My family has recently leased some land in Houston County. It’s a little over 400 acres of open terrain (not high-fence) with four ponds and a lodge. The land had not been hunted in over five years. Prior to that, we spent seven years hunting on several leases in Mason County. During those years, I have had the opportunity to kill a couple nice bucks. But, on Nov. 8, 2009, I had the opportunity to shoot the largest buck I have ever seen in my life. You know, everyone talks about the big bucks in West Texas, but I think I beg to differ on that one. This is where my story begins.

I had the experience two spring seasons ago of a hog and turkey combo hunt. And I never thought for a moment that it would happen again. But it did.

One Saturday morning last season, I cranked up the Trooper and headed for my ground blind. I parked about 300 yards from the blind and walked quickly because daylight was breaking much sooner than I expected. I wasn’t too concerned since most of the turkeys I’d seen over those past couple weekends had been well after sunrise.

Jerry Johnston speaks of the early days with guarded emotion. “As a deer hunter, I wanted a way to connect with other deer hunters. I wanted to share their experiences in ways that could only be done with a good association backed by annual membership gatherings and a good television show. We have accomplished all these things, thanks to some close friends who believed in me and the concept enough to bail me out a few times over the years.”
 
Today, after 35 years, the Texas Trophy Hunters Association is connecting the interests of hunters from Anchorage to Miami, and from Maine to California. Hunters all over the world read The Journal and view the national award-winning television show.

Having children is one of the happiest moments of life. Once it happens, all you can think about is all the responsibility you have and all of the traditions and experiences that you will pass on to them. Hunting was definitely one of my favorite things that I planned on handing down.

Back in 2002, my cousin Ryan and I had the good fortune of meeting Tommy Novosad. He had leased 1,100 acres south of Los Angeles, in La Salle County, to take friends and clients deer hunting. My dad, Marty Bludau, was invited to go hunting on the ranch and allowed to bring me along. To make a long story short, it was evident that Mr. Novosad needed some help on the ranch with the maintenance chores, feeder upkeep, deer harvest, etc. We volunteered our services and he was very appreciative. In return, he allowed us to hunt the ranch at our will.

I’ve been hunting since I was 9 years old, but, like most children, I didn’t shoot my first deer until I was a bit older. My grandfather took me to the ranch often and allowed me to tag along with the older guys and shoot a few hogs, javelinas, and rabbits. I never knew the difference until the moment I took my first deer. It was a young spike, but it’s still a trophy to me.

One king-sized buck taken on the famous King Ranch by a lady bowhunter makes for a royal story effort, courtesy our intrepid editor.

Last September, Bonnie McFerrin of Houston arrowed the biggest whitetail buck ever taken by a female archer in Texas. Bonnie is not new to the pages of The Journal, having taken several good bucks from the brush country of the King Ranch, and writing her stories for this magazine. This was her seventh and largest buck so far from two different leases during the last 10 years on the famous King Ranch of the Wild Horse Desert of South Texas. She and her husband Mike are dyed-in-the-wool bowhunters, and I’m not sure if they even have a deer rifle in the house. Their present lease on King Ranch is on the west side of the Laureles Division.
The Wild Horse Desert has a rich history. Back in 1846, the United States and Mexico were fighting over this vast, arid strip of land between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. Santa Ana, pretty much over a barrel at San Jacinto, had promised Sam Houston all the land claimed by Mexico, all the way to the Rio Grande. But when the Mexican dictator was safe in Mexico City, he claimed that he had said “Nueces,” not Rio Grande. When Texas became a state in 1845, the U.S. Government laid claim to what they said was theirs, and a three-year war settled the issue.

Sitting in a hunting blind in South Texas on a Saturday afternoon, with perfect weather (for November in South Texas, around 60 degrees). Can it get any better? In my case, it got a lot better! First of all, my guide is my son, Glen. That, in and of itself, is pretty special. His dad and I took him hunting for the first time when he had just barely turned 2 years old. I bundled him up and took him to the blind with me. We kept watch together until he got tired, then I laid him down on the floor of the blind, so he could take his afternoon nap.

When he got a little older, his dad would drop us off at a blind and we would quietly talk about all the things we would see. I never had to tell him to be quiet. He was always so good. All he wanted was to get a chance to shoot. It was always a special time for us. Little did I know then that he would end up turning the tables on me by taking me out to shoot a trophy buck.

