You’re out on the ground before the light is, with frost on the field and your breath hanging in front of you, and the timber behind you is only now starting to show itself. Nothing moves for a long while. Then something does, in the leaves and close, and every hunter who ever sat through a cold morning knows what the heart does right then.
That is a whitetail hunt at Little Colorado Ranch in Dugger. Five days of it, with a guide beside you start to finish, on more than 550 acres of timber, fields, lakes, ponds, and a creek, and your meals and a bed come with it. The hunts fall in October, with the leaves turning colors; in December, with the cold settled in for good once they are down; and in the rut, late October through the end of November, when the bucks are on their feet in daylight and you forget you ever had a job.
Four hunters to a group and no more. An antlerless deer can be added to any whitetail hunt. In April, with everything greening up again, the turkey hunts are two days apiece, and you are settled in before daylight while the woods wake up one bird at a time; when a gobbler answers from the roost, your hands will not be as steady as you thought. Ray takes the calls for both at (812) 787-3257 and can tell you which dates are still available.
By the third day the world you drove in from is getting along without you. The evenings end back at the lodge with supper somebody else cooked and a real wood fire going in the living room, and the morning gets told over again at the table until it is a better story than it was.
Hunters are not the only ones who come out. The lodge sleeps 30, with six bedrooms and six bathrooms on the property, and families book it for vacations, camping trips, youth retreats, and reunions, with five camper hook-ups outside that have electric, water, and sewer. The kitchen has a commercial oven and stovetop and a griddle, and the same fireplace is waiting in the living room.
The water comes first. Fish the ponds and the lakes, put a kayak in, swim in the inground pool, and soak in the hot tub after, and pickleball, basketball, volleyball, and cornhole are there for anyone who needs to be moving. Bring your own horses and the trails are yours to ride. After dark there is the campfire, and a sky you do not get in town.
Lodge bookings are by call or text to (812) 787-2102, or by email to littlecoloradoranch@gmail.com. There is a two-night minimum, and you may book up to a year ahead.
