The Seasons of the Hunt

Such a blessing this program is to allow opportunities for hunters of any level to experience the hunt of a lifetime. I was thrilled and so excited when I received the call that I had been selected as a winner of the Big Time Texas Hunts Whitetail Bonanza. Being only my second season and new to hunting, I had no idea which hunt to select, and all that was running through my mind was, “Am I ready for this?” I quickly called my brother-in-law, Rene, who I knew was going to be my guest as I felt it only fitting that he would attend with me since he was the one who introduced me to hunting only the season before. Once I spoke to him and filled him in on the details, he recommended a hunt that he thought we would enjoy. So, I frantically called Kelly Edmiston from Texas Parks and Wildlife, who had initially contacted me with the news, and selected a hunt. Unfortunately, the hunt we wanted down in south Texas had already been selected by another winner.

Without any further delay, I went ahead and made the decision that it would be much more of an experience if we went on a hunt in an area that was unfamiliar to us. I chose to attend the hunt at The BigWoods on the Trinity in Anderson County, hosted by Dr. Robert F. McFarland and the general manager of the property, Lee Loveless. After contacting Mr. Loveless, he took the time to talk to me about the schedule and when he thought would be the best time to set up the hunt. After a few considerations, we landed on November 9th through the 13th.

When the day came, my brother-in-law and I made the trek from San Antonio via Katy up to East Texas to the town of Tennessee Colony, near the town of Palestine. Upon arriving at The BigWoods, we found a grand hunting lodge nestled in an open grove, overlooking a beautiful pond. After we settled in, we soon realized we were on a 7,100-acre low fence hunting retreat with full accommodations for an all-inclusive stay. We were each provided our own private room with shared restroom, three chef-prepared meals, and guided transportation to and from the selected hunting blinds. Each morning, the guide was waiting at our door ready to assist and would plan out the day for our hunting interest and recommend the best place to be for the day. For the second part of the stay, Dr. McFarland himself hosted us for dinner. He brought his dry humor to the table, and it broke the ice between the guests and allowed for other guests to feel at home, together.

When it came to the hunts, the hunt master wasted no time in sending us out to separate blinds to get a feel for the East Texas forested terrain with strategic clearings of land features and food plots. The first day we arrived, the drought of 2022 was still lingering, and we experienced it with that evening’s hunt, sitting in the fiberglass blind at 85-degrees seeing only a few deer cross along the reflection of another pond deeper into the property in the late evening. The southern breeze was not favoring the location of the blind, and most were out of comfortable shooting range. Not only was the beauty of the property overwhelming, but the sheer scale of the property also called for me to have to use my Google Maps to mark out ranges of my surroundings.

On the second day, the guides took us further into the property, and the weather was taking a favorable change. The dew point shot up, and the whole place went from a late dry summer to damp early fall setting. The morning hunt drew a few distant bucks and doe into the food plots, but the fog that lingered in the morning made visibility limited. By Friday, the chatter was building about a large cold front system pushing hard across Texas from the West. That day, we ended up selecting to sit in blinds located on the two grounds of the neighboring state prison. That day the rain came in, and we decided to hunker all day in the blinds, only breaking for lunch. Sitting on an elevated levy berm, we waited out the rain and by early afternoon, the rain stopped, and the deer started to come out onto the food plots to play and enjoy the cooler temperatures. It was my opportunity to see what kind of bucks and potential harvest frequented the area. There were a few possibilities, but my limited experience did not get the better of me, and I held out for something else as we still had two days to hunt.

On the third day, Saturday, we decided to return to the prison grounds, and I chose to nestle up on a 25-foot-tall blind that sat at the edge of a neighboring property road to the west and the nearby creek bed to the east, where the guides said the deer tend to travel through. The morning started out clear and crisp as the rains had pushed through and the front had arrived, and the temperature started to slowly decline. I recall the morning was so clear and the moonlight would make the early passing deer glow so that they appeared larger and closer than they were, as I sat elevated some 25 feet up in the landscape. To no surprise, the guide had been dead on, and the traffic through the area was on. The brisk cooler weather had riled up the rut. Packs of doe were moving through and around the creek, shortly followed by various bucks. There was something different about these bucks. Not the fair light brown that I was accustomed to in my limited experience, but an orangey tint with white underbellies.