They changed their feeding program to benefit every deer. That change uncovered the sweet tooth in one finicky buck and provided an opportunity this hunter had been waiting for.

All my hunting buddies and I had great expectations going into the new season after coming off a great 2007-’08 season. We were fortunate to have taken six deer, all scoring 165-plus Boone and Crockett (B&C), and topping it off with Butch Alanis’ huge 10-pointer scoring 178. Anyway, managing 10,000-acre pastures on the Junco Ranch to produce these monster bucks takes lots of hard work, and it helps being under MLD to help with culling. We use a strict feed program that includes protein, and for the first time, cottonseed, which my good friend Rene Barientos suggested. He uses it at his personal ranch, La Golondrina, and highly recommended it for our Junco program. One thing I noticed about the cottonseed on Rene’s ranch was that the deer body-weights were high, as well as the antler mass and their non-typical points. Coming into this season I was looking for one particular deer that we’d passed, a typical 12-point with seven kickers scoring around 190 B&C that we named “Picket.”

One Story of a Buck That Put the "Wild" in "Wildlife"

At day’s end, I settled into my comfort zone. The third position on the recliner gave me a good view of the knotty pine beams bracing my ceiling. The amber-glowing wood and the crackling sounds in the fireplace set my nostalgic wheels in motion. Soon my mind’s eye traveled to a place that I shall not soon forget.

I’d recently had the opportunity to travel deep into Mexico. My uncle, Don Jesus “Chuy” Sánchez, Welo Mencho’s grandson and hunting guru, had called and asked if I could join him to take care of a situation. One Saturday morning, over a hot cup of coffee, he explained his request. A long-time friend of his had called with an invitation. Don Bartolo del Castillo knew my uncle was an avid big-game hunter, and he’d called in hopes that my uncle would help him deal with a problem at his Mexican ranch. The story goes that, for a couple of years, El Rancho del Cerro was losing cattle. Don Bartolo, who runs the ranch, was not sure what was causing the damage. Over the previous two years they’d lost a good dozen animals to some strange phenomenon. This year his losses were climbing.

The First Buck a Lifetime Hunter Takes is one for the Books

Jeff Bradley of Bedford, Texas, has proved that trophy whitetails are where you find them. He’s also demonstrated that old, abandoned peanut country in Central Texas can produce a monster whitetail that most hunters think only comes from South Texas. On Nov. l, 2008, Jeff killed his first whitetail buck—a 21-point that grossed 2071⁄8 and netted 200 Boone and Crockett (B&C). I’ll bet my horse and dog that it’ll be the biggest buck killed on open range in Texas during the 2008-’09 season. What’s more, Jeff was hunting on the family’s 700-acre lease in Eastland County, an area of sandy land better known for post oak, peanuts, and oil than it is for whitetail bucks.

Inches from full draw, the hunter was stunned to see the big bruiser head for the hills. Would he ever see him again?

The hunt for the buck my hunting buddies and I dubbed “Big Nasty” started a year ago, when I had seen what looked like a 10-point buck at my bowhunting lease in South Texas. The first time I saw this buck, I wasn’t sure what to make of him. He had a really beautiful rack on the left side, but the right side wasn’t quite developed. We guessed the deer had experienced some sort of injury during the growing season. Yet despite the weaknesses on the right side, we believed the deer to be close to 22 inches wide and possibly have 10 points, hence the name, “Big Nasty”—he was big on one side and nasty on the other. I never had a shooting opportunity at “Big Nasty,” but two other hunting friends had seen the deer and decided to pass in hopes that the next year his rack would be fully developed.

He had a 150s-class, and another one in the 160s. It was time to up the ante.

I’ve hunted on a 2,200-acre high-fenced ranch in South Texas for the past 20 years. There are seven hunters plus the ranch owner and his son who also hunt this property. During the time I’ve been on the lease, all of us have tried to do the things that enable us to take trophy deer on this land, such as removing the number of does and cull bucks the game biologist recommends each year. We have been very successful with this program, as the best buck killed was a beautiful 185 Boone and Crockett (B&C) typical buck. I’ve been fortunate to have killed two nice bucks, one scoring 155 B&C and another that went to 165 B&C. My goal was to kill another buck, one that would score better than 170 B&C.

