By Luis DeLa Cerda, with Texas Harper
I will never forget the first time my granddad—Juan Martinez—and I visited Rancho Rio Escondido and laid eyes on a big beautiful Mexican whitetail by the nickname of “Gulfstream.” Together, we had browsed through many trail camera pictures and had seen a wide variety of different bucks. But this one stood out the most. I remember thinking to myself, “I can’t wait to bring him back once the season starts and gift him a hunt he will never forget.” The day before we left, as we sat in the deer blind, we were speechless as we saw Gulfstream walking through the brush. We both sat in silence. We looked at one another and smiled, knowing very soon we would come back once the season started. Little did we know that the unexpected would happen.
As we returned to San Antonio, Texas, a couple of weeks later, Granddad had to be taken into heart surgery. The first thing he asked the doctors as he woke up from the anesthesia was, “When am I able to go hunting again?” The doctors explained his recovery process would be slow and he would not be able to go hunting until the next year. As I heard the news, I called my friend, Texas Harper, who’s the ranch owner, and asked him if we could have that deer until the next year, and he said yes.
A few months later in January, the unexpected happened. Granddad got COVID-19 and unfortunately passed away. The last time I spoke with him, I told him not to worry. I would go back and hunt Gulfstream in his name. The following year, Gulfstream grew even bigger, and my hunting buddies and I decided we would head to Rio Escondido on opening week of the 2021 hunting season. The first morning we sat to hunt, we saw many deer. It was easy to say buck fever was kicking in. I kept asking my friend Texas about this one buck at the feeder because I was ready to lay my gun on the window and take the shot, but he told me to be patient because it was only the first morning of the trip.
Throughout the remainder of the afternoon, we kept seeing many deer, but not Gulfstream. The following morning, we sat in the same deer blind from the previous morning, the same deer blind where we had seen Gulfstream the previous year. But around 7:45 a.m., we decided to switch up the game plan and jump into the side by side and rush over to another deer blind about a mile away. We quietly got into position in the blind and started seeing many deer coming and going to the feeder, but not Gulfstream.
At around 9 a.m. we decided it was time to head to the lodge for some coffee and breakfast. While we were climbing out of the deer stand, we heard something snort. We turned around and saw a monster walking out of the brush about 150 yards away. We climbed back into the deer stand and kept the windows closed to see if he would go into the feeder. It took him about 10 minutes, and he finally did. He was an absolute beast. Texas was probably more excited than I was when he saw the deer in the open. We glassed him for several minutes, but the buck never took his eyes off us in the deer stand.
We finally were able to open the window to get a better view so I could stick my rifle out of it. Once I had put my rifle on him, he was at 200 yards standing broadside and staring right at me. I put my crosshairs on his shoulder and when I got ready to take the gun off safety, he decided he had enough and turned the other way and started walking back into the brush where he had come out. We grunted and he stopped for a split second, but I wasn’t able to get on him in time. Seconds later he was gone.
We went back to the lodge to have breakfast with the rest of the family. We began to share the stories about the deer we had seen and all the experiences we had just gone through. We were sitting by the fire in the living room and started to say to each other that we weren’t going to get lucky by just sitting inside. So, we decided to get to the deer blind a lot earlier than we had been. We took a 30-minute siesta and by 1 p.m. we were back at the deer stand waiting to get lucky. That afternoon seemed like an eternity. We didn’t see any activity until about 5:30 p.m. We saw a couple of does and some young deer. Nothing really exciting.
5:45 rolled around and it was getting dark fast. Texas said, “Let’s wait another 15 minutes. Let’s wait it out till the end,” so we did.
Right after we made that decision, sure enough, Texas picked up his binoculars, looked at me and said, “It’s Gulfstream.” It took him what seemed like 2 seconds to identify the buck and tell me to get my gun ready. He told me to wait for the buck because he was coming from the right, and headed towards the feeder. The buck had no idea that were even there.
Gulfstream finally made his way to the feeder, 150 yards away. By this time it was already getting even more dark, making it harder to identify the deer. Gulfstream was eating off the ground, facing away from me, and all I heard from Texas was, “Wait until he gets broadside.” Gulfstream stayed for what seemed an eternity in the same spot, which was only really 30 seconds.
He finally turned broadside and I got the green light from Texas. I gently applied pressure on the trigger then I saw a big blast from the end of the barrel. My brother Diego and Texas both began to scream and laugh out of joy. The deer had dropped in his tracks.
We were high fiving each other in the blind, but I wasn’t sure if the buck was truly the one Granddad was after. We got out of the deer stand and started our walk towards the deer. We finally approached him. The second I was able to lay my hands on Gulfstream, tears of joy started rolling down my cheeks. As I pointed and looked up to the sky, I said, “This one is for you, Granddad.”
