We have to go back a few years on this one. Flash back to the summer of 2012...this bruiser started showing up. Our ranch is a total of 3,077 acres. About 2,700 are under high fence and the rest is low fenced along our north border which is the Nueces River. Our high fence is anywhere from 100 yards to 800 yards from the river, it is a great animal corridor and creates unique hunting opportunities. #4 and #6 in the picture are tower blinds that sit on the fence so that you can hunt both sides.
Round red dots are tower blinds, yellow squares are gates, yellow triangle is corn and the green squares are protein. Red line indicates high fence, yellow line is low fence boundary.
Anyway we feed the river pasture year round. This stud shows up and was always in and out, cruising from #6 to #4, in between, gone for a few days. Kind of a ghost.
Now it is opening morning, the buck has been for the last 5 days showing up right at day break. There I am sitting in a cattle panel ground blind brushed into a large bull mesquite. It is a small opening on the bend of the river with a feeder 15 yards in front of the blind.
Nothing at the feeder, he moves in from left to right, broadside. I let on fly at 12 yards. The shot felt good and the deer darted directly away from me. It is thick and I was sure I would hear crashing soon. I waited an hour or so, walked around the impact sight, no hair, no blood, no blood going into the brush, no blood high on the brush. So I went to the road behind the feeder and started walking it along the river. I then find tracks to what I assumed was him exiting the brush and down the road away from the feeder, they were large tracks with deep impressions. Where you see the white arrow is where I found my Ted Nugent Pink Gold Tip and at the end of the arrow and near the fletchings there was a bloody film on it. I knew it didn't look good, so I decided to back out. A few hours go by and I continued the track, still never finding any blood. That next morning we conducted our annual fall survey, so with our eyes in the sky we hoped we could spot a belly from the air and came up with nothing.
Now fast forward a few years. Someone was in blind #6, shot and wounded a deer in the river. As they were looking for their deer they stumbled across this...perfectly intact, no cracks, breaks, no varmints had snacked on it. The horns and skull were perfect. The river country is full of sacahuista and it is thick. The horns had found their way under one of these bushes and been preserved from the sun. This set of horns has also survived three massive floods.
The horns are currently being replicated and I am going to mount two sets, one for the person who found them, and one for myself. I am going to leave the horns and skull as they stand. I am not going to stain them or bleach the skull to give the European mount, almost has a ghostly characteristic.
Thank you for reading.
Long live the beast!
Round red dots are tower blinds, yellow squares are gates, yellow triangle is corn and the green squares are protein. Red line indicates high fence, yellow line is low fence boundary.
Anyway we feed the river pasture year round. This stud shows up and was always in and out, cruising from #6 to #4, in between, gone for a few days. Kind of a ghost.
Now it is opening morning, the buck has been for the last 5 days showing up right at day break. There I am sitting in a cattle panel ground blind brushed into a large bull mesquite. It is a small opening on the bend of the river with a feeder 15 yards in front of the blind.
Nothing at the feeder, he moves in from left to right, broadside. I let on fly at 12 yards. The shot felt good and the deer darted directly away from me. It is thick and I was sure I would hear crashing soon. I waited an hour or so, walked around the impact sight, no hair, no blood, no blood going into the brush, no blood high on the brush. So I went to the road behind the feeder and started walking it along the river. I then find tracks to what I assumed was him exiting the brush and down the road away from the feeder, they were large tracks with deep impressions. Where you see the white arrow is where I found my Ted Nugent Pink Gold Tip and at the end of the arrow and near the fletchings there was a bloody film on it. I knew it didn't look good, so I decided to back out. A few hours go by and I continued the track, still never finding any blood. That next morning we conducted our annual fall survey, so with our eyes in the sky we hoped we could spot a belly from the air and came up with nothing.
Now fast forward a few years. Someone was in blind #6, shot and wounded a deer in the river. As they were looking for their deer they stumbled across this...perfectly intact, no cracks, breaks, no varmints had snacked on it. The horns and skull were perfect. The river country is full of sacahuista and it is thick. The horns had found their way under one of these bushes and been preserved from the sun. This set of horns has also survived three massive floods.
The horns are currently being replicated and I am going to mount two sets, one for the person who found them, and one for myself. I am going to leave the horns and skull as they stand. I am not going to stain them or bleach the skull to give the European mount, almost has a ghostly characteristic.
Thank you for reading.
Long live the beast!
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