South of the Border

Rancho San Enrique - Mexico - 12/26/15

10/27/2015

      Last December, on the day after Christmas, I joined Leigh and Travis Creekbaum on a trip south of the border into Mexico for the deer hunt of a lifetime.  They had first hunted this property known as Rancho San Enrique the prior year and returned to tell tales of the most amazing deer hunting they had witnessed in all their travels around this country.  

      We flew into Laredo and met the outfitter, Patrick Starnes, and the ranch owner, Wyo (spelling may or may not be correct).  After eating lunch we drove across the border and then drove northwest, somewhat parallel to the border and the Rio Grande River for about fifty miles, before turning off the highway onto dirt roads that led through various properties for miles and miles until we finally reached the ranch we would be hunting.  

       The entire property, 45,000 acres worth, was owned by three siblings.  We would be hunting on a third of that property during our stay.  The landscape was mostly flat, with some hills and overlooks, and was filled with every type of cactus and thorny bush you can imagine.  And deer and javelinas.  And lots of both.  

        Friends George and Ann Morris, from Birmingham, also joined us for the trip as well as Jeff Ensor, Rusty Camp, and Joseph Maier who would be running the cameras for a few episodes of The Chase tv show.  

         There were four of us hunting: George,  Travis, Leigh and myself.  The first afternoon Joseph and I settled into a ground blind alongside a road that ran through the endless expanse of cactus.  A little corn had been dribbled along the road and a few piles dumped in front of us.

         In the first hour we heard javelinas and soon they were in front of us.  Javelinas are often confused with a cousin of the wild hog but instead they are of the rodent family.  They have big teeth and smell like a skunk, which leads to their nickname of "skunk pig."  They have a very good sense of smell and very poor eyesight.

         As a group of them came into view out of our blind window I drew my bow as Joseph rolled the camera and an arrow quickly found the sweet spot on a javelina.  We heard it crash just a short piece away so we exited the blind and recovered the javelina, then returned to the blind for the remaining two hours of the evening.  

        We saw several nice bucks meandering through the catcus, in and out of the road, as the evening progressed.  Just as the sun was starting to set I raised up and peeked out the window to see a big bodied buck in the road just twenty yards in front of the blind.  We were instructed to shoot nothing less than a 5 to 6 year old buck and when I saw this one I felt we had a shooter but I wasn't sure.  Joseph, half my age but having filmed since he was 17 years old for Buckmasters and having seen way more mature bucks up close than me, quickly confirmed that the buck was indeed a shooter.  

         Moments later I sent a Wasp Jak-Hammer through his shoulder and he jump high in the air, giving a mule kick, and then he disappeared into the cactus.  

          It didn't take long for Patrick, the outfitter, to come for us and we found the arrow in the cactus, with much help from the lighted nock still glowing.  We found  blood and began to follow.  After a while we decided to back out and give the deer a little time to make sure he was dead before we risked pushing him deeper in the cactus.  

          George had also killed a great buck on the first afternoon and we celebrated with him over dinner and then all returned to look for my deer.  It did not take long to find him and indeed he had been dead since I shot him.  

          The trip and hunt of a lifetime was just beginning for me.  Since I had my buck I was able to spend time exploring the ranch with Patrick and Joseph, shooting more javelinas, and taking in a piece of the world that I had never seen before.  

          This hunt with air on Tuesday, October 27, at 6:30pm CT on "Scentblocker's The Chase" on The Sportman Channel.  It will air again on Thursday, Nov. 5, at 9am CT as well as two more  times later this fall.  

          If you have ever wanted to take the deer hunting trip of your life, I can not say enough good things about this destination.  See www.patrickstarnesoutdoors.com for more information or send me any questions you might have.  

Arrow with lighted nock strikes the buck

First Squirrel!

Andrew and I waiting on squirrels

10/14/2015

       Sunday afternoon my six year old son Andrew and I sat down beside a big oak on the edge of my uncle's property alongside the Alabama River.  He was determined to kill his first squirrel and I promised him that if he would be quiet and patient, an opportunity would likely present itself for that to happen.

