20 minute read
Founders letter
There seems to be an increased excitement about the upcoming dove season in comparison to last season. COVID played a big part in limiting the number of guns that went to the field and how often. The excitement is growing, and the phone has been ringing more than usual at our office with people looking for an outfitter. The Texas BB Challenge has already exceeded the number of entries from the same time a year ago anticipating more trips to the field and a better chance to win. The rains this spring have been just what we needed for the germination of spring planting and hopefully some continued intermittent rains will help maintain steady growth for maturity.
If you are in the mode of cleaning your gun and getting ready, let me encourage you to get your shells as soon as possible. As with so many other industries, COVID has had a lingering effect on the shotgun shell supply chain starting with the procurement of powder, plastic and brass. This has had a major effect on manufacturing the shells and is causing a shortage of supply. You may not have as many options of shot size, shot weight, FPS velocity or dram equivalent this season. Get what you can and trade in the field with someone looking for what you have. If you can’t find the lead you are looking for you may want to try your luck with steel shot, some hunters prefer steel over lead for various reasons but this year it may simply be out of necessity. Use caution when shooting steel. Be sure you check the specs on your chokes, if you use them, as some are not made to support steel in all patterns.
As we prepare for the upcoming season, it’s important to remember that our hunting dogs need preparation. Remember to exercise and work with them to help them get in shape for the hot days in the field. And don’t forget to take plenty of water. They’ll need it.
Take a kid hunting,
Bobby Thornton
MISSION STATEMENT
BUBBA WOOD
A Lifetime of Hunting, Shooting, and Wildlife Conservation
By: Nate Skinner Photography by: Sarah Dockery
If you’re a hunter, wing shooter, or shotgun enthusiast in Texas, then the chances are you’ve probably heard the name Bubba Wood. Wood has dedicated his life to wildlife conservation and preserving the sports of bird hunting and shotgunning for future generations. His legacy and reputation have made him a household name among sportsmen and those passionate about wildlife and their future.
The iconic Texas outdoorsman, Martin F. Wood, was pretty much known as “Bubba” his entire life. Born in Wichita Falls in 1940, he was the son of a very successful Texas oilman.
“It’s a remarkable situation to find yourself in, being born on third base,” Wood said when referring to his upbringing. “With that being said, you don’t ever want to think that you hit the triple that got you there. I’ve tried to adhere to this mentality as much as I possibly could.”
Wood’s passion for hunting, fishing, and the outdoors began at a young age. At ages 7-8, he could name and identify all the ducks and waterfowl species found in North America.
“I studied F. H. Kortright’s book, The Ducks, Geese & Swans of North America, constantly as a child,” Wood admitted. “I could name them all.”
Wood’s affinity for the outdoors and later his motivation for fighting for wildlife conservation was influenced by his father, Frank Wood, who was Chairman of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
“My dad was a fabulous father, as far as introducing me to the outdoors was concerned,” Wood elaborated. “He always made it a priority to take me hunting and fishing, and if he couldn’t take me, he saw to it that I got taken. Several game wardens in north Texas as I was growing up became my hunting guides. Three of them ended up as groomsmen in my wedding.”
Some of Wood’s earliest hunting memories with his dad began in a dove field.
“We hunted doves quite often around north Texas,” Wood said. “There were a lot of folks farming for doves, and there were plenty of birds.”
Wood killed his first limit of quail when he was nine years old. It is a memory that he is still very proud of today.
“I still remember to this day how proud my Dad was of me bagging my first limit of quail,” Wood reminisced. “I think he was more proud of that feat than he was when I graduated from law school which he knew was a miracle.”
At 80, Wood still hunts White-winged dove and quail all over the state at every opportunity.
“My longtime friend, Ed Griffith, a banker in Taylor, Texas, owned a ranch in that area, where we hunted for years,” he said. “It became a tradition of ours to open our season there on that place, and I hunted with him every year until his passing last year.”
Having a gun dog along on a hunt became very important to Wood throughout his life.
“I wouldn’t have given anyone a nickel to shoot a bird if I didn’t have a bird dog on the ground with me,” he said. “I don’t see the point in hunting without a dog. They add so much more to the experience.”
Wood’s current hunting partner is a seven-year-old female English Cocker named Katie. As I interviewed him, she sat by his side the entire time.
When I asked him how many gun dogs he had owned throughout his lifetime, Wood responded with, “Wow, that’s about like asking a bird hunter how many cases of shotgun shells have ever been through his warehouse or garage over the years.”
