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Texas High Fence Hunting Sounds Awesome – Double T Outfitters
221 Plays5 months ago
This week on the Tricer Podcast, Drew has Brett and Trace from Double T Outfitters to discuss “high fence” hunting in Texas. Brett and Trace talk about the high fence operation and how it is 24/7/365 to keep these Texas ranches running and producing great animals. They also talk about, if you want to hunt it you can find it in Texas. The high fence hunts have it all. They talk about the ethics of their hunts and how they keep their operation on the up and up with game and fish and their clients. If you are looking for a great hunt in the great state of Texas, give Double T a call.
Double T Outfitters
Website - https://www.doubletoutfitters.net
Instagram - @las_lagunas_ranch_
TRICER USA
Website – https://tricerusa.com/
Instagram - @tricerusa
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/tricerusa/
YouTube - @tricer
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Transcript
Introduction and Opening Prayer
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to the Tricer Podcast, where we talk all things hunting, gear, and the great outdoors. Before we begin, let's start things out right and put God first. Lord Jesus, I thank you for Tricer, and I ask that you can use this podcast as a way to bring joy to all of our listeners. We lay Tricer and this podcast at your feet. Amen.
00:00:23
Speaker
All right.
Hunter's Extravaganza and Texas vs. Western Hunting
00:00:24
Speaker
We are in Texas. We are at the Hunter's extravaganza. Treasure is a booth down here for the next three weeks. We're in Houston right now. Next week we're in for dallas fort worth Fort Worth. And then a week after that, San Antonio. And I have never experienced Texas hunting. I know nothing about Texas hunting. I'm from out West. Like we are spot and stock, you know, big glass, looking for animals. yeah And, uh,
00:00:53
Speaker
I came down here and I'm getting a lesson in Texas hunting. And out west, it's easy for us to be like, oh, that's high fence. Or, oh, that's, you know what I mean? Like, we don't understand. Oh, that was from a blind. Like, it doesn't count. You know what I mean? But, man, I'll tell you what. Like, this is like the most American thing I've ever been to coming down here, being in Texas. It's a great time. It's fun. It's a great time.
00:01:14
Speaker
and Honestly, I'm going to come down in December and hunt whitetails and pigs down here and and sit in a blind, do the whole thing. or run I didn't even knew it was a corn feeder. You're running trucks and dumping corn out the back. and It's like it okay feeders. yeah Down here it's just is just what you do. It's just normal is the normal thing and I am out of my place. right my I'm here with my rep my rough group and they keep calling me a Yankee. so I guess I guess being from Cal I said I told coming out from California and they walked out of my booth so I gotta be careful who I tell where I'm from but uh Man, so I am sitting in a booth right now with Brett Ferguson and trace Ferguson.
Insights from Double T Outfitters
00:01:54
Speaker
They run double T outfitters. Yes, sir Trace the Sun he's like stepping up them stepping up and trying to I don't know if he's taking this thing over but he's starting to and he's learning his stuff and
00:02:04
Speaker
You guys run hunts down here in Texas. And I was like, I actually signed up for one of your Neil Guy hunts. yes And I was like, man, we should get you on a pod and just talk about Texas, talk about what you guys do. Cause you guys love hunting, just like I love hunting. yeah How you guys doing? We're doing good. and Have a great show.
00:02:24
Speaker
I've never done a podcast. This is our first podcast. so oh i mean Texas is a big state and you can do spot and stalk in Texas. You can do blind hunting in Texas. you can We do feed roads and cinderas because the brush is so thick. That draws the animals out from the whitetail to the exotics. Sitting in a deer blind is totally normal in Texas.
00:02:47
Speaker
oh Folks out of Texas they actually called deer blind shooting houses We call them deer blinds, but you can you can have you can experience the different types of hunting in Texas so You guys got a pretty big operation obviously like I'm looking at your list here You can do whitetail which obviously everyone does whitetail in Texas You also could do access to your black buck Neil guy Texas doll for horn black a while Muflon gives buck skim buck Tran escaping Yriel? Yriel, odd hat. Simito Oryx, fallow deer. Wide variety. Wide variety. How long have you been doing this, Brett? I've been guiding and for 25 plus years.
00:03:34
Speaker
and around 2013 I started my own outfit and business. Having looked back, lost a lot of hair, stress, making customers happy, clients happy. Trace and my daughter Bree, they've grown up kind of side by side with me and as have learned to trade. It's awesome to have Trace along with the ride because He's seen how I've done it, but he's also interjecting his own ways of maybe doing things. And sometimes we'll but butt heads a little bit, but it's always comes down to the better part of what's best for double tee outfitters and best for our hunters.
00:04:14
Speaker
Yeah, I have five kids, and I have an 18-year-old son who knows everything, so I know what you're talking about. He knows how to do everything right. I'm still waiting. They tell me there's a time. How old are you, Trace? 22. 22. They told me, that he'd like, 22, 23. They might come back to you and be like, hey, dad, you were right. But ah one day, i' wait I'm waiting for that day. But ah again, I mean, we it's a family-run business. It's all about the family. We have families that have hunted with us for years.
00:04:40
Speaker
And we've seen their kids grow up from ah middle school all the way through college and still come back to hunt with us. ah We do specialize in corporate hunts. oh But being a family run business, ah you got your up and downs. But the main main goal for us is providing quality hunts for our hunters and having them a place where they they call home during deer season.
Building Relationships with Clients
00:05:05
Speaker
And our repeat clients is something to be proud of. I'm very proud of that. People come and follow us wherever we may go to hunt, whether it's dove, deer, turkey, exotics, and developed a lot of close friendships along the way doing that.
00:05:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think the best thing that sells my products, like the the sales I like the most is, hey, I was an elk camp and everyone came out and bought one of your tripods because they liked it. They got that experience. So when you get return customers, that says a lot because I mean, there's, I mean, there's probably got to be 50 outfitters here selling hunts and they can go anywhere and they're coming back to you. It means you're doing something right. And we've been talking to past clients all day to today. They come by, visit with us, catch up, talk about old hunts. And it's been a good time. Really?
