Llano hunt a success and a failure
We had a really great time this past weekend in Llano, as expected. Weather was hot for Novemmber, 65-70 in the morning reaching well into the 80's by the afternoon. A nice wind on Saturday kept us "cool" in the heat. The blinds were covered in these babies:
One blind I sat in had easily 70 of these boogers dropping down from the ceiling, and on the walls, and floor, and my bag, and my hat, and it was jacked up! They are called bold jumping spiders, and most of them in the blind were between the size of a quarter and a fifty cent piec... they were freaking huge! I, personally, would almost fall into the arachnaphobe category, but when the deer come out, you just have to get over it (if you want to shoot something, anyway).
I did get to sit in my chair blind twice, and had some real good views on some deer. The second morning we were there, I had setup with my blind backing up to a tre, but I neglected to put any natural side cover around the blind. A pretty decent 8pt came in early (around 6:30AM) from way in front of me, and didn't get a good look at me. Mosquitoes picked up around 7-ish right before the feeder went off. While I am watching the 8pt, I decided to wipe the skeeters (about 5 of them actively biting me) off my face as they were getting unbearable. As soon as I started to wipe my face, a loud stomp, snort and grunt occurred from right beside me!!! I hadn't even noticed a group of does (2 does/2 yearlings) to my left about 20 yds were creeping up and saw me make my move. They made a loud ruckus and ran off. At the same time, a buck on my right grunted and snorted and took off from about 20 yds to my right! Again, the side cover would potentially have saved me here as I was totally exposed for the most part. My experience out here in the box blinds is that the deer are oblivious to the hunter, but once you get on the ground, you are in their domain, and they see/hear/smell everything. It was still very exciting, even though I totally blew my cover. Lesson learned.
That afternoon, I shot a doe and a nice 8pt. You can see in the picture that the grass is almost waist high from all the rain in the spring. Waters Creek Ranch in Llano is a working cattle ranch with about 500 head on 2400 acres. The cattle hasn't been able to keep up with the growth of the grass obviously... We were hoping to get some hogs, but the grass was so high, and it appeared that the hogs were eating the prickly pears off the cactus as we found tons of red hog shit near the mud holes and such.
There is also an old school house on the property from the early 1800s. I took a bunch of pictures, but you can see the house of stone, with the fireplace and such. Very cool.
One blind I sat in had easily 70 of these boogers dropping down from the ceiling, and on the walls, and floor, and my bag, and my hat, and it was jacked up! They are called bold jumping spiders, and most of them in the blind were between the size of a quarter and a fifty cent piec... they were freaking huge! I, personally, would almost fall into the arachnaphobe category, but when the deer come out, you just have to get over it (if you want to shoot something, anyway).I did get to sit in my chair blind twice, and had some real good views on some deer. The second morning we were there, I had setup with my blind backing up to a tre, but I neglected to put any natural side cover around the blind. A pretty decent 8pt came in early (around 6:30AM) from way in front of me, and didn't get a good look at me. Mosquitoes picked up around 7-ish right before the feeder went off. While I am watching the 8pt, I decided to wipe the skeeters (about 5 of them actively biting me) off my face as they were getting unbearable. As soon as I started to wipe my face, a loud stomp, snort and grunt occurred from right beside me!!! I hadn't even noticed a group of does (2 does/2 yearlings) to my left about 20 yds were creeping up and saw me make my move. They made a loud ruckus and ran off. At the same time, a buck on my right grunted and snorted and took off from about 20 yds to my right! Again, the side cover would potentially have saved me here as I was totally exposed for the most part. My experience out here in the box blinds is that the deer are oblivious to the hunter, but once you get on the ground, you are in their domain, and they see/hear/smell everything. It was still very exciting, even though I totally blew my cover. Lesson learned.
That afternoon, I shot a doe and a nice 8pt. You can see in the picture that the grass is almost waist high from all the rain in the spring. Waters Creek Ranch in Llano is a working cattle ranch with about 500 head on 2400 acres. The cattle hasn't been able to keep up with the growth of the grass obviously... We were hoping to get some hogs, but the grass was so high, and it appeared that the hogs were eating the prickly pears off the cactus as we found tons of red hog shit near the mud holes and such.
My father-in-law (FNL) drilled a nice 10pt (an 8pt with 2 kickers butwe're calling it a 10pt).
There is also an old school house on the property from the early 1800s. I took a bunch of pictures, but you can see the house of stone, with the fireplace and such. Very cool.
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