Current News

March on Tarbone Ranch

In the meantime, the grasses and food plot alfalfa and clovers have really been growing. The deer and elk are hitting the new greenery hard and I am glad. They were making short work of the protein feed in the new feeders during the ice storm and long winter. Most of the bucks have shed their antlers and we are finding some nice ones. It is one of the most exciting times of year, looking for the newly fallen sheds for little while almost every day. There is nothing quite like putting your hands on a new shed for the first time, knowing you are the first person to touch them. I will be posting some new pictures of the sheds soon.

We had four successful trophy bison bull hunts during late February and early March. Young Wyatt Mountain took a huge old bull after a long tracking job in the mud. The bison have been spending most of their time in the woods since the bad winter weather has been sticking around. He could hide, but not from us.

Two big bulls were taken with the Smith & Wesson .500 round. One from the new Thompson-Center Omega carbine barrel and the other from the S&W revolver. Both did a very nice job of dispatching the bulls quickly. The fourth bull was taken by Steve Scott of “The Outdoor Guide” TV show. He used a T/C Icon in .300 Win Mag with a DRT frangible bullet. The bullet hit the big bullʼs heart and literally exploded it. This was the quickest kill I have witnessed with a bison bull. The bull ran like mad, but only about 40 yd and went down dead with no bleeding because his pump was shattered. I have seen lots of them go down quicker, but none were actually dead quicker. It was a very impressive round.

Tammy and I took a few days off and traveled south to Lakes Falcon and Amistad for a little fishing action. We had good action too with Falcon producing several bass over 7 pounds up to 9#. Amistad was good for lots of 2-5 pound bass too in spite of heavy winds during our trip. We love that lake.

It is finally starting to get warmer now and we are glad. I am planning to plant several acres of summer food plots to lab lab and hoping it produces a good crop of summer time forage for the animals. I have never been home during the spring planting season while on the BASS Tour, so this is the first real attempt to make good summer food plots. Weʼll see how good a farmer I am.

The warm weather has also gotten my fishing bug to bite pretty hard, so thatʼs another good reason to be done with the tree surgeon work. As a matter of fact, I think I will go fishing tomorrow. I hope you can do what you like tomorrow, too.