Passport to Texas

Image courtesy of Green Mountain Regulators.

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This is Passport to Texas

Gun smoke, six-shooters, boots and black powder. All ingredients of cowboy action shooting.

We shoot with the guns of the Old West. Styles of gun that were made before 1899.

Brian Curtsinger, aka Chili Petin, is president of the Green Mountain Regulators, a sport shooting club affiliated with SASS, the Single Action Shooting Society.

SASS began in 1987. There are now over 97,000 members, 50 states, 17 countries and 700 clubs.

Once a month the Regulators put on their Western duds and compete at a range that mimics an old ghost town. For David Harper, known as Abilene, it’s mostly about the fun.

There are some people here that are world class competitors. The rest of us—I’d say the majority of us—are in it more for the fun than the competition. [Shelly] The people that do the sport are just awesome.

Shelly Curtsinger’s alias is Holly-Peña.

It’s a great way to be able to come out and shoot in a safe environment, learn all the different guns, and be able to dress up and have fun at the same time.

Next time you have a hankering for the Old West, consider cowboy action shooting.

Our show receives support in part from RAM Trucks: Built to Serve.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife… I’m Cecilia Nasti.

TPW biologist Trevor Tanner releases a Rio Grande turkeys on Price 77 Ranch near Blooming Grove, Texas

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This is Passport to Texas

When European settlers started coming to East Texas, turkeys were thriving. But those settlers quickly changed the landscape.

Around 1925, a hunter could harvest up to 25 turkeys a year. By the 1940s there were less than 100 eastern wild turkeys throughout East Texas. Over-harvest as well as habitat decline really led to the demise of the population.

Kyle Hand is a Texas Parks and Wildlife Natural Resource Specialist. In the 1970s, the agency started a program of bringing wild trapped turkeys from other states to Texas. The program looked promising. Over the next 20 years, more than 7000 eastern wild turkeys were stocked in East Texas.

Now we’re using a super stocking strategy where we release 80 turkeys onto one area of good habitat in hopes that the population will grow from there.

Thanks to the success of these stockings, hunters like Terrence Jackson of Houston have an opportunity to enjoy spring turkey hunting in parts of East Texas.

When I’m on these turkey hunts, basically I love to get away from the busyness of Houston and work and the crowdedness. The sound of the birds, the quiet in the morning and walking through the woods. It’s something that pulls at you.

Experience an East Texas turkey hunt the week of September 23 on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS.

The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Bobwhite Brigade Cadets. Image: Texasbrigades.org

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This is Passport to Texas

To categorize the Texas Brigades as “summer camp” is like calling a mountain lion “a kitty cat”.

This is not a normal summer camp. This is meant to be a lot more than that.

Writer, Aubry Buzek wrote a story about the Brigades for the October  issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine.

The editor of the magazine said, I want you to go to this summer camp and write about it. And I was thinking: Okay. There’s going to be fun stuff happening; I get there and it’s in the middle of a session on how conservation groups work in Texas….and conservation and hunters ethics. And I was like, Whoa!

The 5-day, cell-phone free, camps for youth build confidence and camaraderie with projects, public speaking and debates on conservation issues.

There are some really amazing instructors who come to this camp. There are instructors there who are wildlife biologists from Texas Parks and Wildlife, other private hunting ranches, water control authorities…just the gambit of [conservation] organizations in Texas. The kids get to meet people not easily accessible. Every instructor that I talked to said that they want these kids to pick up the phone and keep in touch with them. They want to help them grow now and into the future.

Aubry Buzek’s story on the Texas Brigades appears in the October issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Learning conservation with Texas Brigades.

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This is Passport to Texas

Texas Brigades is a wildlife and natural resource focused leadership development program for youth, 13 to 17.

Texas Brigades has been around for 25 years. It started out as Bobwhite Brigade back in 1993, and then it just kind of morphed.

It’s morphed into is eight summer camps, each with a different conservation focus. Aubry Buzek [Byu-zik] wrote about the Brigades for the October issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine.

What was really interesting is that these camps are not necessarily about learning about one particular species. At Bobwhite Brigade, they were learning a lot about quail—and they had biologists there teaching them about quail. But that wasn’t the overall goal of the program. It was about being comfortable with public speaking, comfortable talking with their peers. Debating.

These five-day intensive camps incorporate military marching and cadence, and introduce students to experts and activities that challenge and

I talked to a lot of parents after graduation and they were like, ‘Who is this kid?’ I saw it too. That confidence. A lot of parents said they didn’t expect their kid to know just so much. But, in addition to that knowledge, these kids are loud, and they’re marching, and they make a lot of friends. It really is a transformative camp.

Read Aubry Buzek’s story about the Texas Brigades in the October issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Operation Game Thief Clay Stoppers Shootout

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This is Passport to Texas

Operation Game Thief Texas belong to the International Wildlife Crime-Stoppers Association.

And I’m proud to say Texas is the leader. Texas leads because of the way we’re structured and the way we operate. Texas offers cash rewards up to a thousand dollars for information leading to arrests and convictions.

Lt. Lewis Rather oversees Operation Game Thief. Generous public support provides money for rewards and education.

We have 14 information and educational. We’re very lucky in Texas, and so we’re very thankful to have the program.

September 23 a fundraiser—Operation Game Thief Alamo Area Clay Stoppers Shootout—takes place in San Antonio. Teams and individuals take aim to raise money for Operation Game Thief.

We have a lot of fun down there. You can come and shoot, and if you’re a top winner, you can win a lifetime hunting and fishing license from Parks and Wildlife. We have great auction items. Raffle items. A great lunch provided by OGT board member, Jimmy Hasslocher. We have a lot of 4-H youth teams coming to shoot. A lot of our paralyzed veterans and wounded warrior teams are coming to shoot. So, it’s going to be a big event. And if you have a chance, come out and support what Game Wardens do for Texas, for wildlife, for all of us.

Find complete registration details for the September 23 fundraiser—Clay Stoppers Shootout Alamo Area Clay Stoppers Shootout—at www.ogttx.org

That’s our show… Funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.