Camping out and trail riding

Painted - I really think I've gotta come riding with you one of these days! ;) You've always got GREAT photos of your camping/trail adventures!

Funny, Painted Horse gets to ride more during hunting season and we ride less. All our favorite areas are closed to horses during hunting season. (deer hunting)
Deer hunter: "I just shot the biggest deer of my life!"
Trail rider: "Whatever mister, but can I have my saddle back?"

Oh Dear!

QOS that is awesome to hear! We live in Abilene now but I went to school in Nacogdoches for a few years and know where Sam Rayburn is. We are going to start doing some overnights once I get my mare sound again and can wait to get out and about here in TX

Yeah, reminds me of growing up in the rural northeast: dairy farming country where the most popular breed of cow was the Holstein: Holstein cattle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Lots of hunters would come out from the city, and every so often would bag one of them "big black and white deer".

Wow, that's ridiculous!

Moonshine Maya is a registered Foxtrotter. all the horses in the photo are. Her dam is the dark buckskin to the far right of the photo and her brother is the black gelding that I ride.

Bull Elk season ended last Thursday, General Season Mule Deer is now open and we have some control tags for Cow Elk. We will mostly be looking for Cow Elk. They have better flavor meat( in my opinion) and are much larger than a deer. A good cow Elk is 600lbs vs a Mule deer buck at 200.

Here is a group of 4 bulls I saw yesterday at daylight.


Vidaloco, Yes I do ride more, I do more adventuresom riding during hunting season. We are frequently riding in total darkness. Either riding into camp late in the dark or getting up early and heading out to our favorite spot to hunt before the sun comes up. Most summer rides are on trails, Hunting season we wander all over the mountain looking for the game animals. Up and down steep hills, through brush, over and through blow downs. We pack more during hunting season. Both in hauling in our camp gear and packing out any game we harvest. They not only climb steep hills, but we are usually at 8000-9000 foot elevation. During the summer, I usually ride a weekday evening here and a saturday all day there. Hunting we ride 3-4 days in a row and repeat each week for month. So the horse develop a better bond with us. they are getting used more, Worked harder, Being with us more hours per day. I think it's the best training my horses get.

Also painted horse, I guess it is easier to approach game animals from horse back. I find that here, we have a lot of wild pigs (people pay us to come and hunt them) and it is amazing how many I can see when I am out horse riding. It is not unusual to walk around a corner and meander through a mob of pigs who don't run until I am nearly on top of them.

I really don't do any hunting from my horse, and to be honest I am not sure why. I really need to pull finger and get into it, Phoenix, my horse is already used to shots fired so there is nothing to stop me. You have inspired me to get on with it Paintedhorse! ( I use a 7mm Rem mag by the way).

I wonder if you could do mounted horse archery or spear hunting with them - a la Plains Indian buffalo hunting?

Sounds so fun! Our barn owns a field at the end of the road and we went on a trail (the corn fields are in front of the forest) and then just came out of the forest and rode down the corn field a bit before going up the field. . let the horses out and slept there. ahh fun! ;D