My 2023 yearly hunting trip is in the books!
I scored 3 doe, 1 cull buck (3pt) and 1 feral hog.
My brother scored 1 cull buck (4pt) and 1 feral hog.
We got lucky that the weather held up Friday evening for us to get our major hunting in Friday. Sat morning was completely rained out but had a sparse but successful Sat evening. Then we were loaded up and out Sunday morning!
Here are pics and then some more details about the hunt. Pics are my animals and then just general animals in the wild (except a domesticated pet deer, and buffalo for breeding).
Rebarreled a Savage 110 with a Shillen super match grade barrel, hunted with it and this was the 2nd of my 5 load ladders I developed for it... didn't need to shoot ladders 3-5. Moved this up 3 inches (this is 100yd grouping) and was good. All animals taken with the new 308 :D
My haul after day 1 of hunting:
Older 3pt cull buck. Was almost a spike:
Day 2 my feral hog, a boar. Likely just around or over 200lbs. Weighted 135 gutted:
Bison/Buffalo they want to breed with a waygu bull:
Scored a good pick of a doe out in the wild:
Wild Turkey's:
A pretty bright red Cardinal:
Some male Blackbuck Antelope chasing each other (where the deer and the blackbuck antelope play :P):
The dreaded, but tasty, TX nuisance, a sounder of feral hogs:
And last but no least, a domesticated pet doe they keep fenced in near the ranch office. Eating on some green portion of some veggies pulled from a small garden they have there:
Ok a little more about the hunt.
Since 2011 I have been hunting on Managed Lands Deer program properties (MLD).
These properties report to the state, their deer populates, manage the land and habitat, etc. and get special regulation (tags) for the land to be hunted.
These places/ranches usually offer trophy hunts for people wanting to hunt big horned deer (and pay out the nose) which means there is a lack of meat deer being pulled off the properties (does, cull bucks, etc.).
So, enter me. I hunt these properties for meat animals and it helps them with their numbers management, I use THEIR hunting tags (not mine) to get as many deer as they allow or I want to purchase, and the price comes out way cheaper than if I were to lease some land, prep it, manage it, and hunt it. In TX its like 95%+ of the hunting land/property is all privately owned property. Public land hunting is not really the thing here like other states.
So now I can take smaller trips, get more animals, and save more money, AND it helps the properties manage their deer populations more easily. Win-win-win-win!
We stayed in an great ranch house/cabin and this also doubles as a little vacation on top of a hunting trip. So another win there.
All shots on deer were heart placement and the shot on the pig was earhole placement. I hunted with a Savage 110, win .308 using a handload I created utilizing 175gr Barnes LRX bullets, LC Brass, CCI Primers, and TAC powder.
Finally, this year I did not take off 2 weeks to hunt and process. I am on a contract that is too good to give up 2 weeks of billable work so I'm taking a hybrid approach.
Got a great deal from a good wild game processor. I bring in the deer broken down to legs, backstraps, tenderloins, etc. and he will charge me $1/lb to do a straight grind.
We let them handle the skinning and messing with the pigs but for 250/lbs of wild hog they will skin and straight grind and provide us the ribs for $250 on those guys so basically $1/lb live weight. My brother and I were glad to take that deal after cleaning so many animals and breaking them down into the coolers hahaha.
So soon I will be getting 100% pure grind. I'll be grinding some trimmed pork backfat and doing sausage and such in small matches whenever I like. I'm looking forward to it :D
Thanks for reading along folks, ask any questions you like. I hope you enjoyed my trip and adventure 2nd hand :D
I scored 3 doe, 1 cull buck (3pt) and 1 feral hog.
My brother scored 1 cull buck (4pt) and 1 feral hog.
We got lucky that the weather held up Friday evening for us to get our major hunting in Friday. Sat morning was completely rained out but had a sparse but successful Sat evening. Then we were loaded up and out Sunday morning!
Here are pics and then some more details about the hunt. Pics are my animals and then just general animals in the wild (except a domesticated pet deer, and buffalo for breeding).
Rebarreled a Savage 110 with a Shillen super match grade barrel, hunted with it and this was the 2nd of my 5 load ladders I developed for it... didn't need to shoot ladders 3-5. Moved this up 3 inches (this is 100yd grouping) and was good. All animals taken with the new 308 :D
My haul after day 1 of hunting:
Older 3pt cull buck. Was almost a spike:
Day 2 my feral hog, a boar. Likely just around or over 200lbs. Weighted 135 gutted:
Bison/Buffalo they want to breed with a waygu bull:
Scored a good pick of a doe out in the wild:
Wild Turkey's:
A pretty bright red Cardinal:
Some male Blackbuck Antelope chasing each other (where the deer and the blackbuck antelope play :P):
The dreaded, but tasty, TX nuisance, a sounder of feral hogs:
And last but no least, a domesticated pet doe they keep fenced in near the ranch office. Eating on some green portion of some veggies pulled from a small garden they have there:
Ok a little more about the hunt.
Since 2011 I have been hunting on Managed Lands Deer program properties (MLD).
These properties report to the state, their deer populates, manage the land and habitat, etc. and get special regulation (tags) for the land to be hunted.
These places/ranches usually offer trophy hunts for people wanting to hunt big horned deer (and pay out the nose) which means there is a lack of meat deer being pulled off the properties (does, cull bucks, etc.).
So, enter me. I hunt these properties for meat animals and it helps them with their numbers management, I use THEIR hunting tags (not mine) to get as many deer as they allow or I want to purchase, and the price comes out way cheaper than if I were to lease some land, prep it, manage it, and hunt it. In TX its like 95%+ of the hunting land/property is all privately owned property. Public land hunting is not really the thing here like other states.
So now I can take smaller trips, get more animals, and save more money, AND it helps the properties manage their deer populations more easily. Win-win-win-win!
We stayed in an great ranch house/cabin and this also doubles as a little vacation on top of a hunting trip. So another win there.
All shots on deer were heart placement and the shot on the pig was earhole placement. I hunted with a Savage 110, win .308 using a handload I created utilizing 175gr Barnes LRX bullets, LC Brass, CCI Primers, and TAC powder.
Finally, this year I did not take off 2 weeks to hunt and process. I am on a contract that is too good to give up 2 weeks of billable work so I'm taking a hybrid approach.
Got a great deal from a good wild game processor. I bring in the deer broken down to legs, backstraps, tenderloins, etc. and he will charge me $1/lb to do a straight grind.
We let them handle the skinning and messing with the pigs but for 250/lbs of wild hog they will skin and straight grind and provide us the ribs for $250 on those guys so basically $1/lb live weight. My brother and I were glad to take that deal after cleaning so many animals and breaking them down into the coolers hahaha.
So soon I will be getting 100% pure grind. I'll be grinding some trimmed pork backfat and doing sausage and such in small matches whenever I like. I'm looking forward to it :D
Thanks for reading along folks, ask any questions you like. I hope you enjoyed my trip and adventure 2nd hand :D
