2023 Hunting Trip in the Books pre QView Included :D

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tallbm

Legendary Pitmaster
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Dec 30, 2016
8,204
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Texas
My 2023 yearly hunting trip is in the books!
I scored 3 doe, 1 cull buck (3pt) and 1 feral hog.
My brother scored 1 cull buck (4pt) and 1 feral hog.

We got lucky that the weather held up Friday evening for us to get our major hunting in Friday. Sat morning was completely rained out but had a sparse but successful Sat evening. Then we were loaded up and out Sunday morning!

Here are pics and then some more details about the hunt. Pics are my animals and then just general animals in the wild (except a domesticated pet deer, and buffalo for breeding).

Rebarreled a Savage 110 with a Shillen super match grade barrel, hunted with it and this was the 2nd of my 5 load ladders I developed for it... didn't need to shoot ladders 3-5. Moved this up 3 inches (this is 100yd grouping) and was good. All animals taken with the new 308 :D
ocw0HGb.png


My haul after day 1 of hunting:
CrsiOTZ.png


Older 3pt cull buck. Was almost a spike:
4dei3tl.png


Day 2 my feral hog, a boar. Likely just around or over 200lbs. Weighted 135 gutted:
oDrX5QW.png


Bison/Buffalo they want to breed with a waygu bull:
R3KHVk0.png

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T9s7IdO.png


Scored a good pick of a doe out in the wild:
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Wild Turkey's:
1cBoqvT.png

sjZpnN6.png


A pretty bright red Cardinal:
h2QyNZ0.png


Some male Blackbuck Antelope chasing each other (where the deer and the blackbuck antelope play :P):
D4ML7jO.png


The dreaded, but tasty, TX nuisance, a sounder of feral hogs:
CPdWaEl.png


And last but no least, a domesticated pet doe they keep fenced in near the ranch office. Eating on some green portion of some veggies pulled from a small garden they have there:
AKDZlXV.png



Ok a little more about the hunt.
Since 2011 I have been hunting on Managed Lands Deer program properties (MLD).
These properties report to the state, their deer populates, manage the land and habitat, etc. and get special regulation (tags) for the land to be hunted.
These places/ranches usually offer trophy hunts for people wanting to hunt big horned deer (and pay out the nose) which means there is a lack of meat deer being pulled off the properties (does, cull bucks, etc.).

So, enter me. I hunt these properties for meat animals and it helps them with their numbers management, I use THEIR hunting tags (not mine) to get as many deer as they allow or I want to purchase, and the price comes out way cheaper than if I were to lease some land, prep it, manage it, and hunt it. In TX its like 95%+ of the hunting land/property is all privately owned property. Public land hunting is not really the thing here like other states.

So now I can take smaller trips, get more animals, and save more money, AND it helps the properties manage their deer populations more easily. Win-win-win-win!

We stayed in an great ranch house/cabin and this also doubles as a little vacation on top of a hunting trip. So another win there.

All shots on deer were heart placement and the shot on the pig was earhole placement. I hunted with a Savage 110, win .308 using a handload I created utilizing 175gr Barnes LRX bullets, LC Brass, CCI Primers, and TAC powder.

Finally, this year I did not take off 2 weeks to hunt and process. I am on a contract that is too good to give up 2 weeks of billable work so I'm taking a hybrid approach.
Got a great deal from a good wild game processor. I bring in the deer broken down to legs, backstraps, tenderloins, etc. and he will charge me $1/lb to do a straight grind.
We let them handle the skinning and messing with the pigs but for 250/lbs of wild hog they will skin and straight grind and provide us the ribs for $250 on those guys so basically $1/lb live weight. My brother and I were glad to take that deal after cleaning so many animals and breaking them down into the coolers hahaha.

So soon I will be getting 100% pure grind. I'll be grinding some trimmed pork backfat and doing sausage and such in small matches whenever I like. I'm looking forward to it :D

Thanks for reading along folks, ask any questions you like. I hope you enjoyed my trip and adventure 2nd hand :D
 

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Posting today was all effed up.Got a triplicate of the same post going because of some bizzare message telling me I have to to wait 22 seconds before I can post this action.

Mods anyway to remove two of those posts?
 
Wow great trip and nice pictures. Nice batch of meat you will have when all said and done.
Sounds like a great time, and nice to read how the lands are managed.

