If you want to hunt the thick stuff, it helps to have a few shooting lanes.
Texans might refer to swaths cut into the mesquite, prickly pear and buckbrush as senderos, which is Spanish for path. Without them, hunting the brush country would be like jumping in a haystack to find a needle.
Billy Nelson and Donny King, 60-something best friends from Elberfield, Ind., call them shooting lanes.
After watching deer hunters take pokes at deer feeding in or crossing open lanes on television, Billy and Donny decided to cut their own lanes on property they’ve hunted for more than 30 years. After all, their little corner of Kentucky had grown just as thick as any acreage in South Texas, albeit not as thorny.
The woolly 100 acres they hunt in Livingston County, which is about 100 miles from Elberfield, belongs to Billy’s uncle. Once a working farm, it hasn’t seen a disc or hoe in many years.
“It has grown up to the point where you just about can’t see a deer 20 yards in front of you,” Billy says.
To increase visibility at one promising spot, the guys built an elevated stand in 2010. Inspired after watching TV, they cut a couple of 200-yard-long and 15-foot-wide shooting lanes prior to the 2011 season.
They erected a plywood platform 13 feet high atop treated 4x4s, secured a pop-up blind to it by attaching snap-hooks to eyebolts, added some 2x4 shooting rails (although Billy also carries a monopod), and then hauled up a couple of folding camp chairs.
“I shot a big-bodied 5-pointer from that stand in 2010,” Billy said. “It had four points on one side and a long cowhorn (spike) on the other.
“The next spring, Donny and I decided we needed some shooting lanes. We cut them with chainsaws, a tractor and bush-hog.
“We were amazed how many more deer we saw there in the fall of 2012,” he added. “We’d see them come out of the 6-foot-tall briars and weeds and completely disappear into the other side of the lane.”
The guys didn’t hunt from the stand for most of the bow season; they kept mainly to the edges of the old farm. Billy climbed into it on Nov. 11, the last day for archery, just to monitor what might be crossing the lanes in preparation for the gun season.
“That morning, I was watching some small bucks and does when I saw a large-bodied deer walk past the end of one of the lanes,” he said. “I couldn’t see the whole deer, but it did stop and look my way. Even from 200 yards, I could tell its rack was huge. After it left, it came back in about five minutes, that time not bothering to stop.”
Billy couldn’t wait to return the following morning.
He was in his chair long before dawn broke, happy as a lark. Deer kept moving in and out of the lanes all morning. By 9:00, he’d seen a dozen does and seven bucks.
“Number 20 was a doe, and she was being trailed by the buck of my dreams,” he said. “The only problem was that they never stopped walking. I had only seconds to shoot.
“After I squeezed the trigger, a thousand thoughts went through my head,” he continued. “I knew I’d hit the deer, but I never got to see how it reacted. As soon as I shot, it was back in the brush.”
Five minutes later, Billy saw a deer crossing the other lane, at the same place he’d seen the big buck the previous day. After waiting about 45 minutes, he got down and went to where he’d last seen the deer he shot.
He found blood immediately, and the tracking was easy until the drops became sparse. When that happened, he left to get Donny.
“I wasn’t sure if the one I’d shot was the one I’d seen the previous day,” he admitted. “But it took no time whatsoever to know it was the buck of my dreams.”
Of course, since Billy never counted points, he’d could’ve shot the really tall 6- or 7-pointer Donny spotted while bowhunting earlier in the season. They talked about that over lunch.
“After we ate, I couldn’t take it any longer,” Billy said. “I told Donny that we had to go find my deer.”
The two friends covered the same ground Billy covered that morning, and they lost the trail at the same place – twice, even after they started from scratch a second time. That’s when Billy remembered seeing a deer in the other lane.
“We then split up, walking about 20 to 30 yards apart, looking for sign,” he continued. “The brush was so thick in there, we couldn’t see each other.
“After we’d covered about 100 yards, I told Donny to come toward me so we could head back to the stand,” Billy added. “We hadn’t gone more than 10 yards when Donny yelled that he’d found the deer.”
While Billy was extricating himself from some briars, Donny asked him how big he thought the antlers were. Billy guessed that the buck was the tall one that Donny had seen.
“I don’t think so,” Donny laughed.
“When I heard that, I flew through the briars to get a look at it, and then we began celebrating,” Billy said.
Their deer, which weighed more than 250 pounds, had 11 scoreable points – one little extra on a solid 5x5 frame.
“See … Dreams certainly can come true!” Billy grins.
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This article was published in the Winter 2013 edition of Buckmasters Whitetail Magazine. Subscribe today to have Buckmasters delivered to your home.