       Typically a young hunter cuts his teeth on small game before moving up to big game, but Andrew took the opposite approach, having killed two hogs already.   But our two previous squirrel hunts had been unproductive mostly due to the limited patience of a youngster in waiting for the woods to settle down and come alive with the forest critters.  

        We had ridden through a pine plantation to the edge of the hardwoods that bordered the backwaters of the river and as we walked toward the big oak, which looked like the perfect spot to sit for a while, we saw plenty of fresh acorns on the ground.  Twenty minutes passed and we saw our first game, two turkeys that flew into a nearby tree and apparently began to find something to eat there.  It was too early for roosting and they jumped and flew from limb to limb in search of whatever suited their fancy.

        Forty five minutes passed and Andrew's patience was wearing thin as the sun was not far from setting over the water.  And then in the stillness of the afternoon I saw a branch, high in a tree, move. Then I saw the squirrel and Andrew did too.  For the next few minutes we watched the squirrel go from a tree on our left, run across a series of limbs and a few other trees to a tree on our right.  He would stop briefly and then go back in the other direction.  Andrew steadied the 410 on a small sapling and tried to get a shot but the squirrel would not stop long enough in view for the trigger to get pulled.  Eventually the squirrel darted off through the pine thicket nearby and was gone.

      A few minutes later another squirrel emerged from the treetops and began to work his way along the lower limbs of a nearby tree. We moved closer and the squirrel ran down a cypress tree to the water's edge.  Again, Andrew steadied the gun on a sapling and worked to get the little 410 pointed in position to shoot.  The squirrel stopped on the ground and then ran back up the trunk of the cypress to a height of around ten feet and stopped.  Andrew pulled the trigger and hammer fell on the little gun and so did the squirrel---dead.

      My little hunter handed me the gun and rushed forward to claim his first squirrel.  He was mighty proud.  I was too.

First squirrel!  

     

An Evening with the Coon Eliminator

9/28/2015

      You can not live in the country without partaking in a coon hunt from time to time and on Friday night, three little boys enjoyed their first one.  We were honored to have local legendary hunters, Clyde Ray Pearson (aka The Coon Eliminator) and Roger "Bobcat" Sheffield take us out to our swamp for an evening of fun.
      The boys were particularly excited to get to shoot at the coons themselves but they quickly learned the difficulty of such when the coons tree high in huge oaks that are still full of leaves.
       The air was a little cooler than the recent humid evenings we have endured but the full moon and dry weather was expected to make the going difficult.  It did, but not immediately.    
       As soon as the two hounds hit the first hardwood bottom they caught the scent of a coon and it did not take long before they treed.  We moved in and Clyde Ray finally saw the coon and was able to get a shot.  Again the dogs were turned loose and again they treed for another successful kill.  We continued to hunt for another few hours and they treed several more times but these were unsuccessful attempts as the oaks were simple too large and offered too many hiding places for the coons to elude us.  Just before midnight, we called it quits.
      We all got a stronger appreciation of just how hard it is to see the coons in the tree and how well they can hide.  Clyde Ray and Roger had much better trained eyes than the rest of us for picking out the coon on the limb, but even they struggled in the large, leaf filled oaks that provide refuge.  However, the boys are looking forward to the next adventure with The Coon Eliminator and it will sure happen as soon as the temperatures begin to fall.  