Great price for the processing also

David
Thanks David!
Oh yeah I'll have a nice haul. I think
I'll have about 150 pounds of meat which should last until next year :D
I usually fill the freezer and all I buy from the grocery store all year would be chicken, pork butts, and brisket. A steak or salmon fillet every now and again as well.

Nice hunt...
Thanks! I'm glad it panned out. They call it huntin, not killin for a reason lol. Only thing I saw I could shoot on day 2 I got it... well the biggest of the bunch but was a good chance I wouldn't get anything on day 2 :)
Great post. Good reading.
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Good hunt... great thread. Now we need pics. of the finished product when you process it all! Congrats on your success...
Thanks! Yeah I'll get all the grind back and then I think I'll post as I do sausage batches or jerky batches here and there.
One other nice benefit of outsourcing my deboning and grinding is that now I can do a variety of sausage in smaller batches vs the 2-3 I do at once due to time limitations. You understand not being able to do 5-6 different sausages when time and help are limited :D
Looks like ya had a great hunt
Thanks! Yeah it was a great hunt, and so great so see all that different wild life. I really do appreciate being lucky enough to experience all of it :D
 
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Ah....I did not realize you outsourced your processing now. Cool. It's a lot to take on for one guy, trust me, I know.....once did 6 pigs all at the same time alone. Vowed to never do that again....
 
Ah....I did not realize you outsourced your processing now. Cool. It's a lot to take on for one guy, trust me, I know.....once did 6 pigs all at the same time alone. Vowed to never do that again....
Yeah just this year but we'll see how it goes.
I am on a contract that is paying too much for me to take off 2 weeks. So best of both worlds is me breaking down the deer and them cleaning and straight grinding (no fat added) for $1 a pound :D
I'll


The pigs... yeah you know why we just brought em in dressed. They can skin and do the rest and grind hahahaa. We are keeping ribs and having the rest ground on the pigs. Wish I had managed to cut the shanks off them. I like to make a ramen noodle soup by pressure cooking the shanks to get my stock and meat, then toss in everything to finish the soup :D
 
Congrats tallbm tallbm , sounds like a great time. The extra help getting things taken care of never hurts.
Thanks! It sure was a great time. Yeah the help will be very beneficial this year. Who knows it might become a thing going forward since I'm mostly a 1 man operation except the 1-2 says I can get out of my brother to help with stuffing and sometimes even a little deboning and cleaning of the meat.
Nice hunt bud .
It sure was. Thanks! :D
 
Sounds like fun! I had no idea public hunting areas were so scarce in Texas. I guess never being there, I assumed it was like other western states with large state kinds and BLM etc. Congrats on your hunts and meat haul!
 
Sounds like fun! I had no idea public hunting areas were so scarce in Texas. I guess never being there, I assumed it was like other western states with large state kinds and BLM etc. Congrats on your hunts and meat haul!
Thanks! Yeah was fun.

Yeah it's a bit different here with all the land privately owned. Also people are extremely wary to let you on their property and 10x more so with a firearm.
TX is the opposite of other states where you can hunt private land be default unless a sign posting states otherwise. The default is you CANNOT be on the land unless explicitly given permission.
Wind up on someone's land here without permission AND with a firearm and things could go real bad for the tresspasser.

Different states, different laws/rules/culture/expectations :)
 
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My 2023 yearly hunting trip is in the books!
I scored 3 doe, 1 cull buck (3pt) and 1 feral hog.
My brother scored 1 cull buck (4pt) and 1 feral hog.

We got lucky that the weather held up Friday evening for us to get our major hunting in Friday. Sat morning was completely rained out but had a sparse but successful Sat evening. Then we were loaded up and out Sunday morning!

Here are pics and then some more details about the hunt. Pics are my animals and then just general animals in the wild (except a domesticated pet deer, and buffalo for breeding).

