I was setting among a group of very veteran outdoorsmen at an event this past weekend and the subject of great shots made and missed while hunting through the years was brought up. Without exception each of us had our tales. Some, like my friend Larry Weishuhn, had stories to share from his years hunting across the globe in faraway places hunting big game animals I have only read about.
Larry related a hunt for mule deer when he was using a rifle and ammo with which he was very familiar and practiced with, making an 800-yard shot on a bedded Coues deer buck. Larry also stated that he doesn’t recommend taking such shots but he had practiced a great deal using quality Hornady ammo and felt comfortable he and his equipment were up to the extreme shot. His first shot hit just over the buck’s back and with a minor adjustment of the scope, the second shot was right on target.
Larry also recalled when he missed a big South Texas buck that came into his antler rattling. The deer was a scant 20 yards away. This is testament to how exciting antler rattling can be.
In Larry’s own words, “I just got RATTLED when he came charging out of the brush.”
My earliest recollection of a great shot was at a nuisance armadillo that was tearing up our front yard up when I was about nine. Armed with a little single shot J.C. Higgings .22 loaded with a short, my dad and I sneaked up on the armadillo, and the flashlight came on. The startled critter made a dash for the house, heading to an opening in the foundation. He was running wide open and I squeezed the trigger just as he reached the house. With a lucky shot, I dropped him as he was about to disappear under the house.
My dad made a big deal out of the lucky shot and told it around campfires for quite some time. I always loved to hear about me being an expert armadillo exterminator with that little rifle! The shot was a great confidence builder for a young hunter.
And then with that same little .22 I was aiming at a squirrel perched high in the branches of a very tall white oak. The wind was blowing and the branch the squirrel perched in was gently swaying back and forth. I timed my shot perfectly with the movement of the limb and made a perfect head shot on the bushytail. Looking back I was lucky to bag the squirrel at all, but, again, my confidence was bolstered and I was beginning to think I was a born sharpshooter.
After a lot more hunting and shooting I discovered luck and skill are two completely different things. I later had some expert rifle training thanks to Marine Corp. bootcamp and became a fair rifle shot.
But we all vividly remembered some of those difficult shots that will forever be etched in our memory banks as well as misses we should have made but didn’t. A couple years ago, I was hunting with another great friend Jeff Rice on his ranch in East Texas. Deer season was nearing the end and we both had plenty of venison in the freezer. I came up with the idea of procuring a few squirrels and making a cast iron skillet full of smothered squirrel rice and gravy. The problem was we had only our deer rifles, nary a shotgun or light rifle suitable for hunting squirrel. Then Jeff remembered his single action .22 revolver. We had neglected the squirrels that fall while deer hunting and the woods were full of them. There I learned how effective a good pistol shot can be with an iron-sighted revolver.
I was armed with a video camera and Jeff with his little revolver we entered the winter woods. I won’t say Jeff killed a squirrel every time he pulled the trigger but after about 45 minutes of banging away at bushytails, we had the making for a very fine squirrel dinner. There are easier things to hunt than a wary cat squirrel with a handgun in the winter when all the foliage is off the trees but, as they say, where there’s a will, there’s a way!
One of my favorite stories to tell around the campfire is about a desert mule deer hunt way out in the Trans Pecos country of West Texas. I had been invited to hunt a ranch that had a very good population of mule deer that were well managed and infrequently hunted. Mule deer are not like whitetail; they don’t always spook and disappear when encountered. I was shooting a muzzleloader and, to make a long story short, the wind had blown about half the seventy grains of powder away while I was loading at camp. This I didn’t discover until I leveled the rifle on the biggest mule deer of my career.
The percussion cap fired and rather than the loud KA-Boom that should have followed, the shot sounded more like a .22 rifle discharging. I immediately knew what I had done wrong, ducked behind a rock and reloaded, this time making sure all the powder went down the barrel. This epic miss was followed by a well-placed shot that dropped the big buck. This hunt was memorable not only for missing but also the harvest of a really big mule deer. Of course, while telling this story around the campfire, I seldom mention the part about missing -- after all, how could I have been successful with only a half charge of powder, right?
Duck hunting report
Texas duck hunting prospects are favorable, with recent rains improving habitat conditions and a good number of early-arriving teal reported, though overall duck populations are just average. Coastal marshes and rice fields in the east are expected to be productive due to improved aquatic vegetation, while inland water sources have become more appealing to ducks.
Hunters should ensure they have a valid Texas hunting license, migratory game bird stamp, federal duck stamp, and HIP certification for the 2025-2026 season.
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