Longfellow Ranch: Winner of the Lone Star Land
Steward Award
AgriLife News
July 22, 2009 by Paul Schattenberg
Guy Patrick “Pat” Peacock, Pecos County, manager of Longfellow Ranch. Under Peacock’s direction, Longfellow Ranch has increased in overall acreage, cow-calf capacity and wildlife habitat, and has been recognized for leadership in conservation range management, Mitchell said. Peacock also has supported various 4-H programs and events, giving time and resources to cattle and horse shows throughout his county and district.
According to Longfellow Ranch owner Malone Mitchell, “The legendary reputation of Longfellow Ranch has been fostered for the past 32 years due to the dedication and management of Pat.”
Peacock was cited for his “conservation stocking methods, keen eye for livestock and success in building a solid hunting customer base while still managing to develop and maintain quality wildlife on the ranch.”
Mule deer are one tough target
December 12, 2009
Column by RAY SASSER / The Dallas Morning News | rsasser@dallasnews.com
SANDERSON, Texas – Looking for a big mule deer buck in this rugged, mountainous terrain near the Mexican border was like finding a 200-pound needle in a 47-square-mile haystack. And the needle was good at hiding.
My eyes were so strained they felt like they'd been sandblasted, my binoculars were covered with a fine layer of dust and my wife was having the time of her life. She was the designated hunter, riding shotgun in hunting outfitter Roy Wilson's ranch truck through the valleys and up the torturous ridgelines of the Longfellow Ranch.
The Longfellow sprawls across 350,000 acres, however they measure acreage in this part of the world. If they hammered the mountains flat, the ranch might cover a million acres. Wilson's leased pasture was just a sliver of the big picture, about 30,000 acres.
This ranch is so big that wildlife manager Spencer Wyatt said the mule deer population varies from one area to the next. Where densities are lowest, there's one deer per 200 acres. Where densities are highest, there are 10 times as many deer. The area Wilson was hunting falls in the middle, but a freak snow event and bitter cold had the deer laid low.
Anytime one of us saw what we thought might be a deer, we stopped the truck and used binoculars to determine that the imagined monster buck was really a rock or, most of the time, a sotol, the ubiquitous plants that dot the mountainsides. When the shadows are just right, a sotol can look a lot like a deer. Some plants even have the illusion of antlers.
White-tailed deer get all the attention in this state, but mule deer are tremendous game animals. Until Texas Parks and Wildlife started the Texas Big Game Awards in 1991, local big buck contests were the only documentation of Lone Star mule deer.
Since Texas mule deer live in the harshest portions of the state, they're constantly on the ragged edge of nutrition. The average annual rainfall in Terrell County, for instance, is 14 inches. Consequently, Texas mule deer do not grow antlers that compete well with their Rocky Mountain cousins.
The first Texas buck to qualify for Boone and Crockett Club's all-time records was taken in Potter County in 1996 by Mickey Van Huss. The 11-pointer scored 196 5/8 and remains the state record, though reports of a huge Gaines County buck from this season could change all that. Three other B&C-quality mule deer have been entered in TBGA.
Gaines County, on the New Mexico border southwest of Lubbock, is creating the latest buzz. This is the second year for the agriculture county to have a mule deer season, and local game warden Shaun Bayless said the deer are as old and as big as they can get.
Bayless checked several tremendous Gaines County bucks during the nine-day season. With a gross score of 220, one is a contender to be the state-record typical. Bayless said the oldest bucks are 10 years old and the heaviest weigh more than 300 pounds.
"This is just the second year we've had a season in Gaines County, and the landowners are getting a lot of money for these big bucks," Bayless said. "I'm concerned they could be overhunted pretty easily."
That's not the case on the Longfellow Ranch, where difficult terrain and careful management protects the wildlife. From daylight until dark, we drove the ranch roads in trucks and an all-terrain vehicle and glassed the mountainsides. We spotted a number of deer, most half a mile or more away. None appeared to be the trophy mule deer we were looking for.
Wilson, whose headquarters ranch is on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River north of Albany, is as tough as the desert mountains, however. He refused to give up, and so did my wife. As with any big-game hunt, it only took about 30 seconds for it go from real bad to real good.
Emilie got her chance in the waning minutes of her final afternoon of hunting. The mature buck was on a ridge top, silhouetted against the subtle pink of a West Texas sunset. The distance was twice as far as my wife had ever shot at any deer, but she took a solid rest and delivered an accurate shot.
It was the shot of a lifetime on what could easily be the buck of a lifetime. The heavy-beamed 13-pointer grosses 163 7/8 B&C points. Back at the camp, Don Rhodes of Mobile, Ala., had another big buck hanging in the barn, a classic 24-inch-wide 10-pointer that grossed 170 B&C.
Trans-Pecos mule deer deserve all the respect they can get. Chasing them through the mountains is a pure hunting experience in the wild, wild West.
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