First South Texas Pope & Young

This has to be one of the greatest BowHunting moments in my entire life. First and foremost I have to give thanks to the "Old Man Upstairs" (Thank You!) and my lease partners, Mitch Krivokucha (Mitch), Bruce Letbetter (Bruce), Shawn Kennedy (Shawn) & Richard Hehs (Richard). Without them, I don’t believe my first Pope & Young animal would have the same meaning.

Left to Right (Bruce, Richard & Mitch) enjoying a few Monster Buck videos in camp. We had a power pole, that’s about it. A 2 room shack, cots, rattlesnakes and pack rats for company LOL!

The Area59 Campfire burns brightly with this crew. We nicknamed our hunting lease Area59 simply because our property line sits right off Highway 59, just east of Laredo and just inside the Border Patrol check station. The brush in this region has a large percentage of illegal aliens working northward hence the name "Area 59"...aliens out there somewhere! :) The Badlands of South Texas. I slept with a loaded pistol every night here. The few nights alone out here really make you realize, the west is still alive and well with a modern twist. Each trip into town alone, I had to stop and pass through the Border Check. The typical questions of where are you going, where are you coming from and are you an American citizen. After formalities, each and everytime I was warned to not sleep in the brush alone. All I could do was simply smile....this is South Texas boys and there are times a man has to do what a man has to do to get on a decent buck :)

On to the hunt……

This hunt takes place deep in the brush country region of South Texas. The Golden Triangle region is well known for record class whitetail bordering the Texas – Mexico border. This region is ranching country, a rough region well known for illegal activity related to the drug barons south of the Mexican border. Not an area to take lightly and the risk of confrontation in the brush runs very high year round. The country side consists predominately of working ranches, 10 – 40,000+ acres big and larger. Large expanses of private land, no development for thousands of miles. The few towns scattered throughout the region are small and extremely isolated. Medical care can literally take hours to get to. Rattlesnake bites, mountain lions, feral hogs, javelina and nasty spiders keep you on your guard here. Time literally stands still in this country.

Thorny brush species dominate the South Texas Brush Country. Mesquite, acacia, prickly pear, lotebush, granjeno, white-brush, Texas ebony and wild olive form dense, almost impenetrable thickets. The South Texas Brush Country is well known for producing trophy-class white-tailed deer. It is undoubtedly the most biologically diverse habitat in Texas, as tropical, grassland and desert species all inhabit this thorny shrubland in ecological harmony.

I started off this weekend as I have so many times before. Leaving work on Friday, after a full day, running home to quickly load up and head south, truck stereo blasting away!  My drive from Austin to Freer Texas has become routine and averages three hours one way. One must stay on the lookout for deer, coyotes and wild hogs rolling down Highway 16 south of San Antonio. As I roll, I notice a few deer and hogs grazing on the side of the road with a full moon lighting the landscape with glaring authority. Hogs are grazing on small patches of green grass, sparse as it is; they stand right next to the highway and ignore my truck as I roll by at speed. Only one more weekend left after this hunt and my season is over. My mind is working in overdrive and expectations are on the upbeat. I call to check in with Bruce,  I am rolling two hours behind, all of us headed South.

I might be two hours behind....but WOO HOO I’m rolling to South Texas!!!!!

I arrive at deer camp expecting to see trucks, lights and my hunting compadres, nobody here; I am the first to arrive. I unpack and get ready for the morning hunt (or so I thought). Bruce, Mitch and Richard roll in at 10:30 pm. They rendezvoused at the Liberty Café in Freer with James, Bill & Rick, from Freer Deer Camp and Taxidermy. The crew absolutely devastated the awesome TexMex food known in this world. We all comment on the brightness of the moon and the effect on our upcoming morning hunt. It’s a cold and clear night, the hope is tomorrow’s hunt will be active.

