Well guys and gals I'm back! My trip to the deserts of SW Texas was a blast! The term desert is relative. We got 6" of snow on Saturday night.
The road trip started Thanksgiving night after the Cowboys game. ( The landowner has season tickets and wasn't gonna miss a game). We drove for 12 hours straight on pavement and then an hour off-road to reach camp. It was cold when we set up but the sun was shining and the countryside was beautiful.
Saturday was the opening day of Mule deer season. I greeteddaybreak high on a ridge, binos in hand. There was a light, cold rain falling and I just knew I would see deer. I was right, I spotted 3 does moving down a draw about 200 yds away. That was all I saw all day despite hours and miles of walking and glassing. At about 10 the rain turned into freezing rain. At noon it became snow. The snow would continue to fall until there was 6" on the ground Sunday morning.
I was camping in the bed of my Ford Ranger. I have done it before, just throw an air mattress in the bed and a tarp over it draped over the cab to make a tent. With my mummy sleeping bag it is usually a comfy shelter. Not so much with 6" of snow pressing down on me. Saturday night I slept in the cab. Thank God for reclining seats!
Sunday morning I headed off through the snow with the hope of cutting some tracks in the snow and sure enough I found some. After driving the 4-wheeler for a few miles I crossed some Javelina tracks that were fresh. I parked the 4-wheeler and started walking. It didn't take long to spot the pigs heading up a hill side. I made a move to flank them by rapidly heading around the hill and trying to intercept them on the next ridge.
I managed to get ahead of them and get set up in a draw I thought they would come down and as luck would have it they did. I didn't have much in the way of cover, just some thin brush. I stayed motionless as the 2 pigs worked there way down to me. The larger of the 2 offered a broadside shot at 12 yards. I drew, it saw motion and stopped to see what was going on, it didn't move again until the 3 blade Muzzy hit it tight behind the shoulder. My arrow broke when it hit the rocks on the other side of the javie. They ran back uphill. My trophy made it about 30 yds before falling to never rise again.
That was the highlight of my week. I never got close enough to a mulie buck for a shot. The closest I could ever get with the sparse cover was 200 yds. And with the snowfall they just weren't moving much for the first couple of days of my hunt. I'll be back down there next year to try again.
1 Javalina- 0 Mulies
I love hunting when there is snow on the ground, nothing like it!