Rebarreled a Savage 110 with a Shillen super match grade barrel, hunted with it and this was the 2nd of my 5 load ladders I developed for it... didn't need to shoot ladders 3-5. Moved this up 3 inches (this is 100yd grouping) and was good. All animals taken with the new 308 :D
View attachment 679742

My haul after day 1 of hunting:
View attachment 679743

Older 3pt cull buck. Was almost a spike:View attachment 679744

Day 2 my feral hog, a boar. Likely just around or over 200lbs. Weighted 135 gutted:
View attachment 679745

Bison/Buffalo they want to breed with a waygu bull:
View attachment 679746
View attachment 679747
View attachment 679748

Scored a good pick of a doe out in the wild:
View attachment 679749

Wild Turkey's:
View attachment 679750
View attachment 679751

A pretty bright red Cardinal:
View attachment 679756

Some male Blackbuck Antelope chasing each other (where the deer and the blackbuck antelope play :P):
View attachment 679753

The dreaded, but tasty, TX nuisance, a sounder of feral hogs:
View attachment 679754

And last but no least, a domesticated pet doe they keep fenced in near the ranch office. Eating on some green portion of some veggies pulled from a small garden they have there:
View attachment 679755


Ok a little more about the hunt.
Since 2011 I have been hunting on Managed Lands Deer program properties (MLD).
These properties report to the state, their deer populates, manage the land and habitat, etc. and get special regulation (tags) for the land to be hunted.
These places/ranches usually offer trophy hunts for people wanting to hunt big horned deer (and pay out the nose) which means there is a lack of meat deer being pulled off the properties (does, cull bucks, etc.).

So, enter me. I hunt these properties for meat animals and it helps them with their numbers management, I use THEIR hunting tags (not mine) to get as many deer as they allow or I want to purchase, and the price comes out way cheaper than if I were to lease some land, prep it, manage it, and hunt it. In TX its like 95%+ of the hunting land/property is all privately owned property. Public land hunting is not really the thing here like other states.

So now I can take smaller trips, get more animals, and save more money, AND it helps the properties manage their deer populations more easily. Win-win-win-win!

We stayed in an great ranch house/cabin and this also doubles as a little vacation on top of a hunting trip. So another win there.

All shots on deer were heart placement and the shot on the pig was earhole placement. I hunted with a Savage 110, win .308 using a handload I created utilizing 175gr Barnes LRX bullets, LC Brass, CCI Primers, and TAC powder.

Finally, this year I did not take off 2 weeks to hunt and process. I am on a contract that is too good to give up 2 weeks of billable work so I'm taking a hybrid approach.
Got a great deal from a good wild game processor. I bring in the deer broken down to legs, backstraps, tenderloins, etc. and he will charge me $1/lb to do a straight grind.
We let them handle the skinning and messing with the pigs but for 250/lbs of wild hog they will skin and straight grind and provide us the ribs for $250 on those guys so basically $1/lb live weight. My brother and I were glad to take that deal after cleaning so many animals and breaking them down into the coolers hahaha.

So soon I will be getting 100% pure grind. I'll be grinding some trimmed pork backfat and doing sausage and such in small matches whenever I like. I'm looking forward to it :D

Thanks for reading along folks, ask any questions you like. I hope you enjoyed my trip and adventure 2nd hand :D

Thank you for taking the time to post an explanation of things. This helps. Not knowing that TX has zero public land is helpful here. Coming from a State that has an abundance of public land, we often think of places like TX to just be a place where the trophy buck is king and meat is second and hunting is only done on outfitted tracks of land. It is nice to see that folks like you are able to make a go of things the way you have described. I can totally get on board with outfits that allow you to do your thing. It was also nice to read that those game farms are managed by the State as well. We have a terrible CWD issue up North and those places are typically where the disease originates from.

Hats off to you for a successful hunt! I'm glad you were able to help them fill their quota and are putting the meat to good use.
 
Thank you for taking the time to post an explanation of things. This helps. Not knowing that TX has zero public land is helpful here. Coming from a State that has an abundance of public land, we often think of places like TX to just be a place where the trophy buck is king and meat is second and hunting is only done on outfitted tracks of land. It is nice to see that folks like you are able to make a go of things the way you have described. I can totally get on board with outfits that allow you to do your thing. It was also nice to read that those game farms are managed by the State as well. We have a terrible CWD issue up North and those places are typically where the disease originates from.

Hats off to you for a successful hunt! I'm glad you were able to help them fill their quota and are putting the meat to good use.
I'm glad you enjoyed the post. I'm also glad I could help shed a little light on how I do my hunting and a bit about hunting here in the state :D

I work hard to try and make things work for me vs me work for them lol.
I think I got my hunting sorted out... until I have to find a new place. Hopefully I can hunt at this one for a while :D
 
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