Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Don't Sleep in the Stand!

Anywho, as many folk know, in Texas local custom is to hunt from either ground blinds or elevated box blinds or "stands".

Here is a true story about "Sleeping in the Stand!

I've been hunting with a core group of guys for 21 years now. We were once young and studly. Now, the older we get, the better we wuz.

For the most part we all enjoy consuming adult beverages, but one of our group is a true beer drinker.

An example: a couple years ago Richard (names may have been changed to protect the guilty) had to go see his GP in order to have a physical check-up. During the check-up the lady Doctor asked Richard if he drank alcohol.

He replied, I like beer.

She then asks, if he consumes alcohol daily.

He said, Yes Ma’am.

She asks, how many beers a day do you consume.

Richard replies, “two”.

She says, ok you drink two beers every day?

Richard sez’ no, after work I drink two six packs.

Taken aback she asks do you do this daily?

Richard replies, “yes”.

She then askes, what do you do on the weekend?

Richard replies, I have two on Saturday and Sunday.

She inquires, two beers or two six-packs.

Richard replies, no, two cases, one case on Saturday and one case on Sunday!

Perhaps you get the picture.

Anywho, opening weekend of Rifle Season is always on a Saturday in Texas. Some get to the lease on Thursday, the rest on Friday.

The event that I am about to relate occurred opening morning of 2019.

However, a little more preface.

The property that comprises our “trespass lease” is a working low-fenced/no-fenced ranch of some 60K acres. We have a 1,700 acre pasture about 6 miles in from the paved highway. It is in the Texas Hill Country near the Concan/Reagan Wells vicinity. As you may or may not know, there are high fenced game ranches that have been in the hill country since the early 1900’s.

Now when flash floods occur and due to the nature of the terrain, low water gaps of fences get taken out and exotic game is known to escape.

Also within the last five years an 800 acre property has been high fenced and numerous species of exotic game has been stocked. It is about 5 miles away as the crow flies.

One of my buds and I keep about 20 game cams set out around in and around this 1,700 acres. It has become one of the highlights of my time there to pull the discs and view all of the pictures. From time to time I have seen Red Stag, Elk, Sika and Fallow Deer, Blackbuck, and Mouflon sheep wondering through this lease

Early last year, in June or July, both Bill and I had a picture of a Kudu Bull on game cam. One at my canopy feeder and one at Richard’s close feeder.




Well, back to Richard.

We have a habit that on the night before opening day when all are present, we have a feast.

I tell folks at my deer lease, “We eat like Kings and drink like the homeless”.

Well opening eve in 2019 was no exception, and a couple folk prolly over—imbibed, just a wee bit.

So we knew Richard would be sleeping in the stand Saturday morning. When he got back we asked him if he saw anything. He said no.

IIRC he did not take an animal that opening weekend.

So fast forward a couple days.

In the meantime, Bill, (who is a practical joker) comes up with the idea to change the date and time on the image of the Kudu bull that was taken at Richard’s close feeder. So he changed that date and time to 8:15 AM on Saturday, opening morning. Then Bill sends out an e-mail to Richard and the other 8 guys on the lease, with the title. “Don’t get drunk the night before and Sleep in the Stand”.

I don’t know whether Richard was more upset about the ribbing he took or the fact that he thought he’d missed the trophy of a lifetime.

TFF.

We finally told him about what we had done, opening night before the first shots of Tequila a week or so ago!

Ya!

GWB

nice !!! have done the same with a mounted cougar in front of a stand and in a flower bed. really had the game warden jumping for a wile. they will tell you we don't have cougars here but when we asked him were did he think we got the one to mount he back up and said must have been some body pet. we do see them from time to time but not very often. keep having fun. be safe with drinking and guns.

Rough crowd. I like it!

Great story G Dub. We have a couple of “Richards” too. In fact, one of our stands is known as “Beer Can” because of the pile of beer cans one “Richard” had accumulated there when it was his stand.

I'm glad I'm not anywhere near you guys. Not just because alcohol and gun mixing is bad ju-ju.

I hate practical jokes (on me, anyway). The kudu one, I like!

We don’t have that many exotic species on our place. Aoudads, Sika, and an occasional Elk. We are in Burnet county. We have a few drunken guys too.

Great story Gee

This year my nephew tagged along with me for a day on our elk hunt. For the life of me I can't figure out just what the heck he's packing in his backpack as we wander around at ~7000 ft. elevation. But hey, he's my nephew; so that's none of my business.

So we're glassing the hillside and some 500 yards out we spot a small herd working there way towards some quakies ahead of us. I tell him to say put while I go put the Big Sneak on 'em.

As luck goes the herd went another direction that morning and I'm headed back to collect my nephew. Returning I find him sound asleep in a folding chair.

So he'd been packing that freakin' folding chair 1000 feet up and back down the mountain every day of the hunt. He just shrugged; no big deal.

Pud

When I was a youngster i got to goose hunt with one of friends and his dad. Old Richard used to go to sleep in the blind and we would unload his shotgun. He used to get pissed when geese would come in and his first shot was just a click.

The story could only have been better if GW was sitting with you telling it. Nice GW.

I agree, Ed. In my mind, I was sitting on that log bench in front of the chow hall at Thompson's, getting the story straight from GW.

That's funny .

The camera trick was a good one!

I know a guy who used to drink a ton and get bad out of shape. He apparently also did this at deer camp and was prone to passing out. His buddies told us that they dressed him in his orange vest, loaded him up in the middle of the night and drove him out in their property, propped him against a tree next to his deerstand, and put his unloaded rifle in his hands. He wandered back into camp in the wee hours of the morning, not knowing if it was morning or evening, how long he'd been hunting, or even what day it was.

Great story.

That’s a good story.

We had a guy on a lease in Ozona that was a pure meat hunter. He killed anything he could. We cut a deer out of a piece of plywood, painted it, screws some big fake rattling antlers on it. We set it up by the water trough at windmill where he hunted. It about 250 yards from his stand on a hill to trough. When it got daylight, he and his son shot up every shel they had. He was mad cause he had to go into town to buy more 30-6 shells. They fired over 25 times at our dummy deer, only hit it twice.

It would be a shame to shoot that Kudu. He's just a youngster. Great story how
ever.