686

A ~20 yr old Slumberjack. It has been in a stuff sack for probably 99.99% of the last 10 years, so not optimal, but it worked. It was cold that night, below 20F. I kept some wool thermals, socks, and a sock hat on and I was ok, but woke up a lot with my shoulders or hip bones hurting from not enough padding between me and the ground.

Under 20 degrees this morning. Hiked a little over 5 miles today. We saw two shooter mulie bucks, but didn’t get a shot opportunity. Packed up the spike camp and headed back to the cabin, watching the Texas game with our feet up now.

Hiked into a remote area and spike camped tonite. Saw a nice elk herd and tons of mulies all on private land on the way in. Hopefully some filter out in front of our glassing setup in the morning. Don’t have service on the road but have nice 5G up on top of the ridge at 7600’.

@Herbie Hancock need to see some pictures of him propped up - nice buck!

Made it up to the cabin, saw tons of mulie does, including several right on the shoulder of the road that make your heart stop for a second wondering if they are going to step out in front of you while you’re doing 70. Saw one bull late. Checking rifles and getting groceries tomorrow. We’re thinking about camping out tomorrow night in a new spot.

I put in for first rifle season, but wasn’t drawn, so I am OTC this year. My hunting partner drew a mule deer buck tag, so he’s looking for bucks and I’m looking for bulls. The neighbors close to his cabin had an aggressive blackbear around earlier this year, so I’ll probably pick up an OTC bear tag as well. Colorado makes you buy a small game license to apply for a tag so I’ve got that and I usually add a furbearer tag as well. I’ve seen coyotes and foxes the last couple years, but I haven’t pulled the trigger on one. I’ll probably do that if I get the opportunity this year.

300 Weatherby. I only was able to shoot 20 rounds of my final load work up, but I was getting over book velocity and ~MOA accuracy. My last 3 shot group was ~2” in spread, just off the bullseye at 300 yards. The 168gr TTSX is an interesting bullet. Looking forward to shooting it more and hopefully ascertaining some terminal performance soon.

168gr TTSX and 84 grains of 7828ssc was giving me 3390 feet per second at the range. Filling this box and hitting the hay.

I’m packing up to head to Colorado in the morning. My elk season starts Saturday. Packing has been pretty hectic, since I was whitetail hunting all last weekend, didn’t get as much done on my Colorado prep, so it’s going to be a late night and an early morning tomorrow. I feel like my gear situation is probably ok, but I’m wishing I had some more time to shoot long range with the hand loads I’ve worked up. Still need to load some extras tonight. I’m bringing several boxes of factory ammo as well and need to spend some time shooting up at elevation Friday. It’s weird, when I started doing this trip a few years back I just threw some stuff in a bag and went, now I’m worried about every little gear detail. My partner is up there already and has seen a lot of cows and does but no bucks or bulls. It’s warmer and drier than usual where we’re hunting, which I don’t mind staying dry, but the snow does seem to help the hunting sometimes.

We crushed it today. 9 does between 5 of us. Got the food plots in. Used a rented no till drill for the first time, just need some rain now. Filled feeders, football, wild game and steaks on the grill.

Brought 4 guests out to our place. Sat for pigs tonight but no luck, hoping to slaughter some does tomorrow AM. Rented a no-till drill and am planning to plant ~ 5 acres of oats, peas and clover mid day. Then hunt PM and cook dove, venison, and steaks. Should be a good day.

It seems like the limits are local by store. I’d call ahead, but the academy’s and Bass pro/cablelas around central Texas have been selling shells by the case no problem from what I’ve seen.

Yeah I had basically put planting a food plot out of my mind but now that we got 5” of rain I feel like I missed a good opportunity by not putting seed in the ground a few weeks back. If soil conditions allow I may try to get something in the ground this weekend.

@Herbie Hancock yeah he is thick. the drought was horrible for us this year; we have lots of does with ribs showing and this SOB has a gut on him. We have decent genetics on our little low fence central Texas place - we had a 3-4y.o. 14pt two years ago, and some little drop tines as well (we didn’t shoot them, so either the neighbors did, or ? but haven’t seen them this year). When I see “inferior” older bucks like this I tend to be tempted to get them off the habitat. Primarily though, we need to lower the population density and shoot lots of does for awhile and the herd would have better body condition. I have a 238” whitetail on the wall from a high fence hunt I was invited on as a guest, and I doubt I’ll ever shoot anything bigger than that, and I’m just enjoying the process now. I also like to pick out good cull/shooter bucks for friends/family to take (that are trophies for them); or ones I might take with one of my kids with me so they can be part of the process/put their hands on a nice buck.

I don’t know much about birds, but had a fun encounter with this one at the shooting range. Long sharp talons.

I filled some feeders and setup a pop up blind at a new feeder location today. Saw a big 6 pointer I haven’t seen on camera. Might be a cull candidate, but a 6 that size is kinda interesting.

@Pdawg88 nice work staying patient and going back for him in the morning. Archery highs and lows are too tough for me to shoot bucks these days - I may try to get a doe this year with my bow. I shot this buck with my bow a few years back and the blood trail petered out after ~100 yards or so. I was sick to my stomach for a week until I saw him again on trail cams. My dad got him with a rifle two weeks later. The scar was the exit wound. High entrance wound must have only got one lung is all I can figure. There was no scarring or bruising on the muscles from the archery wound when we cleaned him.

Awesome buck! Archery tackle? Did you feel like the shot was good and just didn’t want to bump him or where you doubting things all night?

Can you cover the 1/3 mile in the dark early Friday AM, get posted up in a good spot and wait? Where do you think they bed down mid-day?

@JCHIL I’m only seeing 3.5 as well. Beautiful buck.

Are you in NM? Man that bull in the back looks good to me. You have a great setup and are smart to play the wind

A friend’s mother-in-law made the unfortunate decision awhile ago to hand-feed and try to make a pet out of a wild buck fawn, which is now a ~ 2.5 yr old. The buck went off on her last week in the yard. Crazy to say, but she’s probably lucky she wasn’t killed. After the hospital trip and getting the m-i-l back home, my buddy called the GW and sent some video of the buck. Warden gave him the go-ahead to put the deer down. Crazy stuff. Buck tore up the old lady’s arms and legs bad. Trying to spoiler this in case you’re eating while reading:

Good for your dad! Getting after that many does is work. A nice high fence place with a big doe MLD quota I was invited to a few times had what I’d call a “does and bros” weekend for opening weekend, where guests were welcome, but bucks were strictly off limits and you had to shoot at least one doe. I’m trying to get about 5 - 6 guys out to our family place opening weekend to try and shoot 10 does at least. We should probably shoot more than that. Our ratios aren’t as bad as yours, but they are probably 5 does : 1 buck. My dad won’t shoot does either and doesn’t like cleaning deer generally, which adds work to my plate.

@fattyflattie I want to get a fixed blade in magnacut, just haven’t pulled the trigger yet. The Montana stuff is nice but pricy. Buck did a special trial magnacut run and I screwed up and thought about it for a day and they sold out.

Knocking doves down with a 410 is impressive! I decided to replace the feeder that coons messed up entirely with a stand & fill. My dad is 73 this year and still gets out and fills feeders standing on the truck bed rail. He fell off a trailer and fell getting out of the bobcat recently. I’ll probably replace all the elevated feeders with stand & fills if this style works out. This is the 600# EZ Feeder from All Seasons, $499. I really like the mechanism design. I pulled some cards, need to take care of a boar and shoot a bunch of does. Have a couple of decent bucks.