Deer season was long but interesting on Kerr County Ranch

Published 12:41 am Saturday, February 17, 2018

A long and adventurous deer season has finally come to an end. It started in September with three nights of spotlight counts and ended the last Sunday in January where, with the use of Managed Lands Deer permits, we took a few more doe and one old warrior buck.

In all, there were about 12 trips totaling more than 7,200 miles back and forth to Camp Verde Ranch south of Kerrville. I was lucky enough to see some good bucks during the season, including a 170-inch, 12-pointer my friend Bobby Parker took. There were a couple that were not shot that might have scored more. There were a lot of up-and-comers, 8-, 10- and 12-point bucks that would be the envy of any Hill Country hunter and a few from South Texas, but were just not old enough to be hunted on this ranch.

There were also some dinks. In fact, too many and that is why some of us were there. To reduce deer numbers.

I do need to stop and quickly say these are Texas deer, not those test-tube genetic freaks that are found on some ranches around the state. Yes, they are behind a high fence, and that is what gives the landowner the luxury of letting the deer age to their full potential.

Most of this year’s harvest was does. More than 80 at last count and none went to waste. Every hunter that wanted meat took theirs home, keeping some and giving the rest to friends. The remainder went to food banks and the needy in Kerr County or brought back to Carnes Processing in Whitehouse that started doing Hunters for the Hungry this year. That part was a win-win.

But the deer killing really was not the best part or the year. Spending 40-something days in various deer blinds, sitting on the ground or riding in a truck, I got to see some stuff other hunters usually don’t have time to notice, and non-hunters often never get a chance to witness.

I wandered up on a small underground cavern that landowners years ago piped to bring water that had seeped through the rocks back out to the surface to water livestock when the ranch was used for sheep and goats. It was tucked back in a small canyon I would have never taken time to walk under normal hunting conditions.

Early in the season I spotted young coyote pups on top one of the many ridges on the ranch. I have seen my share of coyotes, but never puppies. They were at a spot where in January we watched as a tiny bobcat kitten scampered across the road.

That was a unique experience, but was quickly equaled a few minutes later when we stopped at the ranch headquarters and had a mature bald eagle fly over clutching a fish. It landed in a nearby tree for its morning breakfast. Theories are the bird was probably nesting alongside a large lake on the neighboring ranch, but it was the first eagle seen on this ranch since the landowner bought it back in the 1980s.

It was either that afternoon or the next, when back on the ridge where the bobcat kitten was seen, that I watched a trio of bobcats sneak across the road into the brush.

I actually may like spring turkey hunting more than deer hunting, so it was fun to watch a couple flocks on the ranch this winter. I only saw the hens once, but they were on a portion of the ranch I did not travel that much. Groups of toms and jakes were everywhere, and as the season went on I noticed the groups getting smaller and smaller as they began early preparation for the spring breeding season. On occasion you could spot a gobbler fanned out and strutting. Other’s heads would turn a showy white.

One morning I listened as a group of six gobbled their way toward a food plot I was hunting. I also thought I heard a hen yelping, but in January I figured no way. The group of six, both jakes and mature birds, walked right down to an opening near where I thought I had heard the hen and stopped. There was a feeder 30 yards ahead of them, but they had no interest.

Suddenly from where the hen yelp had come, a mature tom came racing out of the brush and began to chase the other birds. For about five minutes, it looked like a school ground game of tag with birds going every which direction. Eventually they got it all sorted out and the one bird returned to the brush and the others went their way.

I still don’t know if there was an early courting session going on.

The last interesting encounter came when a wild pig was shot the last weekend. Sure, wild pigs are nothing new or exciting to Texas hunters. The best thing for us is that ours seemed to have disappeared this year, whether they left the property or there was a die-off.

Either way, only about six were seen all season and three were killed. The interesting thing about the last one killed was the porcupine quills poking out of its nose. It was funny to think the old sow had been sticking her nose where it did not belong, but also interesting to learn there was another species on the ranch we did not know about.

It was a long year, but certainly an interesting one and I am already looking to next year… after a rest for some good fishing.