March 21, 2010
Joe De Santos
First, let me say that I am a poor man’s hunter. That means neither expensive deer leases nor high fence hunts. In Texas, it’s either a deer lease—which is expensive–or an invite to a private ranch. In my lifetime, I have hunted many deer leases. They were never too expensive or loaded with deer, but we got what we paid for. We never saw a lot of game, however, once in awhile we harvested a nice buck, ten points or better. It’s always been “hard” hunting with few invites to private ranches. My hunting ventures have always been to ranches of less than 500 acres and most of the time, less than 300, but I enjoyed every hunt like it was on a 10,000 acre ranch. One thing I must mention about the many leases and few pieces of property we’ve been fortunate to have hunted on is that we have always been respectful of the land, wildlife, and neighboring hunters. We have always obeyed the hunting laws and I am proud to say that nobody in my hunting party has ever been arrested or given a citation for breaking the law while hunting. It was always a thrill to be out in the wild with my son, my dad, or my friends. It still is. However, with age, it’s become a little tougher and a bit more uncomfortable.
Anyway, on to my story. I had always heard that deer were creatures of habit and tended to hang around a one or two square mile area. I honestly don’t know if this is scientifically correct, but in my many years of hunting this seems to be the case. This is a short story about such a case.
It was a dreary, drizzly, cold afternoon sometime in the 1970’s, back when I was still a young man. I was deer hunting with my dad on our small ranch, west of the little town of Orange Grove in South Texas. The terrain was mostly low brush with a lot of mesquite trees. Our place was surrounded by thousands of acres of brushland and we had no close neighbors or other hunters nearby. There weren’t any high fences anywhere. Back in those days, we only hunted for bucks, does were not allowed. It was illegal to hunt does unless you had a large ranch and doe permits issued by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Each of us hunted out of elevated plywood box blinds. My dad always made sure that our blinds were first class; they had shingled roofs and small sliding glass windows. I was always comfortable when I hunted in one of them. We had two in our place, safely away from each other’s line of fire. I even had a small butane heater in mine. I was never cold or wet. Man, writing about those times brings back very good memories. Anyway, we had been in the blinds about two hours and it was getting late when I heard BOOM – POP, the sound of a large rifle firing and making contact with it’s target. My dad was shooting a Remington Model 700 BDL in .243. He always shot for the neck. Anything else he would call a “hungry man’s shot”. He would really ride me when I made a heart shot, the biggest part of the deer. Once in a while I would make a neck shot and it sure did make him proud. After my dad shot, I waited in my blind until dark, just as I was trained. We always waited in our blinds until dark when we hunted evenings or got off at an agreed time during the day. I got down from the blind with my flashlight and started walking towards my dad. When I got there, he was already walking around with his flashlight, shining it in the area where he shot. He said, “I’m sure I hit it; it was a nice buck.” He told me, “it went down and I guess it got up while I waited for it to bleed out.” It is our policy that once we shoot at a deer and are sure we hit it, we wait a good while before we get down and go look for it. We looked around in the dark for a long time, I guess for an hour or two, back and forth. We didn’t find any blood anywhere. I asked my dad where he had aimed for, and he said he shot at the neck. However, the deer had moved at the exact time he shot, but he was certain he saw it go down. My dad and I gave up and agreed to wait until daylight to start looking again. We walked to camp where we had a little fifteen foot trailer. We had the convenience of electricity. We had one light pole with a vapor light and one electrical plug to light the inside of our little trailer. Each night, we cooked meat and sausage over a fire in a hole that we had dug and placed a grill over, supported by some big rocks. Man, we ate the best meat tacos on flour or corn tortillas. We always had red onion and fresh jalapeno pepper. I continue the tradition with my son and friends, but we cook on a BBQ pit nowadays and still get some delicious results.
The next morning, Sunday, my dad and I got up at daybreak, taking advantage of the weekend hunt before anything else. It was freezing and we agreed to search for the buck after the morning hunt. We thought nine A.M. would be a good time. We didn’t see anything that morning and afterwards met at my dad’s blind. My dad was already out searching. He called me over and said, “you ain’t gonna believe this!” He pressed some antlers toward me. They were one half of a rack, large with five points. Damn! He had knocked off one side of the antlers from the deer by hitting just at the base of the right side. You talk about shock, no wonder it went down! I couldn’t believe it. No blood, just a clean break. Man, dad was disappointed. He said it was a pretty large deer. We went to camp and he popped a beer. Needless to say, the conversation was stuck like a broken record. He was hurting. I drove him home and I dare say, I might have seen a small tear drop just below my dad’s left eye. I felt bad for him.
My dad and I hunted the following weekend and didn’t do any good. We ate our usual BBQ and sausage, and maybe some ribs with our usual tortillas. Predictably, the conversation flowed into the half rack antler story and we talked about it long into Saturday night, maybe even into early Sunday morning. We hunted Sunday morning and didn’t see anything except some Javalina which we decided not to shoot. We went home, dejected.
Fast forward to one week later……..
My dad and I went back to the “ranch”. It was a small place but we still called it a ranch. By the way, the place is only forty five minutes from home in Corpus Christi. We still have it, but it’s populated with lots of neighbors and houses. No more hunting. This time we left on Friday evening and slept in the trailer. I remember it was very cold. We got up early Saturday morning and there was frost all over the trees and ground. I remember the crackling sound of the breaking ice on the ground as we walked towards our blinds. We hunted hard and stayed up in the blind unusually late. We didn’t see anything and got down at around ten A.M. We cooked breakfast and relaxed for the rest of the morning. My dad took a nap while I just sat around a good warm fire, relaxing and listening to the wildlife. I loved the quiet faraway sounds and still do. That afternoon we munched on potato chips and such until about three o’clock when we walked to our individual blinds. Close to dusk, I heard the familiar BOOM- POP! from by dad’s area. Man, I thought, he shot at another one. It was just about the same time he shot at the now famous antlers two weeks ago.
I waited until it got dark and walked towards his blind, carrying my flashlight. Dad was already out there with his light shining, he yelled, “hey, get over here, you ain’t gonna believe this!” I thought to myself, here we go again. I walked towards him, light in hand and when I get there….. You ain’t gonna believe it. Yep, it was the same buck with six points on the left side and missing antlers on the right side. It was a perfect fit after we matched them, a great 11-pointer. Dad shot it at the exact spot where he had knocked him down just two weeks ago.
Right in the neck, a big buck. True story. Are deer creatures of habit? — I’m a believer… are you?