It would probably be a good start to pull out a detailed map of the Big Bend area of Texas before we get too far along with this story. The setting is The Quitman Mountains, just south of the small community of Sierra Blanca in Hudspeth County. The Quitman’s are typical of many of the […]
Cattle like grass first but will eat brush as a last resort. Deer like weeds first then fall back on browse or brush as a second choice. When I say brush, I mean woody plants like yaupon or trees like hackberry, elm and live oak, or vines like green briar, dewberries or even poison ivy. […]
I am extremely lucky to have had a grandfather who purchased ranches, as well as a dad that liked to hunt and encouraged me to hunt as well. This background has given me thousands of hours spent outdoors over my lifetime. I can recount a lot of hunting stories as my hair thins and turns […]
CHAPTER ONE: It was New Year’s Day. No, let me back that up some. It was about eight o’clock in the morning on New Year’s Day. My ears were still ringing from the band that played too loudly the night before and my head could feel a pulse, plus my stomach was still slightly off of […]
It’s not often when you get the drop on feral swine. I’m convinced they are some of the smartest wildlife in the state. I’m sure they use deductive reasoning during their everyday life. If hunted hard they turn nocturnal. If one or two are trapped, the others in the group that witnessed the door […]
Anyone wishing to grow trophy whitetail deer knows one of the main ingredients of getting a buck to maximum size is age. From a fawn until a deer reaches 3.5 years old, the deer’s body is still developing so a large portion of its nutritional intake goes toward growing muscle and bone. Think of a […]
A wildlife co-op is a group of adjacent landowners that manage wildlife together by pooling their acreage. These landowners treat their combined acreage as one giant ranch. The trendy word now is to call a co-op a wildlife management association (WMA). Gonzales County was home to one of the earliest WMA’s. Another was between Brady […]
One of the neatest ranches I hunted was along the Rio Grande River not too far west of Langtry, TX. Yeah, that Langtry, home of the infamous Judge Roy Bean. As I recall, the property was roughly 36,000 acres with about 15,000 acres or so south of U.S. Highway 90 and the remainder north of […]
To people that have never hunted deer, they may be disillusioned by thinking all hunting is shooting and killing. They may assume all hunts are measured by the number and size of animals taken. Not so. One of the major joys of hunting deer is to get away from the pressure of jobs, the noise […]
Desert Mule Deer is what we have in the Big Bend Region of Texas. The scientific name is Odocoileus hemionuscrooki. These deer are slightly smaller than their Rocky Mountain cousins, have a more washed out or paler skin coat that is light grey in their winter pelage. The white rump patch and facial hairs plus […]