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Hunting ‘23/‘24: Bag ‘em and Tag ‘em


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Had a baseball tournament cancelled and it afforded me a free weekend. Snuck out to my place. Swung by my BIL's ranch and shot at a pig midday. Not sure it was a mortal shot, riding on a utv and shooting is hard. Found some blood but couldn't find a trail. Anyways, I am sitting back at my place hoping pigs come out soon. My BIL texts me a photo of a pig he killed. I won't post it but it is fun to see what a 300 win mag does to a pigs head. I need to get a pig now!

Edited by HOOKEM4
ousux
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South Texas meat haul. My brother with the shot, his buddy on the video. My uncle has a nice little spread. 100ish acres, they built a 3 bedroom / 3 bath place, bar man cave and shop on the side. Only about 15 mins from chente’s. They feed the animals year round, no else hunts the land  …

 

Edited by tx 3 putt
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On 12/14/2023 at 7:36 PM, deadshank said:

Lots of factors.  Really odd ones like in the picture is probably not due to an injury to a or both hind legs or injury to the antlers during developmental velvet stage.  Probably not bad nutrition either.  
 

I would bet the buck with the odd antlers had a testicle or both that didn’t drop into the scrotum where they / it stays cooler than its own internal body temp like it should thus causing hormone imbalance leading to the odd and small antlers.

If his testicles stay up in his body cavity because of a genetic or other permanent issue then he probably would have his next set of antlers turn up abnormal again  

I could be wrong.   

Sorry for the laughing emoji. Now I feel bad. 

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12 minutes ago, RMac5 said:

Congrats, great buck. What’s the info on the rifle?

Early or mid 70’s Remington 700, .30-06. 
Original gloss finished stripped off and oil finish applied to keep the Walnut looking original. Trigger replaced after malfunctioning twice, Remington issues obviously, but also after we realized it wasn’t a user issue the first time. Kicks at the range but shoots like a .22 when hunting. Leupold scope and ammo of choice is the Remington 150 Grain Core-Lokt. 

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5 minutes ago, RMac5 said:

That is a hell of a buck, he’d be hard to give a pass as a 4.5YO.  That big ol freakin neck and that drop tine are so damn cool.

Do you protein as well?

We do.  Water stations in protein pens, as well.  Started with cotton seed in a few pens.   They’re eating it but still prefer the protein pellets.   Will be refilling all protein feeders in the next few weeks as the rut winds down and they need the food. 

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9 hours ago, RMac5 said:

What do you ballpark score him? Not sure about the drought in your area but he might have been even better with some rain.

Gross with all trash included: maybe 160.    He’s got junk but no mass. Main frame 5 on his right but only 4 on his left.  
 

He needs more time. 

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20 hours ago, Al Czervik said:

Early or mid 70’s Remington 700, .30-06. 
Original gloss finished stripped off and oil finish applied to keep the Walnut looking original. Trigger replaced after malfunctioning twice, Remington issues obviously, but also after we realized it wasn’t a user issue the first time. Kicks at the range but shoots like a .22 when hunting. Leupold scope and ammo of choice is the Remington 150 Grain Core-Lokt. 

Great peashooter.  From the wear on it, looks like you shoot lefty?

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34 minutes ago, cabowabo said:

Can you even eat deer like that with all the shit that‘s been pumped into them?  They’d probably set off a geiger counter. Amazing what people pay to shoot fake deer like that. 

It always makes it seem more realistic if they take the ear tag off of the livestock before they release it from the pen to allow you to "harvest" it in the wild.

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3 hours ago, cabowabo said:

Can you even eat deer like that with all the shit that‘s been pumped into them?  They’d probably set off a geiger counter. Amazing what people pay to shoot fake deer like that. 

I’m pretty certain that the meat was way down on his list of priorities there.  Call it a hunch.

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3 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

Here's another "free range" fella' from C5 near Waco

image.png.f2d565bac9bbbcb9297f7eff59b26349.png

I don't have an ax to grind one way or the other - low fence, high fence, sedated and photoed - whatever is legal and within your moral speed bumps, rock on if that's how you want to do it.  As long as the animal is treated humanely and your aren't crossing any legal barriers, fire away.

Along those lines, I've noticed recently that "free range" is being used in lieu of making the fence distinction.  To avoid high fence or low fence moniker, folks (typically under high fence) will use free range.

That can be and is a very true statement under many situations, even if there is a high fence involved.  Give a buck X,000 acres and that SOB can be as free-range and hard to hunt as any public land animal.

Pointed out only as a statement that is seems to me the high/low becomes a battleground for comments and judgement, while some of that gets diffused and craftily avoided with the use of "free range".

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Reagan1k said:

Along those lines, I've noticed recently that "free range" is being used in lieu of making the fence distinction.

Yep, as pointed out, it's almost exclusively used to obfuscate high-fence places and the stigma that comes with them.  Hence the ironical point made earlier about the "free range" seer than are obviously high-fenced born, fed, and raised in.  Also true is the difficulty in locating animals that are high-fenced on large places with thousands of acres.  Those animals can hide out any number of places and you can come up short just as you can on public land (which Texas has a scarce amount of)

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Making one final in-season trip to the lease this coming Saturday. Haven't had any luck getting a deer this year, but did shoot a good size hog back right before Thanksgiving. One of the other guys shot a nice buck the 2nd weekend of the season, but that's been about it.

I  had a very busy November and December at work and other weekend activities going on to where I didn't get to head out nearly as often or for as long as I would have liked. Other than Opening Weekend, have only been able to make 2 quick trips where I only got to sit in a stand either once or twice before needing to head back home.  Next year I need to schedule some Fridays or Mondays off where I can head up for a full weekend and get at least 4 hunts in.

This season for me was really about just getting back into deer hunting for the first time in close to 2 decades, and getting the lease I joined into a state where you could realistically have a chance of shooting something. When my spot opened up back in July, there was not a single functioning feeder at any of the stands. After some hard work, by late October we managed to get 2 up and running.

There are 2 other stands that are in decent shape but just need new feeders (one of which has already been purchased and just needs to be set up). Got more work to do this offseason, but we have every intention of having at least 4 huntable stands ready for Opening Weekend of 2024, and are going to make a more concerted effort to make sure all batteries and solar panels are in working order and feeders are consistently filled to start feeding sometime in September and running consistently throughout the season (had a few hiccups this year like clocks not set properly, dead battery in one feeder, running out of corn in another...etc.)

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On 11/22/2023 at 10:08 PM, HOOKEM4 said:

My oldest finally caught the bug I think. He is 11 and shot a pig but never wanted to shoot a deer. This trip he changed course and on his third sit with me he shot at a solid 8pt. He missed. Shot between his legs. Nerves or just a new gun I don't know. I consoled him and told him about the biggest deer I will ever get an chance to shoot and how I missed twice. Forget it. About 30 min later a deer came out and he said it was a doe at first, wait dad why does he have horns and not antlers? He ended up with a spike for his first deer. It was not a small spike for our area. Made him wear the blood for his first kill.  Proud of him for sticking it out after missing his first shot. He needs to work on his shooting still, shoulder shot and dad had to finish the job but it is a start.

 

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Finally remembered to check the CWD test and got the negative result. But the interesting part was he was aged at 5.5 yrs old by the biologist. I just dropped him in the drop box so I didn't know till now. Great cull.

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