According to Wood, the most bird dogs that he ever had at one time were 15.
“It was nothing to have 10 or 12 at a time,” Wood admitted.
Wood had a quote that he was known for coining about shotguns and hunting dogs that said, “The fact that there are bobwhite quail, 20-gauge shotguns and pointing dogs are all the proof that a man needs to know that there is in fact, a God, and divine intervention on this earth.”
Wood once said these words to longtime outdoor writer Ray Sasser.
“I had this deal with Sasser, where I had asked him not to quote me in his news columns,” Wood explained. “I later saw him use this quote in an arti-
continued on page 14 Bubba and PCQC Co-founder, Joe Crafton
cle, saying that it was from an anonymous hunter. As soon as I read it, I called him up and joked with him about it being the one time that I actually said something intelligent, and yet, he didn’t give me credit for saying it.”
Wood, who is quite modest about his shooting skills, is one of the best shotgunners of all time. He was a passionate skeet shooter, and in 1976 he formed a five-man team known as the Cosmic Cowboys. The team traveled the country, and for lack of better words, owned the sport of five-man team skeet in 1976 and 1977. They were undefeated during this period.
Wood earned the title as an All-American skeet shooter several times. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Shooting Sports Association Hall of Fame.
Wood has earned quite the reputation as a renowned wildlife conservationist in Texas. He loves the outdoors and has more than done his part to give back to hunting and fishing sports and the resources they depend on. Wood was instrumental in starting the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation and founding the Texas Duck Stamp program. He is humble about his role saying, “It was because of Governor Bill Clements, and Parks & Wildlife chairmen Perry Bass, and Chuck Nash who were in positions of authority that made it easier to team up and get things done. Without them, I couldn’t have done what I did.” He has also done work for the Coastal Conservation Association, and he founded Collectors Covey, a sporting art gallery that pioneered the sporting art movement in the Dallas area.
Some of Wood’s most well-known conservation efforts revolve around his involvement with molding Park Cities Quail into the organization that it is today. Wood worked with Park Cities Quail Coalition Co-founder, Joe Crafton, to get the right folks involved so that the movement and organization could take off. These efforts included getting T. Boone Pickens involved, which became a monumental catalyst for Park Cities Quail. The organization and the sport of quail hunting in Texas wouldn’t be where it is today without Bubba Wood. But again, he is quick to credit others like Dick McCallum, Pete Delkus, Jay Stine, Matt Perry-Miller, and Raymond Morrow as well as the other members of Park City Quail for their hard work.
Wood was recently awarded the T. Boone Pickens Lifetime Sportsman Award by Park Cities Quail. At the 2021 Annual Park Cities Quail Coalition Dinner & Auction, all of the donors received a medallion, just as they do every year. This year, instead of there being a quail on the medallion, there was a White-winged Dove on them, in honor of Wood’s shooting background. It was the first year a white-winged dove was ever featured on the medallion.
Wood’s wife, Pat, has stood by his side since they first met when he was 15. She has always supported his passion for hunting and even hunted herself.
“She could hunt and shoot with the best of them,” Wood said, “And she could clean birds as good as anyone too.”
Wood says that his wife’s hunting career ended abruptly one dove season on a lease in Albany during a humid day when the temperature was over 100 degrees.
“I looked over at her, and she was dripping with sweat,” Wood elaborated. “She told me, I hate this, I’ve always hated this, and I’m never doing it again. She then picked up our youngest son, Patrick, who was playing bird boy for her, and they went to the car and cranked on the air conditioning.”
Wood is full of funny, memorable stories from his time spent in the outdoors that will warm the hearts of whoever is willing to listen. He is an encourager, he is a sportsman, he is a Texan, he is a conservationist, and he is one of a kind.
TEXAS WILDLIFE ASSOCIATION EDUCATING TEXANS
By David Yeates
The hunters, anglers, and wildlife enthusiasts of Texas are a diverse bunch. That rich diversity results in an array of organizations, coalitions, and associations focusing on one aspect or another of that community and the wildlife resources we all cherish. Texas Dove Hunters Association is a wonderful example of that by recruiting dove hunters and contributing to dove research through its banding programs. While we can all name a long list of other worthwhile organizations, I was asked to share the story of Texas Wildlife Association (TWA), where I have served on staff as Chief Executive Officer for the last seven years. Our mission statement is concise and reads, “Serving Texas wildlife and its habitat while protecting property rights, hunting heritage, and the conservation efforts of those who value and steward wildlife resources.”
