Old Deer Stand

[big john o]

This last weekend, we went to the lease for some last minute maintenance before rifle season starts. There are about 50 acres on our place which we have never wandered around in because it is too thick. Earlier this year, Marathon came in and drilled another well, and in doing so clear cut about 6 acres. As I walked through the woods surrounding this area, I thought to myself that I could possibly be the only person to ever set foot here. Then I spotted an old deer stand. This stand looked to be 30 to 40 years old, and in the middle of a previously unbeliievably inaccesable place. Who built it, how long ago, what did these woods look like then, where any deer killed......? As rediculous as it sounds, I was completely fascinated by this find. Has anyone else ever stumbled upon something in the woods which sparked your imagination?

[ber72]

That is neat stuff. I've sometimes walked though areas of the woods and think "man this would be a great place to set up a stand" then look around and find old tree pegs going up the side of an oak treein the exact same area.

[Seemorehinie]

I use to wander thru the woods from Champions on 1960 all the way to where Willobrook mall is now...must have been 3 or 4 old deer stands back in the mid 70's...wild pigs...i miss it.

[TXPalerider]

This is BY FAR the most interesting thing I've ever found in the woods.

Shot a deer with my pistol a few years back. While I was following the blood trail I ran across this headstone from the mid 1800's. I can't remember the exact dates. But, it was a woman that died at 59 years old.

[pevotva]

Found the remains of an old house and well were I hunt. The house has a sandstone curb down in the ground about 4'. Most of the old timber is gone but there is a 5' diameter well that is deep enough that a maglight wont light the bottom. It is covered by a old metal sign. It has the name of the original owners on some of the sandstone bricks. Pretty neat stuff.

[haparks]

i also found a grave yard way back in the woods in spring texas back in the late 70's early 80's and some of the head stones were from the 1800,s

This is BY FAR the most interesting thing I've ever found in the woods.

Shot a deer with my pistol a few years back. While I was following the blood trail I ran across this headstone from the mid 1800's. I can't remember the exact dates. But, it was a woman that died at 59 years old.

[michaelbaranowski]

I have stubbled onto several old stands. When I hunt a place I spend alot of time in the woods after the season and during the summer. Finding old cars and tractors have probably been the best.

[Woodrow]

big john o, heck yea! I love finding old stands and wondering what they've seen. Just this weekend I was out at Cypress Lakes playing golf w/ family and on the back 9 (can't remember which hole) there was an oak tree with big rusty nails leading up the trunk and a rotten 2x4 in the main split. Was it a treehouse? An old tree stand? I don't know...but there aren't many native looking trees on that course which makes me think it was some kids treehouse, but there are certainly deer in the area...so I just don't know...


I use to wander thru the woods from Champions on 1960 all the way to where Willobrook mall is now...must have been 3 or 4 old deer stands back in the mid 70's...wild pigs...i miss it.
Been there, done that, but after you. I grew up in Champions Park...we roamed the woods with our pellet guns from Cutten to across the tracks going west and then from Richardson to past Cypresswood going north. That was in the late 80's. I never knew there were pigs back there though. We mostly just explored on our bikes and shot some rabbits, birds, and snakes...we weren't exactly stealthy so we didn't see many deer, but the tracks were everywhere. Good times with very little worries...wish it was like that today!

[willydavenport]

Its kind of funny that this topic came up when it did. I love finding old stands back in the brush and I'm also fascinated by what that old blind may have seen over the years. Anyway, I was doing some last minute looking around this weekend (we've got a tripod and feeder that we weren't using and couldn't stand not to put it somewhere.) Well we found and old clearing in some really thick and nasty stuff that looked like a prime spot to find a good deer. We got the tripod up Saturday and went back to get the feeder up and running yesterday. While I was filling up the feeder, my dad chuckled and said "I've got to show you something." Not 15 yards from the feeder was an old wooden A frame ladder that someone had just stood up in a mesquite tree. I guess whoever set it would just climb to the top, turn around, and sit on the top step. We could hardly get to it because the brush had grown up so much around it. I thought it was pretty cool. Whenever we come up on something like that, we always look around on the ground for old shells. This one was too grown up to find anything though.

