Hunt Texas by Bob Hood | TF&G Hunting Editor
Nice Rack, for a Doe
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have traveled thousands of miles down Texas highways over the past half century but none have taken me to more hunting and fishing destinations than Texas State Highway 16. Nor has any other route played a larger role in introducing me to lifelong friends like Lionel Garza and Ramiro Torres. It has been 42 years since I met Garza and Torres on the same trip down Highway 16, the first by coincidence and the second by an invitation. I had stopped at a Freer service station when I saw a man (Garza) measuring the width of a whitetail deer’s antlers a hunter had just entered into Garza’s Muy Grande Deer Contest, the nation’s first deer hunting contest which at that time was about one year old. I left Garza’s Texaco station and continued on south down Highway 16 toward Zapata where Torres managed Oso Blanca, a motel on the banks of Falcon Lake. I had only talked with Torres by telephone prior to that day, mainly to get a weekly fishing report for the Fort Worth StarTelegram. Torres also was a hunting guide with white-winged dove operations in Mexico and deer and quail hunting operations in the Southwest Texas brush country near Zapata. I was anxious to meet this man who had so much knowledge about the fishing on Falcon Lake and hear about his multiple hunting experiences, so I didn’t hesitate to take him up on an invitation to travel to Zapata to hunt and fish with him. Little did I know at the time that Torres and I were soon to discover one of nature’s rare events involving white-tailed deer. As I recall, the sky was cloudless and the temperature rising from a near 80-degree reading when we climbed into his pickup truck at daybreak and headed south from Zapata. Torres later stopped his truck at Photo: Bob Hood
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the intersection of two senderos that was overlooked by a tower box hunting blind. I climbed into the blind and watched as Torres’s tail lights began to fade away as he rolled away to another hunting blind in the distance. As daybreak began to stretch across the wildlife-abundant land, I watched a pair of cottontails emerge from the dense brush into the sendero, followed soon by a covey of blue quail. A pair of coyotes seemed to challenge the morning’s arrival with their high-pitched cries and barks from a ridge nearby. About 45 minutes later and as the sun began to peep through the tops of the nearby blackbrush and mesquites, I heard a rifle shot. From its closeness and by the fact that Torres and I were the only hunters on the ranch this morning, I knew my new-found friend had scored on a big buck. It had to be a big buck, I pondered, because Torres had told me he is only interested in shooting trophy bucks. Plus several mounted whitetail heads on the walls of the Oso Blanca motel office that Torres said he had taken attested to his hunting abilities. Since it was still so early after daybreak, I figured I would not know just how big a deer Torres’s had shot until he came back to pick me up at about 11 a.m. as we had agreed. Boy, was I in for a surprise. Within minutes after Torres’s shot, I saw his pickup truck turn onto one of the senderos leading to my blind, and this time he was traveling much faster toward me than he had done when he left me there earlier before daybreak. Before I could even open the door to the blind, Torres was out of his truck and dragging a deer from its bed by the deer’s hind feet. I saw antlers but didn’t get a good look at them. By the time I had gotten to the ground, Torres was excitedly turning the deer over and spreading its legs apart. To be honest, my Spanish is more than just a little fuzzy, but my eyes are clear. Even though I couldn’t understand what Torres was saying I only had to take one look at the deer’s private parts to get the message. Torres’s deer was an eight-point doe, T e x a S
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complete with all the female sex organs the best we could tell, but with a dark, symmetrical eight-point rack that was completely in the velvet. Torres said the deer was standing in a small opening at the top of a ridge in the otherwise flat terrain as the sun began to rise. When the sun shone on the doe’s velvet antlers, it made them appear to be incredibly massive, a physical trait high on Torres’ list when making a decision to take or pass up a buck. Since that day, I have seen and photographed two other antlered does taken by Texas hunters. Each of this pair had hardened antlers and one responded to a hunter’s “rattling horns,” although the reason is uncertain. Researchers report that the majority of antlered does have velvet antlers and that the reasons they grow antlers are multiple. A hormone imbalance may be the most often cause. Also, most antlered does can reproduce, research indicates. Whatever the reason, an antlered doe is just one more of the many surprises Mother Nature has awaiting those of us who have the privilege of hunting and witnessing them firsthand simply by being there.
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Contact Bob Hood at BHood@fishgame.com |
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9/10/13 11:36 AM