Moore Outdoors With Chester Moore 01/03/25

• Chester Moore talks about the hidden history of bison in Texas and beyond and discusses the exotic aoudad.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Morow Outdoors on News Talk five sixty KLVI.
This is Chester Moore. A beautiful herd of longhorned cattle
made their way across a blue bonnet covered meadow, walking
down a trail from an oak thicket. One particularly massive
bull stopped and glared at us, so I felt obliged
to jump out of the truck and shoot photos. Wild

(00:24):
Wishes is our program that grants wildlife and exotic animal
encounters for kids who have a critical illness, have lost
a parent or a sibling, or dealing with other very
serious issues. We were at Wyo Ranch headquarters near Mountain
Home in Kerr County and it just completed a wild
Wish for a little boy named Amos, who got to
encounter a giraffe and many other exotic animals at the

(00:47):
legendary Ranch. This thing was easily in the two thousand
pound range and gave a surreal thrill as buffalo's were
the topic of our conversation riding down the road. Wild
Wishes grants those encounters to give kids hope, and it
was amazing seeing the boys here on this trip, literally
riding down the road talking about buffalo wanting to ride

(01:09):
bareback like Indians back in the day, shooting with primitive
archery equipment and just talking about being alive. You know,
here's the thing. We were out there and we saw
this massive bull under the bushes, and the kids were
so excited, and so was I. I love bison. Bison
are one of my favorite animals. Under this live oak

(01:31):
was this majestic bison. The longhorns were cool, but the
bison was awesome. But then it got better. From behind
another tree stood up something big and white. At first
it looked like a bull. When it turned around, chills
ran up and down my spine. This was no bull.
It was a white buffalo. Yeah, baby, the great white buffalo.

(01:56):
I was absolutely blown away. I mean, this is the
rarest of the rear. We had no idea such a
creature existed on their huge ranch, and we've not seen
it if we had not decided to pull over and
photograph the longhorns. I have no question the Lord had
his hand on this encounter, and so did the kids,
who were excited beyond measure. They had seen something awesome,

(02:20):
and then they locked eyes with a legend, and that
took it just to an entirely different level. I've had
many incredible wildlife encounters, and this one ranks right up
there was seeing great whites in the Pacific. This was
a lifelong dream come true, and I got to share
it with three very special kids and a friend who

(02:40):
is also there and is as big a buffalo fan
as I am. Part of my love of bison comes
from knowing their tragic history and the great conservation efforts
it saved him. According to Texas Bison Association, bison were
hunted in various ways quote quote before Indians had horses,
they would encircle the herd with tribe members on foot.

(03:03):
By getting the animals to meal within the ring they formed,
Indians were able to fire large volleys of arrows into
the herd until they downed an adequate number of animals.
In the sixteenth century, when horses were acquired by the
Plan's Indians, bison hunting became easier. They used other methods
to harvest the mighty buffalo, now by stampeding herds over

(03:24):
a cliff, driving the animal to a large natural trap,
or into bogs or blind canyons. The most famous hunting
technique was the horse surrounded several hundred riders would form
semicircles on two sides of the herd, then move in
until they created a circle around its entirety. As pressure

(03:45):
was supplied by the oncoming riders, the bison would begin
to get confused, start milling around, and eventually stampede into
a frenzied milling mass. At this point, riders would move
in and begin the slaughter with showers of arrows or
plunged lances. Then came the tragic wholesale slaughter of bison

(04:06):
by European settlers. Now, sadly this is a black mark
on our history. This was as much to wipe out
the planes tribes as it was to sell bison parts,
but it was definitely a market thing. What was once
a heard of millions was reduced to just a few
hundred by the late eighteen hundreds recorded to the Texas

(04:27):
Parks and Whileiffe Department. Legendary rancher Charles Goodnight started the
remnants of the herd on his Ja ranch in the
Texas Panhandle in eighteen seventy eight and attempts to save
the animals that had meant so much to him and
his family. Quote it was actually his wife that influenced
the cattle in business tycoon to preserve them before they disappeared,

(04:47):
so that future generations might be able to see and
appreciate these special creatures. It says, somehow, against the odds,
a herd of genetic related Southern bison have managed to
survive the decades since, and now it all benefit from
good Night's vision. When the bison were initially donated to
Texas Parks and wild Department and moved to Caprock Canyon

