Nine Bar Ranch Blog

Tips for Deer Hunters in Texas Summer Heat

Tips for Deer Hunters in Texas Summer Heat

Tips for Deer Hunters in Texas Summer Heat

There are a ton of advantages of hunting in Texas, and one of them is that there is available game all year round. That said, a lot of our native deer species are off-limits in the heat of the summer.

Does that mean that there’s nothing you can do as a deer hunter in the coming months? Not at all. We’ve got a few tips you’ll want to use before the summer is over.

Start Scouting

Scouting out the deer population in the summer in preparation for the fall isn’t a flawless system. Plenty of the bucks you spot in the summer are bound to shift to a new home range in the fall.

Still, a combination of trail camera and long-distance scouting can help you take an early inventory and assess the popularity and livability of your favorite hunting ground. Where there is a strong doe population, there is often a strong buck population during the rut. This is also a great time to start looking for new hunting ground, like Nine Bar Ranch, and reserve some trips before hunting season gets underway.

Do Some Target Practice

At Nine Bar Ranch, we’ve created the optimal conditions for your hunting trip. Still, you’ll need to be a sharpshooter or accurate archer to take down a swift-moving and self-protecting deer.

Don’t get rusty during the off-season. Head to your local range for some target practice. This is especially important if you’re planning on using a new gun or bow in the fall and you haven’t developed that much-needed muscle memory with it yet. When you have a deer in your sight, you don’t want to have to stop and think about what to do next.

Branch Out from Whitetail Deer

The whitetail season doesn’t start until the end of September for archers and even later for everyone else. The good news is that in Texas, you don’t have to switch to birds and small game to enjoy hunting in the heat of the summer if you don’t want to.

Sika, axis, and fallow deer are all part of our year-round hunting season. You can hunt all three of these deer populations at Nine Bare Ranch and these impressive species provide a memorable and exciting experience.

Ready to schedule your upcoming deer hunting trips to Nine Bar Ranch? Contact us today!

North Texas Wild Boar Hunting Tips

North Texas Wild Boar Hunting Tips

Here in Texas, we aren’t too thrilled about our wild boar situation, but we have to admit that it has led to some excellent hunting! North Texas wild boar are a unique game hunting experience: techniques for tracking, approach, aiming, and takedown are all somewhat different from what you’re used to if deer, turkeys, and doves have represented the bulk of your hunting portfolio so far.

Today, we’re sharing our North Texas wild boar hunting tips! Read on to learn just how to bag one of these invasive animals for yourself in 2023.

Tracking Wild Boar

Like their domestic counterparts, wild boars love to eat! If you’re hunting with us here at 9 Bar Ranch, we’ll be able to scour our feeding stations for our targets. If you’re on your own in the wild north of here, keep an eye out for circling vultures. If the carrion is large enough, wild boar will gather around to join the vultures for a meal.

Essentially, when it comes to boars, the stinkier the food, the happier they are! Use this to your advantage anytime you’re tracking them. 

How to Safely Approach Wild Boar

Wild boars are the fearless kings of their surroundings. Their intimidating size, impressively thick hides, and enormous tusks completely protect them from would-be predators. As a result, they aren’t too picky about their surroundings, and don’t stay on high alert like vulnerable deer and gazelle species.

Furthermore, boar are mostly blind. They rely on their noses (and to a lesser extent, their ears) to clue them in to their surroundings. If you stay downwind of them, take a stealthy approach, and mask your own scent for good measure, it’s unlikely that your presence will be detected by boars.

Where to Aim

When you’ve located a herd of boar, and have narrowed the gap between you and them, it’s time to take aim. Now, boar have incredibly tough skin. Their heads and shoulders serve as their armor. If you shoot them in the shoulder, their strong flesh and thick fat can close up behind the bullet, leaving not so much as a trail of blood as they flee.

Consider that they have delicious shoulder meat as well! Therefore, we recommend that you aim directly behind a boar’s ear. This spot will have the greatest impact on them while preserving their tastiest cuts of meat.

It Takes More Than One Shot

Once in a while, one perfect alignment of timing, aim, and the position of a boar’s head MAY result in a one-shot kill. Because this is unlikely to happen on your hunt, we recommend that all hunters prepare to deliver two or more shots as quickly as possible.

SHOOT UNTIL THE ANIMAL STOPS MOVING.

The Takeaway

These powerful animals are not easy to bring to their knees—but you can make it happen.

To book your wild boar hunt at 9 Bar Ranch, please contact us today!