Last weekend I was blessed to be invited on a South Texas whitetail and exotic hunt with the prospect of taking a blackbuck, sitka, fallow or even an elk.
It was a last minute thing for me. Someone could not go so I was invited. It is a 1200 acre high fence ranch near Georgewest with a bunk house filled with lots of trophies, a warm comfy bed, satellite TV, a huge kitchen and a large table to sit around drink coffee and tell stories...
It was a six hour drive from my home. We arrived Firday night about 7 with all the anticipation of a kid the night before Christmas. It was hard to go to sleep.
Our guild drove us out to the blinds and we were dropped off about 5:45. I sat in a blind overlooking a feeder and the ranch truck sprayed corn down the senderos as it drove off.
As the sun came up I saw two yearling does that were as skittish as a cat in a yard full of pitbulls. There were three of us and we were all picked up around 9AM. No body saw a thing, but young skittish does and hogs. Back at the bunkhouse we were welcomed to a nice filling Mexican breakfast by the camp cook. I took a nap and my two amigos shot at the range.
We again loaded up, but I did not get to my blind until a little after 4PM. As I sat there in a new spot I texted with my other to friends on the hunt. Nada... When a Jake presented a shot I took it and bagged the only meat of the trip. The owner was a bit nasty about me taking a turkey and said folks pay $500 to shoot them even though we had been told that we could take turkeys.
None of us saw a whitetail buck. Not one and none of us saw any exotics. Come to find out they buy a few exotics as babies, raise them in a pen and then release them and draw folks in with the promise of taking an exotic animal. We saw a few of the exotic babies they had penned up as well as a 160 whitetail they had penned up with about 20 does. That was the only buck we saw except for mounts in the bunkhouse.
We hunted again on Sunday morning and we all saw does WHICH WE COULD NOT HARVEST. We were not interested in hogs. The trip was free as the lease is paid for by a company that the salesmen take customers on. Someone is paying a lot of money for the lease.
I have read about "canned" hunts. I never thought I would go on one. During the weekend the guide kept saying, "they need to plant more animals." I am sick to my stomach to think that on all that land 3 of us on 3 different times did not see a singe buck. We were also so close to the bunkhouse that we could hear kids playing.
Folks like the ones running that ranch give lots of the rest of us a bad name. What I saw this weekend was in my opinion fraud and unethical to say the least.
I had a great time because I was in great company and my friend and I had 12 hours to talk and I was thankful for the opportunity to hunt, but I knew it was a bad omen when in the stand that first morning written on the wall was, "buzzards. No deer. 11-20-10."
Cipriano