(05:08):
State Park in nineteen ninety seven, it was discovered that
their DNA was different and featured genetics that are not
shared by any other bison herd in North America. In fact,
the official Texas State Bison herd at CAPROC represents the
last remaining examples of the Southern bison plains variety. And

(05:30):
I think that's just really cool that we have that
happening here in the great state of Texas. Now many
ranches proudly race bison, and they are going in numbers
right in Texas on private land and at places like
Caprock Canyon State Park. Herds in places like Yellowstone, which
I've seen almost eye to eye, are flourishing. I'll never

(05:52):
forget back in twenty sixteen doing this Wild Witch's Encounter
at Wyo Ranch headquarters. Sitting there with these young children
and watching them marvel at nature and realizing because I
knew the history of these animals, if visionary people of
the past had not stepped in, that encounter would have

(06:13):
never even been possible. And I thought that was just
such a beautiful moment. It inspired me to go even
deeper into what we do in our Wild Witsch's program,
and you know that program. At the time in twenty sixteen,
I think we had like fifteen or sixteen kids in
the Wishes program. Now we have two hundred and twenty

(06:34):
five and will likely cross the three hundred mark before
the end of the year, by the grace of God
and a lot of hard work, you know. I remember
walking back the truck with these kids. The moms, their
grandmothers and dads were so excited for the kids and
for this big kid because I was yelling all over
the place, and so excited because they knew we saw

(06:56):
something special. They got to see all of this go town.
But one thing they did not see, and I can't
shake or its eyes. We stared into the eyes of
the white buffalo. None of us may ever be the same.
We locked eyes with a legend that day. A few
years after that, I had a very personal encounter with

(07:19):
the bison. I never forget the sun rising over the
Lamar Valley Yellowstone National Park, the silhouettes of buffalo dotted
the horizon truly wild bison, and it was incredible. And
while slowly driving through this incredible setting, a couple of
beautiful pronghorn caught my attention, so I pulled over to
take some photos. Another gentleman had just stopped to do

(07:40):
the same, and we adjusted our lenses and his wife
shouted from their truck bison. We turned around and found
ourselves nearly eye to eye with a massive bull of bison,
and he looked angry, and I'm talking really angry. We
had obeyed all the safety protocol of Yellowstone, but it
was just one of those moments where we were just

(08:01):
caught off guard, and that happened sometimes. I mean, the
whites of this dude's eyes showed. He was grunting the
distance of about fifteen feet, which meant we were about
one half second away from fifteen hundred pounds of fury.
We gently backed up, and a couple of other bison
that just crossed the road, caused attention, and he ran

(08:23):
at him and slammed into one of them. The other
younger bull struck back, but then ran off, leaving the
big bull on its own. And I'll never forget this.
He proceeded to roll in the dirt, grunt and buck
up and down like a bronco. I'm not kidding. He
bucked up and down like a bronco. Yeah, this was
the same bison that walked right past us a few

(08:44):
seconds earlier. Bison actually hurt more people in Yellowstone than
any other animal, including grizzlies. And I almost saw a
woman get attacked by one doing something goofy, trying to
get a selfie with one. Yeah, for real, people look
at him as large cattle from the dairy farm because
they're unafraid of people in the park. It's called confidence, people,
not docility. And I'll never forget writing a blog about

(09:07):
this from the Bozeman International Airport. You can read that
blog at higher Calling dot and that just search bison
in the search engine there. It's a pretty funny blog.
And thinking, you know, I like getting my boots on
the ground checking out wildlife, but I don't necessarily like
getting so close to a bison that wasn't real happy,
you know. But these are the kind of things that

(09:28):
happen when you're actually out in the field doing wildlife
encounters and research. And I want to start the program
off talking about some amazing encounters that happen, hopefully to
inspire you to get out there and have your own encounters,
although maybe not quite as close as mine was with
the bison. And we come back on More Outdoors, so

(09:48):
we're going to talk about the hidden history of the bison.
I think you're going to find this very very interesting
hidden history of the bison east of Texas. Yeah, baby
bison east of Texas. Welcome back to More Outdoors on
News Talk five sixty KLV. This is chester More. Follow
me at the chester More. That's the chester More on Instagram,

