We made our annual October trip to the ranch with planting the food plots as the goal to accomplish. This year we worked on expanding to expand our irrigated fields to include Lapalma pasture. Also new for this year is the deep tilling process we did during the summer in an attempt to bank and hold some moisture for the fall planting. I was accompanied by my best friend and wife Tracy along with mother in law and daughter Kay. Of course Ranch Manager, Legendary Guide and Chef Extraordinaire Mike Tomei joined us also. Mike put the finishing touches on the blind sets and helped with planting and got a little wing shooting in. He killed over 50 birds just traveling to do chores! One of our favorite chores is checking the deer cams.  We had been waiting for a few years to get one of our massive big boned bucks on camera and we finally did! Check out the junk on this guy. In fact we named him Junky.

Below is a picture of our freshly planted Lapalma food plot. We just got the irrigation up and running it is a beautiful sight when a plan comes together. Notice the Gallagher fencing system on the perimeter of the field. This project was truly a team effort. Our cowboys cleared and deep tilled this 7 acre field in the early spring. Then my wife Tracy disked and leveled the field. Behind her was Mike planting our favorite fall crop of Tecomate’s “Max Attract”. My mother in law Pat and daughter Kay put in the perimeter fence and I covered the seed and set up the irrigation. Hopefully the big bucks will do their part!  

Of course our trips are never all work. October is my favorite month to do some wing shooting. We have a variety of native birds on the ranch. Including two types of doves the common morning and also the larger White wing along with three varieties of quail, Scaled, Montezuma and Bob Whites. Below is Mike cleaning the birds we killed on the way over to our food plot. ( Mike did most of the killing I did most of the missing) Our future plans are to include quality wing shooting experience at a reasonable price.

In the photo underneath you see the trips whole crew, Including our Ranch cowboys and house keepers. We try to end our trips with a “wild” dinning experience. Our past menus have included Rattle snake, Lion, Bobcat and a variety of native plants. This dinner put on by Chef Mike Tomei was a feast of grilled Dove and Quail wrap in bacon sandwiched between peppers, onions, squash etc. We had chilled Tuna for an appetizer. The ranch Tuna is the fruit picked off of the prickly pear cactus. All this complimented by home made Bruchetta bread.