General Location
In 1991 We began rebuilding the fences, planting food plots for our wildlife (we have about 50 acres in plots), building the hunting blinds (we have 7 fully equipped-all weather blinds). These blinds are made of metal and insulated walls and ceiling plus a floor covering of thick carpet. The windows may be opened or closed and provide excellent viewing of the area.
Most of our hunters use a blind (or some folks call them 'Hunting Houses) to work out of as a kind of headquarters. These blinds are especially handy for our deer and turkey hunters to have a central place to work out of and somewhere to go if you get wet, cold or hungry. Some hunters like to hunt from the blinds and others prefer to walk and hunt. What ever you prefer. You can stash your food, water, misc. other gear in the blind for a semi permanent location and hunt away from the blind in the canyons, creeks, etc. or you can hunt from the blinds. Each blind has at least one feeder in sight. The blinds are insulated and warm and they protect you from the winter winds, snow and rain. We also have heaters available in the event of very cold weather.
All of our hunting areas are separated by fences. Each hunting area is about 160 acres, however, two of these hunting areas are 320 acres. Staying in a specific area and near or around the blind is especially important if the snow or fog gets thick and you simply can not see, but, we know where you are supposed to be and will come after you. Many people have ask 'do cell phones work out here ?'. The answer is yes in most of all of our hunting areas. Sometimes you have to climb a little higher, but there is contact in every area that we hunt in. So good idea to bring your phone. AT&T seems to work best here, but SPRINT works in some of the area.
We now have 13 gravity flow feeders that we feed 20% protein for the deer and turkey during the early spring when animals are birthing or hatching. During the hunting seasons we usually add corn to the programmed feeding. I don't really think that corn helps the deer but the corn serves more as a treat. The deer and turkeys seem to like the corn better than the straight protein. I will continue to feed and take care of the deer and turkey with both corn and protein. During the Spring Turkey season we feed mostly milo or other similar grain by pouring the grain along to roads and near a water source just to keep the animals interested.
Our bunkhouse and cook houses are complete with telephones, TV's and central air and heat and DSL and Direct TV. The beds are 2 twin beds, 2 extra long twins, and two 3/4 beds. The bunkhouse is a four bedroom house, with a living room and two bathrooms with showers, sinks and johns. The usual things for all bath rooms. And summer, spring or winter we have central air and heat and a big fireplace that burns about anything. We usually use oak or mesquite or big stumps we find in the pasture.
We do have our fair share of snakes, horned toads, lizards, mountain boomers, mountain lions, bobcats, wild pigs, and lots of road runners. Seems as though we have a sample of every bird, animal, reptile, and insect in the country. And, just recently one of our hunters shot the first javalina hogs in the area.
I didn't think we had the Mexican hogs; but now we have both the javelinas and the feral hogs. The feral hogs are much larger animals, but, they have no tusks and don't smell bad like the Mexican hogs. However, they are pretty good eating. Some of the hogs weigh up to 450 lbs. A hog that big is no good to eat. The good eating ones usually weigh less than 200 lbs. These hogs are rough to hunt since they have very keen eye site and can smell a hunter about a mile away. Really takes a lot of looking and travel to find them.
This is a photo from our web cam Looking east toward Abilene from our compound on the Mountain top
