What does it score? (Installment #3)

Thanks to those of you who have been participating in "What does it score?". If you are a first time visitor feel free to jump in this week and test your skills at judging the score of this week's whitetail. If you are not a trophy hunter, don't worry - neither am I. Don't get me wrong, I like antlers and do everything I can to produce bigger bucks on the property I hunt, but I hunt on low-fence property in an area where trophy bucks are pretty hard to find. I want to better my field judging skills to be able to recognize what caliber of buck I am looking at when one does present itself while I'm hunting. Having this ability will help prevent the "ground shrinkage" effect that lots of hunters experience when they shoot a buck.

Results from last week:
This buck gross scored 146".

1st Place - Ferg - with a score of 145" (difference of -1")
2nd Place - Incognito - with a score of 143 6/8" (difference of -2 2/8")
3rd Place - Steph - with a score of 152 3/8" (difference of +6 3/8")
Honorable Mention - Red Writing - with a score of 135" (difference of -11")

Good job, Ferg! You were right on the money - no ground shrinkage there!

Here is a new buck to analyze. This one is from Burnet County in the Texas Hill Country. Submit your estimated gross score of this deer by clicking on the comments button below this post. Good luck!

Tag Along with me to the Hunting Lease

It has been several weeks since I have been able to make the trek out to the hunting lease to check on things. Earlier this week, my wife got an invitation from one of her friends for us to come watch her son's tee-ball game on Saturday. This friend lives a little over an hour away from us to the northwest, not too far from where I hunt. So, I discussed it with the wife and we came to the conclusion that we would go to the tee-ball game, grab a bite to eat with these friends, and then I would go take care of what I needed to at the lease while she and my daughters spent the afternoon visiting and playing with these friends. A Win-Win situation for all parties involved.

We brought my wife's camera, so I decided to document my trip to the lease in pictures. Tag along with me and I'll give you a quick tour.

Just about 10 more miles . . . we're almost there. Okay, this is where we turn. Man, those sure are some pretty flowers on the side of the road.
We've got to take this rock road for a few miles and then we'll be there.
Alright, we made it. You gonna get out and get the gate? ? ? Never mind, I'll get it.
When I was opening the gate I heard a Bob-white quail whistling. That's the first time I've heard one over here. We hear them and see them pretty regularly over by the bunkhouse, but that is a few more miles down the road.

Just inside the gate, over to your right you will see a beautiful patch of Black-eyed Susans.
First, let's go fill up the protein feeder. It's gonna be down at the end of this fencerow, just inside where the woods start back there.
There it is over there. Like I said, it has been a few weeks since I have checked on it so I would imagine it is empty. Why don't you go take the lid off for me and just check and see if there is any feed left in it . . .
Do what?!? You think a bird has made a nest inside it. I'll be dang, you're right! That's funny!
Alright, well let's go ahead and get the feed out of the back of the truck. You think you can lift those up to me? ? ? Never mind, I'll do it myself.
Okay, now that that's done, hop back in the truck and let's drive back to my hunting spots and switch out the memory cards and batteries in my trail cameras. Hey look at that sunflower.
I've always liked that old windmill over there.
This road is a lot better than it used to be, but it gets real slick when it rains.
Over on the right side of that draw over there is where I got my first deer with a bow several years ago.
I know, we keep gettin' further and further off the main road. I really need a 4-wheel drive, don't I?
Okay, now we're gonna have to walk a little ways. Keep an eye out for rattlesnakes - I've got my pistol just in case. The first camera is a good ways back here. There it is over there on the right.
Hand me that memory card and I'll switch it out on this first camera. Looks like the batteries are still good.
Okay, the second camera is another pretty good little walk from here. I know - the briars are thick, aren't they? There it is, right up there.
Got that one all ready to go. Well, that is everything I wanted to accomplish. Let's head toward the gate. There is a real nice little lake right up here on the left. Man, that looks too good to just drive by and not wet a hook. Since I didn't remember my fishing pole, I guess it's a good thing I stopped by Wal-Mart and bought a cheap combo and a few lures on the way out here.
Hey, looky there, I got a bite! It's just a little bluegill. You caught anything yet?
Well, I guess we'd better start headin' back - the girls will be calling soon. Let's hit the road.
That was fun. I hope you enjoyed it, and maybe you can tag along again sometime.

Throwback Thursday

This week I am taking a look back at my bass boat era. About six or seven years ago, I was the proud owner of a 1978 Champion bass boat that was powered by a 115 hp Evinrude outboard. It wasn't much to look at, as the 25-year old paint job had faded, but it was a good fishing boat. I only owned the boat a couple years and decided to sell it when we were expecting our first child. My wife and I used the boat quite a bit, mainly for fishing, but occasionally for tubing or just joy-riding on the lake. We spent lots of time on Ray Roberts Lake, and my favorite thing to do on the boat was to go crappie fishing late in the evening and into the night. I don't regret selling the boat, but occasionally I miss having it because we had lots of fun with that old boat.

