El Rojo
FNG
I suppose I’m a little late starting this since our archery season began here in Texas in the last Saturday of September. A little background on myself and then on to the season.
I’m new to the forum but what little time I’ve spent here I have enjoyed it. It doesn’t seem fair to enjoy y’all’s postings without a little contribution from myself. I’m 33, married, with a 3.5 year old little girl (Adalee), and a 2 year old son (Raylen). I work a pretty demanding out of town schedule of 28 on and 14 off. On my 14 days off you can bank on me being in the woods or on the water just dang near every day. It’s challenging at times to juggle time between the loves of your life and the life long loves. Fortunately I have a more than understanding wife (most of the time) that also enjoys the outdoors, and two babies that are being raised with it.
I’ve been very fortunate over the last 10 years or so to kill some really nice whitetails. 8 P&Y deer and several with a rifle. My biggest being 173 6/8 (you can watch the video in the video forum) and my “personal best” a 161 2/8” East Texas Public Land rifle kill. You won’t find the part of Texas I’m from on the covers of many hunting magazines. I live in the Piney Woods region and it’s known more for claims of “black panther” and bigfoot sightings than 140” deer or bigger. Finding and killing one of that size here, even on the most premium properties, is exceptionally hard to do. I work extremely hard, and hunt much harder. Through this post I’d like to share that with you.
Since I’m late posting I’ll give you a short run down on my hunting so far. Opening weekend My wife and I went to a small property that myself and 4 other families lease. There are some nice deer on it but it really isn’t managed for trophy quality. A 125” deer there will be exceptional. It is however a beautiful property and because of the wild hogs there it’s a very target rich environment. There is no bag limit or very many rules at all when it comes to wild hogs, in reality it’s more like guerrilla war fare!
The second morning of season I was in a ladder on the corner of a food plot with some large white oaks behind me going down the ridge. I had 2 really nice bucks and 6 does well within shooting range for about 20 min but since the stand was set up to shoot the corner of the food plot, there were no shooting lanes behind me going down the ridge. My wife ended up shooting a big boar hog that morning and that afternoon the wind shifted so I moved further down the week bottom.
It was a whack a mole style hunt. 3 hogs came in 3 left with arrow wounds. 2 were recovered and the 3rd wasn’t.
The next day my buddy Jason (you’ll end up reading quite a bit about him) and I had an unsuccessful hunt that morning and went to move the stand where I’d seen the bucks the previous morning. I’ll give the cliff note version, but I ended up falling about 20’ and banging up both of my ankles pretty bad. Luckily I was leaving for my 28 days at work.
I just got home 3 days ago and it’s been one great hunt after another on my MLD Trinity Co lease which is where I am currently. In my last 3 hunts I’ve seen 4 shooters (5 years old, 130” or bigger) and several other smaller bucks. A cold front is blowing through as we speak and I’m on the edge of a big pipeline where pre rut bucks are known to cross. Stick with me over the next couple of weeks. It should get interesting!
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I’m new to the forum but what little time I’ve spent here I have enjoyed it. It doesn’t seem fair to enjoy y’all’s postings without a little contribution from myself. I’m 33, married, with a 3.5 year old little girl (Adalee), and a 2 year old son (Raylen). I work a pretty demanding out of town schedule of 28 on and 14 off. On my 14 days off you can bank on me being in the woods or on the water just dang near every day. It’s challenging at times to juggle time between the loves of your life and the life long loves. Fortunately I have a more than understanding wife (most of the time) that also enjoys the outdoors, and two babies that are being raised with it.
I’ve been very fortunate over the last 10 years or so to kill some really nice whitetails. 8 P&Y deer and several with a rifle. My biggest being 173 6/8 (you can watch the video in the video forum) and my “personal best” a 161 2/8” East Texas Public Land rifle kill. You won’t find the part of Texas I’m from on the covers of many hunting magazines. I live in the Piney Woods region and it’s known more for claims of “black panther” and bigfoot sightings than 140” deer or bigger. Finding and killing one of that size here, even on the most premium properties, is exceptionally hard to do. I work extremely hard, and hunt much harder. Through this post I’d like to share that with you.
Since I’m late posting I’ll give you a short run down on my hunting so far. Opening weekend My wife and I went to a small property that myself and 4 other families lease. There are some nice deer on it but it really isn’t managed for trophy quality. A 125” deer there will be exceptional. It is however a beautiful property and because of the wild hogs there it’s a very target rich environment. There is no bag limit or very many rules at all when it comes to wild hogs, in reality it’s more like guerrilla war fare!
The second morning of season I was in a ladder on the corner of a food plot with some large white oaks behind me going down the ridge. I had 2 really nice bucks and 6 does well within shooting range for about 20 min but since the stand was set up to shoot the corner of the food plot, there were no shooting lanes behind me going down the ridge. My wife ended up shooting a big boar hog that morning and that afternoon the wind shifted so I moved further down the week bottom.
It was a whack a mole style hunt. 3 hogs came in 3 left with arrow wounds. 2 were recovered and the 3rd wasn’t.
The next day my buddy Jason (you’ll end up reading quite a bit about him) and I had an unsuccessful hunt that morning and went to move the stand where I’d seen the bucks the previous morning. I’ll give the cliff note version, but I ended up falling about 20’ and banging up both of my ankles pretty bad. Luckily I was leaving for my 28 days at work.
I just got home 3 days ago and it’s been one great hunt after another on my MLD Trinity Co lease which is where I am currently. In my last 3 hunts I’ve seen 4 shooters (5 years old, 130” or bigger) and several other smaller bucks. A cold front is blowing through as we speak and I’m on the edge of a big pipeline where pre rut bucks are known to cross. Stick with me over the next couple of weeks. It should get interesting!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk