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Bar H Camp - 2008
Reports and Photos
Please note: Hunt reports are posted in reverse order. The first hunt of the season is found at the bottom of the page. The most recent hunt is posted at the top.
Also note: click on a photo to enlarge it and to get more information.
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Hunt 2 Dec. 12-15
The second hunt of the season at the Bar H camp could hardly have been more productive. Things started a bit slow but quickly gained speed.
Arriving Thursday evening, the group of four from California got settled in, zeroed their guns and got ready for their first-ever Texas whitetail hunt. A doe was taken the first morning, and 24 hours later, there were already several anterless deer plus three bucks in the cooler. By noon on the third day, there were four trophy bucks, four management bucks, eight does, a blackbuck antelope, and a Texas Dall sheep in that same cooler. Thank goodness Bob Helmers has plenty of cold storage on site - he needed it for these guys. It was a busy time there for a while.
Please meet the four hunters, all from the Fresno area of California: James Morton, his son, Jamie and grandson Josh (15 years old). This is a sure'nuff farm family and their hunt had to wait for the conclusion of their custom-harvesting of cotton back home. Accompanying the Mortons was their pal, Ryan Boucher, who works for a spraying company which operates a multitude of airplanes,helicopters and ground rigs. Now that their busy season was over, the four drove all the way to Texas for the event. No doubt when they haul all that deer meat back home, they will have to air-up the tires on their pickup.
The weather druing their hunt was about as varied as it gets. Friday, things were "normal". On Saturday, the wind blew an absolute gale out of the southwest - at least 30-40 mph with dust kicking up everywhere. Finally it laid about sundown, and got plum balmy after sundown - didn't even need a coat. The warm conditions continued through Sunday which brought record heat with the afternoon getting to 82 degrees. Sometime Sunday night, a cold front hit, and by daylight on Monday, it was in the low 20's with a chill factor of 7 degrees.
Despite all this, the hunt was a success all the way around. Check out the photos below. The "management bucks" are not shown. They were taken from that small portion of the Bar H which is high-fenced and dedicated to "Super Buck" production. Bob Helmers has several bucks on his hit-list here and their removal from the gene pool is an integral part of his deer management. As is customary on management hunts, one of the guides will accompany a hunter to "call the shot" as he makes a judgement on which bucks are considered to be inferior.
Speaking of guides, Bob's son-in-law and head guide, Joe Franklin, had to clock-out early due to the demands of his day job, but by then, the hunters were almost done anyway. Joe's photo can be found in one of the pictures below. About the deer pictures and measurments, please note: antler spreads on the Bar H are inside-inches. Other Adobe Lodge camps measure outside spreads.
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Hunt 1 Nov. 21-24
Way back in about 1994 or so, the Adobe Lodge Home Camp hired a student intern from Texas A&M for the fall hunting season. Russell White was majoring in Wildlife Management and wanted some genuine experience working in a hunting camp. He proved himself to be a very capable hand, but little did we suspect that years later, Russell would return to hunt with us as a client.
Russell, who now makes his living working for "Cotton", a corporation which is involved in restoration and disaster re-construction, contacted us in late October asking if we had room for four hunters. The Bar H would be a perfect fit, we told him, and besides, a party of four can customize their own hunting dates at this camp. So a date was selected, and before the dust settled, Russell had rounded up a couple more to make a party of six. All were from the Houston area.
Bob Helmers, owner of the Bar H and his son-in-law, Joe Franklin were ready for their arrival, except for the fact that their regular cook was unavailable due to health reason. So Joe, Bob and his wife Sandra, stepped up to feed six hungry hunters, plus several guides recruited to help out for the duration. During the past year, Bob had acquired the lease on a neighboring ranch and had plenty of room for the expanded group.
Judging from the photos of the hunt, it was plenty busy for all. Each of the six hunters collected a buck, plus there were three blackbuck antelope taken, and a couple of axis deer, as well. Photos of all critters taken, except for one of the bucks, are posted below.
As things happen, it was Russell who collected the best whitetail of the group. And he did it the old-fashioned way - by hunting smart. Seems that Joe Franklin knew more-or -less where this old boy was hanging out, and although Joe was able to show him to Russell several times, the buck proved to be too elusive. Finally, Joe and Russell decided to put up a tri-pod in a likely location, and the trick worked. Russell got him, and a dandy he is, even with a broken main beam and a missing eyeguard. Wait till you see his photo below. In addition to the big whitetail, Russell managed to harvest a blackbuck antelope and an axis deer, as well.
In addition to a whitetail buck and a blackbuck, Bryan Michalsky collected a nice axis and a new nickname all at the same time. The axis was wounded but still able to travel as Bryan got up to him. As the buck charged by, Bryan reacted by hip-shooting the fleeing animal, and the shot went into the buck's hip, taking him finally down. Hence the name - "Hip-shot Michalsky".
It is always a big event when a hunter takes his first-ever buck, and such good fortune happened to Matt Lavan who collected a good eight pointer. No hunter anywhere ever forgets his first buck.
There were several more deer taken for sure, the evidence of which was some heads of spikes waiting to be disposed of. No doubt, the Houston boys all went home with their coolers packed with deer meat. Although the Bar H is low-fenced and fair-chase hunting, several hundred acres of the ranch is high-fenced and dedicated to the production of super-bucks through (a) selective harvest and (b) protein feeding. So spikes are not welcomed in such a program. They are taken out at every opportunity.
The slogan for the 2008 deer season at the Bar H will probably turn out to be "Cotton". Why is that, you ask? Most of the hunters on Hunt 1 work for a company with that as its name. On Hunt 2 in a couple of weeks, those hunters, all from California, harvest cotton for a living. So "Cotton Is King" at the Bar H in '08.
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