00:05:53
Speaker
And then, you know, the other outfitters here, they may be selling the same thing and they're all good outfitters. And everybody's trying to get all the, get those clients to come give them a chance. You press record. You press record on that. You sure? Oh my God. Oh, you did. All right. You didn't press record. It's turned off again. Whatever. We'll do it. We'll do it. No video. It's fine.
00:06:23
Speaker
We don't need video, it's fine. I don't know why it's not recording. It's good, let's keep going. We got no camera, we got no video. We got voice. Or you got voice, voice is all you need. It's fine with me, it makes me feel a little bit better. You guys have a face for radio, sir. You're not wrong, you're not wrong. I agree. You broke my camera. If you guys hear the hell it's playing in the background, that's the Gator show. Because down in Texas they have Rattlesnake shows and Gator shows. They bring alligators out, pythons out, all stuff.
00:06:51
Speaker
here's a whole this is This is not a state in the United States. This is its own country. I'm convinced that Texas is its own country, its own people, its own thing. It's pretty cool. You can do anything in Texas. Why go get on the plane for 13 hours to go to Africa when you can hunt the same animals here? Exactly. That's my deal. So you've been guiding for 25 years. Now you're an outfitter. Does that mean that you're leasing property and doing hunts? How does that
Sustainable Hunting Practices
00:07:17
Speaker
work? Yes. You have to have good ranch owners.
00:07:21
Speaker
ah to believe in what you're doing and the management philosophy. You know, some some ranchers, are they're scared of outfitters because, oh, they're going to come shoot everything. Well, no, you've got to have a good management plan because if you don't manage, then you're going to not have the the deer for the following year. I mean, if you go shoot out of place, the first year, what are your customers going to do? So you've got to implement a management plan, whether it's feeding protein, cottonseed, making sure you harvest the deer that are the right age, taking the deer that you need out of the herd ah to continue to produce trophy genetics. And that's why all our hunters sit with guides. You know, unless we've got a target buck that we're going after,
00:08:06
Speaker
all of our hunters sit with guys to make sure we get the right deer. So having a good relationship with the landowner is very key and vital what we and vital for what we do. And the current ranch we have in Crystal City, a very good friend of mine, he lives in Indiana, his name is Price Irvin, and he he hunted with us this past January. He came up to me and said, man, I'm ready to buy i'm ready to buy a ranch. A little bit I know three weeks later he bought a ranch. did he and that's That's where we've moved our operation. He's allowed Trace and I to do all the hunts on it, manage it, and having him full support is very key to what we do. How big is that ranch? That ranch is 1,300 acres. Okay. so
00:08:57
Speaker
Alright, and you'll run all your hunts through that. So is that ranch a high fence ranch then? It is. This one ah in particular is a high fence ranch. We still do low fence country. oh It just depends on the location and then where you find the ranches to do the hunts at. Right now we're doing doing our hunts in Crystal City on this ranch. ah We may go do so explore out to other areas to get to do some hunts elsewhere, but right now everything's based out of Crystal City. Okay, so what is a high fence ranch?
00:09:29
Speaker
basically an eight foot game fence that surrounds us. A lot of high fence hunting gets a bad rap because a lot of people do 50 to 100-acre, maybe even smaller high-fence ranches where they go in there and there's not even cover in these pans. And as you go out there and oh, there's your animal, boom, shoot. That's not what we are. It's not what we're about. It's never been about it. we're still You're still coming to hunt. You're still going to come work for your animal. it Just because it's game fence doesn't mean it's a walk in the park. It doesn't mean you're going to kill on the first evening. it You're still going to hunt. I mean, that's just it's still hunting. i mean it's and you you know the some some of the theories in texas is why you have a high fence is because you may have a
00:10:18
Speaker
a hundred acre ranch or farm. They're drawing deer off of here. So the rancher goes, well, I'm tired of them shooting on my deer. It's not helping me out on the management end of things. I'm gonna high fence them out. So the deer, and then you can control and you can manage the deer herd because you know those deer probably aren't gonna go anywhere. So you've got to stay on top of that. But ah the original high fence was built to keep the deer out from getting, you know, the younger deer from the neighbor, and then also a rancher and an owner can go in there, and this is how I'm gonna manage my herd. So I would think that if you have a high fence like that, isn't that gonna make it hard for you, like, not to cross-breed your deer, and like, have inbreeding and stuff? Like, how do you keep that out? Because you're not gonna get any more genetics coming in.
00:11:08
Speaker
but yeah There's ways to introduce new genetics to to the herd, but if you stay on top and remove all the coals of trash deer and continue to let your your top end deer, you will you'll you'll still have a ah very good herd, very good genetics. So thirteen like I mean, 40 or 50 acres is not big enough to do that. No. 1,300 acres with 200 plus deer on there. It's going to be a long time for you to have problems with inbred deer and all that. But we do bring in new blood, new
Deer Genetics and Breeding
00:11:38
Speaker
does. I mean, every once in a while, they're just fresh in the bloodline.
00:11:41
Speaker
Oh, so you just bring in new does, you don't have to bring in new bucks in. No, the way we we're managing deer, we have a nice big herd where we shoot our mature deer at 6, 7 years old when they reach peak maturity. What does that look like for whitetail? Is that 180 inch deer? or ah We're all the way up to, we'll have 250 plus. Really? yeah And that's like, are you given a steroids or that's just great protein fed and genetics? That's it. That's managing. That's protein and that's genetics. And a lot of people, I mean, they may or may not know this, but your dough is half the battle. You know, if you got a really good dough that produces good genetics and you mix that dough with a really good book,
00:12:22
Speaker
then your genetics are going to get better, but your dough carries 70% of the genes. See, I never even thought of that. That's such a good point because you're always like, oh, we need to get bigger bucks in here. But like, the do the dough is bread from the same damn dough and buckers. So you need that genetic too. That that makes a lot of sense. I never even thought of that. They're a big part of what you're trying to do.
