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Texas Trophy Hunters
The Voice of Texas Hunting
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TTHA member Natalia Reyes became the Eagle Pins Girls Champion at the Archery Shooters Association Easton-Hoyt Pro-Am National 3D Tournament in late April, held in Minden, Louisiana. Congratulations, Natalia!
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PARKER CREWS, 11, took this scimitar oryx 10/16/23 in San Saba County.
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April means it's time for Fiesta in San Antonio. We wish everyone one attending a safe, fun Fiesta.
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Gore and The Governor on the Hunt
Back in the day when Rick Perry was governor of Texas and I was working for Texas Trophy Hunters, we both visited the MacLamore Ranch every time we got an invitation from Lanny Vinson. The large ranch lay on both sides of the Clear Fork of the Brazos River in Shackelford County, and was a wildlife haven. White-tailed deer, Rio Grande turkey, feral hogs, and a variety of varmints were abundant along the river watershed.
The year was 2004, and I suspect we were on the ranch for a birthday celebration or some other social event. We had our hunting clothes on, but I don’t think we were doing any hunting. It was fall, and we could have been chasing hogs, or bobcats and coyotes.
Gov. Perry was into bow hunting when this photo was taken, and he did quite well on spring turkey. Rick got pretty good with the bow under the guidance of Gen. Leroy Sisco, who was also a bow-hunting aficionado. Brian Hawkins videoed the governor’s hunt on the ranch when Rick arrowed a big gobbler for the “Texas Trophy Hunters TV” series.
In the photo, I’m toting my favorite hog gun, a renovated Winchester .30-30 with a short barrel and half magazine—a handy rifle for chasing hogs. I had traded for the rifle from Joe McBride in Austin, and my good friend Joe Marks and I had cut the barrel and magazine to make a unique hog gun.
Gov. Perry was the “Governor” when we were in town, but he was just Rick while we were hunting. I had known Rick long before he became governor. Our first meeting was on a quail hunt on the Landshead Ranch back in the mid-’80s. I think he might have been a state representative at that time.
When Rick served as state agriculture commissioner, we met on several occasions. I didn’t see him much when he was Lt. Governor, but when he took over the governorship of Texas in 2000 (George Bush went to the Presidency) and was elected for a total of 14 years as governor, we visited a lot in Shackleford County, which is just southeast of Haskell County—Rick’s old stomping ground.
I have always thought Texas could use more politicians like Rick Perry. He was a ranch boy who grew up under the guidance of good parents, went to Texas A&M University, and served the state of Texas for years in a variety of public offices. I am proud to call Rick Perry my friend.
—Horace Gore
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"Elsie" meets "Tom"
By Jim Heffelfinger
I was determined to hunt this special bird, a Gould's turkey, with my great-grandfather's 1894 L.C. “Elsie” Smith side-by-side, Damascus steel, double hammer, double barrel 12-gauge. A great friend of mine had the cracked stock fixed on this family heirloom as a Christmas present to me. He also loaded up some No. 6 shot reduced-power loads with Pyrodex that was safe for firing in the 130-year-old Damascus steel barrels. My son Wyatt agreed to come along and help which was special to me because it was Wyatt who got me into turkey hunting in the first place.
We were mostly big game hunters, but when Wyatt was 10 years old and a brand-new hunter education graduate, he told me he wanted to hunt turkeys because he loved dinosaurs so much. With the help of some friends and youth turkey hunting camps, we learned together and became quite good at it. After I called in both Merriam’s gobblers he harvested up to that point, he returned the favor on this hunt.
The fourth gobbler we talked to that day was a stubborn bird with commitment issues. He was hot to answer every hen yelp with a gobble, but would not cross a deep ditch between us and him at 50 yards. The reduced-power loads I was using means I needed a 30-yard shot or closer. I thought he figured out a way around the ditch but the hen he was with started walking away.
Predictably, he followed her up an open, pine-covered hill. Wyatt called and called more aggressively but the tom kept gobbling as he walked out of our lives. When the tom neared the top of the hill I decided I had no choice but to try to sneak up the hill and make something happen on the other side. Wyatt called aggressively to keep him gobbling and cover my rapid stalk up the hill after him. The big tom answered him almost every time, but then fell silent as I approached the top of the hill. Wyatt followed me far behind calling more aggressively to make it sound like the hen was following him.
As I approached the top of the hill, I started sneaking and carefully looking into the clump of pine trees where I last saw him when suddenly he gobbled in my left ear! He had circled back and surprised me because of Wyatt’s aggressive yelps from the bottom of the hill. I swung Ol’ Elsie to the left, put the bead at the base of his head and squeezed the front trigger. The shotgun roared with a belch of gray smoke and the turkey fell where it stood.
The old heirloom did its job just as it did countless times on small game in my great-grandfather Frank's hands. I am lucky I didn't have time to think about the shot or I would have surely missed. The bird was 21 pounds, had an 11-inch beard and 1 1/8-inch spurs.
Jim Heffelfinger writes for the Journal of the Texas Trophy Hunters and works at his day job as a wildlife biologist for the Arizona Game & Fish Department. You can find Jim on Instagram: @Jim.Deere, and at deernut.com.
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Everything's big in Texas.
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Trophy Hunters of Tomorrow
Tyler Poole of Hankamer, Texas, has been deer hunting several years and has seven whitetails and one mule deer to his credit. The 12-year-old seventh grader at Abeka Christian Academy got the chance to go after mule deer in the Texas Panhandle when his dad, Jared, applied for a Big Time Texas Hunt with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Each year, TPWD makes a lot of good hunts available on Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) and other places in Texas, and lucky hunters often come home with trophies of a lifetime.
Jared was accepted for the mule deer hunt on the Yoakum Dunes WMA in Cochran County, with Tyler as a guest hunter. The hunters gathered their guns and gear and traveled to Cochran County, where they met their guides at the WMA headquarters near the small town of Whiteface. Tyler carried his Ruger 6.5 Creedmoor and a pocket full of shells.
At dinner on the day of their arrival, Tyler and his guide planned a hunt on the vast 14,037-acre WMA. The vast West Texas area is home to a good population of mule deer, and the hunters would cruise the backroads looking for a good buck. Long stalks to get in position for a good shot are not uncommon, and Tyler found out how difficult it is to get in rifle range of a mule deer in the sand dunes of Cochran County.
On the first day, Tyler and his guide got close to a buck or two, but had no luck in the stalk. The next day, they went back after a good buck that they had seen the day before. The deer was unusual, because the G-2s did not fork, but the antler tines were long and Tyler wanted to test his 6.5 Creedmoor on the buck.
In the afternoon, the hunters spotted the buck they were after, and Tyler decided to try for a stalk that would give him a decent shot. After walking and then crawling through the shin oak brush for hours, Tyler finally got a good shot with his Ruger 6.5 Creedmoor at 170 yards. The buck went down, and Tyler had his first mule deer.
Jared had also taken a wide mulie buck, and both father and son returned to Hankamer, just east of Houston, with big smiles. The Big Time Texas Hunt for mule deer had paid off!
Tyler and his dad decided to enter their bucks in the 2023 Hunters Extravaganza Annual Deer Competition in Houston. Both buck were outstanding, but Jared beat Tyler for Best Texas Mule Deer by a few inches. Tyler plans to take a whitetail during the 2023-24 season, and it might be a hunt with his new bow. Jared is a bowhunter, and Tyler plans to take up the sport.
“The Panhandle hunt was special for me and Dad,” Tyler said. “We both enjoyed the sandhill scenery, and the guides were great on the Yoakum Dunes WMA.” The Houston deer contest was the first for Tyler—but probably not the last.
Tyler says he likes to hunt and fish, and has done a lot of both. He also likes Little League baseball. As for deer hunting, he likes it all—but prefers evening hunts. Texas Trophy Hunters Association wants to congratulate Tyler for his first mule deer buck, and hope it’s not his last. —Horace Gore
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An Aggie Discovers Skeet
Our Throwback Thursday photo features our editor, Horace Gore, circa 1963. When he wasn't sharpening his writing quill, he was sharpening his shooting eye on the gun range. We'll let him tell the rest of the story.
The year was 1963; the place, Bill Harris’ Country Skeet range at Bangs, Texas. The shooter, yours truly—Horace Gore. I was a slim, trim, 30-year-old wildlife biologist who had discovered the outdoor shooting sport of skeet.
Bill Harris had built the skeet range—the first I had ever seen. Everything was manually operated, and school kids pulled the traps in the high and low houses to release the clay birds. The eight shooting stands were shaped in a half-moon, giving the shooter a different angle for each shot. A round of skeet involved both single and double clays—some difficult!
In the photo, I’m using my Charles Daly over/under 20-gauge ($209) with .410 gauge inserts, shooting 2 ½ inch .410 shells with a ½ ounce of No. 9 shot—not much to hit a fast-flying clay bird.
I fell in love with the sport at this first skeet range, and shot regularly for 45 years. My favorite gauge was .410 and 20-gauge, and only 12-gauge when there was money involved. Skeet shooting is a fine outdoor sport.
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Brody Smith took this nilgai 3/10/23 in Willacy County, Texas, on the H Yturria Ranch.
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A little bio about the man who gave the world Kodak film and Instamatic cameras who became a hunter later in his life.
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Photos from our 13th annual Bucks & BBQ held March 2 at the National Shooting Complex in San Antonio. Great food and great fun!
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Hey there, Trophy Hunter Nation. Wanna see your story in The Journal? Share it with us. Send us a 1,200-word story and as many photos to go along with it. Send everything to [email protected]. Editors are standing by. Why wait? Do it now!
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Texas bow season has begun!
Here's a tibit of info to whet your bowhunting appetite.
With that in mind, don't forget to share your bowhunting story with us.
Brandon Ray photo
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Too Hot for Snakes!
Texans like summer weather up to a point! With El Niño bearing down, we are getting our share of hot August weather in early summer. With 100-plus temperatures, day after day, the only thing we could be thankful for is that the four poisonous snakes of Texas—cottonmouth, copperhead, coral snake, and rattlesnakes—do not like hot sunshine. When the sun is hot, they are out of sight, hidden away somewhere out of the sun. But, this doesn’t mean snakes are not there—it just means that they will prowl only after dark.
Here are a few things folks might want to know about the poisonous reptiles, and help to elude a snake bite. First, cottonmouth and copperheads (cousins) have the same venom as rattlesnakes, but not the volume of the larger diamondback and timber rattlers. One drop of venom is harmful to about 50 pounds of flesh, and smaller snakes have smaller venom sacks. Therefore, copperheads, cottonmouth, and smaller rattlesnakes are seldom, if ever deadly to adults. However, this is not true for smaller children under school-age, especially those too young to relay snake bite to parents.
The amount of venom in a snake’s venom sacks is related to the last use of venom to kill a victim—rabbit, squirrel, rat, mouse, small bird, or other prey. Venom used to catch and devour prey must be replaced, and this sometimes takes weeks. Therefore, a snakebite does not mean that you will be injected with venom, and if so, the amount of venom can vary. Sometimes, a snake strike is not accurate, with little or no exchange of venom.
Is a snakebite fatal? In 99% of snakebites, NO! The 1% is determined by a lot of factors, such as how big is the victim, how much venom is injected, and where the venom is injected. Example: If a 4-year-old child is bitten ABOVE THE WAIST by a large rattlesnake with full venom sacks, the chance of fatality is great, and for adults the chances are high. However, If the child or adult is bitten in the same place by a cottonmouth or copperhead, the chances for fatality is slim to none! A snakebite below the waist is seldom deadly, but may cause a lot of pain, and with large snakes, the snakebite must be treated immediately.
The best protection against a snakebite is to NOT GET BITTEN! Watch where you are stepping or putting your arms and hands, and know where the children are and what they are doing. If you are in snake habitat, wear high boots and clothes that cover the legs, and keep young children near. Stay inside as much as possible after dark, and use a flashlight when wandering. Dove and quail hunters should be especially careful when picking up doves or quail in heavy brush.
You will see very few snakes out in the open this summer, but they are there in hidden places hoping they won’t be disturbed. So, put your worries away and enjoy the hot, El Niño weather as much as you can. What! You say I didn’t mention the danger of poisonous coral snakes? Well, If you get bit by a coral snake (they have to chew on you) that’s about equal to winning the lottery, and you probably don’t need to worry about either!
—Horace Gore
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Redfish on the Half Shell
By Will Leschper
Redfish on the Texas coast are prolific and tasty. Here’s an easy recipe to enjoy one of our best-eating game fish if you have success at the jetties!
Ingredients
• 4 to 6 redfish fillets with skin and scales on (one keeper-size fillet is good for at least one person)
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 2-3 lemons, halved
• salt and pepper, to taste
• *Paul Prudhomme’s Blackened Redfish Magic seasoning blend (You also can use fresh chopped herbs such as basil, mint or parsley in place of an all-in-one blend; there’s also Tony Chachere’s line of seafood spices that work great)
• *Compound butter mixture with the fresh herbs (optional, in place of olive oil or in addition to oil)
Instructions
Preheat your outdoor grill. Take your redfish fillets (with skin/scales still on one side) and drizzle/brush with olive oil. Sprinkle your seasoning mixture and salt and pepper on top of the oil.
Grill the fish, flesh side down, over medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Flip the fillet so the scales are on the grilling surface and cook for another 5 to 7 minutes, or until cooked through to your liking. Squeeze a lemon half over each fillet. You also can spoon the compound butter mixture on top as well. Spoon out the flesh that should release easily from the skin and serve by itself, with pasta or accompanying your favorite sides.
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A couple of our writers ran into each other at a recent bird shoot. Lee Leschper (left) provides us with stories about Alaska hunting. Ralph Winingham (right) is a retired newspaper outdoors writer who provides us with tales of his memorable hunting exploits. Ralph's also an outdoor chef with a couple cookbooks to his name.
"This was at the annual Shoot for the Heart fundraiser for August Heart, a San Antonio nonprofit that has provided free cardiac screening for more than 62,000 high school athletes, to identify potential fatal and undiagnosed heart conditions. They have found more than 400 kids with potential heart issues, and undoubtedly saved some," Leschper said.
The parents of an 18-year-old athlete, August Koontz, who died in his sleep from an undiagnosed heart condition, founded the organization.
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Texas Trophy Hunters Association participated at the 2023 Stock Show & Rodeo BBQ Cook-Off on Jan. 28 in San Antonio. We offered our support to the event and promoted the future of hunting in Texas. We had dreary weather, but we stayed warm and managed to have some fun. Even the little ones got in on the fun, too.
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