Wide variety of animals thrive in South Texas habitat
December 1, 2007
By Ray Sasser
The Dallas Morning News
UVALDE, Texas — Mike Gardner should probably be president of the South Texas Chamber of Commerce, if such an organization existed. Gardner grew up near Waco but the thorny brush country of the South Texas plains snagged his heart the very first time he ventured past San Antonio.
Like many Texas sportsmen before him, Gardner wore out a succession of hunting trucks along the asphalt sendero city folks know as I-35. He loved the brush so much that he finally made it his business, founding San Miguel Outdoors about 10 years ago.
“I’ve been hunting and fishing all over the world,” said Gardner early one morning while perched in a lookout tower on his headquarters ranch. “Nothing that I’ve seen comes close to South Texas.”
The Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute agrees with Gardner. The Kingsville-based think tank of leading wildlife scientists calls the sprawling ecosystem the last best place for wildlife, thanks to a combination of rich soil, diverse brush and huge ranches.
To the north of SMO headquarters, the Edwards Plateau escarpment rises like a limestone wall above a gray sea of brush. From that natural wall south to the Gulf of Mexico lies 21 million acres of mesquite, cactus and brush. Most of the vegetation sports thorns and much of the brush is so thick a grown man couldn’t crawl through it, much less walk.
Travelers drive through South Texas at 75 mph on I-35, I-37, U.S. 281, U.S. 59 or one of the lesser highways that wind like ribbons through this vast and seemingly featureless region. The travelers mostly hate it. From San Antonio to Laredo, the highway may stretch out for five miles at a time with no bends and not much of an elevation change.
Wander off the highway, onto a well-managed hunting ranch, and it’s a different story. The Wild Horse Desert, as South Texas was once known, supports more wildlife per acre than any other habitat in North America.
Sit quietly in an elevated deer blind, and you’ll probably see white-tailed deer, javelina, Rio Grande turkeys, wild hogs, coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, badgers, bobwhite quail, blue quail, roadrunners, mourning doves, white-winged doves, sandhill cranes, ducks, geese and so many species of hawks and songbirds that you’ll be tempted to pack a birding book in your hunting gear.
The brush may be gray but it can be as brashly colorful as a decorated Christmas tree when lit up by resident cardinals and green jays supplemented by migrant orioles, fly catchers and buntings.
Gardner’s SMO offices are in Austin. His staff books clients into hunting operations throughout the world. Come December, you’re most likely to find the CEO and his family in the deep brush. Surf the photos on SMO’s Web site, www.sanmigueloutdoors.com , and you’ll see why. Gardner has access to nearly 30,000 acres of Uvalde, Maverick and Zavala Counties.
He owns some of the land, leases most of it, and strives to offer a fair chase challenge for free-ranging South Texas whitetails. That’s what nonresidents headed for Texas want – a fair shot on a low-fence ranch. SMO also guides hunts for quail, turkeys, doves, javelinas, hogs and varmints, but whitetails are the signature brush country attraction.
In this part of Texas, there’s no telling what size buck, hock deep in the rut, might step from behind the next patch of white brush or ceniza.
Just down the road in Pearsall, they’re stretching tape measures on big bucks entered in the 2007-08 Los Cazadores Contest. December is the magic month for big South Texas whitetails. With nearly a week left in November, contest scorers had already logged more than 80 bucks that scored above 170 gross Boone and Crockett points.
There may be bigger whitetails in the Midwest and in some Canadian Provinces, but no place comes close to the sheer numbers of high-quality whitetails. Moreover, when Illinois, Ohio and Iowa deer hunters are freezing in sleet storms, South Texas hunters are working on their tans in a well-situated tripod stand.
On what’s considered a cold day in South Texas, the temperature dips into the 40s but it usually doesn’t stay there long. Many winters in this part of the deer woods never experience freezing conditions.
Come to think of it, if Gardner were doing a better job of promoting South Texas, he would steal a marketing ploy from the French and rename the entire region The South of Texas. The South of Texas even has its own Riviera. It’s not far from Kingsville but the locals pronounce it Ruh-VIR-uh.