The good Lord has blessed me with many years of hunting in His beautiful south Texas brush country. Due to health issues, 2014 was the last year I was able to get to the lease at will and spend two or three days at a time. Thankfully, I have many great memories of the fourteen years I have hunted and done ADC on this ranch. These memories help fill in the gaps and I still make day trips when I can.
During the summer the rancher asked us to cull some hogs. Boy, was it HOT!
A little bit of Hog Heaven
My partner and I hunted hogs approximately 16 days and removed 36 hogs during June and July.
Most of my hogs were shot with a .223 AR. Many folks do not believe the .223 is adequate for hogs but with careful shot placement it works.
With the deer herd somewhat depleted by extreme drought conditions, we decided to hunt coyotes and bobcats instead of deer, hunting 56 days from 1 Nov. through 21 Feb.
We did take some time out, hoping to put my hunting partner on a Scimitar Horned Oryx. We must shoot only the cows and the only positive way to determine sex is by their plumbing, or lack thereof. Mature bulls horns are generally heavier and shorter than the cows, but I don't fully trust myself to use that solely for determination.
The center Oryx above is a bull. The proof is located directly above the head of the left hand Oryx. See if you can find it
..I suspect the right hand animal is a cow, but would not shoot, based on horns only.
We got really lucky and managed to slip up on a group that had bedded down early on a cold, heavily overcast evening. We got within 100 yds undetected, no small feat when that many eyes are watching you and their hearing is equally as sharp. Having never approached that close to a bedded herd, I was concerned as to how to get them to stand without spooking them. Reverting to predator techniques, I lip squeaked, which worked perfectly.
The herd stood up slowly, divided in two groups. Proof of sex is extremely difficult to see at longer distance in high grass, especially with the various animals milling around. The left hand animal in the right hand group stood broadside long enough for me to assure myself (and my partner) of the fact she was a cow so I told him to shoot.....
......he did, and it was back to predator hunting.
Called in two pairs of coyotes across an outer fence before we figured out that they couldn't get through that fence. We had not realized that this section of fence had a smaller mesh at the bottom than the other sections of fence where we hunt. The silver lining was my first picture of a (live) coyote.
Hey, I know it's not the best coyote photo you've seen, but I usually shoot first, then take pictures and it is not only my first live coyote picture, it is my only live coyote picture.
One of the high points of this year's hunting was calling in a big bobcat which stepped out at 40 yards, which....
sat down slowly.....
and posed for several portraits:
The last week in Feb., and our last trip, the ranch foreman found a large den adjacent to a freshly "rollerchopped" field and asked us to check it out.
We set up and called that evening 130 yds downwind of the den. Right at last light, a young male trotted from the rollerchop toward the den. He wouldn't stop at the bark so I took the running shot @ 40 yards using a new load (87 gr. Hornady HP) in Dtech 243 WSSM. It worked perfectly.
Next morning, we decided to check out the den to see if any fresh tracks had been made overnight. There were, but not what we had expected.
No coyote tracks, but noticed the snake track (going into den from the left and exiting at top of picture). The snake was sunning itself three ft. from the den.
Rattles were partially broken off; measured just shy of 5 1/2 Ft.
This was the first snake of the year and a good reminder to watch yer step!
Didn't keep score on number of animals called during the 70 odd days we hunted, but we recovered seventeen coyotes, lost three (two of which were chest shot but managed to get across outer fence before expiring) and had a few (too many) misses. I missed two running coyotes (but managed to miss one of them 3 times ; my partner missed 7 shots, which is not typical of him but three were bobcats and he's never shot a bobcat. I think it may have been a bad case of "cat fever" .
Regards,
hps
During the summer the rancher asked us to cull some hogs. Boy, was it HOT!
A little bit of Hog Heaven
My partner and I hunted hogs approximately 16 days and removed 36 hogs during June and July.
Most of my hogs were shot with a .223 AR. Many folks do not believe the .223 is adequate for hogs but with careful shot placement it works.
With the deer herd somewhat depleted by extreme drought conditions, we decided to hunt coyotes and bobcats instead of deer, hunting 56 days from 1 Nov. through 21 Feb.
We did take some time out, hoping to put my hunting partner on a Scimitar Horned Oryx. We must shoot only the cows and the only positive way to determine sex is by their plumbing, or lack thereof. Mature bulls horns are generally heavier and shorter than the cows, but I don't fully trust myself to use that solely for determination.
The center Oryx above is a bull. The proof is located directly above the head of the left hand Oryx. See if you can find it
..I suspect the right hand animal is a cow, but would not shoot, based on horns only.We got really lucky and managed to slip up on a group that had bedded down early on a cold, heavily overcast evening. We got within 100 yds undetected, no small feat when that many eyes are watching you and their hearing is equally as sharp. Having never approached that close to a bedded herd, I was concerned as to how to get them to stand without spooking them. Reverting to predator techniques, I lip squeaked, which worked perfectly.
The herd stood up slowly, divided in two groups. Proof of sex is extremely difficult to see at longer distance in high grass, especially with the various animals milling around. The left hand animal in the right hand group stood broadside long enough for me to assure myself (and my partner) of the fact she was a cow so I told him to shoot.....
......he did, and it was back to predator hunting.
Called in two pairs of coyotes across an outer fence before we figured out that they couldn't get through that fence. We had not realized that this section of fence had a smaller mesh at the bottom than the other sections of fence where we hunt. The silver lining was my first picture of a (live) coyote.
Hey, I know it's not the best coyote photo you've seen, but I usually shoot first, then take pictures and it is not only my first live coyote picture, it is my only live coyote picture.
One of the high points of this year's hunting was calling in a big bobcat which stepped out at 40 yards, which....
sat down slowly.....
and posed for several portraits:
The last week in Feb., and our last trip, the ranch foreman found a large den adjacent to a freshly "rollerchopped" field and asked us to check it out.
We set up and called that evening 130 yds downwind of the den. Right at last light, a young male trotted from the rollerchop toward the den. He wouldn't stop at the bark so I took the running shot @ 40 yards using a new load (87 gr. Hornady HP) in Dtech 243 WSSM. It worked perfectly.
Next morning, we decided to check out the den to see if any fresh tracks had been made overnight. There were, but not what we had expected.
No coyote tracks, but noticed the snake track (going into den from the left and exiting at top of picture). The snake was sunning itself three ft. from the den.
Rattles were partially broken off; measured just shy of 5 1/2 Ft.
This was the first snake of the year and a good reminder to watch yer step!
Didn't keep score on number of animals called during the 70 odd days we hunted, but we recovered seventeen coyotes, lost three (two of which were chest shot but managed to get across outer fence before expiring) and had a few (too many) misses. I missed two running coyotes (but managed to miss one of them 3 times
; my partner missed 7 shots, which is not typical of him but three were bobcats and he's never shot a bobcat. I think it may have been a bad case of "cat fever" .Regards,
hps
Long skinny ones, fresh out of hibernation, like the one pictured always worry me more than the big fat ones which IME are not as aggressive OR fast. It's that time of year, Watch yer step!
