Back in 1999 when I started full-time as a freelance outdoor videographer I knew I would be sacrificing my personal hunting time, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to take. After a long trip on the road, I usually come back home to catch up on things around the house and spend time with the family. I get plenty of invitations from my friends to go hunting while I’m in town, but honestly it’s the last thing on my mind when I have just a few days with my family.

I have only harvested one deer since 1999 and boy was he a dandy!

I had been to the Wright Ranch in Dilley, TX to film his deer a couple of different times. I was amazed at what I saw. Mr. Richard has some pretty awesome deer down there. South Texas had always been one of my dream hunts and after talking to Mr. Richard I decided to book a hunt.

It was December of 2004 and I was scheduled to do a two week shoot with Whitetail Adventures in Mexico. The host of the TV Show said he was going to stop in Dilley for a couple of days and visit Mr. Richard at the Wright Ranch and then head into Mexico for his hunt. I asked him If I could do my hunt while we were down there and he said “no problem!”

While I was home for Christmas I drug out my trusty Remington .280 and started doing some target practicing. It had been a few years since I had shot a rifle, but it was just like riding a bike. It took a few shots to get settled down and then I was hitting the target where I wanted to.

We flew out December 27th for the hunt. I was so excited I could hardly wait to get there. Once we arrived at the ranch we went down to the target range and made sure that the rifle was still shooting true. After we left the target range Mr. Richard wanted to go do some rattling. Talk about FUN!  We rattled in about 18 deer the 1st afternoon, but we did not see the one that Mr. Richard wanted me to harvest.

The next morning we went out for another rattling session. It was a beautiful South Texas Morning and we rattled in plenty of bucks, but again we did not see the buck that Mr. Richard wanted me to harvest.

After lunch Mr. Richard told me he was going to put me in a box blind looking over an oat field. He said he was going to show me a picture of the deer he wanted me to harvest and let me and the camera guy sit in the stand by ourselves that afternoon since it was a small box blind. He put a video tape in the VCR and told me he had something he wanted to show me. It was video footage of the deer he was hoping I would harvest. When he told me that and I looked at the TV screen, my jaw dropped. It was an awesome 8 pointer feeding in the oat field that Mr. Richard had been watching the past coulple of years and decided that he wasn’t going to get any bigger. I couldn’t believe it when he asked me would I like to shoot that deer. He surely dwarfed anything I had ever harvested.

Once we had viewed the footage I was eager to get to the stand and we headed out. Once at the box blind we sat there for about 30 minutes and then field started filling up with does and small bucks.  I was enjoying watching the deer feed when I looked up and all I could see were horns coming into the far end of the field.  I put my binoculars on him and realized it was the buck I was looking for.  That’s when my heart started pounding and the adrenaline was really kicking in.  The buck walked to the edge of the field and began to start feeding in the oats. I ranged him with the range finder. 298 yards. I flipped the safety off and eased my finger to the trigger. BOOM! The rifle went off and my target was true! The deer fell in his tracks. 

I called Mr. Richard and told him I had just harvested the deer he wanted me to and I wanted him to come pick me up and share the moment with me. Once he got to the blind we walked down to my deer. There was surely no ground shrinkage on this big boy. He was bigger and wider than he looked when he was standing out in the field. He was 18″ inside spread and scored 154″ B&C. 

That was a hunt I will never forget!