From: X005CB@tamvm1.tamu.edu (Chris Barnes)
Subject: Re: Where's the birds? (long)
Organization: Texas A&M University
Date: 9 Sep 92 08:01:35 CDT
Originator: hunting@osnome.che.wisc.edu

In article <1992Sep8.074236.28926@doug.cae.wisc.edu>
    pfeiffer@NMSU.Edu () writes:
 
>How is the season elsewhere?  I hadn't noticed a particularly dry
>summer, though the water level in the tank we hunt was down...
>Anybody have any comments?
 
 
A friend invited me and my family to go to his family's ranch for a
mini-vacation starting on Sept 1.  It is located in Ozona, TX (on I10,
about 2/3 of the way from San Antonio to El Paso).  In other words,
out in the middle of nowhere!  This ranch is about 11,000 acres on the
edge of the Edwards Plateau, a hilly, rocky, mesquite tree place used
for raising sheep and cattle.
 
We arrived at about 2:00 am on the morning of the 2nd.  On the evening
of the 2nd, we went out to one of the pens used to hold sheep waiting
to load onto trucks.  The pens we absolutely barren of vegitation, but
we had seen some birds (dove) landing in these pens earlier in the
day.  After some very marginal shooting (around 40%), I ended up
with a limit of birds (12); Mike (my buddy who invited me to go) got
6.  Not too bad.  While cleaning the birds, we noticed that almost
everyone were full of corn!  The only place they would be getting
corn on this ranch would be from the deer feeders.
 
So, On the 3rd we decided to drive around the ranch and find out
which of the dozens of deer feeders the birds were using.  After
driving around for about 3 hours in the middle of the day heat,
we finally found an area that seemed to have a decent number of
birds.  We climbed up in the deer stand (which happened to be the
cab from a '60's model Chevy pickup on steel pipes!) to watch
the flight path the birds were using.  It seems that they were
almost all using a tall mesquite tree about 250 yards away as a
"lookout station" (dove will almost always land in a tree to look
over an area before going in to feed).  We decided to come back to
this tree at about 6:00 in the evening.  Today, however, my shooting
was atrochious.  I only killed 2 birds while shooting almost a box
of shells  :-(.  Mike again killed 6 birds, while shooting only 8
times.  Actually, he's lucky I took my dog with me (Dixie, a yellow
lab).  The tree we were hunting was right at the top of a steep
hill, and many of his birds went down the hill after being winged.
Dixie didn't loose a single bird all week!  I *did* pass up shooting
a couple of easy shoots because a doe and her 2 fawns walked right
out in front of us about 40 yards away.  They looked straight at
us, and just kept on walking (I swear they know when opening day
is!).
 
On Friday the 4th, a high school friend of Mike dropped by and joined
us for the evening hunt.  We went back to the sheep pen since that's
where we had seen the biggest number of birds.  However, there just
weren't as many birds flying.  It could be because a cool front blew
in and the wind was fairly strong.  I ended up getting 2 birds on
3 shots, Mike got 2, and Mike's friend got 2 on shots of 45 and
50 yards.  Oh yea, I almost forgot.  This time I took my 4 year old
daughter out with me.  She was really good out there and was really
excited to go on her first hunting trip with daddy!
 
Later that night, Mike suggested we do some varmit hunting.  We
called the game warden, informing him that we were going to be
shooting at night using spotlights and he said that would be ok.
One of the ranch vehichles was an older Jeep Wagoneer that had
been modified for driving across very rough pastures.  It also had
a light bar mounted on the cab that provided an incredible amount
of light.  Our primary targets would be jack rabbits.  Mike's
mother had explained to us that jack rabbits eat a lot of grass
(which is a VERY valuble commodity in this area, and large numbers
of jacks will attract coyotes, bobcats, and mountain lions (which
as you can imagine, would not be good for a sheep ranch).  The
method of hunting was to drive down the ranch "roads" (paths)
with the lights on.  When we saw a jack, we would shoot it from
the side of the truck (usually using the door as a rest for the
.22).  After about an hour, we had killed about 20 jack rabbits
between the 2 of us (in just 1 pasture - the ranch was divided
into 17 pastures).  We decided to call it a night since we didn't
want to make our wives too unhappy at us staying out all night.
 
Saturday the 5th would be the last full day at the ranch, and we
had promised our wives and kids that we would take them out and
have a cookout on the ranch.  A couple of friends of Mike's mother
(who owns the ranch) dropped by (they also have a deer lease on the
ranch).  The cookout was next to a water well on the side of a hill.
The view here was spectacular!  Mike started a fire for doing a weeny
roast, and Dawn (Mike's wife) and I strolled out through an adjacent
pasture looking for birds.  After about 30 minutes of walking on the
side of a hill, seeing about 40 QUAIL (not in season until Nov.),
we walked back.  Sitting beside the fire, we noticed singles and
doubles flying right down the middle of the valley below us.  Mike,
Dawn, Shawn (one of the friends), and I grabbed our scatterguns and
headed down the valley, spreading out along it's length.  Being in
the bottom of a valley full of mesquite and cedar trees can make
the visibility limited, so when Mike and Shawn started shooting,
it's not surprising that I couldn't see what they were shooting at.
About 1 second later, a *very* fast flying dove buzzed right over
my head, and I dropped it with a shot that I still can believe.
It was unquestionably the luckiest shot I had all week.  A few
minutes later, I saw a pair comming in from the other direction
(were Dawn was sitting).  I hollered for Dawn to take 'em, and
she did (well, one of them).  She walked over to the bird, but it
was still flapping around, trying to get away and she didn't want
to pick it up.  So I sent Dixie over to get it.  Just as she got
there, it hopped into a rather large cactus.  Dixie jumped in after
it, picked it up, and rather gingerly walked out (what a dog!).
A few minutes later, Shawn shot a single.  Dark was fast approching,
so we decided to let the rest of the birds fly on and go back to
the fire.  Mike's mother and (Dalene) my wife had a nice area setup to
cook the weenies and marshmellows, and soon everyone was feeling
full.
 
It was dark when it was time to leave the cookout area and Shawn
decided to let the girls (Dawn and Mike's mom) do some rabbit shooting
on the way back (which was about 8 miles down ranch roads).  We hadn't
gone 50 yards before we (me, Mike, and the kids were in a truck behind
Shawn and the girls) saw Shawn turn off the road into a pasture and
stomp on the gas.  About 2 seconds later, he screaches to a halt and
Dawn pops a jack.  It took us about an hour to go 8 miles with Shawn
making detours every couple of hundred yards.
 
After we got back to the ranch house, Mike, Shawn, and I decided that
since this was the last night we would be here, we'ld make it good.
The three of us loaded back into the jeep and spent the next 3 hours
having the some of the most fun shooting I've ever seen in my life.
I lost count of how many jacks we killed, but it was a lot (200 ?)
And we only hunted 4 pastures!  I'm certain we didn't even put a minor
dent in the jack rabbit population.  I also lost track of how many
deer we saw.
 
Before we left on Sunday, Mike's mom made me promise that we would
come back out again real soon.  I just grinned.....
 
      ----------------------------------------------
Chris Barnes            |
x005cb@tamvm1.tamu.edu  |  Teal season starts in 4 days!
(409) 846-3273 (home)   |           (in Texas)
(409) 845-8454 (work)   |


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