Graduation Day

Y’all it is H O T. Make sure you are getting plenty of that high quality H2O. I had the opportunity to help out some guides last week in Sonora Texas. It was 112 degrees outside. It was 115 degrees inside a blind. Who in their right mind would want to do this?? Me. That’s who. As I sat there I was surrounded by Rio turkeys and whitetail does. Mature Axis bucks were howling in the thickets of cedar and mesquite. They actually howl. Did you know that? The wind was out of the Southeast and at 18 miles per hour. I was trying out First Lite’s new summer gear along with eating some delicious Edwards Plateau specialty dust burgers. I also graduated from the Texas Guide School. I hold a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Houston and the last two plus weeks of school has been the most in depth hands on experience I have ever had. Clay Pope runs the school in Junction Texas. Over the years he has seen guides come and go and most of them lacked the fundamentals it requires to be the best guide they could be. So he founded the Texas Guide School out of necessity. He does a magnificent job preparing a guide for what they will encounter in the world of being a professional hunting guide. Clay has more than 25 years of outfitting experience. More than that he is eager to share what he knows. There aren’t a whole lot of people like that in the world. Most like to hold on to the little things they know that make them different with the hopes that it makes them better in some small way. I find those kind of people hardly tolerable. A character in my all time favorite novel Lonesome Dove said “I won’t tolerate rudeness in a man” and I say it’s downright rude not to pass along knowledge. Everybody watches hunting shows and thinks they know how to do things like score a deer or age them on the hoof. It leads to harvests that are too young that will never reach their potential. It also leads to bad guiding. When you pay for a hunt you should get what you pay for. How many times have you been on a guided hunt where the guide actually went to school? I’d bet at least a few pennies the answer is never. You shouldn’t have to settle for something that is missing a tine or is not at all what you were wanting. I learned over 100 different species of exotics. All were on the final exam. I got 95 right in case you were wondering. I also learned the taxidermy side of being a professional. About 1 week into our class I had to admit that I feel really bad for all the taxidermists that I dropped off hides to before taking this class. There’s a correct way to prepare an animal for taxidermy and it’s really hard. It’s tedious and takes time to do it properly. I had the opportunity to get more involved in predator hunting. Clay started his business as a predator removal service and he is top notch when it comes to calling predators. We got in depth with the SCI scoring methods. You want a trophy Fallow? I got ya. Red Stag? Aoudad? Let’s go. Plant ID or animal tracks? I know it. We spent hours on top of hours learning how to identify, age, score, harvest, butcher and prepare animals professionally. We were part of preparing meals for clients at the lodge and seeing how food costs can hurt a hunting operation. I won the contest for who can make the best pot of coffee. It’s the little things right? Over and over we heard to give 100%…. 100% of the time. Our final days in class were spent learning first aid and CPR. Final exam consisted of animal identification, estimating age, scoring within a 1/2 inch, butchering cuts on an animal, using a map, snakes and shit that will bite poke or sting you and other cool things that Clay says. Bonus questions for the final exam that were never ever mentioned in class….. What is the gestation period of a squirrel and how many numbers from 1-100 have the letter A in them? No Google. Remember in my previous blog when I talked about being in a situation where there was no Siri to ask or the ability to Google things? This is one of those situations. Jump on over to the Hunting Guiding Outfitting page for the answers. There will also be some exciting updates on there. I went into this school with an entirely open mind. No expectations. No plans. Just the hope that afterwards I would be better at doing what I love to do. I came away with more than I could ever imagine. I jumped in for the experience. Once again I got lost. Once again I got found.