Bowhunt at Double G Outfitting in West Texas
With Garrett George & Larry Reese

Arrival Day | Day #1 | Day #2 | Day #3 | Day #4 | Equipment Tests | To Double G Outfitting

Robert Hoague 

The second day the stand I hunted was hot. Lots of deer showed up. Basically the does came to eat corn at the feeder and they concentrated on that. However, the bucks came to see and be seen ... and harass the other bucks. The 9-pt buck below was the biggest bodied of the lot with his pudgy pot belly. 

This 10-pt buck never quite got within bow range, but almost. He was not as big bodied as the 9 pointer above.

I took pictures of over two dozen deer and at least half were bucks. Because I was using a cell phone connection on this hunt I was unable to make a photo gallery of all the buck action. But once I return home I will come back to that project, so look for it soon.

The afternoon hunt was a carbon copy of the morning hunt with more close up pictures of deer action. The 9-point and a different 10-point were in the area a good while. The 9-pt was intent on keeping the 10-point in his place and charged him many times.

Day 3 - Getting Down On The Ground
MORNING - The New Zealand guys sent me to an area John had hunted last afternoon. I was dropped off at 5:30 so a couple of times it got a little sleepy as I waited for enough daylight to see. In the dim light I saw two bucks and put the Nikon Monarch binoculars on them. Even in the very low light I found them and one looked real good to me. 

A little before the sun came over the horizon the bucks moved over in front of me.

There was not enough light for a good picture so I pumped my camera settings and leaned around a cedar limb and took these pictures of each buck.

When I take pictures of deer it is extremely rare that I spook them. And this was one of those rare occasions. They didn't make a big deal out of it, they just walked away. Later a doe and two very small fawns (for this time of year) walked by and I got a pic of the doe nursing them.

AFTERNOON - Garrett George told me he had a place that had not been hunted where I could set up my Double Bull Martix. The area was more open and had a corn feeder with a fence around it to keep the cows out. I picked out a mesquite tree to set the blind near. 

Keith cut some cedar limbs and I put the Martix up. Then we brushed it in with cedar limbs across the top and on the sides to break up its hard lines and give it the appearance of a cedar clump.

We returned to camp and I took a shower and went hunting.

In the Matrix blind you can either leave the mesh windows down or push them up. I can take much better pictures if the windows are up and I don't have to shoot through the mesh, so I left them up to see if I could get away with it. Leaving the windows open makes a black space in the blind and sometimes it bothers deer to see it.

As I squared away my gear inside the blind 3 deer walked up a few yards to my left. We surprised each other and they flagged and ran. Minutes later a doe worked its way over by me.

A buck and 3 does joined the doe and one of the does stomped her foot at the black window. That got them all on the alert and and they circled around behind me to check for scent.

I took advantage of this and pulled the Matrix's window down. They made a complete circle around me and didn't smell me. I've been a user of Scent Killer scent eliminators for a long time and they worked their magic again today.

With the Matrix's mesh windows down the deer were relaxed. I took a few more pictures and changed camera settings to manual focus and tried different settings until I could take decent pictures like the one below.

At one point all the deer looked off to my left and a doe stomped its foot repeatedly. A big bodied buck with a high rack checked them out from 80 yards away. But the daylight clock was ticking and it got dark before I could tell if the buck came in or left. I like this set up just fine.

Arrival Day | Day #1 | Day #2 | Day #3 | Day #4 | Equipment Tests | To Double G Outfitting