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10/4,

Copy that!

Besides calling my lease at Reagan Wells, "the Petting Zoo", I also refer to it as my "Beer Lease" as opposed to a deer lease. I've now been there 14 years. When we first got on it was not uncommon to see six or more bucks in a 3 day period, plus does. We allow for two bucks and two does even though Uvalde is a 5 deer county. Around 2007 the Rancher decided clear out some of the brush and cedar. To do this they take two TD-30's or equivlalent and stretch about 100' of anchor chain between the dozers and take off. It knocks over every thing in its path. Then they come back and push up all the brush in piles. After that, my original location which was a deer high-way previously, I did not see a deer for the next three years. Next we had a drought, and then anthrax which we believe caused a pretty good deer die off. What with the coyotes, the big boars and a couple of cougars, the deer number remain scarce.

In addition, we are located on a ranch road that folks have to pass through on to get to their leases. One of the reasons I go up during the week rather than the weekend.

I had not shot a deer there in 3 years before I went ahead and took this buck I called "The Claw". We are on a 1,700 acre pasture, that if you flattened out the hills would probably be more like 3,000 acres. For 3 years, on occasion, and only at night we would catch this guy on game cam on different parts of the lease a mile or so apart. He had a growth under his jaw about the size of a baseball, which made him very easy to distinguish. Never once did I actually lay eyes on him, nor did we have a picture of him during the day. Not only did I shoot him on my birthday, about 10 minutes before the end of shooting light, but also found a knife that I'd lost two years before in a dry creekbed. I shoulda' gone and bought a lottery ticket that night.



Another one of my favs, Steyr, Mannlicher Classic, 6.5 x 55 SE



ya!

GWB