Two members had a great time at the 12/22/04 - 12/23/04 Deer and Hog Hunt at the Siller Ranch near Derby. The Ranch is about 15 miles as the crow flies from Mr. Ewald's place and is right next door to the Mesquite Bowhunting Ranch. As we drove onto the property we noticed that the Mesquite property looked like a drunk person had taken a tiller to a large section by the fence. It was the biggest area of hog rooting that I've ever seen. We also saw six Aoudads near there. Mario Siller has about a 200 acre field that he once farmed. The field is surrounded by woods and contains five of his seven blinds and nine of his 13 feeders. His other 50 acres are heavily wooded. His blinds were the best that I (Randy Rowley) have ever seen. They were big, carpeted, and insulated. The one that I hunted from on 12/22/04 had a propane heater in it and a chase lounge pad. You could easily sleep in them. They also had little shade ledges over each window. Most of his blinds overlook two or more feeders. Most of his feeders worked but one didn't turn on Thursday morning until 8:30 AM and some didn't come on at all. Neither Allen Neumann nor I saw any animals on Mario's land on our 12/22/04 hunt. We both saw a lot of quail and dove. I put corn piles in three spots with Pig Out syrup on it. Pig Out attracts both deer and hogs. At dusk an approximately 200 lb. boar on the Mesquite property ran straight to my closest Pig Out pile. Unfortunately he couldn't get through their game fence. Thursday morning was a chilly 30 degrees. I decided to hunt a blind bordering the open field. The stand that I chose overlooked two feeders about 80 yards away on opposite sides of the blind and another feeder about 200 yards away. About 7:25 I saw a doe at the far feeder. I put my scope on her but she was presenting her hind end to me. She suddenly bolted and ran about 2/3 the way across the field. She was now about 300 yards away. She stopped and I shot. I know that I hit her because she started to slowly limp away. She stopped twice more and I shot both times. I lost sight of her near some green mesquites. After the excitement was over I realized that I failed to compensate for bullet drop. My .30-06 is sighted in at 100 yards. At 300 yards it would drop about a foot. I aimed for her front shoulder so I'm sure that I hit her front lower leg. I decided to wait 30 minutes and then go look for her. About 10 minutes later I saw another doe walking along a fence in the opposite direction. She was about 250 yards away. She stopped. This time I aimed at her upper back. When I fired she immediately kicked her back legs high over her head. She rand a few yards and stopped. I shot again. I lost sight of her in the tall grass but marked where I thought that she was. I decided to also give her 30 minutes. About 15 minutes later a five point buck came out of the trees that bordered the field. He was just 80 yards away. He walked straight at me but only presented a neck shot. He stopped but I passed on the shot. I thought that something might be wrong with my scope, even thought I shot a hog with it two weeks before at the 11/26/04 - 11/27/04 Deer and Hog Hunt. He promptly turned around and walked back the way he came. A few minutes later he popped up about 100 yards on the other side of the blind. He was walking away, presenting his rear end. Suddenly he stopped and turned around and started walking back towards me. He presented a 2/3 broadside but there was very tall grass in front of him. I put the crosshairs where his shoulder should be and fired. When I went to look for him, to my surprise, the tall grass was growing up from the earthen dam of a dried up tank. The dirt was about three feet high. He was walking behind the dam. I'm sure that instead of easily blowing through grass my bullet slammed into dirt. I went to look for the first two deer and couldn't find either. While I was looking for the second deer, without my rifle, I saw another doe. I then went and picked up Allen. He had missed one of three turkeys in heavy cover and saw one doe that he couldn't get a shot at. We looked for the second doe first and, after a long search, Allen found her. She was about 40 yards closer that I figured her at. My first bullet had grazed the underside of her torso (see the 12/22/04 - 12/23/04 Deer Hunt pictures). The second bullet hit her neck. After a long search we gave up on the first doe.
Mario doesn't have a lot of deer on his property but if you consider that you have the potential to fill all your tags in one day he has a very good deal. If I had remembered to aim higher on the first doe I'm sure that I would have harvested her also. If luck had been with me I also would have tagged the buck. Up to four deer plus turkeys and hogs for $150 dollars is a very good deal. I've spent many hours searching http://www.leasesoftexas.com/, http://www.texashuntinglease.com/, and dozens of other sites on my lunch hours. Most places charge $100 for just one doe. Bucks are frequently charged by the points or B&C score. The cheapest, other than Mario, that I found, http://www.huntluna.com/, charges a $100 fee for the use of the land (regardless if you kill anything). Kill fees are as follows: Doe - $50, Spike - $70, 4-point buck - $100, 6-point buck - $200, 8 - point buck - $300, and up. Mario also charges just $50 for hog only hunts (after deer season) for unlimited hogs. Although we didn't see any hogs on Mario's land we sure saw a lot of evidence of them. They're probably completely nocturnal and we would probably be much more successful at night (he doesn't allow night hunting during deer season). Mario also doesn't have a bunkhouse but allows camping. He has a game cleaning station with running water. Mario can be reached at 830-334-3761.
One thing is for sure - I learned some valuable lesions today. The farthest shot that I took and made prior to this was about 145 yards. I plan on spending time at the Hill Country Rifle Range's (on Hamilton Pool Road) 200 yard range and on memorizing my .30-06 ballistic tables. My 180 grain Federal Premium Nosler Partition's drop 14.6 inches at 300 yards and drift 7.3 inches with a 10 MPH crosswind (it was windy when I shot) by the way. I probably will also be looking for a decent laser range finder.
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