Forty-Four Years in the Making

by Denny L. Vasquez

As the old cliché goes, the look of pure joy on David’s face as he held his buck for pictures was priceless. For the first time in his 44 years he had finally been given the opportunity to hunt a trophy whitetail buck that scored higher than 100 B & C. To say the least, he was a very happy man!

Living in east Texas most of his adult life had restricted the potential of the bucks that David could hunt on his father-in-law’s or uncle’s farms. The area of the Lone Star state around Crockett and Kenard just isn’t known as an area for consistently producing large mature deer. Because of the higher than normal hunting pressure, year round poaching problems and the small acreage of most properties in the area, any type of quality deer management program is all but impossible to implement, except in a high fence situation. Because of these and other factors, most hunters in the area have the attitude of “if it is brown it dies”, which eliminates the chances of most bucks surviving long enough to reach trophy status. So just where did David take his trophy buck, you are probably asking by now?

David and I have been hosting youth/women/minority shooting and hunting events together much longer than either of us can remember. While hosting these events we have been able to observe some pretty impressive animals over the years. However, because we agreed years ago that we would never shoot an animal while hosting one these events as we were there for the benefit of the participants and not ourselves, David has passed on several opportunities to harvest mature animals. So when Barry Smith of Antler Adventures in Kerrville, TX (830-285-0229) called and offered me the chance to harvest both a mature trophy and a cull buck on one of the ranches owned by Charlie Whelan, I knew just who was going to hunt the mature buck. And based upon the reputation of both Barry and Charlie I knew that there was a good chance that David would have the opportunity to take a really impressive trophy.

The Sunday after Christmas 2004 found us on our way to Kerrville, TX. Now for those of you who do not know Kerrville is the center of one the better known hunting regions in central Texas. Not only are the hills for miles around surrounded with an abundance of native game such as whitetail deer, turkey, feral hogs and various varmints; it is also the Mecca of the exotic wildlife hunting industry in the southern US. Consequently, I love to hunt this region because you never know just what you might come across. For example on my last hunt there on Thanksgiving I had whitetail, coyote, axis, fallow, sika, red deer, blackbuck, elk, eland, zebra, feral rams and a small heard of aoudad cross the wide valley my stand overlooked. And this was on a low fenced ranch!

Of the various Whelan ranch properties, we were scheduled to hunt the home place. Ironically the western edge of this property is now the eastern boundary of the Kerrville city limits. It wasn’t always so, but progress moves on they tell me.

You enter the ranch along a well manicured drive that leads to a beautiful hill country white, limestone rock house that sits on a ledge overlooking a small, deep blue lake. Our first view of this vista was the reflection of a fiery orange sunset that reflected off of the lake and lit up the house as though with a rosy glow. Across the lake was the two story barn/hunter’s quarters made of the same limestone and rustic cedar.

To say that we were impressed by the accommodations would be an understatement. Let’s just say that Charlie has taken every step possible to make sure his hunters are comfortable. Heck, the place is nicer than many every day homes that I have seen. There are two bedrooms, a complete kitchen, den with a large screen TV and a large bathroom with an oversized shower stall, which is nice for those of us that are a bit bigger than most. All of this is furnished in the old west motif.

If you have ever been to this region of the state then you know that it enjoys a very dense deer population. It is not unusual to have 15-30+ deer coming into your hunting area at a time. Such a large herd can take its toll on the countryside, so a well managed ranch will have a herd management program in place to maintain the herd numbers at a level that the vegetation can easily sustain. The Whelan ranches are such an operation. Through selective herd culling, the introduction of new bloodlines and other sound management practices, only the best of the bucks are allowed to pass on their genes to the next generation. After many years of this type of management, the Whelan ranch deer herd offers the hunter a fine selection of trophy bucks to pursue.

The buzzing of the alarm clock came all too early the next morning, 5:00 am to be exact. David and I were greeted by a brisk morning breeze blowing around the hills in the 30+ degree temperatures, so we dressed in our warm clothes and ventured out to meet Barry.

Barry had chosen a rather secluded box stand for us to hunt this morning. It sits just off the road on the highest hill on the ranch. It was a perfect location, if seclusion was what we were seeking. The only negatives were that the roadway offered a very limited view of the surrounding area while its funneling effect seemed to amplify the force of the breezes blowing over the hilltop by a factor of 10.

As is a standard practice throughout this part of the state, Barry had corned the road we were watching on our way in to the stand. If he had not done so then it is unlikely that we could have gotten the deer to stop long enough for us to get a good look at them in the confined area we watching.

Right at grey up the first doe appeared in the early morning fog. Her silent appearance in the middle of the road helped us to understand why the whitetail family has earned the nickname of the “grey ghost”. One moment the road was empty the next moment a full grown doe was standing there eating corn. And I swear we were all awake and watching the road when it happened.

Within fifteen more minutes there were 31 deer standing in the road from within 35 to 90 yards of our hiding spot, several of them were respectable bucks, just not the type we were after. About 30 minutes later, just as the sun appeared in all of his glory, the object of our hunt made a partial appearance, of sorts. I say partial appearance because all we could see was his head, neck and antlers. But it was enough to wake us all up with the sudden rush of adrenaline.

