My First Time to Hunt by Justin Blalock

Being from the affluent suburbs of Dallas, you get used to a certain lifestyle.  Nice restaurants, fancy houses, and expensive cars become second nature.  So how on Earth did I end up sitting in a hot, stuffy deer blind surrounded by bugs deep in South Texas this past weekend?

As I mentioned earlier, I am the ultimate city slicker.  My idea of a good time is staying in the air condition as much as possible and playing video games, watching movies, or fooling around on the computer.  The only time I like to go outside is when I’m playing football.  Needless to say, I’d never been on a hunting trip before this weekend.  The idea of running around in the elements did not appeal to me at all. 

Despite my lack of fondness for the outdoors, I had a pretty good time on my first ever hunt.  Jason Parrish, Bryan Schneider, Brett Valdez, and I made the 3 hour journey to Uvalde, Texas, where the gigantic Mirasol Ranch is located.  Jason, Brett, and I had met Robert Dullnig, whose family owns the ranch, several weeks before at the Texas Wildlife Association Convention in San Antonio, and we all got along really well.  From there, we arranged for the hunt to take place.  At first, I figured inviting us to hunt was just a polite thing to do and there was no intention of having us come to the ranch.  However, as time went by, I realized just how real this was.

Since I’d never hunted before, I’d also never shot a gun before, so I needed some practice.  For this, Jason and Brett took me to an indoor shooting range in Austin called, “Red’s Indoor Range” to show me how to properly use and care for a gun.  There was a lot more to using a gun than I had originally anticipated, but it was very intriguing nonetheless.  For a beginner, I did pretty well at the range.  Unfortunately, this would be the last time I hit anything for a while. 

When we got to the ranch, we were greeted by Robert and his parents, and then they showed us to where we would be staying.  After we set our stuff down, we were off to our first stop.  Jason and I sat in a high blind for the next three hours or so.  Although we didn’t have the opportunity to shoot anything, I had the chance to learn a lot about hunting from Jason.

If only it would have been deer season, we would have been in great shape.  We must have seen a dozen deer and eight longhorns that first evening.  One of the many talents I have developed from being an only child is being able to keep myself entertained, and boy, did it come in handy here!  Jason told me that loud noises and movement would drive away some animals, so there were already two strikes against me enjoying myself.  Despite that, things turned out fairly well, because I learned so much.  After we got back to the ranch house, it was time for the real fun, dinner.

Apparently, half the fun of a hunting trip is sitting around and talking smack with your friends.  We had a lot of fun doing this and Keith, our cook, was the ring leader.  This guy had a story for every possible situation you could think of.  If something happened to you, chances were, he already knew the story and knew it better than you.  After stuffing our faces, we decided to go back outside and hunt hogs some more.  This process was completely foreign to me.  We all jumped in Jason’s camouflage H2 and drove around with his high spotlights on.  The point of this was to surprise hogs that might be walking around in the brush and shoot them.  That night, all we saw was a raccoon that was stuck in a feeding cage.  When we stopped to go back inside I discovered that my once-black shirt was now brown from the dust that the truck was kicking up.  We went back inside and talked for another hour or so.  It was now about two in the morning, and Keith told us that he would come by to wake us up at 5:30 a.m.!  This immediately put a damper on my feelings towards hunting.

It took me forever to fall asleep, because Brett had to have a nightlight on.  As soon as I closed my eyes, Keith was in the room telling us it was time to get up.  At least it felt like I had just closed my eyes.  Jason and I went to another blind, and again, saw no hogs.  We saw more deer, the same longhorns, and some quail this time around.  Jason explained that we were doing everything right, and that this is why it is called, “hunting.”  We sat in this blind until about nine in the morning.  I then proceeded to take the best nap of my entire life to date.  I must have fallen asleep in the air as I was falling to the bed. 

After about six hours, it was time to hunt again.  Jason and I thought we’d try our luck at the river that ran through the property.  Jason explained that hogs like to stay cool just like we do and that they would come to the water and ‘wallow’ in the mud on the banks of the river.  Jason showed me how to scout the area and showed me some safety tips along the way.  When we were finished, I felt like a Native American tracker that you see in the movies.  After staying there for an hour, we decided to check out another spot.  This time we tried a small pond a little further out on the property. 

We could tell that this was the animal ‘honey hole” because we saw at least a dozen more deer, some cows, and our good friend, the hog.  He trotted down to the bank opposite where Jason and I were sitting.  I could smell the bacon already.  He began to wallow in the mud about 250 yards away.  At this time, Jason called me over to get set up for the shot.  The actual ‘kill’ was the most over glorified part of the trip.  Here’s how it went down:  I laid on the ground between humongous mounds of different types of animal feces, constantly swatting bugs and wiping away the stream of sweat that was rolling down my forehead.  I’m now looking through the scope and my adrenaline starts to boil over as my primal urge to kill takes over.  My “target” then starts making his way back up the bank and towards some heavy brush.  My opportunity is diminishing right before my eyes.  He pauses for a split second and I pull the trigger.  I look up to revel at my glorious kill, and all I can see is his backside as he runs away.  I think he even snuck in a laugh at my futile attempt to turn him into a sausage link.

Jason tried to console me by telling me that it was a moving target at about 150 yards, and it worked.  Just that one missed shot made my whole weekend worth it.  The feeling that I had right before I squeezed that trigger has only been rivaled by walking off the field in Pasadena as a National Champion. 

It was now time to eat once again, and eat we did.  Keith made some of the biggest steaks I have ever seen.  In fact, I couldn’t even finish one, and I’m a big guy.  After another attempt at night hunting came up empty, I learned my lesson and went straight to bed. 

The next morning, Jason and I thought we’d switch up our hunting partners, since Brett had had some luck on the hunt.  Naturally, when I was around, nothing came out. 
 
Even though I only saw one hog on the trip, it was very satisfying.  Even though you get to take out aggression on people on the football field, you don’t kill anyone.  The opportunity to have supreme domination over another life form as well as using tact to see who is better equipped to live proved to be the ultimate rush and I think you now have another hunting fan for life.

By Justin Blalock

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