I had a great time on the Bar J this season hunting with the McSwain's. The ranch is for sale and its future is uncertain, so this season I grabbed my video camera and filmed all of them hunting. The best hunting story of the year was Mark and Dave's bulls. I first saw these two bulls in August and we named them Big 5 and Freak Daddy but then we lost them for a bit. Being older bulls they knew there was no reason to get active too soon with the cows.
While alone scouting during the middle of the week later in September, I located these two bulls locked up in a battle over a big cow herd. The next morning we made a game plan, but to our horror Freak Daddy snapped off his right beam above the second tine and Big 5 was off somewhere else with the cows. We elected to pass on him that morning but we looked in the area and did in fact locate his broken beam. The next morning Mark shot him and we duct taped his antler back on for photos. his right side was strong and his left was deficient giving him a lot of eyeball character.
The next day we were able to locate Big 5 with his cows but not in a good position for a stalk. That evening we set Dave up and Big 5 moved his cows down to the fields and Dave made a great one shot kill. This bull doesn't disappoint either in the character category. He is a long heavy beam 5x5 but really more of a 4x5 that grosses 337".
It ended up being one of the better seasons for big bulls as a group. Mike shot a super old 7x7 that has been on the CWMU for several years. Jesse shot a fantastic big back end 365" bull and Colton got a 455" bull he has been trying to kill for three years now we named Lucky. He has nine lives on the ranch.
