Lee Loader

My hunting season was pretty short this year. I didn't hunt Saturday as I haven't seen many deer with the bountiful acorn crop on the ground. While working around the house on Sunday, I saw five bucks chasing one young doe. I even had a standoff with a young buck with a lot of promise trying to get to my hound dog in my driveway. I decided to go out to see what happened.

I had 27 bucks recorded on my cams, a lot of really nice bucks, but two were on my hit list. Two large eights; one three years old and one six. Both of them hang out on the header to a riparian area that eventually joins a creek system. Figuring that they might be hundreds of yards down that drainage, I walked a doe-in-heat drag parallel to the drainage about 250-yards abeam the drainage out in a native grass and brush flat where I could watch that line from a tower blind. The drag-line was about 250-yards in length. The tower sits at the header, so my hope was something good would surface close enough to shoot deer quitting time.

It happened about an hour before I expected. I heard something come up behind me and directly under the tower, I'm thinking a large hog. When it got far enough out in front of the blind to see downward, it was the three-year-old. He walked straight to the spot that I left the drag in the high grass as I knew once he saw it, he would spook.

The rifle is a 1964 Winchester M94 that dad purchased new, at Gibsons, on a clearance sale for $25. He has killed a bunch of critters with it over the years. He stopped hunting last year and gave me the rifle. I had it rebored and rechambered from 30-30 Win to a 35-30. I also found a period Redfield Jr. Scout mount and did the barrel work for the installation myself. The bullet I'm using is the Speer 180-grain Flat Point.

Base on several years, I don't expect the six-year-old eight to make a showing until after Christmas and if it does, I think it would make a grand deer for young fellows first that I have in mind. As far as an eight, it is this deer (I'm sure he is kin) on steroids. The older deer is exceptional.

Not much spread but it looks like a pretty good buck .

I can't eat that hornmeal mush anyway .

very nice

Thanks fellows.... soon to be sausage!

SAUSAGE I'll be right over
Congratulations Michael, nice animal. Is that your stand behind you & to your right?

Very nice. Whats a south Texas buck like that weigh?

larryw wrote:SAUSAGE I'll be right over
Congratulations Michael, nice animal. Is that your stand behind you & to your right?

I wish everyone was close enough to sit around my grill/firepit!

Yep, good eye. I've spent a lot of time in that box.

jdl447 wrote:Very nice. Whats a south Texas buck like that weigh?

His live weight was 130 lbs and field dressed weight 110. A little light for our area, 4 lbs lighter than average.

Ranch Dog wrote:Thanks fellows.... soon to be sausage!

Good one.
Do you make the sausage yourself?
I find that most of the processors around here charge more for processing your deer than the cost of prime beef.

That's a beautiful Deer and a beautiful rifle. The story that goes with both is excellent. Thanks for sharing it with us. My friend from church just invited me to hunt deer on private land that is very 'exclusive' around me. I told him I may have to take up his offer. Seeing your deer makes me want to go now. He makes sausage too.

farmerjim wrote:

Ranch Dog wrote:Thanks fellows.... soon to be sausage!

Good one.
Do you make the sausage yourself?
I find that most of the processors around here charge more for processing your deer than the cost of prime beef.

I'm lucky, I have an old school processor that does things right and at a very reasonable cost. She is the same age as my dad, 89, works every day! Her son is my age and will carry on. Hopefully, he will outlive me.

JohnnyEnfield wrote:That's a beautiful Deer and a beautiful rifle. The story that goes with both is excellent. Thanks for sharing it with us. My friend from church just invited me to hunt deer on private land that is very 'exclusive' around me. I told him I may have to take up his offer. Seeing your deer makes me want to go now. He makes sausage too.

Thanks, Johnny. I hope you will take your friend up on his offer!