King’s Outdoor World Blog

Texas ShadowCamo Showdown

November 15th, 2005 David King - King's Outdoor World

On the road with Todd Munford - Factory Rep - King’s Outdoor World

Texas Shadow Showroom Tour
October 26th through November 5th 2005

I departed from home base (Mt. Pleasant, Utah) on Wednesday afternoon October 26th. My destination was Fredericksburg, Texas where I would be a part of the Grand Opening of Hartcraft Taxidermy and Guide Service. Terry Hartcraft and his wife Sheryl are super people and met me at the front door of their new facility on Friday afternoon October 28th (1400 Miles later). The Grand Opening was awesome. I had our showroom parked right out in front and had people in and out of the trailer all day looking at and purchasing our camo.

Todd with Terry Hartcraft and his family in front of the King’s Tour Trailer parked out front of Hartcraft Taxidermy in Fredricksburg, Texas

The response to our trailer is wonderful. People can look at, try on and feel our complete camo line. Terry’s new facility was amazing as well. His new showroom combined with our ShadowShowroom provided a fun day for many people. We even had free hotdogs and sausages going on the grill and some country tunes in the background from the exterior speakers of our trailer.

Sunday afternoon, things were winding down and Terry asked me if I would like to go whitetail hunting. Texas hunting is a whole new ball game, but I have been transformed from my obsession with big mulies and big bulls. We headed out to one of Terry’s leases where he had a ground blind set up in a great location paralleling a winter wheat field that the deer loved to feed into. We got in the ground blind. I was hunting with Jeff Scott, one of Terry’s main guides. Man these guys know their stuff. We used a masking cover scent. It was skunk and it was strong, but after seeing the deer and how close they came to our blind we needed all the help we could get.

We had three bucks work into us. They were about 18 to 20 yards out. I pulled back three different times but a smaller buck kept getting behind the seven point I was after. Finally I let an arrow fly. Good hit, but back a little. We left the buck for a couple of hours. We tracked blood for two hours and finally found him. He went into a small cattle pond and laid down in it to cool off and was floating in the pond. Thanks to the great tracking abilities of Terry and his guides the buck is down. My first whitetail buck. I love to hunt.

Left to right: Todd Munford, Terry Hartcraft, Hunter Hartcraft and Jeff Scott with Todd’s first whitetail buck taken in Texas

I left Fredericksburg on Monday morning en route to Katy, Texas to meet with some dealers. I got caught in an amazing thunderstorm in Katy. I had to sit it out before I left Monday night. My destination was Tyler, Texas where I was going to meet with Jamie and Bryan, owners of Bucks and Ducks in Tyler. Texas is a monster state, almost a country in itself. You can’t just go around the block to get somewhere. On my way to Tyler I stopped to fuel up in Jewitt, Texas. Jewitt is a very small town. Before I left the gas station I enjoyed meeting many of the towns people who stopped to look in the trailer. Two hours later I departed being very grateful that the people in Jewitt would be wearing Desert Shadow on the up and coming deer hunt. Thanks for your support.

I spent the day at Bucks and Ducks having a lot of their customers come out to the trailer to see our product line. I left Tyler Texas at 6:00 p.m. Tuesday night and headed for San Angelo, Texas to visit The Outdoorsman and Adobe Hunting Camp, two of our first dealers in Texas. I arrived in San Angelo at 2:00 am on Wednesday morning. I spent the day with Neil Grant, the owner of The Outdoorsman in San Angelo. I was treated to a neat experience as Neil took me to his house to see his pet calf elk that was hanging out with his family until it gets big enough to release. Its mom left it when it was a few weeks old.

I left The Outdoorsman at 4:00 p.m. and met up with Skipper Duncan. He owns and operates Adobe Lodge And Hunting Camp. What an experience. I actually took the trailer right out to his hunting camp where he had eight hunters from Georgia there. We trimmed some mesquite branches at his entrance so the top of the trailer would clear. When I got there the hunters were out in their stands. Skipper told me that there would be a helicopter landing at camp shortly. The son of one of the hunters was transporting a medical helicopter from El Paso and was going to surprise his dad by stopping at camp. It landed 40 feet from my rig.

The hunters came in with some nice bucks that eve. I was treated to a nice meal of whitetail shoulder and potatoes. All of the hunters came out and purchased camo and visited in my trailer. That night Skipper approached me and asked if I would like to hunt a doe whitetail in the morning. He has managed ranches and they are allotted so many doe tags each year for management purposes. I had already purchased my non resident license to hunt in Fredericksburg, so I said sure, twist my arm. The guys took me out to the stand site that night so I knew how to get there the next morning. Thursday morning I woke up at 5:30 and hopped in an old corn hauling truck that Skipper had ready for me and I ventured out to my stand. The stand was a ladder stand 25 feet in the air.

Todd with his pretty Texas management doe
wearing King’s Desert Shadow Camo

First light came and the wind was terrible for me. Every deer coming in busted me cause of my scent. Finally a doe walked right beneath me and into clearing in front of me. I pulled back and let an arrow fly. I made a good shot as my arrow had gone right through her and was covered with good blood. She busted out of there. I sat in the stand for about half-hour, after which I climbed down and called my wife on my cell phone. I wanted her to be a part of my Texas whitetail experience by tracking the deer with me via Verizon service. No blood for 100 yards. Finally I got to an old road and there she was. I loaded her up in the old corn truck and took her back to camp. Dave “The Skinner” Gonzales an employee of Skipper’s had her skinned, cut and wrapped in 30 minutes, tops! Skippers place was great and response to our camo was fantastic, with Desert Shadow now being worn in Georgia.

Thursday night I headed out and was determined to make it to Uvalde, Texas where I was going to spend the next two days at Oasis Outback. This is a wonderful store on Highway 90, which is a main thoroughfare to South Texas. The opener of the Texas rifle season was Saturday November 5th and I looked forward to meeting a lot of hunters and friends. I made it to Uvalde Thursday night. The next morning I was greeted by Randy Klein (owner) and Bob Porter (manager) of Oasis Outback. What a wonderful store they have. It reminded me of a mini Cabela’s. They have done a wonderful job putting it together and I was so proud to have our camo represented in this store

It was a great day Friday with many people coming in and out of showroom trailer. It was nice to meet so many great people. My buddy Lori McDonald, who is a buyer, and the smile of Oasis coordinated with me Friday and Saturday to order and satisfy the needs of all the customers we were working with. We had some good tunes cranking on the outdoor speakers of trailer and enjoyed the neat atmosphere that was at the store Friday and Saturday. I was sad to leave but I missed my wife and kids, so it made it easier leaving these great people and this great State. I left Uvalde at 2:00 p.m. Saturday and made it to Trinidad, Co at 4:00 am Sunday morning. I was really missing my wife Laudi and kids by this time. After a small three-hour catnap I left Trinidad at 9:00 am. I arrived in Mt. Pleasant, Utah at 10:00 p.m. where I was greeted by Laudi and my girls. Whitetail backstrap on the menu for Monday night!

Great Trip. I thank all those who support King’s Outdoor World and our ShadowCamo line. Good people meeting good people. We love to hunt!

Todd Munford
Factory Rep - King’s Outdoor World

Entry Filed under: Tour Stop