The Edge of Autumn

Youpon Plantation - Canton Bend, Alabama

9/22/2015

      Dove shoots, pig roasts, football games, and hog hunting are all signs of autumn on the horizon in my corner of the world.  I checked a few of those off the list in the past week.
      Friday afternoon I was invited on my first dove shoot of the season and it left nothing to be desired.  We entered the field of sunflowers around 2pm and endured a warm few hours before the birds poured in around 4pm.  I missed, very cleanly, the first six I shot at.  I finally got in my groove and I mourned the fifteenth that fell as I was just starting to really have some fun!
      Saturday evening my wife and I attended a pig roast party at a beautifully restored antebellum home right outside of Camden.  The pleasant weather was a great setting for food, music, and fellowship through the evening hours.  The event has become an annual affair is is yet another enjoyable event to mark the turning of summer into autumn.
       My hog stalks were unsuccessful on both Saturday and Sunday mornings.  I saw very few hogs and none within range of an arrow.  The acorns are beginning to fall and those hunts will improve in the coming weeks.
       

One for Andrew

9/17/2015

      As late summer and early fall arrives in the swamp the potholes and ponds are drying quickly.  The hogs are becoming more easy to pattern and find near the existing sources of water.  One Sunday afternoon recently I found a group of a dozen feeding in one of our favorite locations to shoot hogs in dry times---our Duck Pond.  Knowing they would likely return each evening for the near future, I knew exactly who I wanted to get the first crack at them.   

       During the next week my 7-year old son, Andrew, and I planned our hunt  It would be a relatively short walk from where we would park in the pines of the property, walk through a stretch of hardwoods, and into the willow bushes surrounding the pond.  There he would take aim at the group and hopefully get his first of the season.  The stage was set and all week we discussed our hunt.

      Friday arrived and as I headed home from work I called ahead and found out Andrew's friend Harrison also wanted to join us.  So the three of us headed out to the swamp in time to reach the pond about thirty minutes before dark.

       It can be difficult to sit in one spot for long as the wind swirls and alerts the hogs to human presence.  For this reason our plan was to let the hogs reach the pond first, before we stalked close. 

       As soon as we got close, I saw them.  The hogs were there in a force of at least a dozen.  We crept to within 50 yards and I steadied our .243 on the shooting sticks and handed it over to Andrew for the shot.  When I told him it was time to shoot, he reached for his chest to feel his heart that I knew was racing.

       He settled down, took aim and fired.  The hog stumbled but did not fall.  It ran in the opposite direction, into the grass and the willow bushes on the opposite side of the pond, heavily favoring its left front leg.  After a few minutes of discussing the events that just took place, our team of three charged ahead to search for blood and we quickly picked up a good trail.
        I was proud of the boys as they followed the blood with just a little help from me.  Within ten minutes they had successfully followed the trail to the downed hog.  There was much excitement in the woods that evening.  Andrew was mighty proud of his hog.  His daddy was too. 
     

Hogs by bow

9/17/2015

     I've started off the fall hunting season having a lot of fun with what I enjoy the most---hunting hogs.  On my first venture in mid August in search of hogs I took along my .270 and got three on a morning hunt.  Since then I switched to my Mathews ChillR bow and have killed 6 on three hunts.  

      I've been fortunate to take two good sized boars including the one shown in this picture.  On this hunt I was slipping along through the hardwoods when I spotted him feeding under an oak that was beginning to shed a few acorns.  He circled and circled around the tree, feeding, as I crept closer and closer.  Several times I cracked sticks with my steps and he froze and looked my way, only to settle down and return to feeding.

     I crouched behind an oak and hoped he would circle a little closer to me so that I could make a 30 yard shot but he seemed to be gradually moving in the opposite direction.  The light wind held steady in my favor but one shift in its direction would blow my stalk.  I knew time was short.

      As he made a circle in the other direction I crept closer until he began to move from right to left.  I drew and he stopped and I let the arrow loose.  

       The Wasp Jak-Hammer tipped projectile struck the hog, piercing both lungs.  He whirled and ran toward me at an angle and stopped 15 yards away, paused, and fell over.  

        Returning to the truck I ran across another group of hogs that included a sow in heat and a very big boar.  I nearly got a shot at him before the big group got wary and ran.  They didn't go far but I had no time to pursue. I'll save them for another day and that big boar is tops on my wish list.  

        Stay tuned for more tales from the Swamp as we move into my two favorite months of the year---October and November!