(10:12):
Higher Calling Wildlife on Facebook and Higher Calling dot net
the blog. You need to subscribe to the blog at
Higher Calling dot net. Just go in there and see
your prompt to enter your email address. Award winning blog.
It's really really something that I put a lot of
effort in, So check that out and super excited to
talk about bison in the first part of the show.
If you missed it. Go back and click on KLVA

(10:34):
dot com the podcast link. You heard me talking about
an encounter with a white bison. But I've always been
intrigued by these incredible animals. And you think of them
roaming the Great Planes and up north. But the fact
is there were bison all the way to the eastern seaboard.
Matter of fact, bison once inhabited of the eastern United States,

(10:54):
ranging from Florida to Maine. And they were also in
places like Tennessee and Louisiana. You don't think of like
bison in Louisiana, but they were there. Indigenous people revered them,
utilizing every part of the animal for food, clothing, and shelter.
It wasn't just the Plains tribes, it was other tribes
that had, you know, relationships with these bison. So this

(11:15):
is a very interesting thing. Did a little bit of research.
Historical records indicate bison presence in Florida when early Spanish
explorers encountered them the northern regions of the state. Unfortunately,
by the early eighteen hundreds, European settlement, habitat destruction led
to their extinction. There. French explorers documented bison along the

(11:36):
Mississippi River in Louisiana in the late seventeen hundreds. However,
hunting pressure and habitat loss that kind of wiped them out.
They believe. The last while bison in Louisiana likely disappeared
in the early eighteen hundreds. Now in Tennessee, the tribes
such as the Cherokee and the Shawnee relied on bison

(11:56):
for some of their substance and materials. There's some traditions
about out them there and by the early eighteen hundred
unfortunate that European settlement and the over hunting. Now I
want to talk about the over hunting here. It's not
like we're going sport hunting, buying a license, killing with
the bag limit. This was just slaughter, is what it was.
Just no idea about using any kind of science based conservation,

(12:20):
just slaughter. And you know, sightings of bison from the
eastern seaboards from the Carolinas to Main recorded by early settlers,
and the problem was a lot of fragmented habitat. Things
turned over to agriculture, problems with agriculture and clashing of
bison and just killed out in that region. The last
recorded sighting of a wild bison in Florida encountered in

(12:43):
the eighteen hundreds. There are records of bison all the
way down to the Florida Keys. In twenty nineteen, I
went to a bison conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
and it was a really interesting event. It had a
lot of tribal interest, It had like people from the
US Fish and Wildlife Service, it had different state wildlife agencies,

(13:05):
and there's a real move to get more free ranging
bison back on the landscape. And I bought a couple
of different books about bison there and I found it
so intriguing that there were even records of bison as
far south as the Florida Keys. I mean, that's pretty astounding.
You think of a little key deer down there. You
think of manatees around there and the creeks, and you

(13:28):
know the Little Bays bison. Now, we know the slaughter
that happened in the mid eighteen hundreds is responsible for
the bison disappearing from the plains, but you know, we
know that there was some over hunting in the east
and you know, some habitat changes. There's also a possible
link to cattle being brought over and disease from cattle

(13:48):
maybe hurting them. You know, the wild sheep were wiped out,
I mean from two million to about twenty five thousand
in one hundred years. They were wiped out because of disease.
And that disease issue still lingers. So there's some there's
a little bit of controversy over what really eliminated them
from the eastern United States because we know for sure,

(14:12):
by the time the railroad hit and by the time
you know, firearms technology got to where you had repeating rifles,
and there was an agenda there to not only make
money from bison parts and get meat for settlers, but
it was also to cripple the Plains tribe. So, like
I said in the previous segment, definitely a black eye

(14:32):
on our you know, just national history as well as
our natural history because this led to decimated herds. But
it's so awesome and inspiring to see that bison have returned.
You know, we have the Plains bison that we talk about,
but there's also the wood bison. Yes, there're a wood
bison that live in Canada, and they were native to

(14:54):
Canada and Alaska and they literally live in the woods.
You know, you don't think of a bison living in
the woods, but I want you to. I think although
the eastern the United States is definitely thicker with trees
because of the way we grow them now, it was
more open and savannah like in some areas, But it
was definitely a thicker area than it was in the
Great Plains certainly, and even in the West. Bison lived