Crappie Fishing at Ray Roberts

I did use the boat for some bass fishing as well. This picture was taken on June 18, 2003. This was a 4-pound largemouth I caught one evening that was 20" long. This fish was caught on a purple and silver-colored crankbait in about 5 feet of water in the Buck Creek arm of Ray Roberts Lake.
Note to self: If I ever get another boat, it will be one that I can use to duck hunt.

What does it score? (Installment #2)

Here are the results from the first installment of "What does it score?": The buck in the picture gross scored 172 5/8".

1st Place - Incognito - with a score of 177 (+4 3/8" difference)
2nd Place - Red Writing - with a score of 193 (+20 3/8" difference)
3rd Place - Steph - with a score of 197 3/8 (+24 6/8" difference)

Congratulations, Incognito, that was a very good evaluation. (And I'm pretty sure I have a good idea who you might be - thanks for stopping by.)

Red Writing, I'm impressed you took a stab at it, and that was a very good guess for someone who doesn't hunt and isn't familiar scoring deer.

Steph, I expected a better guess out of you than that - maybe I spoke too soon. But I still love you!

When I guesstimated the score of this deer, I had him at about 159", but I tend to try to be a little more conservative with the score, to avoid the "ground shrinkage" effect.

Here is the deer to score for installment #2. Once again, submit your guess by clicking on the "comments" link at the bottom of this post. This one is from Pike County, Illinois.

Throwback Thursday

I've been hunting for as long as I can remember. Growing up, my dad would take me bird hunting with him. We would occasionally go deer hunting, whenever a friend or relative would invite us to hunt on their property or lease, but we primarily just bird hunted - mainly for dove. I always wanted to do more deer hunting, but there just weren't that many opportunities.

Right after high school, a new archery season was implemented in the county I grew up in, which historically didn't have a deer season at all. I decided I wanted a bow, but I really didn't know anything about archery equipment. For my 19th birthday, my parents and I went to the old Barrett's Sporting Goods in Denison, Texas to look for a bow. As it turned out, the store was no longer going to carry any archery products and they were in the process of liquidating all of their remaining archery equipment. There was one lonely bow still on the shelf - a Bear Super 45 model with no accessories whatsoever. This was in the 90's, and most compound bows at the time were selling for around $300. The sporting goods manager said they would take $75 for it. My dad made a quick phone call to a friend that was a big-time archery hunter, and he said that it would make a good starter bow and that was a good price for it, so they bought it for me. Another friend heard I got the bow and told me to bring it over to his house and he would help me get it set up. He hooked me up with one of his old pin sights, an arrow rest, and one of his old bow cases. I bought some aluminum arrows and a release, so I was pretty much ready to go!

I practiced in the back yard quite a bit and even went deer hunting with the bow several times over the next three years, but never had an opportunity to take a shot at a deer. I never really got serious about bowhunting and continued to primarily rifle hunt, and I harvested a couple deer with my rifle during that time. The bow sat in it's case for several years, untouched.

In 2004 several of my coworkers were really into archery hunting, and they convinced me to get the old bow back out and give it another try. I took the bow to an archery shop and had a new string put on it, as well as a new sight. The other guys at work and I would spend our lunch break practicing with our bows, shooting at 3-D archery targets out behind the office. I really started getting into the whole archery thing, and I really wanted to get a brand new bow. After all, mine was about 15 years old at this point. (Just a side note - The advancement of archery equipment could be compared to that of computers over the last two decades, so my old Bear compound bow would be equivalent to that old, bulky, green-screen computer monitor that is now so outdated.)

But I didn't feel right buying a new bow when I had never harvested a deer with this one. So I made a promise to myself - I was going to hunt with this bow until I got a deer, no matter how long it took. Then, I could justify buying a new bow.

I realized how hard bowhunting actually is! I actually drew the bow on deer a couple times, but spooked them both times. I thought it would never happen, but I hung in there. On December 22, 2006, at about 4:30 that afternoon, 4 does walked under my treestand. I picked out one of the bigger ones, tried to calm my nerves, and I loosed an arrow. It was a perfect quartering away shot that made a complete pass-through. The doe ran about a hundred yards and went down. I've been hooked ever since! I haven't picked up my rifle since then, as the experience of bowhunting is so much more gratifying than rifle hunting. I've since gotten a new bow, which I might have to talk about in another post.

First Archery Deer - December 22, 2006

Don't forget to submit your guess at the score of the whitetail in the post below. I will be posting the results in the next few days, or sooner, as it seems there are some people that are really anxious to find out how they did.