00:12:42
Speaker
So I saw some thing over here in the fishing game truck. They've got this buck in Pennsylvania. You've seen that buck? It's just it's just whacked out. like it's ah like It's like a world record. 350 bucks, a big club on one side. And it said the guy got busted for illegally smuggling his deer in for Pennsylvania into Texas. And then he got, I think he got 1,300 miles of semen ah confiscated.
00:13:10
Speaker
And he got like millions of dollars in fines. Wow. Texas Parks and Wildlife doesn't mess around with transportation of deer. They take it very seriously. You got a multiple step process from breeding operations to release site people to branches that just do DMP deer. Every deer that has ever bought and transported or trapped in the state of Texas is tagged They're either tattooed or tagged or registered in Texas Parks and Wildlife System. Really? They know exactly where every deer is going now, you know.
00:13:42
Speaker
it legally everybody has to register in their business so you might see people that are trying to do things and we're not deer breeders but we know some and uh... you know it's a it's a money making business but they do they do everything on the right hand and or we wouldn't mess or wouldn't deal with them uh... but you can see anything in in our lifetime now that if it's got money involved you know, somebody may try to try to bend the law a little bit just to get a part piece of that American Dream, read that cash money. So... So what is a deer breeder? He is... Go ahead. Well, is is these guys start mixing all the genetics with their does and their bucks, and then they'll either artificially assimilate them,
00:14:35
Speaker
drawing semen from deer, from breeder bucks, or turn deer out on does that maybe have been artificially disseminated, but they know they get covered. And they'll raise them from a year and a half to two and a half to three and a half, and then they will look to turn and sell those deer to ranches that may have been wiped out, ah whether anthrax maybe, but you know,
00:15:04
Speaker
Anybody who buys a ranch and high fence it wants to improve the genetics on their ranch, they'll normally go in there and harvest all the native deer. and then take these type of deer and put them in there. and a They're essentially the same thing, same minded as we are, but instead of shooting their big deer, they save that big deer and breed it to another group of does so that they can make more big. It's the same same management minded deal, protein and all that, genetics, but instead of shooting their deer, they're just, they're breeding them again to make, just keep growing and getting bigger and bigger deer.
00:15:37
Speaker
And they're always mixing, you know, again, we're not deer breeders, but they're missing mixing genetics here from this doe. Let's see what happens when we mix it with this bug. And then a lot of science and a lot of that's over my head. that so white tail so but like the exotics you can breed them all you want bring them wherever you want it doesn't matter right right listen yeah so white tail is like it's like any other state it's like a protected like regulated animal a native deer so i mean it's a native animal okay it's got regulations and it's they're also worried about that's a whole nother thing when you want to get in a cwd which i'm not really too familiar with but they chronic wasting disease but i'm not too familiar with it's enough to talk about it but
00:16:26
Speaker
back in That's the main reason why Texas Parks and Wildlife is such a hard They're so hard on deer breeders and why they're so consistently trying to track all deer movement and all that. And all the deer before they moved out of their facility, their ranch, their farm, they they have to be tested before they before they get moved. And again, ah we don't, Tracy and I don't want to say anything. We're not deer breeders, but we do do know some. And we may have said something that most, some deer breeders don't believe in. but you know we're just speaking here on a podcast so we do know it's a big business and that's how you can improve a ah deer herd really quick as for what these guys do and you can transform a ranch really really quick with these guys and what they do and provide
00:17:16
Speaker
Is there a limit on how many whitetail you can shoot off your own ranch?
Hunting Tags and Management Permits
00:17:20
Speaker
we're So we're under MLD, with managed landeer. So basically we get to hunt rifle and bow from September 30th, which is our opener, to the end of February. And we get to, since we're not the landowners, but we're the primary managers, we get to apply for how many tags that we want that we think we need to manage a deer herd. So we can get anywhere from It really depends on the year. We'll do a sort a deer survey every year where we get in a helicopter, we fly to the ranch, see how many deer we've got, and then we'll turn that into Texas Parks and Wildlife and then they'll give us a certain amount of tags that we need. We work with a biologist. Now if we weren't under MLD, we could bring, if you had a valid hunting license, you know, you still need a valid hunting license to hunt MLD and use the ranch's tags.
00:18:09
Speaker
But if we weren't under MLD, we could bring in as many people in there as we want. And we would just use the buck tags on on their tag or their license that's issued by the state. Okay, okay. Because you're saying like, but like you were saying like, oh, if you are you want to build your ranch, you just go in there and wipe out the natives. So you could technically if you wanted to, if it's you if it's your, because like I know like and if you're in Montana, you can't just go shoot the deer off your property.
00:18:36
Speaker
But Texas, you can. You can. You have to apply with all kinds of, I mean, you, with biologists and all that to get certified to be able to get MLD, which we have. Okay. And yeah, once you get MLD, you can, you can basically apply for as many tags as you feel like you need for that year. If you want to wipe your native deer out, however native deer you think, shoot them all. If you run out of tags and you still have native deer running around, you can go apply for more. You got until the end of February. Now, to apply for MLD, you can't just go get it the far. You got to have harvest records from the previous years. you have to You have to show improvements on what you've done with the ranch. That could be brush control. That could be adding water. That could be food plots. that you know Protein used to be a big thing, feeding protein. But you know they're sta there's steps that you got to show a history. And that biologist just looks at that. And then they'll issue the the MLD and the permits. Okay, so you actually have a biologist like come out to the ranch and do it and like check on you? They call it a site survey. They had one right around with us before we got this ranch on the MLD, showed them all the brush content, showed them the improvements we made, um showed them all the stock tanks and lakes that we have, you know and then he'll take an assessment of that.
00:19:53
Speaker
and then boom okay you're under MLD here's all the harvest records from the last three or four years and take all that and then uh you know we were able to get MLD this year with those records gotcha so your guys is white tails we're on the white tail still they look like just like normal white tails and Like like white tails I would go hunt like but then when I think high fence I think about some of these like mutant bucks i That's what we try to stay away from okay. That's what I want to know about cuz I walk through the show There's some deer here, and I'm like That doesn't look like those raised in a pen and let out the shot it not see That's that's exactly what we want to go away from our biggest is deer that we're probably gonna get around as a 250 mark I mean that's
00:20:39
Speaker
And we're trying to stay around the typical wide look, dark gray body, dark antlers, that's that's the texas south south Texas style that we want to keep. And that's what the people that we choose to bring in bloodlines for our deer, we make sure that's the kind of bloodlines that they have also. We don't want, like you said, the freak 500 plus inch, however many points, we don't like that look. i don't So that's why we... don't We don't want any pin cushions with pins going. you know But even your native deer, whether it's low fence or or or big high fence ranches, you know if they if they injure and delve it, that could cause a second beam to grow out. It could cause a drop time. You know you you might see that all the time. but
00:21:23
Speaker
to y'all's point, you know, that some, some of them breed for just the big old moose looking, just doesn't look normal. They just want biggest as possible. And a lot of people don't care about that. They just want to say, Hey, I shot a 500 inch deer, which to me, that isn't, I would never do that. But to each their own. I mean, there's a market for that. And they're, you know, they want to shoot that. That's fine. Yeah. But like Chase said, we try to stay with the big mainframe. A typical deer might have some mule deer forks, might have a kicker, might have a drop time. of you know Just something ah more typical. Yeah, and I don't care what people want. If you want to hunt and pay for it, you go hunt whatever you want. I don't care. Yeah.
Role of Guides and Year-Round Ranch Management
00:22:04
Speaker
So some of those big giant deer, I mean, you're basically, they're paying for that deer, right? I mean, it's not like, like if I go out with you guys,
00:22:12
Speaker
I mean I guess you probably have some target bucks as well, but a lot of times you're probably going out and you're hunting and you know the bucks come in and you're looking at them and just like a typical hunt I would have if I went anywhere in the country, right? Like just coming in. We have set deer that we would like to take. I mean ones that have reached maturity or ones that maybe they're five years old but they're 50 inches smaller than a three-year-old that we have out there that's we call it a management deer so we want them out it's just i mean it's it's all management so throughout trail game season or throughout the summer and we're watching them grow i hear pretty soon we'll start putting together a hit list of deer that we want trophy type deer to management type deer to our cull type deer just deer we want out and to deer that are trophies that
00:22:53
Speaker
Obviously, you know, people. And that's because those five-year-old deer are probably bullying the other deer and breeding your does and you want them out of there. I would much rather have a two-year-old with much better potential trying to chase around a doe than a five-year-old that's 120 inches that's not gonna, his kids aren't gonna be anything like that two-year-old.
00:23:12
Speaker
So I mean, this is like a full-time job. Oh, yeah. You guys are managing this 1,300 acres. It's a year round. Year round, managing it, checking it out, doing it, making sure it's going good. and Checking feed, checking fence lines is a big thing. Keeping up with brush control. I mean, doing exotic counts. We hunt exotics year round. That's one thing about the exotics. You still have to have a license, but you don't need to tag the exotics. But that's a year round. You know, we can hunt those year round.
00:23:42
Speaker
So I want to get on to those. I want to hear a little more of the whitetails. So you're not raising them in a pen letting them go if you worship them. No, these are going to be pasture born. And that does. Oh, they're going to be out there. That does happen. I mean, there's ranches around here where you can go and be like, Hey, I want that. I'm not going to name names or anything, but there's some here in this building that they raised them in their pens. Week before or legally, you're supposed to have all your deer out of your pens two weeks before season opens.
00:24:10
Speaker
So I talked to I talked to a guy he wouldn't come on the pod cuz he's like I don't want my I don't want it cuz like he's like Yeah, we'll get your you know, whatever your sheep whatever it is and then You know that we're gonna do a pen and then we'll get him used to your deer and we'll get him used to the feeder Yeah, and then we'll let him go once they don't want to use that noise then we'll let him go and then you go out and kill this animal on the bad look And we don't Personally know anybody like me we we abide by all the rules, Texas Parks and Wildlife You know like Trey said Those deer have to be released with a certain time before you start now If you you can get deer later if you had to bring some in but they get their horns are cut off You know that oh really? Yeah, they use them for DMP deer. Yeah, so it's basically breeding, but I
00:25:02
Speaker
Not as, ah you go ahead and tell them. I know out of state, in Texas you can't do it, but I've heard stories from out of state that a day or two before the hunter arrives, they'll just open the gate and let another old bat another batch of deer out of there. Personally, I haven't witnessed that. don't know you know I've just heard that from other hunters, but Texas is a lot more strict on their rules than hunting rules. So if you wanted to add bucks to your herd later on the year, they'd actually saw the antlers off. No, the horns will be sawed off. That's pretty cool. Keeps it keeps everybody honest. Let's talk about blinds and feeders and all that stuff, because that's all foreign to me.
00:25:44
Speaker
how but I mean, some of these feeders are running, you're running like 500 pounds in them. 2,000 pound protein gravity feeders that we keep full year round. So that's for mainly throughout the summer when white tail are growing, obviously. But then through the winter, you're going to have your main axis bucks that are going to be growing. So you want them on feed and then it doesn't hurt to keep all the animals on protein. I mean, protein is good. So we keep protein feeders year round.
00:26:09
Speaker
Corn feeders, we have a thousand pound all season standing fields out there. They go off twice a day, morning and evening, and then we'll, that just kind of. It makes it easier to pattern. and once Once we start getting into hunting mode, every one all of our guides, we have tailgate feeders. And we may be setting out a blind that has three cinderos, roads, cleared paths. And we'll go down there and feed all those. You may have hogs come in on one road. You may have some whitetail. And you may have some exotics that it kind of keeps them spread out. but once ah And we we do it now when we kind of go scout. But once hunting season gets here, we're we're putting out a lot of corn. And the first thing one of our hunters, you know, when they sit in the deer blind, hey, when's that feeder go off? When they just watched me put out 30 pounds of corn or 40 pounds of corn on three different roads. But, you know, they're accustomed to coming in and saying, darn deer season, we have our feeders go off at 4.30 in the evening. That's just how we've always done it. 7.15 in the morning.
00:27:08
Speaker
And, you know, you'll, you'll lose time with the feeders or just, Oh, yeah. I mean, when they go off dinner bell, or is it like rattling noise? Basically, whatever that corner, that's better, but yeah, they I'd rather call it a rattling noise in a dinner. Yeah. It's.
00:27:26
Speaker
that corn's hitting on that spin plate and it's spinning and i mean it it makes a lot of noise and chunks a lot of corn how much i mean where does it drop like 20 pounds or something or it depends you can it's like all seasons of the brand we always use it's a great feeder brand you got the they have the timer is what they call you can go in there and put i believe six feet times and you can go all the way from one to 30 seconds of that fake spinning so we always stick around the six to eight seconds and that's probably dropping 5 pounds of corn, something like that, it maybe 10. It all depends on you know your lower unit, how far it's set off the corn. During deer season we may turn them up a little bit, but you know the the corn feeders are very essential. And the protein, like Trey said, i mean we want our fawns when they hit the ground.
00:28:16
Speaker
But they're hitting the ground now. we want them to be able to We want them to be on protein from day one as soon as they can start getting to it because that's just going to give them a bigger, better, better, faster start than maybe you know their mom or their dad when they they didn't have protein. So it's very important to keep a ah feed program going and stay consistent with it. We also do food plots, which is basically for us is just winter oats and winter wheat and oats. okay we have we We have one big 40-acre field with a pivot. That's our main oat field. And then October-ish, late September, right before a big rain, we'll go in and throw like ryegrass or oats on a bunch of cinderos. So that way we do have greenery coming up throughout the year. Man, I'm super glad they're doing this gator show right now, just shouting in the background. You guys got the booth. It's right next to it. so
00:29:08
Speaker
Fifteen hundred pounds you keep them fed all year. I mean how much how many pounds of feed you guys go through here? Oh? Yeah, quite a bit you know on a month. We'll probably average about a 14,000 or 14,000 pounds about seven tons a month a month seven You know it'll it'll it'll fuck a deer will tell you when they're hungry If you got if you get good rains and have natural forage and the brush is blooming your protein it'll last a lot longer. So your deer and your animals will tell you when they're hungry. And you can kind of sense that too when we know we're not getting any rain and it's dry. So in drier months you're going to see that protein consumption go up higher. wetter When it gets wetter, it'll go down a little bit. But on average, I mean, we're in that either side of that 14,000 pound range every month. and What does that cost, like ah that kind of protein? so On average, we had a gentleman approach the booth earlier talking to us about protein. you know on that On that average right there, around that 14,000 pounds, we're pay that's roughly about 3,000 a month just on the protein.
00:30:19
Speaker
and the labor and all that stuff. I mean, there's a reason why these hunches cost five grand, six grand, seven grand. A lot of stuff that goes into it. And we tell people too, you know, they come down for four days and they've been thinking about that for 365 days. And so we as outfitters, we go 365. It's not, there's never really an off time, especially when you're growing, growing, and producing big animals during the summertime.
00:30:46
Speaker
And then a lot of deer hunters, you know, they kind of, at February, early spring, late late winter, early spring, they're not thinking about whitetail. But now as it starts getting closer, schools getting ready to start, dove seasons getting ready to start, I better start thinking about whitetail. So, you know, we go 365. Okay.
00:31:07
Speaker
So yeah, I mean that kind of makes a lot more sense for that. What about water? Are you guys running in like with like troughs with like or like fill buckets or whatever? This particular ranch, we're blessed. We have so much surface water. We we do have some water troughs and we have three or four We call them tanks or um just body of water that we can feed with ah with our wells. We have private wells on the ranch. Same thing that feeds our pivot. Same thing that feeds the house. So we can keep three or four of them level year round and all the other one. I think we've got somewhere around 60. If everything's full, we'll have about 70, 75 acres of water. Surface water. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Right now we're down with we haven't had as much rain. So we're probably down the 30 to 40 acres of water right now. So you're not having to put a bunch of like tanks in with them with the bit the big plastic truck, the water trucks and that stuff. we and and We're blessed. We have some, there's water spread out and throughout the whole round. I have to imagine water's probably just as important, if not more important than the protein. The main goal in growing big deer is to try to keep deer as less stressed out as possible. So if you can have feed and water and cover as close together as you can. So whether that deer doesn't have to do anything but eat during,
00:32:21
Speaker
sleep all summer long, he's going to grow a bigger set of antlers. Really? and You know, having an ample supply of water. They'll help the digestive part of it and the deer will consume more protein, so it it helps each other out. and i said one of the One of the biggest things about this ranch, as Tracy was saying earlier, the surface water. it's From the smaller tanks to one of our lakes, when it's full it's probably 30 plus acres. Really, that helps the waterfowl helps the wildlife, the quail population, um you know, and then having the pivot and always being able to maintain ah ah at least in three or four of our tanks, lakes, we can keep it, they'll never go
Exotic Hunting in Texas
00:33:08
Speaker
dry. So, so you probably couldn't keep this operation going just on whitetail hunts.
00:33:16
Speaker
It's one of our bigger things. You talked about doves, waterfowl, quail. Think about that. Are you running hunters, 365, doing other kind of animals too? The 365 pretty much goes to the exotics. We will do some dove hunts in September because we've got a lot of doves right now. Is it a limits down here though? Huh? There are limits on dove in Texas. Yes, 15 a day. Just like this, it's nationwide, right? Yeah. Okay, so it's simple. 15 a day and you can't have more than 45 in your possession. 15 a day. After every three days, if you're hunting a week long, you got to eat them or give them... You can't have more than 45 in your possession. We tell our dove hunters, if you come do a day hunt with us, which we do those, you limit out in the morning, legally you're done that day. So some people
00:34:01
Speaker
They'll shoot seven in the morning and eight in the afternoon, or they'll just do an afternoon hunt, get there early, do a little bass fishing, and then get their limit in the afternoon because you let you can't you can't shoot twice your limit in a single day. Got you. And then we do lodge groups, too, where they come in for three days. We do all the cooking, take care of their birds, offer a skeet shoot. They get three ah three dove hunts, either on a travel or a flyway.
00:34:28
Speaker
or one of our grain fields, or one of the tanks, know and we'll take care of all the birds and we'll package them and they can go home with the 45 in their possession. So how does that work with the grain field? Because you're taking a lot of big doves, right? It's a farm again. It's a farm product. We planted milo and millet back in April, somewhere around there. And we have that pivot going to keep it going. they're It's starting to head out now. um man Okay, then you'll farm it, you'll harvest it, you run the whole thing. It's extremely illegal if you've got a milo and a millet field and you've got corn out there. I mean, you can't bait for does. You can't hunt anywhere near a corn feeder. yeah It's like 100 yards, I believe, will send a corn feeder. And a game warden can use their discretion on that. but know If they think, you know we know where the doves are flying, going to a water source in the evening. But there's a corn feeder over there. And no, they're coming to.
00:35:32
Speaker
But you know we we follow all the rules, and and we don't want any issues with the game warden. They're always welcome in our camp to check our check on our hunters and our cooler. That dude right there is studying to be a game warden, so yeah hey know he's watching us. Oh, yeah. We don't want to do anything that he can use against us later. Later on, he'll be super nice to him? Yeah, well, I don't know about nice. So what is ah what does the exotics look like? what is that like It's a great industry. It really is because you can go
00:36:07
Speaker
anybody's dream animal where you get once yeah once a long time ago we had to go on a plane where ride for what 13 hours to Africa spend a week there spend money getting your animal back you can drive down the road to Texas and you can find anything you want I mean as we've you guys got zebras you got traps you got everything we can get all of it I mean whatever you want that's it's such a it's a very big industry from the people that trap to the people that hunt them to sell them it's a it's a pretty cool deal to learn about and It's fun hunting them. I mean, it's not just that way. You don't have, you can hunt year round. For guys, it's awesome. You don't have to hunt just during deer season. So you can do spot and stalk for nil guy, which is my favorite. You got axis deer, which is probably if you asked anybody, that's their favorite deer. Favorite exotic. It's just, they're all great eating animals and it just makes for hunting year round. So you don't have to just wait for just white tail deer season.
00:37:00
Speaker
So now those ones, are they like on this ranch you guys have right now, the 1300 acres, are those this free range animals? No, no, no we're everything inside of our 1300 acres is in, is in the 1300 acres. That's what I'm saying. They're free range in that. thursday this time yeah That's what I mean. like I see free ranges like they're not like growing it like you there. They're having babies on that. They're having baby. That's all. Yeah, you see a pasture board it means they're born out on that ranch that means born when I mean pasture born, I mean
00:37:30
Speaker
That no human has ever come in contact with the baby. Gotcha. Gotcha. It is ever as wild as can be. and it's It's pasture born. From our black buck, our axis, our fallow, our nail guy. you know we all we We have our orcs going you know in our Simbok and Gensbok breeding our orcs.
00:37:52
Speaker
we We see babies, that's our future right there, and they're going to grow up to be, you know, whether we cull them out as management or they're going to grow up to be trophy exotics.
00:38:04
Speaker
gotcha and you're not um Are you having to bring more into the ranch or is it just pretty much, that they're pretty much there and you got a good enough herd? It's the same thing as Whitetail basically when the management comes into mind. You want to make sure you have the right amount of does, the buck to doe ratio. Make sure you're keeping the better genetics in the herd and taking out, like he said, management deer. Hey, we just did a management, gosh, dang, that's loud. We just did a management access hunt a week ago and it was a great, it was actually a really good story, disabled veteran came down, shot one, it was awesome time.
00:38:37
Speaker
But it go ahead. No, I was just like Tracy saying our our management there You know, some folks may not be able to afford the trophy in but they can come down and shoot a nice representation of that that's specific species for a lower ah price and that may be that may fit their budget so it allows you know us to reach different oh clientele, hey, that's i can I can make that work. Okay, well, let's come down here and do that. And like Trey said, we frontline heroes. Frontline heroes. Brought a ah veteran down and they had a young daughter, Emory, seven years old, was battling leukemia. So it may made the whole, the hunt was worth it just because the veteran and his services,
00:39:27
Speaker
but All of us got to know and become closer to Emory. He's wearing a couple of... Her bracelets. Her bracelets. Emory Strong. She's been better at it. Very touching deal. And it's something these young guys will never forget.
00:39:46
Speaker
just seeing her and the smiles on her faces with her dad after each harvest, you know, the management axis and then they ah shot an axis doe and she was all a part of that. Took her mind away from what she's dealing with and that that was that was very special.
00:40:02
Speaker
Yeah, you guys run kids any age down here, right? Is there an age thing? No, we I mean, wein we and you know we specialize in corporate hunts, but we also- Meeting, you bringing your work, bringing like five guys or something, 10 guys.
Catering to Different Hunting Experiences
00:40:15
Speaker
Anybody's business wants to have clients come down and hunt. That's mainly what we do, but he was going to say we family hunting is Cuz those kids are our future. yeah I mean, they're they're the ones, we gotta to get them at a younger age. And that's how he started, you know right by my side, my daughter. you know his He grew up hunting with his uncles and his dad. Those are our future hunters, so those are the ones that we want. you know we and We encourage hunting and bringing the family down when we're set up for family and corporate.
00:40:49
Speaker
And those kids, is there an age limit on kids down here hunting? No. There's not. I mean, my kid got his first buck when he was six, and I was like, holy these smokes. I can't even imagine that. We definitely want to make sure they know what they're doing, for one. They're trained around guns. they They've shot before, at least. But I don't want anybody to bring your kid to the ranch and be like, hey, he's never even shot a gun before. I'm like, whoa, OK.
00:41:10
Speaker
But we had had we've had parents bring their two-year-old, I mean, they stay at camp. But when they they feel they're old enough to go go hunting with them, it's the parents' decision. And like Trey said, we're not gonna take any any chances on ah on ah on a young youngster pulling the trigger that's never fired.
00:41:29
Speaker
yeah we tell when any Anytime our hunters come down, whether they're adults or whatever, we always shoot their guns. and our We have ah have a gun range ah because these folks have been they paid for this hunt.
00:41:41
Speaker
oh waiting to for a year. And so when they get down there, we're shooting they're shooting to make sure they're on. And you could tell a lot of by a person how they handle their gun and and how they shoot around at the gun range. If you got a guy that's nervous, and you know you can kind of he might be nervous in the deer blind. So the same way with the with a youngster, we want to see the kids shoot, whether he or she is sitting on the dad's lap or whatever. i mean But it's ah ultimately up to the the parents.
00:42:12
Speaker
So you talk about guys being nervous. Do you have any stories where you're just like, Oh man, that was a nightmare. Oh yeah. I mean, I won't name any names, but, uh, I'm just curious. You guys have to do a lot of hunters, and you know you do kinds a different you know, from different personalities to, and as a guide, you got to adjust to that. If this guy didn't talk a lot, you may, you don't need to talk a lot. I mean, if he, he talks, you got to answer his questions. I mean, they, they may have,
00:42:41
Speaker
90 questions the first morning you go sit or the first and that's what you're there for you're there to inform them and eat the build their confidence up and yeah we're you know we're this is what we're after this is what we're doing feeder goes off at 430 in the afternoon we always see deer you know your it's or some people would just sit there or on their phones nowadays you know unless it's got a the ringtone on but I've seen I've seen grown men Uh, when the target deer comes in and just start shaking so bad that, you know, you you physically, you got to calm them down. You got the your calm, deep breath. You don't pull the trigger, squeeze the trigger, take a deep breath and you talk them into a good shot. But I mean, it happens with everybody. And and when I think when you lose that feeling of getting so excited about harvesting an animal, you're probably not wanting to hunt anymore. yeah Everybody goes through that. You got to work your way. I mean, I still get.
00:43:41
Speaker
I think I get more nervous shooting a coal book than you know a big trophy because I may want to shoot it in the in the neck, save the meat, but that's the exciting part for me. and If an a hunter loses that, you know then they probably don't have a reason to hunt anymore.
00:43:57
Speaker
yeah so but i hundred percent yeah and Like I always appreciate like, I don't, I haven't had a lot of guides. I've i've done a few things getting out with them and learning from them. And I always tell people all the time, we first get into hunting, like go hunt with a guy, go learn how to, for one, kill an animal for two, they're going to, you're going to get.
00:44:17
Speaker
You down here, geez Louise, you're getting 360 days worth of of a knowledge in one week where you're just starting out. you know It might take you a lifetime to get that knowledge. You guys are getting into one year. That's another beautiful thing about hyphants. You can sit in a blind and I can teach you about 10 different species. You can learn so much about all these different kind of animals rather than a low fence.
00:44:38
Speaker
learning I mean nothing wrong with learning about low fence. I'm learning about high or learning about white tail But you can learn it so much more in a high fence than you can in a low fence and we so and we still oh We do low fence hunting as well. Just just not we're currently not doing it right now but like Trey said you got all the you know, the animals are there and You know what you can teach a hunter, especially ah a raw hunter that doesn't really know a lot of stuff, they're gonna leave there with a world of knowledge and they're gonna tell me, like and Grace sitting with Trace, Grace great sitting with JJ, they taught me a lot about hunting, taught me a lot about the animals and the species, had a really good time hunting with those, they took care of every one of my needs, and that's what you wanna hear from a hunter. Because, generally, you take care of everything that you you're in control of.
00:45:27
Speaker
you know from guiding to having a cooler ready, you know having bottled water, being up at a certain time when when you tell the hunters the food that we cook, the accommodations, you can control all that. Now whether that animal steps out, that depends on the weather, depends on the temperature. you know I've seen it a full moon in 95 degrees in December, or I've seen it freezing in October, and that has a lot to do, you know get a big old animal if it's hot,
00:45:56
Speaker
and they don't you know it's probably going to be real early in the morning or late in the evening weather's good or if you're during the rut you're going to have stuff moving for whitetail you're going to have stuff moving all the time so the hunter needs to learn those situations too it's not just we're going to go to this blind and kill this deer sometimes you got to hunt So if you have like some advice for people going to use a guide, what would your
Guides' Tips and Conclusion
00:46:19
Speaker
advice be? Because I know you guys don't like to hear us, I paid for this. Don't guide the guide is what I've been told. Don't guide the guide. Don't guide the guide. I mean that's what they do for a living. yeah and they They know that ranch, they know those animals more than
00:46:36
Speaker
Not saying, I mean, they know more than the hunters gonna know. I mean, that's just plain the same. He may have a very experienced hunter, and ah he may disagree with it. But I tell, I do an orientation when our hunters come into camp. We get them all settled in, do an orientation. And I tell them, all my guides are in charge in the field. You have an issue, bring them back, but they know what they're doing.
