HUNTING GUIDES AND HUNTING OUTFITTERS
It was late December and I figured that my hunting season was over. As I was reviewing our message board that resides on our website, I noticed that one of our Texas Outfitters had openings for some Whitetail Deer hunting in mid January. Since we like to try and visit several of our Outfitters each hunting season, and I had time available, I thought it would be a great idea to visit Trey Williams and his hunting operation. Boy was I right!
Since my Dad and I had never been to Texas, I figured it would be a great mid winter trip for the two of us. We both needed to get away form the brutal cold weather that had blanketed the Northeastern part of the country for the entire month of December. Once I finalized the arrangements with Trey, I got a great deal on round trip airfare from BWI to San Antonio. Upon arriving we got our car rental, and made the easy 2-hour drive from San Antonio to Trey's ranch.
We arrived around 2:30 PM, just in time to get ready and head out for the evening hunt. I was placed in a comfortable tower stand, overlooking 3 separate shooting areas that had been cut from the thick under brush that blankets the hill country of Southwest Texas. At 4:30 PM a nice, wide, 6-point buck stepped out into the clearing and slowly began to feed. As I watched him feed 40 yards away from me, I couldn't help but think of the countless hours I spent in Pennsylvania Mountains, giving anything for a buck like that to appear. That buck fed for 1/2 an hour and then slipped into the dense under brush. I saw 2 mores doe that evening, and as luck would have it, right at dark a much larger buck stepped out into the clearing. I could tell the rack was much higher but with the fading light and a distance of well over 100 hundred yards, it was just too dark to take a shot I was confident in making.
As darkness fell, Trey picked me up and he headed over to the stand where he had placed my Dad. I thought I had a pretty good evening hunt, but I quickly found out it was boring compared to what my Dad experienced. 30 minutes after being placed in his stand, deer started to appear. A massive 10 pointer appeared, but due to a little Texas buck fever, he missed the shot. He said it was the biggest buck he had ever seen. Obviously though the missed shot didn't bother other deer from showing up. 30 minutes after missing the 10-point buck, a small 6-point buck and 2 doe started feeding. Before long, another big 8 point buck with a doe briefly appeared, but slipped into the thick brush before he could get a shot off. With about another 30 minutes of daylight remaining, a different 8-point buck appeared with a doe. Anxiously, he squeezed off the trigger and this time cleanly took the buck with a well-placed shot (pictured below). Looking back, he had wished he had held out for a bigger buck since it was only his first night of the hunt. Its easy to understand how he got excited though, in 3 hours of hunting, he had already seen more quality bucks, than he would see in several years of Pennsylvania hunting.
The next day proved to be another very enjoyable time in the stand. On the morning hunt I saw four more bucks and one doe. Two of these were mature 6 pointers, and 1 young 4-point buck. Near the end of the morning a hunt a very nice buck passed through the clearing I was watching. I could tell the rack was very impressive, but it all happened before I could get the gun up and the scope focused for a clean shot. My Dad hunted that morning armed only with a camera. He saw 6 bucks and 3 doe. Two 8 pointers (both about the size of the one he had taken), and two mature 6 pointers, and two young 4 point bucks. The evening hunt I saw 3 more bucks. Two more young 8 pointers, and a young 4 pointer. That evening my Dad saw 10 - 15 Javelina, which just wouldn't leave the area no matter how hard he tried to spook them.
The next to last day came, and I still hadn't fired a shot. As daylight broke there was a pack of about 12 Javelina feeding on the corn making more noise than you could imagine. Since it was barely daylight and I knew that a single shot wouldn't spook these deer, I decided to take one (in the photo above). As the morning proceeded I saw 15 does. About 15 minutes before Trey was scheduled to pick me up, a mature single doe stepped out and gave me a broadside shot at about 100 yards. I was able to place a shot and drop her on the spot. Trey runs a top-notch game management program. The ranch policy is to only harvest 8-point bucks or better with a spread out to the ears. He told us several does still had to be harvested, so we took the opportunity to help him out. All the deer we harvested were donated to needy families in the area. As Trey came to pick me up, turned out my Dad also had harvested a mature doe. In addition to the doe he harvested he also saw 3 more bucks. That evening I was especially anxious to hunt because Trey had spotted 2 "shooter bucks" in the stand he had planned to place me. As the prime hunting time approached, I got nervous as I heard the brush crackle. As the noise came closer I was puzzled by how loud it was, I knew a deer couldn't be that loud. Suddenly a pack of about 15 Feral Hogs appeared. These were much larger than the Javelina I had seen earlier. Knowing that deer wouldn't approach with all this racket I got out of my stand and tried to spook them away. Ten minutes later, care to guess what returned? Yes, you got it, the very same pack of Feral Hogs. Since I had never taken one, I decided to pick out the biggest one. I shot; the biggest one fell in an instant. As I drug it back to the tree stand I could tell it weighed as much as some of the Pennsylvania Whitetails I had taken. Taking the animal managed to keep the hogs away for the rest of the evening, but also put a damper on any bucks showing up. As we got back to the cleaning area the hog dressed out at 90 lbs.
The last morning of the hunt proved to fall into the category of "what ever can go wrong usually does". The morning started quickly with an 8 pointer and 2 mature 6 pointers grazing within 80 yards of my tree stand. The morning started to pass as I watched 2 more doe. Then at about 7:30 am a nice buck stepped out in a clearing about 75 yards away. I was hunting in a box stand, with four small shooting windows, one on each side. Unfortunately I had my 300 Weatherby Magnum already pointed out the window toward the path where all the deer activity had been to that point. I slowly eased the gun in the window, and as I slowly turned to the buck, and eased the gun into window facing the buck, the back of my stock bumped the side of the box stand. This was all the warning the buck needed. As he started to run off, I did manage to get off a shot, but the only contact the bullet drew ended up being a cedar tree where the buck entered the thick under brush.
Even though I wasn't able to harvest a nice buck it was a very enjoyable hunt. In the 3 days we hunted, my Dad and I spotted 27 bucks. It is also important to keep in mind that we hunted January 4th through January 7th. Which was post rut and dangerously close to a usually unproductive full moon.
I had a great time interviewing Trey through out our hunt and was able to gather a lot of information that should make you strongly consider paying him a visit. The ranch currently has 23 strategically placed tree stands over 7000 acres of prime hunting habitat. Accommodations are in two efficiency cabins. He specializes in catering to small hunting parties of 2 to 4 hunters, but can handle up to 6. The 2 statistics I personally use to measure a good outfitter are kill percentage and amount of repeat business the outfitter generates. Counting my Dad and I, 23 hunters visited Trey in the 2000 - 2001 hunting season, 20 harvested 8-point or better bucks. I saw several 8-point bucks, but was holding out for a true trophy for this article. As for repeat business, 90% of the hunters in 2000 also hunted in 1999. This to me is the most important statistic of all. Finding a quality outfitter can be a hard task, but obviously if 90% of the clients return, they are coming back for a reason. Another fact that makes Trey's operation unique is his successful deer management program, and his amazing 2 - 1 doe/buck ratio. Knowing you are guaranteed to see a lot of bucks each day definitely makes for a quality hunting experience.
Happy Hunting,
Dennis Latsha