[Fish-a-mon]

Woodrow, I've seen that same tree stand @ Cypress Lakes inbetween 15 & 16. Seen a nice 10pt at North Gate last year walking around

[Trouthunter]

My family had an 1800 acre lease in Colorado County for about 30 years and it was a great place. I remember a lot about the place because they had it until I was a junior in HS. My Grandfather found the graves of a man, woman and child back in a 100 acre thicket after his field hand had shot a big pig and it ran off. There was what was left of an old cabin; you could see the cut beams that laid out the house. The head stones were like poured concrete or something and it had only man woman and child on them and no date, but it said "scarlett fever" on each one, so I guess the whole family was wiped out.

My Dad put a stand near that place on a game trail that ran near the graves (man I hated walking to and being in that stand in the dark, lol) and one winter morning he noticed something in the fork of a big oak tree. Turned out to be a Winchester rifle that the tree grew around and only the barrel and part of the action were visible and I would imagine that it's still there today.

Like you, I enjoy thinking about those who hunted or lived where we hunt now and I'll always remember that rifle and those graves and wonder how that rifle came to be in the fork of that big old oak tree.

TH

[Seemorehinie]

big john o, heck yea! I love finding old stands and wondering what they've seen. Just this weekend I was out at Cypress Lakes playing golf w/ family and on the back 9 (can't remember which hole) there was an oak tree with big rusty nails leading up the trunk and a rotten 2x4 in the main split. Was it a treehouse? An old tree stand? I don't know...but there aren't many native looking trees on that course which makes me think it was some kids treehouse, but there are certainly deer in the area...so I just don't know...



Been there, done that, but after you. I grew up in Champions Park...we roamed the woods with our pellet guns from Cutten to across the tracks going west and then from Richardson to past Cypresswood going north. That was in the late 80's. I never knew there were pigs back there though. We mostly just explored on our bikes and shot some rabbits, birds, and snakes...we weren't exactly stealthy so we didn't see many deer, but the tracks were everywhere. Good times with very little worries...wish it was like that today!
Woodrow,

I lived in Champions west and we would be at the bus stop and be chased off by wild boars...deer would eat out flowers at night..all coming from where Champions Park is now...I went to Cy-Creek high school...u?

[chiefcharlie]

We have a Cemetary on our place that dates back to the 1860s....With state historical marker...even a Texas Ranger buried there..When we have guests ...its an interesting tour..

And a couple of old 50s tin stands...and old 2home places...from the eary 1900s... chimmneys on each end......We still have more places to scout....

Good Thread...Thanks!!

Chief

[Bret]

Nice story. While clearing cedar off of my place in Blanco county I found at least 10 different tree blinds... and this is on 17 acres.... I guess he had a stand for every occasion. He had also nailed hubcaps to treestumps to use as feeders... I have found several of those as well.

[Slightly Dangerous]

On our family property out between Fordtran and Inez we were digging post holes and came across some buried ceramic jugs (the type used for whiskey). There were over 20 of them all stacked side-by-side. All were empty but it was apparent that someone had either done some bootlegging or perhaps they had contained something bad and had been disposed of. They had to be quite old because my family bought that land in 1918 after my grandfather returned from France after WWI.

[Woodrow]

Woodrow,

I lived in Champions west and we would be at the bus stop and be chased off by wild boars...deer would eat out flowers at night..all coming from where Champions Park is now...I went to Cy-Creek high school...u?
That's crazy about the wild boars! I went to Creek my freshman year, then we moved and I went to Klein.

[goatchze]

Yeah, I think running across old pieces of history like that is, well, awesome (in the non-hippy use of the term) You can't help but sit there and think about Texas how it used to be.

My father in law has been clearing cedar off their place in San Saba for years, and has constantly uncovered old deer stands that even his father (70+ yrs old) had never heard of, along with caves and all kinds of other interesting things.

No cemeteries yet, but I sure think that would be neat to find. Nearest thing was a cave that a cougar used to live in...it was full of sheep bones. Grandfather-in-law says the neighbors quite raising goats and sheep in the 50s...show's about how long ago Mr. Cougar moved out.

Really neat stuff out there still to be found.

[willydavenport]

Thats a great story Trout.

[Dmax2500]

Oh man I love anything thats really old. Going to visit OLD prisons is exciting because you wonder what went on there back in the early 1900's. Same thing goes for old things found on ranches like blinds etc. You juse wonder how many stories were told, what was seen, etc. Really Neat.