00:46:58
Speaker
And then you know if you're a hunter looking for a new guide or trying a new outfit, do background checks. We offer plenty of references. And then I know other outfitters do that. If you're getting ready to spend on hard-earned money, you know do your research. oh you know References are good. and don't just you know Sometimes you get what you pay for. It might be a little bit cheaper, but the lodging may be terrible. The guide may not even show up when they say they are. so you got to you get when you're doing When you're trying to plan a hunt, you know these shows are perfect. You can interact with us. we We feel like if we have a conversation, a good conversation, oh and two hours later the hunter comes back and asks more questions, you can kind of tell he's pretty pretty serious with you. A lot of times they'll take a lot of our literature
00:47:47
Speaker
along with other literature because of the Outfitters they'll go home and a week or so later they'll they'll put our stuff together compared to this compared to this and they'll say hey we you know we you can book more hunts two weeks after a show because they're gonna go take and and do their research any hunter that books with an Outfitter I mean even if you go least least country as a lease hunter you know Do your research on the landowner and what happened in the past is because you're getting ready to invest in that land ah to be a lease owner. Same thing as an outfitter. Just do your research. Gotcha. You guys were all afraid to do a podcast for 44. We're already almost in an hour right now. It's fun. you guys Start talking about hunting. oh yeah i mean That's all it is. That's what we do. We live it, breathe it, and you know no it it's what we do.
00:48:37
Speaker
So yeah, I'm excited. I want to come down home with you guys. We always end with a hunting story. Who wants to tell a hunting story? He's got a lot more than I do, and it was a hell of a lot longer. He does a campfire. Give me that campfire story when you're telling your clients you're on the campfire. Give me that campfire story. Oh, wow. So many that. What do you want, whitetail or? I don't care. You've been charged by an exotic? I don't know. Give me something. I mean, I got a lot of them, but that's kind of just caught me off guard.
00:49:05
Speaker
You know, I've hunted i've hunted with ah professional athletes. Really? I've hunted. Can you name drop those or no? No, probably not. um um
00:49:17
Speaker
Let's see, a good good story. His name rhymes with Psalm Rady. No, it is. I mean, i I've hunted with Dallas Cowboy players and theyve they were brought down or I've guided them or been in camp with them. and what One of the funnier ones and he he's a professional was a professional baseball player and I was scouting for him. His son, he brought all four of his sons down and I was sitting in a tripod and I made it. This was years ago when I just guided. I was just a guide.
00:49:49
Speaker
and I said, hey, there's there's a really good deer down there. Well, here comes the caravan with the dad and the boys. And I'm um umm in safe distance in the tripod, but I can see the buck. Like a tripod blind. Tripod blind. I'm up out of the air, out of the out of the way. the deer The deer, the target deer, and the sun, this is like four or five times. A caravan is up that you ride in and shoot out of, right? Yeah, well, here comes here comes the dad, the three other brothers. Oh, it's hilarious for a UTV. Yeah. The group shows up.
00:50:20
Speaker
Well, the kid, the young man, he misses four times, and the professional baseball, the dad, has to run back to the truck, and he kind of tweaks the hamstring of going to get more shells. But eventually, the young man got the deer, but I mean, I've got other ones. That that one just pops into mind right now. It probably wasn't a good one, but oh And I'll tell you some ones that are hard. you know We've had some people come down that have been involved in a an accident and they're not quite the same as what they were.
00:50:56
Speaker
and oh get a big deer and the emotions that they have with that deer you know takes over the whole camp those those are very touching moments you know young Emory that hunted with these guys a ah week or so ago on that you know you'll never these guys will never forget that because there's always somebody going through something oh internally, family-wise, health-wise, and to make ah make an impact on their lives, whether three or four days, they're never going to forget that. so
00:51:31
Speaker
oh been blessed to do this for a long time and been been around some really, really cool hunts. I've done TV shows where we've been on hunts. didn't These guys actually, if I can keep talking, nickname called me Bert. Well, the first TV show I ever did is probably 20 something years ago, it was a night in hell. And we're doing the end end of the end of the hunt interview And you know I don't remember which one it was. or We're down here with Burt. My name's Brett. We're down here with Burt Ferguson. Well, I didn't say, oh, timeout, cut.
00:52:08
Speaker
Well, that it aired like that. So as soon as it aired in July, my buddy, hey, Bert, I want to book a 25 man, have a Lena hunt. So Bert, that's how Bert got started, was on TV because I didn't say, wait a minute, my name's Brett. I just went there, guy was so nervous on TV that I just let it go. So, you know, Hunter with David Blanton from Realtree, he could tell I was nervous and going to a bond to get him on the deer we he wanted to get with a bow. And he could tell I was nervous and he was putting his coveralls on to get the bow hunting. And he leaned over and goes, ah hey, Brett, does my butt look big in these pants? Broke the ice right there. you know And those those memories I'll never forget. that's awesome And having my kids, believe it or not, when he first started hunting, he sat right here. My daughter did too. But going to see them and
00:53:02
Speaker
Maybe watching him bow hunting and I'm going to tower blind and him erroring his first deer. You'll never forget that stuff. Yeah. I can tell you that this is hunting down here and the tradition is.
00:53:16
Speaker
I don't want to say deep, though we got our west but it's deep. It runs deep. It's it's a part of this culture culture. It's a part of this great state of Texas, and it's just been so awesome talking to you guys, Brett and Trace. um Double T Outfitters, where can we find you? Where can people with if people want come down? like i'm My father-in-law wants to come down. I'm going to tell him to come book with you guys.
00:53:34
Speaker
He wants to do a hunt, I know he does. Facebook, we're on, we got a website, doubletoutfitters.net. Doubletoutfitters is our Facebook. I have an Instagram page, I named it LostLagunasRanch, it's the Instagram. And you can always give us a call, I don't know if you could say our phone number on here. I don't care who you are. 210-784-0351, you can always give me a call and I'd be glad to answer any questions you'll have, and maybe book a hunt or something. Yeah, it was broke at home. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. Thanks, guys. All right. Yeah, you guys are freaking podcasters now. Awesome. That was fun. Thank you for listening to the Tricer podcast. Do us a favor and like and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on. Give us a follow on Instagram and Facebook at TricerUSA and go and check out all of our innovative gear at www.tricerusa.com. Until next time, shoot straight, have fun, and always put God first.