What is it about guitar-slinging musicians and hunting? Maybe we can get Uncle Ted–or the author of this story–to explain it to the rest of us.

What a weekend! My band “Thaxton” is a hard-alternative band based out of Dallas, Texas, and we’d played a showcase in front of several record labels on a Saturday night. We’d been looking forward to the show for some time and weren’t disappointed with the results. The place had been packed and the crowd had responded very well. As a band we were very pleased with our performance, but now we had to wait on the business side of the music industry. I was pumped with adrenaline from the show, but for some reason I couldn’t suppress the thought of hunting—and Sunday was the last day of the Texas mule deer season.

Shortness of breath. Elevated heart rate. Uncontrollable nerves.

These are the symptoms of heart attack victims. Sometimes in life, there are moments that can produce these same symptoms. These symptoms are most often duplicated in a hunter seeing a buck of a lifetime, be it a 10-year-old’s first spike, a weekend hunter’s first 140-class buck, or even a seasoned veteran with many Boone and Crockett trophies under his belt viewing any quality buck. Here’s my deer hunting “heart attack” story.

A lifelong gun "nut" builds a custom gun and with it, a stronger relationship with his favorite hunting partner.

The South Texas sun had already set, when the last traces of sunlight trickling through the live oaks illuminated some movement on the ridge. A look through the binocular confirmed my suspicion. I noted the heavy body, thick neck, and sauntering, burdensome gait of a mature Hill Country buck. My hopes, after what had been an uneventful evening with my wife in our homemade deer stand, were rekindled. But would the coming darkness conceal the old boy and protect him yet again? No doubt, night had served him well in the past, and he was using it again this evening to his advantage.

A Single Person Blind Doesn't Exactly Say There's Room For Two. But When You Let A Little Love In One of Those Blinds, Togetherness Brings The Whole Hunt Together.

My legs were starting to cramp from a half-hour of careful, minimal movement, but the musty odor of hunting gear lingered to remind me of why I was there and heighten my anticipation of the big bucks I hoped would soon show up. I looked through the binocular into a low-lying blanket of fog, finding another silhouette moving about. Up until that moment, previous  movements had turned out to be nothing more than the facades of blowing limbs and hungry javelinas, but this time there was no mistaking the certain outline of a deer.

For those of us who hunt on a regular basis, it is often said the have been "bit" by the passion and romance the sport holds. Of course, for some, that "bite" is more like a five-course meal.

Someone once asked Kim what is was like to be married to a hunting fanatic. “I don’t know,” she told them, “I guess you need to ask my husband!”

It wasn’t always like that. While Kim may not have grown up in a hunting family, you wouldn’t know that by talking to her today. Certainly, exposing our kids to hunting at a young age is very important to the future of our sport, but Kim is a perfect example of how someone past their “impressionable” years can grow to love the thrill of the hunt every bit as much as the most seasoned hunter in the field.

He'd finally, after years of searching found, found "Big Boy." Could his daughter top that one?

Working as a pediatric nurse practitioner, I often smile when I walk into an examination room and find a father who’s brought in his son for a medical issue, especially if I see a camouflage hat. That’s my cue to break up the tension of whatever situation has befallen them and bring up deer hunting. It works like a charm—after discussing the physical characteristics of a mature whitetail or the ballistics of my 7mm-08, the looks on their faces are always priceless, and the mishap, at least temporarily, forgotten.

Whitetail deer have an uncanny knack for eluding humans. Any deer hunter who’s spent any time chasing whitetails knows this very well, but it still amazes me when I hear of an old monster buck being killed in an area where he should have been seen many times. In this case, I’m talking about Plum Creek, in Caldwell County, about two or three miles outside the town of Lockhart. Most land holdings there are less than 200 acres and have a lot of human traffic all year round.

In this hustle and bustle world we live in, time is a very precious commodity. Whether it's the individual moments spent with family and friends or a question of how many years and days we have here on Earth, time is always of the essence; very few of us have the luxury of unlimited time.

Ever heard of an antler dog? Maybe you think they’re some sort of a mythical character. Kind of like the Jackalope. Well, I suppose they could be—we’ve all seen those crazy holiday photos of someone’s pet with a set of furry reindeer antlers strapped to their head. But that’s not what I’m talking about. An antler dog is one trained to seek out antler sheds by sight and scent.