Thank goodness for the cooler nights and mornings and how about that nice rain we enjoyed last week. We haven’t experienced that first blast or Arctic air just yet but it’s coming and not a moment too soon.
I had the opportunity to travel up to southeast Oklahoma to the Choctaw Hunting lodge for an early season doe hunt and was blessed with a couple of fat doe for the freezer. Nothing like having venison early in hunting season for meals at upcoming hunting camps. My good friend Larry was there hunting one of the big black bears the mountain country is known for and helping host the Littles on their whitetail hunt.
For the past few weeks, a couple of big bear were hitting bait stations on the tribal land and prospects were looking good for Larry, but as Larry said, the bears were being bears and for whatever reason, the big one he was hunting changed his patterns, possibly he had found a patch of woods with a good acorn crop or a grove of persimmons. After more than 60 hours of setting on a stand he saw one bear and that for a fleeting few seconds just at the last minute or legal shooting time.
As I pulled up to the lodge last week for a short doe or management buck hunt, I saw manager Dusty Vick driving up to the lodge with the Littles. Carol was all smiles and I could see an impressive set of whitetail antlers in the back of the side by side. She used her crossbow to arrow a fine 10-point buck and on her first set of the hunt. The next day Mark Little shot a monster buck, giving plenty of venison for the freezer and a couple of fine shoulder mounts for the Little’s trophy room.
A section of the ranch is permitted for firearms at the beginning of bow season and Larry devoted a morning to hunt and film with me. We were shooting video for our digital TV show “A Sportsman’s Life” with our friend Jeff Rice. My goal was to use my new .308 CVA Cascade rifle to kill either a management buck or doe.
I am all about taking venison early in the season if possible. This accomplishes two things by removing excess deer from the range which allows more food for the herd, and it also stocks the freezer with venison at the very beginning of deer season. I love cooking venison fajitas, fried steak or barbeque at hutting camps.
I came close to shooting a big body management buck on the first morning. He came in with a very nice young eight-pointer. As luck would have it, the eight-point presented a perfect shot at about 40 yards, but he needed a couple years to develop into his potential, and the other six-point buck managed to keep brush between himself and our stand, so no ethical shot opportunity.
Later that morning, we loaded into a side-by-side with guide Terry Stewart and headed out to see if we could find a couple of shooter deer, either doe or management bucks to stock my freezer. Terry was raised just across the Red River from Red River County, where I spent my younger days. I told him about a lake named Long Log Lake near the river we used to fish when I was a kid, and he told me he was raised one mile from that catfish hot spot. We definitely had lots to talk about.
Doe had been off-limits for the past few years and the biologists decided it was necessary to remove a number of them. Keeping doe numbers is check is a key factor to any successful whitetail management plan.
We drove through the beautiful mountains in the estate section of the ranch and saw lots of game including buffalo, wild hogs and several species of exotics but most of the whitetails we spotted were waving their flags (tails) and bounding away. I was able to settle the crosshairs of a couple of fat does which I was extremely happy to harvest.
Most of the meat is being processed at Kuby’s Game Processing with the exception of a couple of backstraps which have already served as the centerpiece for a couple of tasty venison meals.
A highlight to any visit to the Choctaw Hunting Lodge in enjoying the food Nacolh prepares. She manages the lodge and keeps things running smoothly. Dusty has his hands full overseeing the hunting and management on the more than forty thousand tribal land acres, about half of which is hunted through the lodge and the remaining leased to season hunters with a strict management plan designed to produce big mountain bucks. Nacolh has several signature dishes, one of which is smothered seasoned ground meat patties with gravy that is my favorite.
My next visit to the lodge will probably be sometime in December. Dusty likes to kid me about my affinity for eating turnips; actually, I think he likes them as much as I. He has several food plots planted with turnips sprouting so a short turnip picking and hog hunting outing might be in order in a couple months.
On my way home, I met my friend Joe Parker with All American Taxidermy and picked up a mount he prepared with the feet of a Choctaw mulefoot hog I killed on a previous hunt. These hogs were brought up the Trail of Tears by the Choctaw people back in the 1830s. The hooves are not split like a normal hog but solid. They appear much like a baby donkey’s hooves. The mount will be on display at the Choctaw Lodge. I’ve hunted hogs all my life and this is the only mulefoot hog I’ve encountered. I’m as proud of the mount as most people would be of a 170-inch whitetail mount.
For more information on the Choctaw Hunting Lodge, visit www.choctawhuntinglodge.com.
Listen to Luke’s weekly radio show, “Catfish Radio” on radio stations in several states or on the website www.catfishradio.org. The show is in its twentieth consecutive year and is available as a podcast also, “Catfish Radio with Luke Clayton and Friends.”
