Duck Hunting at Empire Lodge

Port O’Conner, Texas---Hunt Dates: Jan 17-19, 2015

The Wide Open Camera crew went again to Port O’Connor to make a TV show with the Empire Lodge team. This time, their sights were on Duck Hunting the bay waters from airboats. Too cool!!

We were set to meet up with Wayne Timmerman, our guide, and his friends, Kyle Nethery and Trey Hensel. We packed up the camera gear, hooked up with my buddy Tim Teal, and made sure Tony DeHoyos was on board as our main camera-man.  We were looking to make an awesome duck hunting show. Funny how things work out, but Tim has become one of our camera-men. He loves videoing his deer and exotics on his ranch, and on this hunt, he was both a shooter of ducks with his 12 gauge automatic and camera-man 2 for the episode.

Wayne told us that the weather had been quite “Ducky” over the last few weeks -- That means grey skies, drizzly, and cold. Just how the ducks like it. 

When we got there we had a big weather change -- not always a good thing. We had a blue bird day with the Mercury in the low 60’s. Ouch. Would it hurt the hunting? Time would tell.

We made several hunts and seemed to get all conditions; we hunted morning and evening, kinda like whitetail hunting.  We were on the way to the boat ramp with the airboat in tow at 5:30am, and we were back at the Empire Lodge at 10:30 for Brunch. We would then head out at 2pm for an afternoon hunt. It was outrageous! We had an amazing young chocolate lab, Remy, to fetch our birds.

The decoy spread was the best I’ve ever seen. They left an alleyway open in front of us and separated the ducks by species. We had some serious groups fly over, and we had many small groups come in and land in the decoys. Too cool. Seeing ducks fly in and open their wings to decelerate and stop by skidding on their bellies right in front of us was outrageous. Sometimes we would just let them fly in and land to capture the cool video of it. The Empire Team has it figured out. We made an outstanding TV show that will air later this year on KSAT, Channel 12 on Saturday morning on the Early Morning Outdoor Segment from 5:30am to 6am.

The skies were thick with Red Heads since they were the dominate ducks for this time of year. We had mainly Redheads but we also had Pintails, Widgeon, Green Wing Teal, Scaup and even the elusive Blue Wing Teal. The hunting was fantastic. Wayne was amazing on the Duck Calls, and we made some great memories of the fantastic eating and billiards and shuffle board at the Lodge.
   
Our plans are to come back to fish the bay system for Redfish and Trout with Empire next, and in the summertime of 2015, we'll go after its Marlin and Swardfishing at night.

Contact the Team at Empire Lodge for your next Corporate or Private Adventure (1-361-571-5071). You'll make lasting memories that you will want to re-create year after year. That’s the experience with the Wide Open Crew. You know we will be back again and again.

I’ll see you in a Wide Open Outdoor Adventure.  --Dave

White Tail Stalk - Teal Ranch in Tilden

Dave's Notes: 

Tilden, Texas Hunt Date - January 15, 2015

I was sitting in my office, and the telephone rang. Who do you think it was? It was my good friend, Tim Teal. Every time Tim calls me, I know he's got something up his sleeve. He asked me - what are you doing tomorrow? - and you know how that story's going to end.

It wasn't long from that phone call when I was pulling onto the ranch with guns on board and sporting some new camo to try out from Predator. We were gonna see if we could spot and stalk up one of these big deer on the ranch. The bucks are in full rut and the doe are nervous.

We had some drizzling nasty weather for the last few days, and we knew that the four wheelers would have a little difficulty wandering around on the ranch, so we decided to do it on foot. The technique that we used involved working through the Brush Country, finding an opportunity to work into the wind and coming out to an opening and glass to see if we had anybody home.

Tim and I moved through the south Texas Scrub Brush for at least a couple of hours. We were questioning whether we were going to find what we're looking for in this Semi-Muddy, Drizzly, Misty, Winter Day.

It was not textbook conditions -- it was sticky mud gathering up on the soles of your boots. I felt like I was 5 inches taller than I was when I started the hunt. We kept kicking off built-up mud and stayed on the hunt.

We Did Find...

...what we were looking for! 

We moved through a low creek area and came up from the bottom of the creek. There was a big knoll, dirt embankment on the left.  We had the wind in our face, and we were hoping that something would be good in the field out in front of us.   

A beautiful mature white tail was wondering slowly from left to right across the field on the brush line.  We both Glassed him with Swarovski binoculars, and Tim told me, “That's a Shooter…Dave get in position for a shot.”

I was up on the dirt pile like Tim showed me, and I used a broken piece in Mesquite as a rest.

The nice shooter buck was just milling around on the far side of this field. We had to wait for him to get into position for a good broadside shot.

Would he give us the shot?

...You bet he did!

Tim was glassing with his binoculars, and I was in a perfect position to hold the gun steady. Tim was my spotter, and I was ready to let the air out of it.

The Old 280 Remington 700 slammed him to the ground.   He was welded there!  

My great friend Tim Teal again took me out of my comfort zone to hunt in this nasty, dreary, drizzly, muddy day to stalk an animal. We decided to shoulder mount this buck and we took him up to Double Nickel Taxidermy in New Braunfels, Texas (830-237-9481). They do amazing work!

It was an awesome Spot-n-Stalk. We captured it all in HD video and made a killer TV show that will air later this year on KSAT Channel 12 on a Saturday morning on the Early Morning Outdoor Segment from 5:30am to 6am. Tune in every Saturday and watch our shows.