TWA was founded in 1985 by a group of wildlife biologists and landowners that were concerned about a bill filed in the Texas Legislature. That bill would have prohibited all landowners from erecting “game proof” or “high” fences. While the use of high fencing is not a fit for everyone, the early membership of TWA felt like that was a decision for the landowner to make, not the Legislature. TWA continues to support that position. Remember, landowners use high fences to keep native and exotic wildlife out, just as much as they do to keep native and exotic wildlife in. Regardless of one’s perspective on high fences, the bill highlighted the need for wildlife managers in Texas to get organized and involved in the public policy arena. TWA quickly grew into that role, which it continues to fill today 36 years later.
Today TWA retains a professional lobby team, administers a Political Action Committee (PAC), and serves as the leading voice for hunting and wildlife matters in the Texas Legislature and Executive branch. Our staff, volunteer leadership, and membership are continually involved with state agencies and members of the Legislature on the priority of the day. That ranges from appropriations to game wardens and the state park system to helping form Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) surveillance and management rules. Over the years, TWA played a formative role in establishing wildlife valuations for open space property taxes, limited landowner liabilities to incentivize hunting leases, and the dedicated funding stream for the state park system. Through proactive monitoring and involvement in the process, TWA has become a trusted stakeholder and effective advocate in the public policy arena for all hunters and wildlife managers in Texas.
In 1991, TWA helped form the Texas Big Game Awards (TBGA) in partnership with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD). This program recognizes notable big game harvests each season from around the state with regional and statewide banquets. This program highlights the connection between habitat management and wildlife while helping recruit and retain Texas hunters.
In 1996, TWA helped form the Texas Youth Hunting Program (TYHP) in partnership with TPWD. This program utilizes trained volunteers to take kids aged 9-17 and their parent or guardian on hunts across the state, primarily on private ranches. This program is administered by a team of five TWA staff members.
Since its inception, TYHP has taken approximately 27,000 kids on a hunt. Each year, we run more than 200 separate hunts all over the state, taking about 1,200 kids on a hunt. It is the largest hunting program of its kind in the nation. We continue to recruit landowners, volunteers, hunters, and donors to grow this enormously impactful program, which we have recently expanded into adult hunters that are new to the sport. More information can be found at the TWA or TYHP websites or by calling the TWA office in New Braunfels.
In 2001, the volunteer leadership of TWA realized that the message of hunting and wildlife stewardship in a private lands state needed to be spread beyond the halls of the Texas Legislature and campfires at deer hunts. They launched a natural resource education program, formally called Conservation Legacy, with the stated goal of “getting yellow school buses on private ranches.” Twenty years later, that program has blossomed into a wide and deep catalog of curriculum and deliveries that range from handbooks and rodeo exhibits to immersive field days and hands-on lessons by TWA educators in school classrooms across the state. Pre-pandemic, those programs collectively reached over 600,000 Texans a year. We expect those numbers to recover and expand going forward as schools get back to more traditional administration.
At the end of the day, TWA does one thing. We teach. We educate Texans about the importance of hunting, wildlife, natural resource stewardship, and the role landowners play in that equation. We educate legislators so they can make informed policy decisions. We educate new hunters so they hopefully become lifelong hunters, benefiting the outdoor-related economy and continuing to shepherd our precious hunting heritage into the future. We educate school children so they may have a baseline of natural resource literacy, regardless of where they live, in hopes of Texas having future voters that care about wild places and wild things. We do all of this only with the help of members, partners, and philanthropic supporters.
By: Chris Batha
Chris Batha Shooting Solutions for Wing & Clay
The opening day of dove season is coming, and you are getting ready: got your shotgun;
right gauge, right chokes, right cartridges.
BUT DOES YOUR SHOTGUN ACTUALLY FIT YOU?
correctly fitted shotgun can mean the difference between just getting your limit and getting your limit and being first out of the field!
Most mass-produced shotguns are built to fit Mr. Average: around 185 pounds and somewhere between 5 foot 10 and 6 foot tall. If you fit that bill, you are all set.
The measurements on the average shotgun are usually, Length of Pull -14 ¾ inches, Drop at Comb – 1 ½ inch, and Drop at Heel – 2 ½ inches.
