Characters and Critters

This collection of hilariously true tales was gathered by a West Texas rancher/outfitter. He combines side-splitting punch lines with ample history and inside information on ranching and hunting. You'll learn how to work with bird dogs, deal with rattlesnakes, rattle-up bucks and host turkey hunters. You will meet cow traders, an egg thief, a victim of rabies and a survivor of 7000 volts of electricity. Each chapter in the book details events which led to the author's transition from ranching to outfitting when he began hosting deer and turkey hunters from all across the nation in the mid-1980s. Unforgettable characters appear in every chapter. Illegal aliens, feedlot managers, camp cooks, and even a mortician plus scads of others play supporting roles in the narrative. Heart-rending tales of a wounded pet deer, a gifted bird dog, and a captured wild donkey are only some of the animal stories told in the book. Inhabitants of the ranch country survive their endemic hardships with, among other things, outrageous humor and clever pranks. Such shenanigans, we learn, are similarly common to outdoorsmen nationwide. Both ranch people and hunters produce belly-laughs a-plenty in these pages. Although abundant humor dominates, there is an insightful historical overview of the changes that have come to West Texas over the past few decades together with a prediction of what the future holds for deer hunting.