Hunting deer feeders

So lets look at the big picture at the deer lease in Grayson County. We have seven feeder's that each have trail camera's (tc) and stands. The feeders throw corn out two times a day, 7:30 am and 5:00 pm every day. The pictures we have been getting for the past 8 weeks or so are showing that the majority of deer are hitting the feeders in the dark. From looking at the pics and putting the info into a data base it is simple to see the big picture and that is, with the abundence of natural browse and acorn crop, corn cannot compete with with mother natures food source. The acorns size range from that of a an english pea to the size of a man's thumbnail and they appear to come from white oaks.

So sitting in the stand this past weekend and not seeing any activity haa caused me to reevaluate the whole feeder hunting thing.

I have been hunting for 28 yrs and for 26 yrs i have hunted over feeders spinning out corn, this is a legal method to hunt in Texas. I believe I have been conditioned to hunt feeders. In other words if there is not a feeder put one.

Hunting in the hill country of central Texas will spoil a hunter. Most time when a feeder goes off it is like a dinner bell and the deer will show up and feed till the corn is gone. The deer are plentiful, we would always see deer, I have counted as many as 17 deer feeding at a fenceline salted with corn.

So now we hunt in Grayson county, which is a county that borders the Red River and it is nothing like hunting the hill country. The deer are few and far between, there is tons of natural food and there are lots of creek bottoms full of hardwoods.

So lets back to the problem, no deer seen in the daylight. We sit over the feeders week after week , getting frustrated at not seeing anything because from past hunting we have always hunted over feeders. Maybe its time to rethink hunting over feeders.

I think that the feeders are as big  a magnet for hunters than wildlife on our lease. It is really hard to break from something that has be ingrained into a person habits for so many years.

I have has the opportunity to hunt Hagerman National Wildlife Refugee. This place is known for monster bucks, hunters put in for the draw hunt and feeding is not allowed, we adapted for the weekend and maybe thats what we need to do here, have a Hagerman frame of mind.

Beautiful weekend for a hunt

We got up to the lease last night, which was black Friday and for the hunt this morning we had perfect weather. There wasn't any wind and thank goodness as it was in the low 30's. My coke was slushy after i opened it till i finished it. Seen a lone deer walking to my north about 150 yds or so, then as we were going to meet Charlie at the barn, he was walking towards us and pointing to one of the ponds and there was a buck on the tank dam, him and Morgan tried stalking. It is the afternoon hunt and there is a slight breeze from the south and the temp is in the high 50's. I added a little burlap to help conceal my stand, I was feeling a little exposed.  

Windy weekend

This weekend was a bust I shall just blame the lack of animal movement on the wind blowing 25 to 35 mph. We are getting plenty of nighttime pics on the tc's but the movement drops down to 10% or so. I hunted in my stand Sat and Sun night and didn't even see a squirrel. I hunted the pop up Sun morning and saw a rabbit.

A change in the weather

A cold front blew in this morning around  9:30. Maybe a freeze will follow it and all these acorns will sour. These deer do not have to move to find food. The white oak acorns are so much bigger than last year, then they were the size of a baby's thumbnail and this year they are as big as a nickle.

Bow hunting in Grayson County

This is the Saturday evening hunt of the second weekend of archery season here in Texas. Last weekend sucked due to the rain, it rained from Friday evening till mid Sunday, and I am not much on sitting in the rain or tent camping in the rain. It has been breezy here all day and overcast in the low 50's, this I can deal with. Morgan, Nick and I made the trip, Charlie had family obligations he had to tend to.  Hunted from 4pm till 7:10 pm when it was dark did not see any critters stirring

Getting ready

We went and fed out this past Saturday and put out our game cams. We have a total of 7. We had a friend make theft proof boxes for the cams. We only have two feeders out right now so we put the cams on trails. These cams are primos 46, we got them last year, they get great pics and we are very satified with the over all performance of them.