(15:17):
in the woods there too. But we're talking about the
Canadian Wilderness wood bison. There's a European bison as well.
I mean, just really really neat stuff that's out there.
And my mission here is to share fun, you know,
really interesting wildlife stuff you're not gonna hear anywhere else.
And it's also to inform you about sometimes how the

(15:40):
history meets the present, you know, like we have done
so much to help the bison's I mean, it's incredible.
I got to hunt a bison with a bow and
arrow when I was twenty three years old. It was
a dream come true. One shot in the heart with
my arrow and it went down. Literally when I went
up to the buffalo, I was teared up because of
the beauty of this moment of I would not have

(16:02):
been able to have that happen if it wasn't for
great conservations in the past, like Charles Goodnight and others.
And I thought that was such a cool moment, and
that literally fed my family for a year. I mean
we didn't buy beef for about a year and a half. Actually,
I mean we had bison bergers, bison steaks, we had

(16:24):
bison tacos, we had bison enchiladas, we had all kinds
of bison stuff and it was so so good and
it was so rewarding to eat that. And I think
it's important for those who hunt to connect back to that,
you know, like get in that moment where we learned
about our history, get involved in conservation works, and that

(16:46):
we embraced the harvest of what we do. I don't
apologize for hunting. I will never apologize for hunting. I hunt,
and I do kill stock, and I feed my family.
I mean, whether it's you know, a redfish and red
vista on the halfshell, you know some really good deep
fried blue wing teal breast meat which is incredible, the

(17:08):
sand hill crane and got to harvest are a bison,
It's all something that we cherish, and I think we
need to look more at our wildlife history to not
repeat the mistakes of the past, and also use the
triumphs of the past, the comeback of the bison, the
comeback of the big horn, all of these things to
move forward and do great things for wildlife. You know,

(17:30):
you even think about song like America the beautiful. You
know you're talking about, you know, beautiful, for spacious skies,
for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains. Majesty, I mean,
we're talking about the natural world here, and we've come
to the point in the natural world where we are
wiping out the habitat, and in many cases in America,
we're doing really good with the actual species on the

(17:52):
remaining habitat, and now there's too many because we've wiped
out habitat and they're showing up in downtown. We've got
to be able to get to the point where we're
habitat first and want our wildlife to have places to roam.
I can't imagine my life without wildlife. I've been obsessed
with wildlife my whole life, and I always will be obsessed.

(18:16):
And that translates to broadcasts like this. I mean, you
obviously can hear the passion of my voice. This isn't staged.
This is real and in our outreaches that we do,
we connect kids with stuff like this. And it's not
just kids. It's the kids that are the least. It's
the ones that are at the back of the line
that are hiding their head in shame because of abuse

(18:37):
they've experienced, or you know, whatever's going on in their life,
or the health trials they have, all of these things.
These are the kids we bring out on these expeditions
that have chances to meet like the white Buffalo we
talked about in the first segment. If you would like
more information on how you can connect with us and
help these kiddos, you can go to kingdomzoo dot com,

(18:59):
kingdomsoo dot com. You can make donations area, you can
suggest a kid we might want to work with, or
also go to Higher Calling dot net. You'll click on
the Youth Conservation Outreach button there and it goes into
that part of what we do with expeditions. I mean,
we've been fortunate to have support from people like the
Houston Safari Club Foundation and CCA and other organizations in
the past, but we're mainly supported by you the people,

(19:22):
and you're helping us reach kids all over the place.
We're doing something in Florida in a few weeks. We're
gonna be back in Florida in the Keys area in
late July. We're doing Colorado again, my favorite state. We're
doing Yellowstone this year. We're doing the Smoking Mountains and
also helping lots of kids locally through our Kingdom Zoo
Wildlife Center. Learn more at Kingdomzoo dot com and also

(19:46):
go to Higher Calling dot net and click on the
Youth Conservation Outreach link and see how you can help.
And maybe you know a kid that we can help.
That's always very important. Come back on more. We're gonna
talk some stuff about wildlife in Texas that I bet
you didn't know. Welcome back to Moro Outdoors on News
Talk five sixty k lv I. This is Chuester Moore.

(20:09):
You know hunting never ends in Texas. I just shot
a pig at my friend Derek's deer Lee's out in
Fredicksburg a couple of weeks ago. In fact, we have
year round exotic and hog hunting and varnmut hunting, but
the official hunting season has kicked off with dove season
opening an early teal season coming up. Then we have
archery only whitetailed, then we have duck season of course,

(20:29):
with geese mixed in there, and then we have the
general whitetail season, mule deer season out in West Texas,
a prong horned season. Seriously, lots of cool stuff going on,
and I wanted to kind of run through some of
these and give my thoughts on the opportunities for these

(20:50):
particular hunts in Texas and give you some nuggets that
maybe you didn't know of. I mean, dove season is
kind of like, I'm gonna be honest with you, I've
never been a huge dove hunter. I love to eat doves.
I've been dove hunting quite a few times. It's just
never been something I was like really hardcore about, like
a lot of guys, But dove hunting in Texas. There

(21:12):
are more dove killed in Texas than there are living
in most states there. For example, you know, there's like
forty million dove in Texas. Let me repeat that, about
forty million dove in Texas and about four hundred thousand
dove hunters. If every dove hunter in the state, you know,

(21:34):
shot you know, ten dove, there'd be four million. Hard
I don't know what the harvest rate is recently, but
that you know, most of the time that's somebody going
one time. But there it's a very very big thing
in Texas, and there are more dove hunters in Texas
and there are deer hunters in most states. It's just

(21:56):
a big deal. And I don't think it quit gets
highlighted quite enough because it's it's not something people like
train up for, you know, they just go out usually
hunt the first couple of weekends and that's it. You know. Actually,
some of the better dove huntings in the in the
middle of the dove season, when no one's out there.
We have white wing dove that are increasing, even in
Southeast Texas. Of course, mourning dove is the basis of

(22:18):
most from the hunting. I'm give you a quick story
about a white wing dove. I was fishing, you know,
years ago, at a rig that was about three to
four miles off the Louisiana coast, right off Sabine Passed,
and there was a and I had I ran a
picture of this in the Port Arthur News at the time.
There was a white wing dove sitting on the oil
rig just taking a rest and I got to think

(22:40):
this thing flew across the Gulf of Mexico. I mean,
how crazy is that? That was just a neat little
thing to see. But dove season is upon. It is
happening right now. The weather, you know, who knows all
the rain we're been getting late, we have no rain,
and then dove season comes, we get a lot of rain.
But it could benefit the teal hunters putting some fresh
water out of the marsh, some water in some of

(23:01):
these ponds. We'll see what happens. But teal season has
always been a favorite of mine. Blue wing teal are
the first waterfowl to migrate. They start migrating like in
August and small numbers, and then like the first full
moon in September, the full moon in September, they typically
come in mass and lots and lots of birds. And

(23:21):
this year is a mega year for blueing teal. Blueing
teal are getting close to Usurping Mallards is the most
numerous breeding duck in North America. They're a very very
successful duck and in my opinion, the finest eating of waterfowl.
I defy you to find anything better in the waterfowl

(23:43):
world than chicken fried blue wing teal breast. It's a
shame to not the size of a turkey or an
ostrich for that sake, because it's so good. But it's
very very good meat. And you know, early teal season,
you can also shoot green wings that they if they're
out there, or cinnamons, which are you know, cinnamons are
kind of like an exotic duck to Texas. We don't

(24:05):
get tons of them. They're mainly a Pacific flyaway bird,
but they are absolutely beautiful and every once in a
while someone can get one of those guys. Interestingly, green
wing numbers are down this year, which will have some
impact a little bit in the regular duck season. And
what's interesting about that is blue wings nest in what's

(24:28):
called the Prairie Pothole region, you know, North Dakota, South Dakota,
parts of Montana, you know, parts of Minnesota up into
Prairie Canada. The green wing teal breeds in the boreal
forest of western Canada, and it's you that area. If
you look at what happened last year Washington Oregon drawtwise

(24:50):
also happened across the border in parts of Canada, so
that probably had a pretty big impact on that. Now
what I want, I like giving you these nuggets here.
You know, a lot of tea are born in Canada.
They fly all the way down, some of them into
South America. Nineteen ninety nine, I hunted blue wing teal
in Winnie, Texas with Will Baty, who is still in

(25:13):
operation with Central Flyway Outfitters, and I kid you not
in December that year. Just a few months later, I
saw blue wing teal lighting in a cove that I
was fishing for peacock bass in Venezuela. It's amazing to
think that little bird could make that big migration, some

(25:34):
of them all the way down to South America, which
is just incredible and shows that It's one of the
things I've always been enamored with waterfowl is the migration.
I mean, it's really a remarkable thing to think about.
You know, how many calories they got to expend and
getting that far, and how do they know where they're going,

(25:55):
And it's just an incredible marvel of God's creation to
think about what those wants waterfowl do in terms of migrations.
It just it's really is a mind blowing thing. I
think it's I think it's absolutely incredible, you know, And
of course I'm not gonna go consecutive the I'm gonna
jump right into the waterfowl, the big waterfowl season. You know,
there are so many voices out there talking about duck

(26:19):
hunting and some of the problems with federal management in
terms of allowing you know, certain kinds of crops to
stand in stopping ducks coming down, and there's all those
kind of issues that always always float around the waterfowl world.
And the thing that is unfortunate about that is a
lot of that does that have anything to do with

(26:42):
like whether the population's doing well and the habitat's doing well,
stuff like that, and also just kind of unfortunately on online,
people like controversy and whether you know, whether you believe
certain theories or you you know, you're frustrated with the
Feds because of regulations. Over the last twenty years, I

(27:02):
think we've missed some of the beauty and majesty that
just happens in duck season and waterfowl. I mean, incredible,
incredible stuff, and we've been very fortunate. Think about the
drought that's happening out west. It's amazing that year after
year after year, for like the last twenty five years,

(27:25):
we have had pretty consistent flights of ducks in the
Prairie Pothole region. Let me tell you something, though, if
we have a drought like they're having in Nevada and
parts of California and parts of Utah and parts of Oregon,
it's gonna be wild, folks. They're gonna have to cut limits.

(27:46):
People are gonna freak out, Controversy is gonna be worse,
It's gonna be crazy. But the fact that that land
up there is so fertile when they do get rain.
These I've been up there with ducks unlimited before. These
temporary wetlands are incredible sources of life. And most of
those ducks that come we're in the Central Flyaway here
in Texas. If you're listening to Louisia, you're in the

(28:07):
Mississippi Flyway. So like where I live in Orange, I
live a few miles from Screen River, so I'm like literally,
I mean, I'm right on the edge of two flyways.
And most of those ducks come from the Prairie Pothole region,
and it's important for us to think about what's happening
on those prairie potholes. You know how many are being

(28:32):
converted to corn crops for ethanol, when in reality that's
a subsidized industry and they're destroying native grasslands, and native
grasslands are radically better for duck nesting and lots of
other wildlife. So lots of issues, lots of stuff and ducks.
And I had to mention this stuff because pretty much

(28:55):
in Southeast Texas, if you mentioned duck hunting, somebody's gonna
talk about that stuff. And that's fine. We may do
a program on that later this year with some couple
of different kind of experts. But I wanted to get
back to the basis of let's put some focus on
what's going on in that prairie pod Hoole region, also
in our wintering grounds, to make sure that we have

(29:16):
quality duck habitat wherever we at, that we have quality
duck habitat. That's a very very important thing. And because
these are migratory birds, literally, what happens in Mexico and
parts of South America could impact bluing teal. Certainly, what
happens in Southeast Texas impacts Think about the lack of

(29:37):
rice agriculture we have now compared to what we did.
That's one of the reasons we don't have as many ducks,
we don't have as much food, and we've degraded a
lot of the wetlands out there with saltwater intrusion, lots
of stuff. It's a complex mix that makes the waterfowl
thing tick and it's just really really interesting stuff. And
we come back on More Outdoors. We're gonna talk and

(30:00):
some other game animals in Texas. Welcome back to More
Outdoors on News Talk five sixty klv I. Check out
my writings at Higher Calling Donnette follow me online at
the Chestermber on Instagram, and you can also follow me
a Higher Calling Wildlife on Facebook. And folks, don't forget

(30:21):
there's a podcast of this program, More Outdoors. Go to
KLVI dot com, click on the podcast link at the
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Talking about the hunting seasons in Texas covered the dove thing,
went really in depth into some waterfowl stuff and of
course deer season. I mean that's Texas is a deer

(30:43):
hunting state. I mean, that's that's the thing you think Texas,
you think deer hunting, and of course the white tail season,
both archery and the general season is coming up. And
you know, Texas deer numbers have really went up the
last about three years, and it shows you what drought
can do. You know, we're back in a drought cycle,

(31:04):
but for about three years we were out of a
drought cycle in a lot of South Texas and the
Texas Hill Country, and our deer numbers went from being
about three point seventy five million to over five million
in Texas. And that's astounding because not only did they
go over five million, they went over five million with
less habitat. Have you been in the Texas Hill Country lately?

(31:28):
There's things developed from one end to the other, and
so is a lot of these Texas and parts of
South Texas. So it's a marvel to see. But white
tail numbers are way up, and you know, people predict
this and they predict that about white tail season in Texas. Look,
white tails are not migratory. They don't move really long

(31:49):
distances like elk do and things like that. So deer
hunt's going to be what it's going to be. You know,
a lot a lot of it in Texas, we say, well,
if we uh, you know, if the acrons aren't real
bad this year, we'll have them coming to the corn.
In other states where baiting's not legal, that's not an issue.
But I think they're gonna be a lot of big

(32:11):
deer killed this year, just judging from what I'm hearing
from people seeing stuff on game cameras. And look, it
depends on where you're hunting and how much time you
spend in the woods and sort of the luck of
the draw on the deer thing. But Texas white tail
numbers are big and they've boomed again. It's pretty incredible.
I didn't know we would ever get back up to
that five million level that it was for so many

(32:34):
years of my career doing this. So that's kind of
an interesting thing to look at. Something else that's went
up as mule deer populations. I don't have the current
mule deer essen, but I believe it's back again up
around two hundred thousand plus mule deer. You got to
figure this is only in parts of the Panhandle, and
it's in the trans Peikos that we have these mule deer,

(32:55):
and you know, it's amazing to me how many Texans
don't realize we have a vibrant mule deer population and
I think one of the number one if you're in
East Texas. That's a long shot. But almost all mule
deer huntings on private land in Texas and it costs
big bucks. Texas produces some big mule deer and there

(33:16):
is an aura about getting a Texas mule deer, so
there are some mega mega mule deer taken and it
costs mega megabucks. There are a few draw hunts, like
at Black Gap Wildlife Management Area, different places out there.
There's like you know, different things with Texas parks and wildlife,
but it's not like parts of East Texas where you

(33:38):
can go hunt national forests for white tails. We don't
have any national forest, you know, anyone can show up
stuff our units like you do in Colorado and get
a tag. In Texas for mule deer that is all
privately owned. Other than a few places. I mean, they
do a few hunts at Elephant Mountain, Black Gap, Sierra Diablo,

(33:59):
I think Big Ben Ranch, not the National Park may
have some hunts, but other than that it's all private.
So that's way I don't hear a whole lot about it.
Something you hear even less of is the prong horn
season in Texas. There is a limited prong horn season
in Texas. There's been any animal in Texas has been
beaten down by drought and predation, all kinds of problems.

(34:20):
It is the prong horn. Also caught a pronghorn, anal,
although not technically an antelope. Yeah, we got prong horns
in Texas, and once again, almost all of it is
on private land. That's why I don't hear a whole
lot about that. And they're not real, real numerous. I mean,
if you hear someone going pronghruning, they're probably out in Wyoming.
They're probably out in New Mexico or somewhere. And I

(34:41):
have a real affinity for these animals. You know. The
first time I really saw like a lot of them
was about four years ago. But the first ones I
ever saw, believe it or not, we're in California walking
out of a rice field on the edge of the
Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. Apparently it's some kind of rare
subspecies of pronghorn, but they're walking out of a rice field,

(35:05):
which completely blew my mind because you think of a
pronghorn being out in the distant prairies and stuff like that.
The places I probably seen the most you're out in Nevada.
When I was driving between Reno and Las Vegas looking
for big horns, I came across the stretch of military property,
which most of that out there is military property, and
there are prong horns everywhere, super beautiful animals. And my

(35:28):
favorite pronghorn memory is photographing these two bucks fighting for
like thirty minutes and I finally got tired of shooting pictures.
They're literally running circles around me, and I went down
the road and I found a grizzly. Some ladies were
taking pictures just grizzly sow way out there and cubs.
I come back like two hours later and they're still
throwing down. It was hilarious. But they are a very

(35:51):
underappreciated game animal. And look, no game animal is affordable
these days if you do an outfitted hunt, not for
like like we of a really easily affordable anybody can do.
But they are probably the most affordable big game animal
out there. And the success rates even for bow hunting
are very high because they come to these water holes.

(36:13):
In the summer, they put these like shoot through ground
blinds out and the prong horns walk up to them.
Really really cool, special animal. And you know we have
them in Texas. There's also a huntable population in Oklahoma,
so we're sort of, you know, surrounded by prong horns
at least half the state. Super super beautiful and the

(36:34):
fastest animal in North America. I kid you not. And
I got a great story on prong horns. So when
I was in Yellowstone last year, I was in Lamar
Valley and which is an incredible place. It's just like
an open valley between mountain ranges and it's like twenty
six miles long. The road through there with just a
two lane road and that's it, and probably twenty six

(36:56):
to thirty miles wide. It's like my dream place because
there are prong horns, elk fu, mule deer, there's big
horns in part of the mountain part of it, grizzlies,
black bears, lots of trout in the streams. I mean,
it's just like epic and bison all over the place,
wool gray wolves. It's amazing, right, It's just dream place.

(37:16):
So I'm out there and I see these two wolves,
and I got like a crappy picture because it was
literally like a mile away. But you see a black
wolf and a regular standard colored gray wolf, and there
are two prong horn and they you I'm watching them
trying to sneak up on the prong horn, and the
prong horn let him get about fifty yards and his
prong horn like hit hyper space like Consilo does't of

(37:39):
lineum Falcon and star Wars just cho out of there,
and the wolves try to sneak back up and the
next time they let him get like thirty yards and
then they just boom, took off again. The wolves are
getting a lot slower here, and they finally in the
little these pronghorn let him get about twenty five yards away,
and they just took off like a bolt of lightning.
The wolves like, forget it, can't do it. It's just funny.

(38:00):
They were literally trying to hunt those pronghorn and when
they're sitting there, they were like exhausting the prong horn
and looking at them from like, you know, half a
mile away, which was hilarious. I heard a bison came
through and the lead bison was a cow and she
had a baby with her, and dude, they looked at
those wolves and wolves hijacked out of there. Man, they

(38:21):
wouldn't want nothing to do with those mean mama bison.
You know you're hearing that enthusiasm in my voice and
these anecdotes about things that we have in Texas. You know,
we don't think about pronghorn and mule ear and all
that kind of stuff that much. We talk about big
horns on here quite a bit. We have a lot
of great resources. But that enthusiasm that you hear my

(38:41):
voice there, that's the important stuff. Look, folks, life is hard,
sometimes very hard, and our world is falling apart around us.
But when you go out into the great outdoors, you
think about God's creation, God himself and the majesty of
the creation. I get to go see wildlife stuff. Now,

(39:02):
I don't always get to be the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone,
which I would love to be right now. It's a
great time of year to be there. But just being
out in the swamp, being on the deer lease, being
out in the coastal prairie, being on the bay, being
in the golf of Mexico, you never know what you're
gonna see. What you're gonna experience, and I guarantee you
what you're gonna see and experience there is better than
where you do sitting in front of the TV or

(39:23):
the computer screen. You need to get recharged and inspire
to go back out there. And you know, Hunting Seasons
series we've been talking about. We got some cool opportunities
in Texas and I never want you to take that
stuff for granted. To me, it's important that we don't
take this stuff for granted because it's easy to do.
And you know, make a goal set up and save

(39:45):
money for a prong horn hunt or a mule deer
hunter or whatever you want to do, or fly fishing expedition.
I did that last year. Say that for about a
year and me and my buddy went to Florida fishing
and caught bonefish and peacock, bass and large mouth and
tartan and all kind of cools. Great things can still
happen even though the war old's falling apart around us. Folk,
God bless you, and have a great outdoors weekend.