Rancho Flecha Rota

[DRT]

I've never actually been into town. Have been to the Chillers and 7 Eleven only. Guess I need to check it out because driving into Abilene takes too much time. Maybe we can meet for lunch some weekend and you can give me some tips on hunting this area.

[Dry Bones]

I went West Texas and hunted with my boss for the opener. The deer definitely were not on the feeders due to all the acorns, but they don't last long, and if the wet weather keeps up there, they will sour and spoil. Not good for the deer, but that means they will come back to the feeders. I try to hunt a bit away from the feeder and catch them coming in. They seem to be less jumpy in route. Best of luck, and again congratulations on the place.

[RickBarbee]

I've never actually been into town. Have been to the Chillers and 7 Eleven only. Guess I need to check it out because driving into Abilene takes too much time. Maybe we can meet for lunch some weekend and you can give me some tips on hunting this area.

Sounds like a plan.

As far as tips on hunting this area goes. Well, it's tough.
The animals are very spooky due to the high human population, and the dingle berries who shoot at them all the time.

I have found the best tactics to be:

Hide well. (standard procedure)

Be very quiet. (standard procedure)

Don't use scents.
Will often make them even more spooky, and scare them away.

Don't use calls other than soft grunts sparingly.
This also makes them even more spooky, and will scare them away when any aggressive calling is done.

Hide your feeder if possible.
I noticed an immediate increase in deer traffic around my feeders once I started hiding them as much as possible.

As you can see, the deer around here aren't tolerant of much of anything.

Rick

[DRT]

All of the feeders are in pretty tight cover as you can see from some of my pics. I usually see deer. Just not many and no mature bucks. I have been using skunk cover scent. I can do without that if it's hurting. Stands are well concealed. I left some sweaty t shirts at a couple to get them used to scent being around but you are correct in they are spooky.

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[RickBarbee]

All of the feeders are in pretty tight cover as you can see from some of my pics. I usually see deer. Just not many and no mature bucks. I have been using skunk cover scent. I can do without that if it's hurting. Stands are well concealed. I left some sweaty t shirts at a couple to get them used to scent being around but you are correct in they are spooky.

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The skunk scent is ok. I was talking about deer scents.

They shy away from the smell of outsider deer, especially mature buck and doe estrus scents. During full rut you can use those, but even then you want to go easy on it, or it will put them off in a hurry.

Rick

[DRT]

Either way I'm committed as I gave up a good lease to buy into this place. I think there is good potential but we have neighbors who believe in filling their tags. Time will tell.

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[tradslam]

Ttt after we chatted, I'm checking for updates daily!

[DRT]

[emoji1] Working on clean up mostly. The people who had the land before us were trashy. As in trash every where. We've made a serious dent in in but it's an ongoing process.

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[RickBarbee]

[emoji1] Working on clean up mostly. The people who had the land before us were trashy. As in trash every where. We've made a serious dent in in but it's an ongoing process.

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Where exactly is your ranch located?
Trying to figure out just how close we are from each other?

[bdoutdoors]

Cool place. Enjoyed it.

[DRT]

North of Hawley on private road 706.

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[RickBarbee]

North of Hawley on private road 706.

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Not to far apart then.
About 5 miles as a crow flies.

Rick

[DRT]

One weekend I'll give you a shout.

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[DRT]

Today marks one year since we signed the final papers for the ranch. We've put a lot of time and money working on living quarters and starting on the fence.

Be careful who you hire for fence btw.

We have a long way to go. I'm sure hiccups like tractor tires being driven off the rim and ruined by our inexperienced partner will continue to happen occasionally. I'm also positive we will argue about how to proceed on some things like how many outlets to put in each bedroom of the house and what side of the house to put the upper deck. But we work a lot, drink a bit and hunt when we can. In the next year we will finish the house, get a well in and knock out the fence. After that we will decide whether to put it on the market and try to flip it or settle in.

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[DRT]

Time for a small update.
We got the house wired and spray foam insulation done. We sealed in the storage building with the hard foam spray as well. Part of it will be a cold storage unit.