The last deer hunt of the season

So the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department performed a census for our lease and decided we had way too many deer for the herd to stay healthy. They issued us Land Management Tags for 20 Doe and 10 Bucks. We still had plenty of them left and this was the last weekend before they expired. Thursday evening I finished packing and got to thinking about headed to the lease that night. I called my boss who was nice enough to let me off on Friday. I left the house around 9:15pm and drove to the lease. I arrived there around midnight and it was cold and dark. After talking to my wife and letting her know I was indoors and safe, I opened camp. I turned on the water, the water heater, and got the heater going. It was really cold in the cabin so I stayed up in my clothes and coat waiting for it to warm up enough to sleep. Did I mention it was cold? Anyway, around 2am I got to bed. This isn't a good time to get to sleep when you are getting up around 6am.

So at 6 the alarm goes off and crawl out of my bunk and into the cold air. As I'm pulling on my boots it begins to pour down rain. I don't have any rain gear so I decide to go back to bed until it quits. It doesn't. Finally at 3pm it stops for about 30 minutes and I decide that since I've driven down, taken off a day of work, and am dressed that I am going out! It turned out to be a great decision. Since I was the only hunter out there I walked around through some really dense tree and brushy areas to find any good game trails and bedding areas. I found some neat areas of the lease that I'd never been to before and found a few places that might be good to hunt next year. While climbing up a creek bed I look down the field and spot two young deer headed towards me. I'm not really interested in killing these young deer so I hunker down in the brush and wait for them to pass. Instead they turn into the brush behind me. While I'm waiting I also spot a group of turkey off at about 250 yards. I'm pretty excited by this, I have never seen turkey in the wild. I cut across the field trying to get closer and see them better. This turned out to be a bad idea. The minute I cut out of the trees and cover it started to pour down rain, and also the deer and turkey spotted me and bolted. I tromp around the hills and come up on the blind I was going to hunt and get in out of the weather. Instantly it quits raining. Funny huh?

That night Mary and her dad drove in and we got settled into the camp. Mary got to feeling sick as soon as we laid down and was sick all of Saturday. Major bummer. I hunted up on top with Bob and we both got skunked, also Nathan and Tag were unsuccessful. It was so foggy that morning that the feeder, which is yellow and only 60-70 yards from the blind was not visible, pretty thick stuff. That afternoon Mary and I try out our .380's and find they need some more breaking in, but Mary shoots pretty well with her Bersa, I am pretty proud of my pretty markswoman. That evening I head back up my hill and am unsuccessful in my hunt. I'm looking for a decent buck to put in the freezer, but don't see anything. Tag managed to kill a nice doe who dressed out at 72lbs. The bad news was she was pregnant with two bucks, but still the game warden says we are over populated so in the end we acheived our goal of reducing the deer population. Nathan, Tag, and myself tried to call in some wild pigs but they kept moving past our camp. After dinner we tried to build a fire, and my we I mean Nathan and Tag tried while I watched and offered encouragement. I was impressed of their dedication, because even with wet wood they made a pretty nice fire.

Sunday Mary was feeling better so we headed up to hunt, but we got out the door too late and the sun was almost up before we got to the blind. We didn't see any deer but hiked around a bit to see where the trails fed into the feeder and for her to see where to expect the deer. She kinda dug that. So we got back to camp and helped clean up and shut it down for the year. We drove back and got home around 3pm, and slept till 6pm, followed by a trip to Wal-Mart for our grocery shopping. The weekend was pretty eventful but alot of fun.

I'll try to post some pics of stuff from these last few posts, and repost the hunting pics from the first few posts when I get some time. I'll also try to keep my updates updated.