Rowlett sand bass spawn

We fished the creek during the spawn , between the rains and the other things that we had to do, we didn't get to fish as much as we liked nor did we catch as many as we had wanted to. It seemed that the lack of winter got them spawning a little earlier that usual and the lack of water in the lake didn't help much, but we did get the rains. The lake was 5.5 ft low and we had 2 good rains that filled it up, an then it was on like Donkey Kong, you had a small window of opportunity this year as they started letting water out of Lavon and the fish went up the Trinity to the Lake Lavon dam and opted out of Rowlett Creek. The Lavon dam is accessible but there were so many folks down there it was worst than the creek.

Now we shall fish in the main lake, Ray Hubbard that is. I bank fish a lot for catfish close to the house and have been out about 6 times for 2 hours or less. Seems that the winds have blown very hard each time I go.

I went yesterday, which was Sunday to a new spot for me, there were these 2 guys close by , they had said they caught 2 fish in the last 4 hours. I checked the pressure after I had set up , it wasn't all that high, 30.12, and falling so I am blaming that for the lack of bites for me.

 I use a homemade bait that I got from a young man on the Texas Fishing Forum it is chicken gizzards soaked in some nasty stuff, I use chicken liver's and shrimp soaked in in stuff that I put together and several types of punch and dip baits. I have told myself that I will go at least once a week and more if possible.

Fish are spawning

Well I been reading that the sand bass run at Rowlett Creek is in full gear. The local guide has reported seeing 1000's in the rapids, we are going to go Friday. I was going to go tomorrow which is Thursday, but I am going with my mother to the dentist while she gets her bottom teeth removed. I think my sister will be home early enough so we will be able to go. I need to find the other set of waders that I have, so Morgan will be able to wear them if not he will have to cowboy up and wade wet.

Time to fish

It is that time of year, the Bradford Pear tree's have been blooming for right at 2 weeks, the water temp is close to 55 degrees and as this is all happening a month or so early the Rowlett Creek sand bass run has begun. I have been reading reports on the TexasFishingForum.com for about 2 weeks now, Carey Thorn, who is a guide, that guides on the creek reported yesterday that it was on, he was catching sand bass and hybrids in limits. Well today is Friday and I an leaving work early and going.

These are some sandies that Morgan caught several years ago while we were camped at Tawakoni State Park. He gave these to the folks in the next camp over.

This weekend will be elbow to elbow with folks out there, but since Rockwall girls basketball won their semifinal game last night we are going to Austin Saturday to watch them and visit some friends who live in Lakeway for a while. Next week we shall be going every day for a few hours. This is such a great time of year.

A little rain

We this past Tuesday-Wednesday 1/24/12-1/25/12 we had a little rain come our way, Ray Hubbard added 48’’ and Lavon added 72” Lavon was down 144” and Hubbard was down 66”, we needed this rain. We still need more and folks need to learn to conserve water. Our lakes were looking really bad in North Texas. I don’t know what kind of rains they got down in the hill country, but they are in bad shape also. I guess you really don’t appreciate water till it is not around and you need it.

A New Year

 It is a new year 2012, so I hope everyone will have a very good year. We hunted in Grayson County at our new lease, and it was more of a learning year than a killing year. We seem to have a good place from the pictures on the trail camera, the deer are few and far between  but the potential is there for some quality deer.  We have some pretty dense cover for them to live in and lots of oak tree's for acorns.Then there are the coyotes, they seem to be running things, unlike in Lampasas, where they trapped them on a regular basis.

The north side feeder and tripod, where are all the deer at?



Our trail cam, Primos 46 with a custom
lock box, we got 7 of these setup's.




The tree stand project in green acres,
 the place that needs the most work.

 We have identified several little projects that we will need to take care of  for next season. We need to build a couple of feed pens, repair a tree stand, relocate a tripod from the swamp and from green acres and do some more exploring. We  also need to find out why the deer are not active on the north side, it is like there is a forbidden zone over there.