[Free_loader]

As I walked through the woods surrounding this area, I thought to myself that I could possibly be the only person to ever set foot here. Then I spotted an old deer stand. This stand looked to be 30 to 40 years old, and in the middle of a previously unbeliievably inaccesable place. Who built it, how long ago, what did these woods look like then, where any deer killed......? sorry .. that was mine .. i built it out of old lumber to throw anyone off if they stumbled accross it ;-) ..i'll come pick it up this weekend.. and your right about the thick woods ... talk about a major PITA dragging out deer after deer these last few months ;-)

[Tiny E]

do you hunt in San Saba?

E

Yeah, I think running across old pieces of history like that is, well, awesome (in the non-hippy use of the term) You can't help but sit there and think about Texas how it used to be.

My father in law has been clearing cedar off their place in San Saba for years, and has constantly uncovered old deer stands that even his father (70+ yrs old) had never heard of, along with caves and all kinds of other interesting things.

No cemeteries yet, but I sure think that would be neat to find. Nearest thing was a cave that a cougar used to live in...it was full of sheep bones. Grandfather-in-law says the neighbors quite raising goats and sheep in the 50s...show's about how long ago Mr. Cougar moved out.

Really neat stuff out there still to be found.

[Fishdaze]

There's a little story that goes along with the strangest thing I ever found while hunting, so I'm sorry if it get's a little long winded but it really brings back a memory for me. Back in the early 70's, I was squirrel hunting with my grandfather and another friend in the deep woods off of Toledo Bend. We had gone to our hunting area by boat from our camp house on the south end of the lake. I was about 9 years old and armed with a single shot bolt action .22 with about a dozen shells, and stalking squirrels between my grandfather and our friend at about 40-50 yards apart. Needless to say, at 9 years old I was less patient than my other two hunting partners, and moved a lot faster, therefore getting myself seperated and LOST. On a cold overcast morning, it got kind of spooky in those deep East Texas woods. Before I would admit to myself that I was just plan lost and couldn't find my grandfather or the lake, I came across an old whiskey still. Even at 9 I could figure out what I was looking at. After investigating the still and surrounding area and thinking about what could have gone on around there I started admitting to myself that I was lost and needed to find my grandfather or at least get back to the lake. The still had obviously been abandon for quite some time, but a 9 year old's mind sure can convince themself that the owners of that still are just behind the next tree and certainly don't want me in there. This feeling only got me deeper into the woods before I found an old logging road, which gave me a little more light and I suspected ran back towards the lake. It at least got close enough to the lake to where I could hear a boat. I finally found the lake and managed to flag down probably the only other boat on the lake that winter day by firing my little single shot .22 like it was a semi automatic with the dozen shells I had, and screaming and jumping until they saw me. The two gentlemen got me in their boat and drove me around until we could find my grandfathers boat. I had only missed our boat by a little less than a mile. After the men dropped me off at our boat, I could hear my grandfather and friend hollering for me deep in the woods. I was happy to start screaming again for them so they knew I was back at the boat. After I told them of my adventure and what I had discovered, I got a pretty good lecture from my grandfather about squirrel hunting and especially not getting out of his site. Those squirrel hunts with my grandfather were some of the best days of my life.

[CHARLIE]

To all you folks talking about the champions area. I used to hunt off jackrabbit road (hwy6) off of then Stubner Airline road (now Vetrans memorial hwy) back in the late 50's.
it was all farmland. My buddies uncle owned a farm just north of where Stubner hit jackrabbit road on the left. I have been told its rite in the middle of champions. There was a little creek running back there with a small pond. We hunted quail, ducks, coons, tree rats, turtles, and of course birds. Eeven had a cougar scare the heck out of us boys while spending the nite. Never saw any deer tracks or hogs.One of my buddies shot himself with a 22 pistol in the leg out there and it turned out OK. It was great back then. We used to race cars out Stubner Airline most any nite. There was no traffic. I was on it the other day and couldnt believe what has happened. The only thing out there in those days was Klebs store.

Charlie

[drred4]

ON the previous place in Doss that I hunted on there were remains of what used to be 3 fire rings that indians used per the old german landowner. Rock fence covering most of the 450 acre property and on to neighboring land. I found a cement county line marker in the middle of the place, never seen one before.

On the place we hunt now in Doss, I have run across several real old log blinds and a couple of old tree stands.

[mudcatz71]

i hunted a place on the outside of goliad back in the day found a old cemetary that had about fifty graves most of them were just hand carved in rock then another place south of jordington that had a treestand where the tree grew completly around the 2x4 steps and now hunting in central texas find arrowheads witch to me might be the coolest

[boomgoon]

I ran across this blind over the weekend, I shot a few from here many years ago.