After a failure to see elk in Oregon back in August, a blown mule deer buck in September and then a follow up elk trip moved by the outfitter then taken out by winter storms I was onto Plan C in order to avoid a meat crisis in a few months. I started looking into Axis deer hunts in Hawaii or Texas and ended up finding a special being run from Southern Buck Outfitters for Axis does and figured. It was a free-range hunt instead of a high-fence hunt which I liked and also semi-guided which meant we’d be hunting more or less on our own but dropped off by the outfitter. I put the trip together with my nephew Dalton and hunting partner Lisa in a matter of days and then quickly I found myself on an Alaska flight to San Antonio.
We all met up at the airport, gathered our bags and a very Secret Service looking black Chevy Suburban and hit the road to Boerne, Texas. In Boerne we hit the Dodging Duck for dinner where we had Axis burgers which may have pissed off the Axis deer gods. Seems I jinxed my elk trip eating elk stew at night and I think we ate some venison on the deer trip, hmmm. Remind me not to take any turkey on my upcoming trips. After dinner we headed to our cabin and got our gear ready for our 5 am wake up and pickup an hour later.
Brandon arrived right on time to pick us up and we headed up past Comfort and the 380 acre ranch we’d be hunting. He dropped us off at our blinds in the dark and said he’d be back around 10 am. Our instruction was to only shoot a doe with spots, that being the easy feature of the Axis. This was my first time hunting from a stand but similar to the blacktail hunting I’d done on a local farm, sitting in the early morning and looking for deer. Well, finding deer was not a problem but they were all whitetail instead of Axis. As soon as I could start to see anything I was seeing ghostly shapes moving about which soon materialized into four whitetail bucks and a dozen or so does. As soon as it was light enough I spent time with the rangefinder to find the alfalfa feeder was 100 yards, the corn feeder was at 125, the opening off to a small meadow to my left was 200 yards, the smaller opening meadows behind it was around 230. All “easy” shots for my .270. As the morning progressed I watched whitetails come and go and observed their behavior. Every time they got a little jumpy I expected some Axis to be coming around the corner but usually it turned out to be a squirrel, the wind, or just some cervid hallucination.
Everyone had pretty much the same experience in the morning, lots of whitetail deer and no Axis. On the drive out we did see one Axis – legs up on the side of the road but at least we knew they existed. We got back to the cabin and drove into Comfort to eat at High’s Cafe which, amazingly enough, had plenty of gluten-free options for me and even made almond milk lattes. While Lisa and Dalton napped in the early afternoon I went for a run then a shower and by that time we were ready for pickup again a bit early since Brandon had seen some Axis moving about in the drizzly afternoon.
Back at the blinds it was pretty slow for a while even given the drizzle and gray skies. I spent some time stuffing cardboard from a Keystone Light 12 pack I found in the blind in the holes in the roof to try and stop the leaking. I watched bobwhite quail and doves feeding on the corn and watched cardinals, jays and other birds flit around the trees. I saw one very reddish brown deer run through the clearing at 200 yards but never saw it again so I have no idea what it was. As the afternoon turned to evening the whitetail once again started filtering in and I saw dozens of them. The same one-antlered buck was back from the morning but the two bigger bucks and the small spike that were there in the morning didn’t show. I watched one group of does jump the low fence and head down the road in front of me. I glassed every opening I could find and I put whitetails in the crosshairs to at least pretend to shoot. I texted that I felt like I was waiting for a mythical creature to emerge from the trees, that is really how it felt, at this point I just wanted to see one.
That evening Lisa did see two Axis deer – a doe and a young fawn who ran across the meadow she was at. She never had an opportunity for a shot and wasn’t sure she would have taken it anyway with the baby deer being part of the picture. Dalton didn’t see as many whitetail as he had in the morning. Still, we knew the mythical being existed and it gave us hope for the morning hunt.
Sunday morning was warmer but still gray with a bit of drizzle when we hit the ranch. We drove through in opposite direction to maybe change our luck. Again I could “see” deer as soon as I could see anything but I could tell from the silhouette that they were whitetail does and not the spotted deer we were looking for. As it got light my unicorn buck came back and I watched in hopes he’d drop that last antler and I could go grab it. The feeder went off at 8 am and suddenly I had does running to it from both sides of the blind. It was crazy, about 20 does in total all met up under the feeder and then dispersed pretty quickly leaving the buck and another larger doe. Once these two roamed back into the thick woods I started seeing deer through small openings in the trees out around 225-250 yards but again all whitetail. I glassed up a dozen deer in these far away small meadow openings but all where whitetail. I put the scope on several of them, easy shot with the solid rest if only they had spots. By 9 am everything shut down and by 9:30 I told Brandon to come gather us so we could pack up and check out. I’d evidently had the big morning critter wise. Dalton saw only two does briefly. Lisa saw a few does and a big jackrabbit so she won for most species of critters.
We packed up and headed out to the Cibolo Creek Brewhouse for Sunday brunch then into San Antonio to visit The Alamo and do a bit of the RiverWalk there. Downtown San Antonio was really nice, I wish I’d had more time to explore it and try some of the Mexican restaurants in town. We got to the airport just in time for Lisa’s early departure and I spent some time at a good Mexican place in the airport eating tacos al pastor, grilled fish tacos and a margarita before my flight.
So, no full coolers but it was still a good trip. I hadn’t really done any hunting from a stand aside from sitting on a log at the farm in the valley a few times so that was a good experience. I told Catherine it was like doing a 2-day silent meditation retreat with a rifle. You are totally present in the moment listening to the woods wake up, noticing the change in light, feeling the breeze and mist and always watching intently for any sign of movement. I was kind of amazed at how quickly I was picking up deer on my periphery from a long ways off, many past 200 yards in small windows of clearing. It really isn’t much different than glassing up deer except I didn’t have the option of hiking to another glassing spot and my distance was limited by the thick oaks to about 300 yards though I did glass some far off hills just to see if I saw anything (I didn’t.).
It was also interesting to watch whitetail for two days. I’ve hunted blacktail and mule deer but never whitetail and really haven’t spent any time watching them closely, just occasionally spooking some up in the Methow. They run way differently than a mule deer or blacktail, no pogo sticking out of a bad situation, it is head down and a gallop of sorts. They definitely signal movement with a flick of the tail. They seem to spook at anything and everything.
Yes, it would have been great to see an Axis, even better to shoot an Axis and have some meat in the freezer but I’m glad I made the trip and learned a lot like I have on all my trips this season. These two days will payoff in November when I do a whitetail hunt in Montana assuming I draw the tags which I have to wait a month to find out.
In the meantime I’m getting turkey on my mind. We ran into a few turkey hunters in the airport and Brandon had a few guys get two birds this morning. I’m off to the Umpqua River valley in mid-April for a Rio Grande and then back to Eastern Washington in early May for Miriam’s. I also need to get Lira out on some pheasants since Cooke Canyon is staying open a month longer to make up for the month they were basically shut down by winter weather. So the next six weeks hold a lot of hunting opportunity plus trout season opens in there and we plan to do some Spring Chinook fishing on the Oregon trip. Even without venison we will find a way to get the freezer stocked up for summer.