out uphill after I helped him lift it up on the rocks a couple of times. His shot was a little back but not bad. Overall she didn't run too far but as I mentioned she went through some nasty stuff. My son had accomplished his goal for the weekend which was to shoot a doe with his gf there. She hasn't grown up hunting or around the outdoors but has really taken a liking to the country life. They are young and likely won't last given they are still in high school but it is still awesome to get a kid involved and interested in the outdoors. She is ready to come back.

Here's what we were in:
And the LDP


Hunt 3 - Saturday Morning
Everyone went out to hunt Saturday morning. I was hunting for my target buck (as was everyone else at different stands, he was a marked man), my youngest was now on pig patrol and my oldest sat with his friend to try to get him a doe. Around 8 the quiet was interrupted by a shot and my son's friend had shot a doe. She ran but they felt confident in a hit. I told them to sit tight as I was planning on sitting until 10 since I wouldn't get to hunt this stand on the next hunt. Around 830 I noticed movement in the brush way behind the feeder but all I could see was legs. Then a little later I saw head and horns pop out. It was him and he was coming in. I took a couple of deep breaths and got my camera rolling. After a few minutes of waiting for a shot he finally turned and gave me a decent shot. He jumped and ran about 30 yards towards the stand and fell. I could see him down!! We started hunting this buck as a 4 year old 8 3 years ago so I have him at 6 years old and much better than when we started hunting him. I also have both sides from him as a 4 yr old on display in the living room of the cabin. As I mentioned, he was at the top of the whole families list but I was the only one that ever saw him. This is the same buck I posted silhouette pictures of a couple of weeks ago in the sunrise (post 292 above). Every time I saw him prior to Saturday morning it was either too early, too late or I had the wrong weapon. All of that to say I had a lot of history with this buck and by the time I shot him I didn't care how big or small he was. Anyway, I let him lay for a bit while I waited on everyone else to be done hunting and then went and put my hands on him and took a picture. Then I went back to camp to meet up and get Tracker to give him some practice. My son couldn't find his friends doe as there wasn't much blood so we had some deer to go get. We went to mine first as I had a fear of driving up to coyotes eating on him. We went around and I dropped off Tracker and Tracker went right to him. We took pictures and then loaded him up and went to where my son was hunting. I dropped Tracker and he ran around for a minute and then found the trail. A minute later and he was on a dead doe. She didn't run far but made it under a tree in some brush that my son and his friend had walked past a few times without finding her. So, 3 deer found for Tracker on the weekend.

My son's friend's deer

And my buck


The second picture is me with my buck and my dad who has made all of this happen. I scored my buck at 137" and change. We are going to say he is tied for the ranch record with my son's buck from last year even though I have him by 1/2".

Hunt 4 - Saturday Evening
With the monkey off my back, I decided to stay in camp and cook, watch football and have some drinks to celebrate. Off everyone else went with my oldest son hoping for a doe while his friend filmed and everyone else in my family on pig patrol. My oldest son was able to shoot a nice doe. I decided to give Tracker a break and just told him to bring her in. My youngest shot a couple of pigs with his gf with him. One of the pigs was a big one that went over 150 lbs.

My oldest son's doe
My son's pigs

Hunt 5 - Sunday Morning
Sunday morning was uneventful as my youngest and his girlfriend were the only ones to go out. He didn't want to wake up just to pig hunt but she did and so they went. We loaded up and headed home with a stop by Chance's to drop off my deer.

[cehorn]

As I mentioned previously, our goal is to shoot 17 does and 6 bucks. So far we have shot 5 does and 1 buck. Hopefully we can keep it rolling.

[cehorn]

And one more post. Everyone had a lot of fun this weekend. A lot of good family time. A lot of good food. A lot of good outdoor time. Some time around a fire. It doesn't get any better than that.

Oh and a little bit of the kids getting their hands dirty as they cleaned most of the animals.

[kmack]

Looks like a great opening weekend, and congrats on the buck!

[RutnBuk]

Heck yea thats awesome.

[cehorn]

Not much to update from last weekend. The moon didn't do us any favors but it sure was pretty. The Monday after opening weekend we got 1/2" or rain at the ranch. That was enough to get the food plots going. They look decent right now but we did get another 1/2" yesterday so hopefully they take off.

On a side note, 2 weeks ago my niece shot a doe. So we are up to 6 does and a buck for the year.

Moon Pics and a sunset pic





And some pics of the plots

[cehorn]

Thanksgiving week was great. I was off all week so my plan was to head to the ranch the Friday before Thanksgiving with just me and my wife. My oldest stepson joined us on Tuesday for a couple of hunts and then we went home Wednesday morning. Wednesday evening I hunted at home. Thursday morning the boys and I went and hunted at my cousins place in Smithville. Then Thursday evening we headed back to the ranch for the rest of the weekend.

The first weekend my goal was to find a buck for my wife and get her a deer. I saw a couple of mature 8's on camera with one coming in the evenings to 1 stand and the other coming in the mornings to another stand. So we alternated stands to try to catch up with one of the bucks. On Sunday morning about 7 she taps me on the shoulder as I was taking a little snooze waiting on the feeder. He was there. So I got the camera rolling as she got set up. I gave her the green light, reminded her to breath and squeeze. BOOM. The deer was down in its tracks. As I've mentioned our goal for the year for the ranch is 6 bucks (3 for my family and 3 for my sisters family) and I decided early on that I wanted to let all the young 10 points walk. At least for our 3 deer. So this buck met the criteria to be one of our 3 bucks. I'm proud of my wife and she was very happy with her buck.




As I mentioned my step son got there from Tarleton on Tuesday and I wanted to get him on a doe. I had been hand corning a spot in one of our canyons that had a few does coming in. I set him up on the top of the canyon wall. Around 3:00 on Tuesday he had a doe down. The shot wasn't super far but there is over 40' of elevation difference between where he was sitting and where the doe was. There was a huge blood trail but we got Tracker on the deer and he found her very quick.


On Thursday morning in Smithville the goal was to shoot a couple of does. They did not cooperate. However my stepson was able to shoot a good 8 point for his buck for the year. Again this wasn't at our ranch but I'm including it in the write up here.



When we got back to the ranch Thursday, I decided I would hunt with my oldest son who is a sophomore at ATM this year. I was trying to get him on a nice 8. We never saw a good shooter but did have one of the young 10's come out for about 30 minutes on Friday evening. That was fun and good for him to watch a deer like that with no thoughts of shooting him. Right before dark on Friday 2 pigs came out. He shot one but we couldn't find much blood. It was a big boar so we decided to just go look after the morning hunt since we wouldn't take any meat from it anyway. We found it pretty quick on Saturday morning. We didn't want to take it back to camp just to weigh it but I'm guessing it was over 150 lbs and it is the biggest pig my son has shot. I went ahead and cut the head off to do a euro mount. The second pic is after I cut the head off but I wanted to show how big this pigs head was compared to Tracker.




And finally we settled in for some family time watching the aggy game. My son was all alone as I and my parents all graduated from Texas. We weren't too hard on him since he isn't too redass. The game turned out well and we wrapped up a very successful week. The only "game pic" I have is below.

[cehorn]

And just to keep track, we are up to 7 does and 2 bucks for the year.