Duck Texas! VP Cheney’s In Town For Some Bird Hunting

Two years almost to the day, Vice President Dick Cheney is returning to the famed 50,000 South Texas ranch of Anne Armstrong, the site where he accidentally shot his hunting partner Harry Whittington. Read more

Texas Deer Breeding - Sixth Most Profitable Agricultural Industry

Everything is big in Texas they say and breeding deer, both whitetail and mule deer, has become big business. Last year the industry boasted a $652 million economic impact to the state. The Gazette-Enterprise has more on this story.

Tom Remington

One Big Alligator Caught In Texas

Justin Wells of Lufkin, Tom Bass of Dallas, Jarrett Hanus of Spring and Ryan Haltom of Houston set baits to catch an alligator by hook and line. They had scouted the area and knew there was a big alligator lurking about the area where they set their bait. When they returned to check on the bait, they found they had hooked a gator. But which one?

As reported in the Lufkin Daily News:

“We’d gotten word back in the spring time that there was a big gator out there,” said Haltom, a wildlife biologist and land management consultant, “so me and Tommy had gone out there several times and scouted and seen quite a bit of gator activity and videotapes of gators.”
Ranch manager Larry Denson had spotted the big gator, prompting them to get tags for the season, and Thursday night was just “kind of a last-minute deal before the season was over,” Haltom said.
Using the hook-and-line method, the group anchored a rope to a tree, left enough rope so the gator could run with it, and hung a 14-ought treble hook about a foot above the water with their own “secret recipe of chicken and some other stuff.”
“We can’t let too many secrets out of the bag,” Haltom said.

Returning on Friday to check the bait, they assumed a gator had taken the bait, run off and probably drowned.

“He drowned himself,” Wells said. “We believe he just dove underneath the water and got tangled up in a stump, and gators have to come up for air every 15 minutes, so we were pretty sure he was dead, but we still weren’t sure.”
“Once we figured out he was dead and he wasn’t going to get us,” Haltom said, “we started diving down and feeling on him and we realized he was big. We could stand on top of him and we were head and shoulders above the water. That’s when we knew he had to be a big guy.
“The scales kind of change. On his belly there’s big, slick scales, or tiles, and as you get toward their mouth it gets into some softer leather, and we got to feeling around and thought, ‘OK, this is his mouth.’ But when we got to tying him up, we realized it wasn’t his mouth — it was his leg.”

Discovering a truck and a rope (400-pound test that broke) wasn’t going to help, they eventually got it out of the water with a tractor and chains.

The gator measured 13 feet, 10 1/2 inches and weighed 880 pounds. They think it has the potential to be a Texas state hook and line record. They are waiting to see.

The men plan to have the gator mounted and donated to a museum or some such thing.

Tom Remington

Texas Big Horn Sheep Growing In Numbers

The last known native Texas big horn sheep was spotted in October of 1958. Today, with the help of many, big horn sheep number 991 in the far western reaches of the Lone Star state. The Jasper Newsboy is reporting that the census tallied a one-year increase in sheep of 169.

“It’s still kind of hard to believe,” said Mike Pittman, who oversees the three state wildlife management areas that form the nucleus of Texas’ bighorn sheep program. “We used to bust our tails trying to see 100 sheep in the Sierra Diablo Mountains because that meant we had what we considered a viable population.”

This year’s survey recorded more than 400 bighorn sheep in the Sierra Diablos, birthplace of the restoration effort more than 60 years ago after more than 11,000 acres were acquired by the state as a sanctuary for the last remaining bighorn.

Once protective measures were put in place, efforts got underway to see about the possibility of restoring the big horn sheep to the west Texas area.

With the help of private landowners willing to protect bighorns and their habitat on their ranches, support from the Texas Bighorn Society and hunters, the desert bighorn sheep has made a comeback. Stocking of sheep obtained from other western states during the last two decades and transplanting animals into suitable habitat have nudged the natural recovery process.

As part of the overall management of the sheep, officials will issue hunting permits to target what they call surplus sheep. A surplus ram is one that is older and “He becomes more reclusive from the herd and his physical appearance may be deteriorating. We know that he’s already contributed to the herd for several years. That’s what we consider a surplus animal.”

This year 13 permits will be issued, most of them going to private landowners.

Tom Remington

Tell Texans The Number Of Hunters And Fishermen Declining

It seems that not all the news coming out about the declining number of hunters and fishermen nationwide is bad. I reported last week that Maine was bucking the national trend of reduced numbers but someone forget to tell Texans there seems to be a lack of interest.

The Houston Chronicle is reporting that hunting and fishing license sales are extraordinarily rapid paced.

Over the five-day period Aug. 30-Sept. 3, Texans purchased a little more than 385,000 hunting and fishing licenses, pumping about $12 million into TPWD accounts used exclusively for wildlife and fisheries programs.

Aug. 31 — the day old licenses expired and the day before the start of dove hunting season in most of the state — saw more than 136,000 licenses and other documents (public hunting permits, special-use stamps, etc.) purchased.

“That’s the biggest single day (of license sales) we’ve ever had,” Newton said.

Texans spent about $4.6 million on hunting and fishing licenses that day, Newton said.

And at the peak of sales, Texans were buying almost 250 licenses every minute — more than 14,000 an hour.

What’s also interesting is that officials are estimating that they will exceed license sales from last year, which was a record year.

This past year, TPWD issued a record 3.2 million hunting and fishing licenses.

And the state seems on a road to improve those numbers this license year.

“Last year was our best year,” Newton said. “So far this year, we’re about 2 percent ahead of where we were at this time a year ago.”

Is there something going on in Texas that other states should be looking at?

Tom Remington

Texas Deer Association Swears in New Leadership

SAN ANTONIO — The state’s only non-profit organization solely dedicated to Texas deer, the Texas Deer Association passed the torch this weekend and ceremoniously installed newly elected officers on its executive committee. The all-new executive committed was officially sworn in during the Ninth Annual Texas Deer Association Convention & Trade Show held at the Westin La Cantera Resort in San Antonio.

Leading the new executive committee is President Jimmy Hasslocher of San Antonio, who has previously served as vice president for the TDA’s Region Four, as well as in several leadership roles in his community. Also taking office were newly elected executive committee members Brian Carter of Driftwood, Texas, as vice president; Bobby Marburger of Columbus, Texas, as secretary; and Gilbert Adams III of Beaumont, Texas, as treasurer.

“Our members are our real strength,” said Hasslocher, who addressed more than 1000 TDA members attending the convention. “Communication will be my top priority, making sure our new members feel valued and ensuring that all members have timely and accurate information as we move forward together.”

All of the new TDA executive committee officers expressed a keen interest in creating a growing membership for the TDA, as well as for greater involvement with government activities and legislation that might impact the deer and hunting industries in Texas.

The TDA is the only non-profit organization solely committed to improving the quality of Texas deer herds through improved habitat practices, modern harvest strategies and use of superior deer to enhance the deer herds. As a part of its public education efforts, the TDA publishes a full-color bimonthly magazine, Tracks, which updates TDA members on current legislative news, deer genetics and game management issues. The TDA also hosts an annual convention and trade show every August featuring fund-raising auctions, a deer auction, golf tournament and other events.

To learn more about the Texas Deer Association or for membership information, visit www.texasdeerassociation.com or call 210.767.8300.

Tom Remington