I was intrigued. So much so that after a while, I noticed a few bucks that had been by around morning twilight started to reappear in the clearing, and they started to prance and dip their heads at each other. All appeared young in girth and rack size, and as they went through the motions of rutting, they would occasionally attract the interest of a buck in the far distance. Sizable rack and unmeasurable girth but wise to keep a good distance, they would never commit to approach the clearing. Back and forth across the clearing of the blind the young bucks would practice the dance and keep my interest. While in the back of my mind, I knew the end of the hunt was only a day away. About an hour until the cease fire, a pack of five does I saw earlier in the morning returned from the northern tree line, and they quickly made their way across the clearing. Not too far behind was a young buck giving chase. I lined up my sights on him and contemplated, “Is it this one?” He paused, offered the perfect pose for a clean kill, but I hesitated. He gave me a stare, snorted, and went back to the chase. I exhaled. I asked myself again, “Was that the one?”

Making safe my Tikka 6.5 Creedmoor rifle, I quietly propped it back in the corner, and as I lifted my head, I saw a flash of white along the northern tree line from where the others had come from. I paused, gave an intense stare, and there he was. Not the grand buck I expected, not something I thought would make the pages of any publications, but a wise buck, cunning in his stance. He paused and he knew something was not right. The buck, without breaking the tree line, looked all around, and that is when he really got my attention. He did not follow the path that the pack of doe took, nor the young buck who dismissed me only a few minutes prior. No, this buck had more experience than I did. This buck was a survivor and knew the lay of the land. He confidently turned east along the tree line and hastily made his way beneath the low hanging branches, not allowing me to get a clear look at him. In that very instance, I reached for my rifle as he made his way into a creek bed about 120 yards to my east. I lost sight of him behind a large cedar elm that broke the clearing midway between the blind and the tree line due east. As he came back into view, in the creek bottom, I had my sights waiting on him to get a better look. Just before he made his way into another batch of trees along the creek and near the bend of the driving path. At that moment, I subconsciously decided, “This is my harvest.” His cleverness and experience are one that I felt he considered the better of me and he appeared to have the girth of a 7–8-year-old. Our three paths had crossed, and it was time for me to take his legacy out into the world, beyond the confines of the prison’s boundaries.

I glanced over to the edge of the southmost tree line where the driving path disappeared around the bend, and I picked a spot through my sights. This is it, if he offers himself on this spot then I know that he knows we were meant to be. Just then, he poked his head up from the brush at the base of the small patch of trees, and he calmly stepped up onto the road. As the buck broke into the view of my sights, he confidently gave a broad stare in my direction and came to a steady broad side pause at the edge of the pathway bend. 120 yards, wondering if a small leafless twig of a tree was going to hinder my shot, I adjusted up a few inches high of the mark and held my breath. He was down on the spot, and I thanked God for his creation of the land we share, the harvest he blessed us with and the good people that all made this experience happen. I know this will be an experience I will never forget. To the staff and guests that shared in the experience, and most of all to that scarred-up, multi broken-tine 8-year-old bully buck that had been running around with an untold story, until now.

In closing, the experience was beyond anything that I could have imagined. The most parting thing that I recall was that when we arrived, the temperature was around 85, and on the day after my harvest I was wise to pass on the morning hunt to avoid the 26-degree low that day. In retrospect, I felt like I spent the perspective of a full hunting season in the matter of four days as the time we spent there offered the full spectrum of seasonal change. The clear sunny days to the gloom of the fog and the sun that brilliantly parted as each season change appeared from one day to the next. All in the midst of the timeless natural enjoyment of humanity and the hunt for the meaningful harvest.

By Stephen R. Lara, AIA

Edited by Isabel L. Lara