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