The rut this year in south Texas has been a little bit off from previous years at the ranch, and I had been blaming it on the weather since it's been unseasonably hot of late, figuring that most of the rut activity was happening at night.
Last Friday morning was anything but ideal weatherwise, and hunting in short sleeves especially after Thanksgiving in south Texas isn't much like your typical deer hunting weather.
I settled in my stand overlooking a cleared petroleum pipeline, and as the sky began to lighten from the east, I noticed several dark objects about 75 yards out in the dim light. I finally was able to distinguish the shapes as deer and later those four deer were joined by a sounder of hogs as they crossed several yards further out than the deer.
By the time it was light enough to see pretty well, the deer had wandered off the clearing. Fifteen minutes went by and nothing was around until I noticed a deer step out further down about 100 yards toward a creek bottom that crossed the pipeline, when I then noticed that it was a buck, and a pretty decent mature one to boot. I had rattled up a couple of small bucks about a week before, and brought them in to within 30 yards of me, but neither one of them were shooters. This buck was a shooter, so after watching him work his way closer and then begin to cross the opening, I leveled my 45-70 and put the crosshairs on his shoulder as he turned broadside. After squeezing the trigger the buck just disappeared in the tall grass.
I got out of the stand and paced off 50 steps to the buck that was stone dead. The 400 grain Speer jacketed soft point had again done it's job. The buck had eight points 17 1/2" spread with 10" G2's. I had already taken two archery does, so I now have a nice mature buck to top off my season with my Handi Rifle.