David slowly raised his rifle into shooting position as we watched for the next 10 minutes, hoping that the buck would finally step out in the road and provide him with a shot. As though it was reading our thoughts, the buck stepped into the road and turned broadside. David made ready to shoot while Barry and I watched through our binoculars. However, just as David began to let his breath out in preparation for the shot, a doe stepped in behind the buck. Not wanting to risk wounding her David decided wisely and held his shot.

When the doe had fed on by and the buck was broadside to us once again David raised his rifle and prepared to shoot just when a small fork horned buck stepped in front of the bigger buck. Again, David had to withhold his shot for fear of wounding the wrong animal. This cat and mouse game continued the rest of the morning as each time David prepared to shoot another deer would step into his line of fire. One of these times I swear David was so wrapped up in trying to weave his shot through the herd in front of us that I believe he actually quit breathing for a spell because when I tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention he exhaled so loudly that those deer closest to our stand heard him and shied off a short distance, snorting in alarm at the strange noise.

As luck would have it, all we could do is watch as the big boy finally moved off into the roadside brush without giving David an ethical shot. Somewhat disappointed we headed for the jeep while Barry suggested that he give us a tour of the ranch before heading into town for breakfast. At this point in time, none of us knew how significant this chance decision would be.

After riding up and down the hills that make up this portion of the ranch for about an hour or so, Barry and I both spotted the object of our hunt at the same time. He stood about 125 yards up the side of a fairly steep hill. In the recent past the hillside had been cleared of the cedar and underbrush that dominate the countryside so there was nothing between us and him to hide behind. However, I guess the buck thought that we couldn’t see him as he stood out in the open, just in front of the brush line. Another five yards back and the leaves and limbs would have protected him from our view.

Both of us yelled at David at the same time. It didn’t matter as David was already in the process of exiting the jeep. As Barry and I anxiously waited he leaned over the hood of the jeep trying to get a good resting place. Then shaking his head, David whispered I don’t have good rest and proceeded to walk toward a small oak tree about 20 yards away. My thought was, “well you’ve blown it now David, There is no way that buck is going to stand there and wait for you to reach that tree”. But you know what? That is exactly what that old denizen of the forest did. Through my binoculars I swear I could see the buck follow David’s progress toward the oak or so it almost seemed as he turned his head slightly to keep both David and the jeep in sight.

By the time David reached the tree and took a rest from which to make his shot both Barry and I were whispering under our breath, “Come on David! Hurry up! Don’t let him get away we might not see him again.”

The shot came as surprise to both of us. Luckily we still had our eyes on the buck with our binoculars and were able to see the pink cloud that David’s shot hitting home caused before the buck bolted up hill. The first words out of David’s mouth were, “Did I hit him? Did I hit him?” Barry replied that it looked like a good hit to him but that we had better get up hill to find out for sure.

As Barry is both younger and skinner then David or myself he made it up hill to the spot where the buck had been standing first. However, even though it had looked like a perfect heart/lung shot we couldn’t find any blood on the ground. David moaned in disappointment as we continued to scour the ground for some sign of his trophy buck.

It was at this time that I looked up hill in the direction the buck had taken when I saw him laying on the ground at the top of the clearing, about 80 yards away from us. I pointed up hill while asking Barry and David if they saw anything in that direction. Both replied in the negative and continued to search the surrounding area. Realizing that the situation presented me with the opportunity to play one of the many practical jokes on David as was our habit of doing over the years, I told them I was going to slowly climb the hill looking for some sort of sign. So I made my way up hill toward David’s buck stopping every few yards to look back at my hunting partners, neither of which glanced in my direction.

Soon I had reached the buck which lay on his belly with his head pointing up hill. All I could think was, “Man this buck is a lot bigger than the 140 B & C that Barry thought he was.” I just smiled, happy for my friend who had finally taken the buck of his dreams. I hollered back down to them and asked if they had found anything yet. Both replied in the negative so I responded that I was going to rest on this rock I was standing next to. They both glanced my way but neither mentioned that the rock looked out of place. So I sat down on the hindquarters of David’s deer and watched them at work. And watched them at work, and watched them at work and watched them at work for about another 30 to 45 minutes.

Then David made some kind of comment about his lazy friend not wanting to help him look for his deer as they had still not found any blood sign but weren’t willing to give up the task at hand. So I nonchalantly reached over and held his deer’s head up by the antlers and said something like, “You mean the friend who is too lazy to help you look for this?” I thought Barry and David both were going to beat the devil out of me.

Our conversation went something like this, “How long have you been sitting on him?” David asked as he ran up the hill to secure his prize. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe 30 minutes or so.” “You mean you knew where he was the whole time?” “Yep!” “Why you little @#&$, I ought to kick your behind!” as he playfully shoved me off of his deer. We both broke into teeth baring grins and I began pounding him on the back in congratulations. The look of joy on his face made the whole trip worthwhile. With Barry and Charlie’s help David’s dream of harvesting a mature trophy buck had finally come true.

David’s buck was tall nine-pointer in the 152+ gross B & C class. It has 6 inch bases, carried its mass all the way out and had very long tines all around. A great trophy for a great friend.