To: Bill Moore, President Hot Trails, inc
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I just wanted to drop you a letter and let you know about a Hot Trails success story I had.
Thank you again for the great candles and keep up the good work. I will be getting in touch with you shortly to place my order for this season.
Last season, I had an invitation to hunt with my wife’s uncle on his deer lease in Palo Pinto County, about one hour west of Fort Worth, TX. Now, this area of Texas is not known for bucks with large racks, or even for having a lot of deer. But hunting opening weekend on a deer lease was not a hard decision to make.
I have hunted this area for quite a few years and I am familiar with the area. You will see does and a few bucks. Most of the time, you see either young bucks or older bucks with smaller racks.
The area on the lease I decided to hunt was a large meadow with about waist-high grass. There are some pretty thick areas of trees around the meadow but they are much too thick to get into. About 150 yards behind this meadow is an area we called the canyon because of the drop-off to get down into it. This is another area of the lease where you really can’t hunt because of the thickness of the brush.
Opening morning came and went with little excitement. I was burning a Doe-In-Heat candle, but there was little or no wind around. In fact, I only saw two deer that morning and one was a yearling doe that came right up to my lantern and sniffed the candle. Then she went back to nibbling on some grass. That afternoon was a different story.
I climbed into my blind that Saturday afternoon around 2:00 pm. It was a pretty typical early November day in north Texas. The temperature was in the low 70’s, and there was a light wind.
I had seen a few signs that the rut was just about to start so I brought out my Hot Trails candles. I have been using these candles for the last couple of years with good success but not like this.
I started out by burning a Doe-In-Heat candle about 50 yards out and then lit a Dominant Buck candle about 10 yards further out.
I placed the candles so that the wind would take the scent into an area of thick trees. I was in my stand for about an hour when I saw him. I had just scanned the area with my binoculars and lowered them when something caught my eye through the tall grass. It was a tail flicking. A deer had just walked out of the thicket of trees.
I picked up my binoculars again and located the deer. Its head was down eating grass and my first thought was that it was going to be a pretty good-sized doe!
Then it got a whiff of a candle. It picked its head up and I almost dropped the binoculars. It was the largest buck I had ever seen on this lease. From where I sat it appeared to be about 8-points with a very tall rack, not very wide, but very tall.
Once I got my heart started again, I carefully started to prepare for the shot. The buck was facing away from me, and I did not have a shot.
Since we really were not fully into the rut, it appeared that the Dominant Buck candle was bothering him. He would put his head down to eat and pick it right back up, sniff and look around trying to figure out where it was coming from.
This went on for about 30 minutes (actually it was probably more like 3 minutes but you know what it’s like looking at a great buck). He finally had enough and had to go and investigate for himself.
He started walking straight to the candles! He would take a few steps, stick his head up and sniff, and then start moving again. At one point he was walking away from me, and when he lost the scent he turned to find it again. Just what I was waiting for.
He finally gave me a shot I could not resist. When I shot, his nose was up in the air sniffing. He dropped right there.
Again my heart stopped, this was twice in the last 10 minutes. After waiting for 20 minutes (again, probably more like 3-5 minutes), I got out of my blind and walked up to the buck. He was even bigger than I had thought. Usually, when walking up to a buck the rack gets smaller the closer you get, but this one was getting bigger! He was actually a 10-point with one of the brow tines broken.
When I got him back to camp, he scored a 133 with 12″ G-2s. As I mentioned before, I had hunted this area quite a few times before, and the largest buck I had seen was a very small 8-point.
There had been rumors that a large buck was back around where I shot this one, but the only person that had seen it was the ranch owner and that had been from a distance. This buck is the record holder for this lease and my wife’s uncle has been on this lease since 1985.
I have hunted this area with my bow before as well. With this buck being oblivious to anything around him except for figuring out where the scent was coming from, it would have been the same shot with my bow. I probably could have walked right up to him and he wouldn’t have paid any attention to me.
Jimmy Cox
Littleton, Colorado