Near McClean Texas

24 Hours in Texas

Living in the heart of New Mexico really gives you unique opportunities to hunt in some of the most renowned hunting areas in the country, with only a short drive. With great hunting here in New Mexico, in Colorado, Northern Arizona and of course Texas all being within an easy one day drive. Thanksgiving weekend I planned a quick Whitetail hunting trip to the Texas panhandle with my friend Greg from Dallas. The weekend did not disappoint.

We pulled up to the hotel within minutes of each other, quickly checked in, grabbed gear and headed to the cattle ranch. Knowing that we would only have about an hour of daylight once we were set just made us move with more intensity. Once we crossed a muddy creek and shooed as many cows as we could from the area we set up a pop-up ground blind. Within 10 minutes we had our first action and it never slowed down. The familiar and rewarding excitement of having these beautiful creatures in the kill-zone set in and the chill in the air disappeared. I had my camcorder running quite a bit during this hunt, hoping to get great footage for Muck-boy. We had several nice does and a couple small bucks running around. A nice 6 point buck came in just at dusk, I placed the scope on him and thought about taking off the safety but chose to save my tag for Saturday morning.

With all of the activity the night before, neither Greg nor I slept very well which made for an early morning. We were set up just before sunrise and realized that it was going to be a very windy day. We were set up for about a half an hour before we started to have deer filter into the feeder. Soon we had 10 deer running around including several small bucks. I did get some great footage of two of them sparing. While filming, I utilized the zoom on my camera to get a look at a great buck chasing does about 250 yards away. I watched him for quite a while assuming that it would be the best footage of him I would get all day. It all seemed to happen in a split second, the doe he was chasing turned and headed right at us, of course with him close behind. With prompting from Greg I quickly put down the camera and picked up the Ruger Mark II 30-06 just as the doe hopped the cattle fence. The buck was very hesitant making several passes before deciding to crawl under the cattle fence. I clicked the safety off, put the cross-hairs one inch above where I wanted to impact for this face on shot. I took a deep breath, exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The beautiful 8 point fell in his tracks, 147 yards away.

We still had to get Greg some venison to fill his freezer; after cleaning my buck and preparing him for the trip back to Albuquerque we headed back out around 3:30. With the wind howling and the sun preparing to set directly in our eyes we had some concern about this hunt. Greg decided to hunt in a raised blind around 80 yards from the feeder. I decided to brave the weather and sit about 160 yards away against a tree to film the hunt. With the rut being fully on, Greg gave a couple of grunts and quickly drew in several deer. With the sun glaring, I was having obvious trouble filming as was Greg with his scope. I could not even tell that the 6 point from last night was back. As I sat down the camera to grab the binos a single shot rang out. Greg had taken a very nice 6 point, dropping it within 5 feet of where the 8 point fell 7 hours earlier.

We had an amazing 24 hour hunt in the Texas panhandle. Successfully harvesting two beautiful whitetail bucks, and forging a friendship that will last for years. 2 shots, 2 kills, now that is the way I was taught. Semper Fi, Kirk Muck-boy Team Member