Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Diary of a deer camp

I didn't have the opportunity to really start deer hunting until I was a freshman in high school. One of my school chum's mother still had their family place in the hill country. We simply stayed in the old rock ranch house. He still lives there in the house and we are still close friends. The old house was moved from down in the Colorado river valley in the 30's when lake Travis was being built.

My dad's dad was a fairly notorious poacher during the depression in south Texas. But it was to put food on the table thing there in the "Blackjacks".. He didn't even own a rifle. They were pretty damn poor. But they always had a garden and a hog. He would borrow a 30-30 from a neighbor when grandma told him they needed meat. He would generally hunt on a moon light night up in a blackjack oak and shoot a deer when it came to eat acorns.

The game warden would put up an obligatory effort to catch him. Band my grandmother would laugh as she told me that warden usually did show up Sunday afternoon about grocery time. My grandmother was a local legend when it came to baked goods. Pies,doughnuts, etc. Naturally he whole process of cat and mouse would repeat itself in a week or two. But that warden knew that grandpa as well as others in the area were only trying to keep from starving. They never made game hogs of themselves. They took only what they needed.