Bucks from above (pic heavy)

Here are few pics from this year in Sept from an annual helicopter survey from a friend of mine. I managed this ranch and he took my place in 2006. He has really done a great job with managing the ranch and habitat. The quality of bucks has really taken a huge jump in the last 2 yrs. These are just a handful of the good bucks on the ranch. The TC pics have a lot of big bucks that were not seen from the air.

Second set of pics

wow, great bucks, not being a smart A but what do attribute the recent jump too? rain?

He's got some serious heads there. Congrats to your buddy.

Very nice pics STX

Culling and killing all the spikes for years

Where is the grass. It's mostly weeds or scrub and hardley any grass at all. Are cattle run on that ranch? Looks like it was plenty dry there.

Those deer live in that thick stuff and not in the open. Bad drought the past several years makes it look really bad. There is grass in the roller chopped areas but without rain it did not grow much. Without rain I have seen bare ground in lots of areas down there in bad year. Went 3 yrs without much rain and the grass just rotted away to bare ground. Past over grazing when the grazing was leased caused the brush and weeds to take over. Not good brush or weeds either. Aeration with a Lawson is bring back the grass once the competition is cut down. Prescribed burning maintains it. But it take rain. Can't do much when you get less than 5" in a year.
No cattle in over 10 yrs now. Also those soils are heavy clay with areas where salt is on the surface along the drainages. You can see the vegetation types that growing in waste type soils. Areas with no grass or weeds will not grow anything due to salty soils.

oak leaves

Not an Oak with in miles.

new management

Resluts of killing all those spikes and culling from the previous management.

Looks good!

For so old men deer they still look pretty athletic, nice pics

Nice work being done
Great bucks

Great pix.

well, i was trying to offer up an excuse for him...

wow, those are some hosses

Those are some good looking animals. I've always been amazed that they can get that big down there...poor grazing abundant browse?

Question for you...I was driving up from S Padre years ago and saw bucks wading neck deep in ponds eating some kind of vegetation... what could that have been? Always been curious about that.

Some awesome deer in there!! Is there any concern that stressing the bucks with the chopper while they are in velvet will cause them to bust up their antlers?

Wow nice bucks

:Standing O:

nice try but they continued with the same plan for the most part. They did some things the same, changed some and then went back to doing them again. What did a lot to help was taking numbers way down and keep the better bucks alive. Little history on the ranch. It had produced a net book deer in the early 90's. A lot of 160-190 type deer were killed during the early 90's. No age was safe if it scored over 160. No doe were killed and no culling at all. Just top grading best deer. I flew it the first year and saw 254 deer from the air and estimated the pop to be over 550 deer on 5100 acres that was LF till about 2 months before I flew the survey. Way to many deer for South Texas. When I went to work the best buck on the ranch score wise was an upper 160 buck with 17 points. He was an upper 140's buck with 20+" of NT points. We killed him and he was 7 yr old. I did see a couple of 160 type bucks that year during the rut that I did not see from the air. A lot of the 4-8 yr old bucks were killed in the first 3 yrs and none those scored over 130 that were killed. The bucks that did score better were protected and kept in the herd to breed. Heavy culling of all age class and lot of does were killed during those years. Ranch had a lot thick brush and we had 25 protein feeders. They bought a Lawson Aerator and also added more protein feeders. Ranch added a bunch of stock ponds for water. When I was there we built 12 in addition to the 7 they had and now I think they have over 30. They started to aerate some areas and then would either rerun those areas with aerator to keep the brush down or if they had the grass, burn them. The genetics were there just not many good bucks with it when I started. The quality of young bucks improved with nutrtition and management. They try to harvest trophies now at 7-9 yrs of age. They allow them to breed as long as they can since the numbers were low on those kind of bucks. It is finally starting to pay off.

Outstanding Pictures

Incredible bucks, and great pics!

X2

Nice pictures STX, That is some of the best big buck producing country and big bass on both sides of the fence!

wow, there are a bunch of phenominal bucks running around that ranch! what is the name of the ranch?

it has always amazed me how those bucks with that big of a rack can run full speed through that thick crap and make it look so easy...deer are so athletic

WOW incredible bucks

that reminds me of the place we had in Encinal. Even looks like some of the same genetics. By far the best south Texas place I ever had the pleasure of hunting. Awesome pics and thanks for sharing.

Nice.

Didnt view all the posts, freaking looks like some deer on the Cielo Ranch by Big Bend have family friend that hunts it...

Holy moly

Beautiful.

Great pics and some stud bucks!

Awesome bucks, thanks for sharing

Great unique pics - nice to see them in a flat out run from above - terrific looking animals.

They are real majestic animals.

majestic like a steed

Two questions:
When you say aerator, what are you talking about? Forgive my ignorance please..

Is this a commercial hunting ranch or private?

Nice deer and pictures!

Nice headgear ! What do have to do to get an invite to hunt ??

That some of the old Cameron country?

Here is a link to what an aerator looks like. It is used to take dense brush that is to tall down to ground level and fracture the soil to allow moisture deeper into hard packed soils. The moisture and sunlight will allow grass and forb growth. The brush will then sprout new growth where it is broken above the ground. The debris will shade the ground till it rots. It puts the new growth where deer can get to it and improves the habitat.
http://www.ranchworx.com/tandem.php
That ranch does limited package hunts but it is booked for several years out.

Very informative thanks!

Where is this place, I want to get next door! Nice deer!

great bucks

Unreal. Thanks for sharing, ranchman.

Unreal. Thanks for sharing, ranchman.

Nice bucks.

WOW, you still aren't going to tell us the ranch?