Saturday morning rolls around quickly and the alarm sounds of at 0500. Mitch and I both get up and dress slowly. Richard and Bruce have decided this morning is a "sleep in kind of morning" and opt to stay back in camp. The air is cold and a light freeze has coated the ground with frost. Thermometer reads 28 degrees, the moon has roughly four more hours before setting. The landscape is bathed with moonlight and a cold North East wind is blowing, dropping the temps further. Not the best of winds for my deer stand but I opt to hunt it anyway. On the previous weekend, I stuffed a corn sack full of fresh cow manure and piled it up near my stand in anticipation of North winds this morning. I lovingly nicknamed the application of cow manure around my stand as "Coonie Cover Scent." It works very well masking my scent and our deer lease is a working cattle ranch.

Here’s the deer blind. Brushed in heavily and blending in perfectly with the terrain. It’s dead center, staring straight at the point from my bowshot.

I choose to walk from camp all the way to my blind. Mitch comments "you’re walking all the way in this morning?" My routine is simple, generate body heat in absolute stealthy silence. The last thing I want to do is alert the bucks on my way into the blind. I cover the walk slow and steady. My worry of rattlesnakes is nil, it’s too cold this morning and the relaxed walk is a welcomed change.

At 0645 visibility is very obscure, that moment when dark fights a new day, rendering all images a ghostly appearance. As I scan my scene slowly I note a brown silhouette in the right shooting lane. I memorized my shooting lanes like the back of my hand, each tree, cactus, bush and strange outline cataloged and forced into memory. This morning, something is off and it’s not moving. I strain through my binoculars and slowly make out the outline of a whitetails rump. I finally see the head, he’s staring out to the Northwest toward the neighboring ranch. Off in the distance several miles, the sound of a hunter riding an ATV is heard on the bordering ranch.This deer holds position for a full three minutes and then walks slowly away toward the stock tank near my blind. He is alert, knowing that sound is danger and moves away cautiously. As he moves, I strain to read his headgear. I note one main beam with three tines up. I know it’s a buck, and a good buck but he’s gone?

Finally the sun is up enough to see well enough to see and legal shooting light. I stare hard toward the last general direction this buck moved with my mind racing a hundred miles an hour. Where did he go? As I scan the three shooting windows of my pop-up blind I notice movement in the brush straight ahead. It’s a deer and it’s moving toward my left and it vanishes into the brush. Five minutes pass when suddenly a buck appears in my center window moving slowly from my right to left. He is partially hidden by the dense brush feeding slowly  into my shooting lane. He’s a good mature buck, thick, short legs, broad neck and 10 points. I draw my bow noting the brush on the right side of my shooting lane my mind unconsciously working the arrows flight through my cover, all ok. The shot looks 21 - 22 yards so I settle my 20 pin on the left front leg, lower it to the knuckle, anticipating a slight string jump, hovering at the heart...sight picture just burns into my unconscious mind and then time stands still.....THWACK!!!!! The buck jumps up and hauls hard off to my left clearing immediately into the brush. I listen to him run through the brush and suddenly hear the  the unmistakable sound of a pile up. Suddenly my nerves kick in, hands start to shake and I take a few deep breaths staring intently toward his area of departure. This shot was surreal….No thought, I was just along for the ride mentally and my body was doing what it has been conditioned to do (eyes, hands and bow form) YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!.

The reality of what just transpired kicks me between the shoulders and I scramble out of the blind leaving my bow behind and head toward my arrow. I find it covered with dark blood. It doesn’t look like a lung shot ….I smell the arrow to check scent, a clean shot.

I head back to my blind and simply give things time. Finally I start my blood trail finding nothing, not a drop and I note one of the small game trails the buck used to blaze away toward the Southwest. Man my mind was racing as I walked that little deer trail, working down through the brush at 20 yards and not finding much note up ahead.

I yell out THANK YOU LORD!!!!!

I move around to the left to see where I hit him and find a perfect heart shot.

And then I view this magnificent animals head gear still covered in frost on a cold South Texas morning

I drop my bow and follow-up arrow and head off to deer camp at a dead run to wake up Bruce and Richard.

Tags: P&Y; BOWHUNT; ARCHERY; SOUTH TEXAS; WHITETAIL BUCK

Bookmark: