Lease appears to be a bit short on turkey, deer
The rancher led the Hunting Club from his truck through the pasture gate. "You boys take a look around. This is prime turkey country."
All I could see were cattle.
"Yep, just follow me and I'll show you some turkey 'honey holes,'" he said, leading us past a particularly large patch of prickly pear.
Still in search of a good deer lease, we'd discovered this ranch through diligent online searches, hundreds of phone calls and a quick glimpse of a sign on a fence post right beside the ranch house only five minutes earlier.
Doc looked around at the mesquite trees. "Do you see a lot of turkey here?"
"Nope, but that doesn't mean nothing," the rancher said. "I hear them, and I know they're here, because my son says he sees them when he's feeding or moving cows."
"Does he hunt them?" I asked.
"All the time."
"You mean only during turkey season," Wrong Willie clarified.
"Ummm hmmm."
We exchanged glances and continued our walk through the pasture. Delbert P. Axelrod stopped beside a wide live oak. "I think I'll just sit here for a while," he said.
"Okay," the rancher said. "We'll be along directly, but I bet you see a turkey or a deer before long. We'll probably run one up this direction."
It seemed that every cow on the place was converging on us, probably hoping for a handful of creep feed. They followed like obedient dogs.
The rancher waved his hands to disperse the herd. "They'll get used to you," he said.
Woodrow scratched his beard. "Looks like they're pretty used to us already."
"You won't bother them," the rancher said, leading us through the dry grass. A small bunch of calves stampeded ahead, flushing a tiny covey of quail.
"It think it might be the other way around," Jerry Wayne said.
We climbed a slight rise overlooking a large pasture clogged with mesquite and prickly pear. Below, a small creek shaded by large old trees meandered alongside a high bluff.
"I think the turkey roost is down there," the rancher said.
"You don't know for sure?" I asked, surprised that he didn't know that much about his own land.
"My son says so. He shot a couple the other day right off one of those big tree limbs."
Seeing that we weren't following, the herd of half-grown calves shifted into a small stampede to the right then doubled back to see if we planned to respond. We resisted the urge to run with them.
"You gonna leave these cows here all through hunting season?" the Cap'n asked.
"Not this bunch," the rancher said.
We sighed, feeling better.
"I'll sell these and move in another herd. I run cows. That's how I make my living."
"How many head you run on this place?" I asked.
He told us, and Doc did some quick math. "That sounds like two cows per acre."
"More like three, but don't worry. They won't bother you."
"It'll be hard to shoot, though," Doc said.
"Don't worry. You won't hit them."
"I was thinking about having to shoot between them," Doc said.
We reached the creek but saw no deer or turkey tracks to give us an idea about their numbers.
"Where is your son going to hunt this season?" I asked
"Here."
"Uh," Doc began, trying to be tactful. "When we lease a place for hunting, it usually means we have sole rights."
The rancher stopped. "He won't get in your way." He pointed to a slight rise on our left. "My son says you can put a stand right up there and see this whole little valley."
A herd of about 50 cattle split off and ran up the rise, apparently to see if anything was already up there.
"I bet your son would like to see a stand right here," Jerry Wayne tried to mumble to himself, but because he's half deaf, it came out loud enough for everyone to hear. He'd already figured out the fish hook in this deal.
"He'd sure like that," the rancher said. "His stand was there until last year when one of our big bulls took to scratching himself on one of the legs, and the whole thing fell. He just figured that if someone put up a stand there and only hunted on the weekends, that they wouldn't mind him sitting in there from time to time."
We followed the rancher back around to where we'd left the truck. Most of the Club members climbed into the back while Doc sat up front. We drove through the pasture, followed by even more cattle, until we came back to our original starting point to find Delbert sitting on a low tree limb. Below, more than a hundred cows and a very annoyed bull stood in the shade.
"That old bull ain't very friendly," the rancher said.
"No kidding," Delbert said.
"Did you see anything?" I asked.
He looked down. "Nothing but cattle."
"There's turkey here, though," the rancher said.
"If there were, I couldn't see them for the cows," Delbert declared and stepped off the limb and into the truck bed.
"How much per gun?" I finally asked through the open window.
He told us.
So anyway, we're still looking for a deer-turkey lease that's long on game and short on cattle ... and rancher's sons.
Reavis Wortham's e-mail address is reaviswortham@att.net.
Share this story:
Google
Yahoo
digg
del.icio.us
facebook
Slashdot