If, however, you are taller, shorter, thinner, or heavier, your shotgun will probably not fit you, and you will need to either alter the stock, get a stock with an adjustable comb or order a custom-fitted shotgun.
The good news is, you will shoot much better with a shotgun that actually fits you, so the next step is to have a Custom Gun Fitting. with an infinitely adjustable stock that can be set to your correct dimensions so you can consistently shoot point of aim.
For example, I have both over and under and a side by side try guns that require slightly different adjustments, depending on the shooter.
A Gun Fitting is a unique “one-on-one” experience, not only for the shooter - I learn something from each and every fitting.
First Things First
I have to allow two and often three hours to achieve an accurate fitting as the client must be able to mount the shotgun correctly and consistently.
A good gun mount starts with proper foot placement, correct stance -posture, and head position so that the shotgun is mounted smoothly into the cheek and shoulder with no head movement.
Shooters who rush their gun mount often pull the stock into their shoulder then lift it to their face in a see-saw movement. This is the cause of multiple misses as the barrels see-saw on and off the target line with a one in three chance of hitting a target or knocking down a bird.
Another common fault that can affect an accurate gun fit, even in good shots, is the grip. A proper grip is essential to controlling the shotgun both directionally and in reducing barrel flip.
A gun fitting can take two to three hours because one hour or two are often spent on a lesson on the fundamentals of straight shooting.
I use a coaching App on an iPad which allows slowmotion replay, and this helps to show and explain the faults in the client's gun mount. I use an App called the Hudyl Technique, which is used in many sporting fields to illustrate and diagnose causes and faults in their shooting fundamentals.
I found that showing someone their faults then explaining how to practice correctly pays dividends in achieving a solid and consistent gun mount, hence an accurate gun fit.
To become a consistently good shot, you should practice improving your gun mount. Forget about choke and shot and concentrate on grooving your gun mount – it is the key to consistent shooting and ensures an accurate gun fitting.
Gun Fits for Junior Shooters
Unlike senior shooters, junior shooters are constantly growing, so shooting a gun that fits is essential from the beginning.
I hate to see a beginning shooter being taught to shoot with a shotgun that is too heavy with a stock that is too long and struggling with the weight. They subconsciously transfer their weight to their back foot to support the gun and then have to roll their head to the side to reach the stock. This creates the wrong muscle memory from the get-go.
A youth model shotgun is the best way to start; with a shorter stock and usually a little higher in the comb, this model can be bought with an adjustable comb to allow for growth spurts. Rubber comb raisers are always helpful, and I recommend using the lightest load cartridges, which, along with a good gun fit, will set the junior shooter off on the right path.
The Accurate Gun Fitting
The critical measurements in the gun fitting are:
LENGTH OF PULL: The measurement is taken from the trigger ( the front one in a double-triggered shotgun) to the end of the stock and the heel, middle, and toe.
DROP: This is measured from a parallel line taken from the rib of the shotgun to the stock at the comb and heel. heel of the stock, the measurement is taken against a straight edge from the rib, at the heel, and at the toe.
The adjustments made possible with the Try Gun allow the Gun Fitter to make a series of alterations to achieve what appears to be the perfect fit. The final step is to shoot the Pattern Plate to "prove" the accuracy of the impact point – to confirm that the shotgun is shooting where the client is looking.
Once accurate measurements are taken for the Try Gun, those measurements can be given to a competent gunsmith who can bend or shape the gunstock to the desired cast or drop and reduce or lengthen the stock to the correct dimensions.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Once you have the correct dimensions on your shotgun, you need to practice your gun mount until it is second nature.
The best way to practice your gun mount is in a mirror placed head height using an empty shotgun. Watch your reflection for signs of head-lifting or dropping, which result in a see-saw gun mount.
With 60 percent of your weight on your front foot, with both hands in unison, slowly lift the gun from the ready position – stock butt touching the tendon that connects the bicep to the pectoral muscle – to your cheek first, keeping your head still, completing the mount as the stock reaches your shoulder pocket.
Gun mount is not just about getting the stock into your cheek and shoulder but also keeping the barrels on the line of the target at the same time. The hand gripping the stock needs to lift simultaneously, and speed as the forward hand pushes the muzzles towards the target.
"It Has to Fit to Hit" is not just a catchy phrase; it is the truth! You have a shotgun that fits, you have practiced your gun mount, and when that first dove of the season flies your way, you will mount your gun smoothly into your cheek and shoulder, pull the trigger and watch it fold and fall!
