Deer Hunting in the Devil’s River Canyon

By Denny L. Vasquez

In southwest Texas, the Devils River canyon country is known to be some of the most picturesque whitetail deer habit around. The weaving valleys and knobby hills of the prairie land on top lead down to the deep, winding, rock strewn canyons that lead to the larger canyon of the Devil’s River itself. These canyons often reach depths of several hundred feet. Many of these feeder canyons are impassable as the ridge lines that line them terminate in sheer drop offs that requires the hunter to retrace his steps in order to reach the other side. Distances in this country can be deceiving. On a clear day the mountains in old Mexico can be seen from the higher ridgelines, even though these stately monarchs are well over fifty miles away.

The only water that is available in this dry, semi-desert area, outside of the river itself, is found in man made stock tanks that are fed by windmills, rare artesian springs and the occasional creek bed that has cut a path through the rocky ground. The fact that water is normally sparse, even in the best of years, coupled with a prolonged 2 year drought in 1994-1995, had made for unusually severe conditions for both wildlife and ranch animals alike. Lake Amistad’s level was down by 30 feet and many of the stock tanks were completely dry. Because of this water shortage, antler development for this year was below average, but the overall population numbers were stable. I expected to see lots of deer, I just didn’t know what quality of deer I would be seeing. I had high hopes though because this area has produced some Boone & Crockett contenders in the past.

This is rocky country that has squatty looking mesquite trees, sharp pointed Spanish Dagger cactus, fat barrel cactus, yellow Yucca plants and various other dry climate grasses. Trees of any size could only be found along the creek bottoms and river beds. These are usually sycamores, live oaks and a larger variety of mesquite.

Much of this country is only accessible by four wheel drive vehicle or on foot. Most of the four wheeled drive vehicles used for hunting in this area are called “high racks”. These are used for the “Safari” style hunting that is most prevalent in this area and are not the most comfortable way to get around while hunting. Walking would be less torturous on your behind but harder on shoe leather. It is true that you can cover a lot more territory in one of these vehicles but the almost non-existent roads make for a bumpy and sometimes bone jarring ride. Many times, in order to get to where the deer were, we had to make our own road over the rough terrain when one did not exist.

After a hearty thanksgiving meal, I arrived in Del Rio about 8:30 p.m., after a six and a half hour drive from Houston. I had scheduled my three day hunt with Dolan Creek Ranches to begin on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Friday morning we set out for Dolan Creek’s northern ranch located in the Devil’s River canyon country about 20 miles northeast of Del Rio, Texas. This ranch consists of approximately 12,000 acres of rolling prairies and deep canyons that drop off toward the northern edge of the Devil’s River main canyon.

On Friday, there were only two hunters on the ranch, and we were assigned to the “Lower” half of the ranch which gave us over 6000 acres to hunt. We saw over 30 shooter bucks the first morning. Back home in east Texas where I normally hunt, if we want to get a buck at all, we have to shoot the first buck that we see because it might be the only one that we see all year. Needless to say, I was having trouble in keeping my trigger finger still, but my guide assured me that we would see better bucks on the ranch, if I was a little patient. Easier said than done!

Due to the lack of hunting pressure that this ranch receives, the younger animals displayed a total lack of sense of danger when they saw the truck. It was evident that the rut was just beginning as we watched bucks chase after does like blood hounds hot on the trail of their prey. After several hours of this we finally saw “Mr. Big”.

We were slowly working our way to the back end of the Lower pasture, when suddenly, there he was. Even at 200 yards I could tell that he was the biggest buck that I had ever seen alive in the wild. As I continued to watch him through my binoculars, my guide said simply, “It’s too bad that he’s on the wrong side of the fence.” I could feel my heart drop in my chest. Here was the biggest buck that I had ever seen on the hoof and as fate would have it, he was on the wrong side of an arbitrary fence line.

All we could do was watch, hoping that he would cross over to our side of the invisible wall. Finally, I guess he noticed us because he threw his head back as if to smell the wind and trotted off in the other direction. For the rest of the day, we slowly traveled around the canyons and prairies glassing various smaller bucks, but I had my heart set on a buck like Mr. Big.

As night was slowly putting an end to our first day of exciting, but unproductive hunting, my guide suggested that we grab a bite to eat and re-evaluate our plans for the next day. (The day was only unproductive because I had set my sights on “Mr. Big”. My guide put me on to over 30 legal bucks the first day. It was my decision not to pull the trigger on one of Mr. Big’s little brothers.)