Thanks for your time today, and I'll see you….In A Wide Open Outdoor Adventure !  

--Dave

Hunting Cotulla - The Vesper Ranch

White Tail Buck Hunt: January 10, 2015

Texas White Tail Hunting is on Fire, especially if your final destination is South Texas. The Crew of Wide Open Outdoor Adventures traveled to Cotulla, Texas to hunt the Vesper Ranch. This turned out to be an amazing Whitetail hunt. The TV show that was shot will be one of the best the team has made to date. It was a stalk that worked out great.

   

It was a drizzly overcast day, just what the Whitetail like. Dave and his camera man, Troy LeBlanc arrived in the afternoon just in time to ride around and determine how they would film the hunt. They were set to have a morning hunt the following day. Kelly Vesper, the ranch owner, and Super Dave were mapping out a plan. 

Kelly and Dave decided to work the thick plant life of the South Texas Brush Country as cover and pop out on the edge of the open areas and grass for a deer to take.

The weather was down right COLD. The Mercury was no higher than 36 degrees, and the winds were light. The drizzle made it a little tough to see longer distances but they were determined to make the hunt a success. It was more work than was planned, and Kelly and Dave covered over 5 miles through the thick scrub brush that early January morning and afternoon. There were a lot of deer moving early and in the late morning as well. The cold weather kept them from bedding down early, but Kelly and Dave were looking for a trophy Whitetail; they passed on a lot of really good deer.

Quietly moving through the dense countryside is an art. You have to calculate every step and pre-determine a path so you don’t get boxed in. It can happen even for experienced hunters, but avoiding backtracking can 
save time and enable you to cover more terrain. They saw some really nice 8 and 10 points -- really nice big bodied deer and passed on the younger 3 ½ and 4 ½ aged deer. They were looking for an older mature shooter, a 5 ½ or 6 ½ year old deer - one that has had his time breeding, and now it’s time to let the younger deer have their turn. 

Wildlife management is a very important goal of many South Texas ranches. Wildlife Biologists will tell you that you need to cull your older does and cull your inferior male deer. You just don’t want them breeding in your herd. You want your best bulls breeding, just like in managing cattle on your ranches. It’s not really that complicated. If you want bigger deer on your property, it takes years to accomplish, but this ranch is a prime example of doing it effectively.

The Vesper Ranch is high fenced, and it’s quite large. They do some protein feeding but really very little. They cull their deer very carefully, and it has yielded some really great big animals with solid antlers. The deer that Dave passed on had heavy thick main beams, and the tine length was very solid for a ranch that does not protein feed much.

It turned out to be a marathon hunt. They were working through the Brush Country for just over 7 hours. Dave was carrying a Remington Model 700, 30:06 rifle with a Leopold scope and he was using Swarovski binoculars. Both the scope and binoculars had large light gathering capabilities so even on the overcast drizzly day he could see what was working out in those open senderas and tucked in among the Mesquite trees.

They saw some great shooters, 10s, 12s and 14s, but they were generally way off 400 plus yards; by the time Kelly and Dave stalked up on them, they had wandered off. It was a cat and mouse game to say the least.

Finally, it came together. A mature, big 10 point with massive dog catchers was walking down an open pipeline alley way and coming straight toward Kelly and Dave. This was it - the shot was getting better and better since the deer was walking toward the hunters, and the wind was at the deers’s back. He could not see, hear or smell them. As a result, he was just lumbering down the alley way.

The question was, would he stop and give Dave the shot? They got set up under cover and waited on him. Will he stop for a shot? Well, he did, but he did not stand broadside; he was quartering toward Dave and therefore, the shot placement had to be adjusted to make a clean kill and not damage any of the prime meat like the tenderloin or back strap. Shot placement is critical.

Dave set up in a kneeling position and used his left hand and arm as a rest. The drizzle got a little heavier and that made getting the video a bit harder. Dave and Kelly had to coordinate with Troy to make the hunt come together for TV.

There was no question that the 30:06 was ready to go since Dave sighted in the gun the day before on Kelly’s ranch. It was dead on. Confidence is everything when hunting.

This turned out to be a short shot, just over 100 yards. The scope was set on 7, and the deer was full framed, based on the deer's quartering toward Dave's position. Dave chose to take the shot for fear the deer would sense them and bolt off.

Dave chose an entry point just above the shoulder and close to his chest area; that way, the bullet would get at least one lung and preserve the meat. It would go diagonally through the animal.

A 30:06 is a Beast of a Gun; it will kick you like a mule. Dave set up and got steady and took the shot.   

It was a great shot, and the deer dropped in his tracks, fell to the ground, and did not move a muscle.   That is what every hunter wants, a clean kill - an ethical kill. 

  

Dave and Kelly gave him a few minutes to expire, and they approached the big Whitetail Buck. As he laid on the ground motionless, his antlers seemed to grow. He was an amazing Trophy Whitetail. 

  

Special thanks to Kelly Vesper for making this hunt great. She knew the ranch very well, and they covered a lot of terrain to find this Shooter Deer. Tenacity paid off. The harder things in life are even more sweet when they come together.

Thanks for your time and look for Dave and Kelly on KSAT Channel 12 Saturday Mornings on the Early Morning Outdoor Segment from 5:30 to 6:00 am.

We’ll see you in the Wide Open Outdoors!