Too many years ago to think about, I won a TPW hunt on one the prettiest Tx Hill Country SP's in the state. Showed up for check in and draw for a blind ....and was given a blind nobody else wanted for the next day. !st day had been a total bust, 2nd day I came in for lunch and another "hunter" took my blind after I'd been watching a 10pt WT all morning who was on the Not Available list. So the Hunt Master gave me another spot nobody wanted, way up high up a jeep trail....late that afternoon, right at dark on top of the hill where the jeep trail ended I scored a tan colored critter all covered in white spots...and drove my 2wheel drive Suburban with slick city tires down the Jeep trail off the "mountain": standing on the running board so's I could jump off when the truck went over the edge....BUT I was King for the day with the only Axis taken in the 3 day hunt.
Got back to Dallas the next day. Picked up the critter from the Processor couple days later and gave some of the meat away to a couple of my usual Deer Lease Pards...and heard for the 1st time "you'll throw rocks at Kobe Beef to get some more of that Axis meat you might wanna save as much as you can. Yes I do believe that to be a true statement...and have never been able to score another on a TPW Hunt where Axis were on the ticket....and cannot afford the going rates on the high fence Hunts.
Where I live now about a 100 miles SE of Dallas there is a high fence game farm that apparently is an Axis Breeder around the corner from the Gun Range I use...and nobody will tell me who the owner is, but a nearby processor get's the whole herd to process occasionally...they are a really pretty herd to just sit and watch, but step out of the truck and they disappear in the Pine forest PDQ.
This season, 21 years later I scored a Permit to hunt on the same place in the Hill country, on the last Hunt date offered. 2 weeks earlier I had talked to some guys who'd been down there a couple weeks earlier and 4 of the 10 Permit Winning Hunters had scored 15 Axis in a 2 1/2 day hunt apparently cause everything in south Texas was starving from the drought.
My favorite saying in situations like this go's ... " Rose Ann ...Rose AnnaDanna Always sez " It's AWAYS Sumthin".
Mebbe I'l get my turn next year ....but I'll have a 18 wheeler reefer on call for the ride back to North Central east Texas IF I can draw another Permit 'cause ya never know....and Axis meat is really THAT good to eat.
Ron
Last edited by sakoron; 03/27/22. Reason: clarity
