Herbert Earl Stansbury III Vision Fund

Here's the deal. I have decided to start the Herbert Earl Stansbury III Vision fund or maybe just hire a hazmat company to cleanup all the lead and empty shell casing Herb scattered all over the BLM. Over the last two days Herb has educated a number of bucks or maybe just given them false security with a hunters ability to shoot straight. With a total of 10 shots at three different bucks over a two day period I can honestly say I think Herb had a blast. Bert and I also had a blast catching a few trout, listening to all the shooting and second guessing if it was Herb. After each volley of shots Bert and I would wait with anticipation for the cell phone to announce success, but it never rang. I noticed each of use checking our phones often for a missed call or some type of communication. The call never came through, figure that. One would think that his scope was off, but that was quickly ruled out with a test fire, so it must be his vision. Therefore, send me money and I will make arrangements to have Herb's vision checked.

It all started Wednesday morning when Herb, Bert and I launched the boat and headed down river to hunt a section of BLM land that is accessible only by boat. Since Herb was the only one with a deer tag, the plan was to drop him off and then Bert and I would trout fish until we met at a predetermined spot and time. The trout fishing was fun but the "One Thing" that made the trip memorable was the suspense of hearing all the shooting and waiting for the call.

I could tell the deer story but I feel that stories like this are best told by the shooter over a campfire at deer camp. The bottom line is: There is still room in the freezer honey.

Back from Meeker

The hunting was so bad in Meeker I couldn't even hunt down a shrink to deal with my depression so we had to rely on Jack to ease the pain of scouting and hunting a total of five days before we even spotted the first doe.  We did have a nice bull elk trot by us on opening morning which was the only emotional high we had for the first three days of hunting.  I guess the problem started last winter when the deep snows caused a 40% die off of the deer herd.  With deep snow and a lack of food source the other 60% migrated to private ranches and survived by sharing the rancher's feed with the local cattle population.   It appeared that the deer stayed on private ranches and why wouldn't they, the food and water was abundant.  We covered every inch of the two zones we were licensed to hunt and only found a hand full of deer spread out over hundreds of miles of public land.  We did find a few deer in the Crosss Mountain area which was over a 100 mile round trip from our bunkhouse in Meeker.  One day while traveling back to Meeker from Cross Mountain we passed by a private ranch about 3:00 in the afternoon  and we counted over 80 deer feeding in one field.  A truck with two hunters entered the field and drove directly towards the herd and they parted just like the Red Sea and Moses and then gathered back together after the truck left the  field.  

There were a few deer killed in our zones, but all were on private ranches.  After 7 days of hunting we threw in the towel and headed home to go steelhead fishing on the Trinity River.  The buck below was Kyle's first buck and boy what a dandy.  Larry, the super guy that rented us the bunkhouse guided Kyle on his first hunt on a private ranch.  The other photo is a cool 4x3 that was killed by a lady from Wisconsin on the Louisiana Purchase Outfitters ranch.  This buck only cost her $3900.  At that price you can feed the herd a lot of hay through the winter.  The bailing twine tangled in his horns is proof that this buck prefers bales of hay instead of sage brush.  

Sorry I didn't post to the blog from Meeker, but when you have nothing to write about and Mr. Daniels is treating your depression keying up the computer is pretty low on my list of fun things.  Maybe I'll have more to write about when we get back from the Trinity River.