Dawn of the second day of our hunt found us at the front gate to the ranch once again. I had high hopes of finding Mr. Big, all I was asking for was the opportunity, then I would have to make it happen. Even though we had an interesting day of hunting, we did not find Mr. Big so we returned to town a little dejected.

We made another earlyl start my last day of hunting in order to make our way to the point where we planned to start our stalk. We had decided that our best strategy would be to park about a mile and a half away from the canyon in which we believed Mr. Big to be hiding. Then we would walk in and after setting up, we try to rattle him into shooting range at first light. We felt that a good bet that he would still be in the area as it offered brush for concealment, plenty of food, an ample water supply and since the rut was on in this area, a lot of willing and ready does.

Slowly, we made our way through the dim gray light of a heavily overcast early morning nether world. The fog and dim light gave the surrounding countryside a surreal appearance, almost ghostly. Several times we had to stop let deer pass by on their way to feed in the canyon’s bottom. I felt that it was the perfect start of our stalk for Mr. Big. The fog would help in hiding our movements and the dampness would help in holding our scent and noise down. The only drawback was that we could only see about 40 yards in any direction. We would have to depend on my guide’s skill with the rattling horns to draw Mr. Big in close enough for me to see him clearly enough to get a shot.

Setting up behind a large clump of cactus and mesquite, we didn’t feel that the our quarry would come in from behind us because there was a breeze blowing up from the canyon floor that carried our scent uphill in that direction. Another reason that we couldn’t move further uphill is that about 100 yards behind us was the “other man’s” fence line and we couldn’t shoot Mr. Big on the wrong side of the fence. If he was still in the vicinity, we would have to lure him over to our side of this invisible barrier. Consequently, our lookout perch had been chosen to allow us to look over both the canyon and the hillside behind us.

The sounds of nature took over again as the fog began clearing and my guide started his rattling and grunting routine. We were hoping that the noise would peak the curiosity of Mr. Big and that he would come to investigate.

The horn rattling serenade received an almost instantaneous response as a good 8 pointer came in to investigate the fighting. Within a short period of time, we had 3 more bucks come in to our arena on the canyon floor. They pranced around and postured for each other as we watched. I was wrapped up in watching the dancing going on below when I caught a slight movement to our left, back up the hill. Was that the flicker of a deer’s tail?

Slowly turning towards the movement I realized that it was, Mr. Big. He stood about 40 yards away and right out in the open, the last place that I would have expected him to make his appearance. Slowly I tried to move from a sitting into a kneeling position as I continued to watch him. If he gave the slightest indication that he was going to run, I would shoot from what ever position I was in at the time.

Up close he appeared to be even bigger then I had imagined him to be at 200 yards. It was when he turned his head to look back up the hill that I noticed movement behind him. Another large buck had followed Mr. Big over the fence line to our canyon hillside. He was a heavy beamed 8 pointer that was only about 15 inches wide but had a very high rack. Now I had to make a difficult decision, which buck to shoot.

My guide, continued his horn rattling concert, unaware of these new dancers. When he finally noticed that I was aiming my rifle at Mr. Big, all he could think of to whisper was, “Why haven’t you shot him yet?” His comment made up my mind for me as I shifted my aim back to Mr. Big and pulled the trigger. My ears were rewarded with a solid “slap” as my bullet hit home.

We both jumped up to watch as Mr. Big rolled over after being knocked off his feet and then tried his best to run down hill. His efforts only gained him about 60 yards where he crawled up under a low mesquite bush to hide.

Thinking him dead, we sat and watched for about 20 minutes before he made an effort to rise for a second time. I was able to quickly put another bullet in behind his left shoulder. This shot put him down for good.

As a finishing touch to a great hunting adventure, we spent the rest of day 3 photographing the beautiful country side and the plentiful whitetails before heading back to Del Rio and the meat locker.

You are probably wondering why I have been calling this buck Mr. Big. As I said earlier, this is the biggest buck that I had ever seen in the wild and had a chance for a shot at. To start with the bases of Mr. Big’s antlers were 5 1/2 inches. The right main beam is 32 inches long while the left main beam is 32 1/4. The right brow tine is 4 3/4 inches with a broken tip while the left brow tine is 5 3/4 inches. The right E2 is 6 1/2 inches and the left E2 is 7 1/4 inches. The right E3 is 8 1/4 inches and the left E3 is 7 3/4 inches. The right E4 tine is 6 1/2 inches and the left E4 is 6 1/4 inches. The inside spread is 19 1/2 while the outside spread is 21 1/2 inches. These measurements combined with the required circumference measurements put Mr. Big in the mid 140 Boone and Crockett range after deductions. Not bad considering the water problems that this area had experienced for the past 2 years.