St. Jude's Solana Ranch Hunt Officially Underway!!

[Big Ed]

That a boy Bob,been waiting for you to chime in.

[Terry Green]

Thanks for sharing that Bob....I needed that.

Tell little man I said hi.

[JC]

Originally posted by tippit:
Terry,  Here are the knives from Solana.  

What I want to know is, when will one be fer sale....I'm LOVIN some of these blade shapes yer doin bro! Awesome lookin stuff  

[JC]

STILL enjoying these tales guys....thank you so much for continuing the story. Looking forward to next year.

[Guru]

Those are great pix of Bobby!!!
 
Thanx bud

JC, I've been wondering how I'm gonna talk him out of one myself    

We're going to have a great time next year Joe!!

[Whip]

Tippit knives do go on sale once in awhile if you know where to look..........

On the St. Jude's auction thread in June!        
Save your pennies boys and girls!

[JEFF B]

is that a new zealand hat ya got on bob LOL!!!

[draco]

Wish you guys could of got by Peacocks Archery in Belton,only about 6 to 8 miles away. Not a trad shop,but he collects stick bows. There are over 300 recurves and longbows hanging from the ceiling and in glass cases in the front of the shop. There is every kind of stickbow there you can think of and more. You need at least an hour to look them all over. Oh,and Mr. Peacock is a great guy. He competes freestyle unlimited compound but hunts with a recurve.

[Terry Green]

We chatted about going to that shop....but there was always a blood trail to follow every morning and evening...we stayed too busy let me tell ya!....

Wish we could have gotten by there though....maybe next year.  

[DW]

Here's my story about Solana. I'm not a great story teller like Guru or Terry, so this will be short. The TRAD GANGER's---there's not one of them that I wouldn't like to spend more time with in camp. I know several trips are in the planning stages and life-long friendships were made. I think everyone had a wonderful time....SOLANA RANCH----this place just hasn't been "discovered" by the bowhunting crowd...It is beautiful with large stands of live oaks and cedars, large flowing creeks, food plots, and LOTS of animals.....The ANIMALS----I saw grey foxes, bob-cats, Coyotes, turkeys, all kinds of birds and waterfowl, Black Buck antelope, lots of deer and a ton of hogs. I saw a lot of bucks including one real giant and passed on several that I shouldn't have in hind-sight. That's OK because you just didn't know what was gonna walk in next. I said to myself, several times,the next good buck I'm gonna shoot...but I let them walk and thats fine...I'm lucky and get to hog hunt a lot BUT I've never had to get down and run them off because I was down to 1 arrow...well, I had to at Solana.....I'll hunt with several of these guys between now and the end of the year and look foward to meeting the "new" guys...Skyler is going to love this place.....Don

[BTH]

Well, I figured I'd wait a bit to see how high Guru set the story tellin' bar...Can't beat him, so I'd better just join him...

This is the "five pointer from He##" that hangs out at the barn stand. Jeff, bowhunter4life, had him in first. We had just dropped him off and were driving by again after dropping Micheal off and this guy was already in looking for corn...Oh yeah...Texas is the state where corn is a verb...
 
Anyway...when my turn came to set this stand this little feller kept goosing the does I was gonna let fly on. I had one old, dry, tattered doe that was perfect and he goosed her too! I told Gary that this little guy had to go, just on general principal. But, no, he was just too small to bother with.
 
These were three of the younger ones that came in to this stand. I think one was a button buck.
 
This was the stand on my last day. I really liked the tripods, as did ole "Bootstrap" Bill Turner.
I didn't get started taking pictures until late in the hunt. Never got more than a few. The darn camera was always in my pack instead of my pocket and I was afraid to move much...it seemed every time I did I saw white flags in the distance or had blowing and stomping behind me.
By the way...this was my first ever whitetail hunt. Gary, our guide, was desparately hoping I'd get my first one under his watch.
 
This was the view from that stand. These does were nervous nellies who never gave me what I was looking for. I had shot a good sized hog from here in the morning, but even with experts like Terry and Curt helping, we couldn't find the hog. I had also seen a bruiser buck from here but he just disappeared.
 
And last, here I am, the last evening hunt. I really enjoyed myself and enjoyed meeting everyone. Listening to you all talk about bowhunting, bows, tradgang, hobbies, families...the "real time thread" that Don started up with Terry about aiming was hilarious!
Meeting Peanut was great. We're both firemen so we naturally hit it off good. Turns out I got some good dirt on my current chief from him. My chief used to work in Texas...I'm hopefully sending five of my coworkers to Solana for his special pig hunt in May.
This was cool as well 'cause I won this hunt in the St. Judes auction. It'll be up for bid again so save your dollars for it! I'm putting in my deposit for next years hunt. It'll be a good time and maybe I'll get a shot at a nice, corn-fed, Texas whitetail buck!

[BTH]

And, Tippit, sir, I really, really, really like that caper smack dab in the middle of the knives  :D      

[joel smith]

Hey Joe---Jeff promised us one for the raffles at the banquet this year---already got some cool stuff committed for the raffles but that'll be one of the coolest !

[Guru]

Toby, Did you notice the fresh cut branches at that tri-pod?  I sat that one a couple evenings earlier....good spot. I posted earlier pix from there....

[BTH]

Curt...I thought that stand was a little "lefty friendly"! Thanks for prepping it for me  

[Guru]

Still a little tough to shoot right under the feeder....nice pix bud....

[longstick]

This was a great read guys! Glad you all enjoyed your hunt and YES these deer stay on the edge around here for sure, hunting feeders at times is not all that easy and is hard sometimes to get a shot on a doe due to so many being around ..TOOO many eyes  HAHAHAHA
 We do have our share of the hogs too I guess everyone noticed, bro and I are going to our lease next weekend for a shooting spree ourselves
 Id like to make this hunt next year if for no other reason than to meet some of the tradgang brothers..would be about a 4 hr drive and if anyone wants to fly in maybe I could pick you up at the airport and give ya a lift

[Terry Green]

longstick....that just may be possible...there may be a couple of openings....we'll let ya know.

T

[longstick]

  it can happen  HAHAHA..

[Guru]

The last morning I ended up in the first stand I'd hunted on the trip, the stand I killed the hog out of. But shortly after getting dropped off the wind changed,and was blowing right where I expected everything to be......oh well...

 More beautiful landscape....
 


 The stand....if you look close you can see the ladder stand.....
 
 


I ended up getting down and still hunt around for a while to see if I could find some thing. All I saw moving was Terry about 500yds away doing the same thing I was.....

 The hunt was great, but the hunters where even better!  

 I would just like to thank you guys for the great company, the laughs, the friendships, and the memories that will be with me forever....Thank You