This past weekend we traveled to the ranch in west Texas. As many of you know, this time of year is mainly spent filling feeders and checking game cameras in preparation for the fall. Our place, like most of Texas has been especially dry. We have made several trips this year to work on wells and fill water tanks because without the water we will lose any chance having a good hunting season.
As we traveled west on Thursday, it seemed to get drier the further we drove. We arrived at the ranch about an hour before sunset and hurried to the first well to get it started running for the weekend. We have a few game cameras out at corn and protein feeders in the area, so we pulled the cards as we passed. After dark, we all gathered around the computer to look at trail cam pics in hopes to seeing 'THE" big buck. On a side note, Cody was at the ranch a few weeks back and noticed several feeder motors that were bent over, he looked through the trail cam pic and saw a few Elk. So before leaving home, we decided we needed to Elk proof our feeders. We loaded some barb wire to wrap the feeders, hoping this would fix the problem.
As we sat around the computer looking at pictures we found Audad, Whitetail, and a few Elk. Much to our surprise we found the culprit that was damaging our feeders. It seems we have a brown bear (at least one) living on the ranch. From the pictures, he seems to have made himself at home. Yogi the bear, likes to use our Spintech feeders as a punching bag. We found several pictures of him climbing on the feeder, shaking the motor and one where he pushes the whole feeder over.The entire camp was excited about seeing the bear pics. I figured he has only broken one feeder and we have plenty of spare parts laying around to fix it, so this was no big deal.
Friday morning we loaded the mule down corn and headed to the top of the mountain to fill feeders. When we pulled up to the first feeder we saw it was knocked over. As we got closer, we saw the barrel was moved and you could tell that Yogi (or his brother) had found this feeder. We had an old directional feeder at this location so we repaired it and filled it with corn. As the day progressed we found that Yogi had broken 7 feeders beyond repair (without getting new parts) and 2 more that we were able to repair.Needless to say, Yogi changed to plan for the weekend. Instead of just filling feeders and doing a little varmit hunting. We spend the entire weekend attempting to bear proof our feeders. We brought several motors home so we can replace parts before the next trip.
One good thing from the trip, Aaron's nephew made the trip with us. he really enjoys coon hunting. Friday and Saturday night we spent a few hours and spotlighting and lets just say I don't want to make him mad. He is a crack shot with a 22-250 and reduced the coon population in west Texas.
All in all it was a great trip. We left the ranch with 9 feeders running and have a few more to repair and take back. There always seems to be an adventure at Horn Stars, I just never expected it to involve a brown bear.