December 2, 1998

The owner of a big fence supply company in San Angelo said last week that out of the 12 crews working from the yard, 10 were building game fences.

"Game fences" meaning sales of not only two steel posts instead of one, but twice the amount of net wire used in a conventional fence. All being a big bonanza for his business, especially considering most of us better drouth and bitterweed ranchers were looking at a fencing budget of baling wire and pickets cut from native cedar bushes.

Before I talked to the fencing guy, I had already thought of asking the bank for a loan to build a game fence on the place down on the highway. I didn't want the loan, but I figured if I ask for, say, $100,000 to fence a couple of pastures and my feed bill ran 25 or 30 thousand over my budget this winter, I'd look like a disciple of Benjamin Franklin for being so thrifty saving on net wire.

Behind the scene, jug keepers are bound to respect finesse. Bankers show lots of style filling in long columns of self-proving figures on furnishings balancing against fixtures and big charge-offs for travel expense to and from the water cooler.

Two deer hunters were by the ranch looking for a lease on the opening day of the season, because of a game fence. Not because of game being fenced in, but because of the deer being fenced out. These redcaps claimed after a neighbor's outfit erected a high fence around the principal cover in the area, deer sightings dwindled to nothing at their blinds.

First thing they asked was whether my neighbors planned on raising the fences. I thought they meant were we going to prop up the fences falling down on the outside of the ranch. But then I caught on, and confessed a neighbor and I talked about adding one strand of barbed wire above a 47-inch tall woven wire fence to a stretch weaned calves ran over last fall. However, the conversion on domestic beef cattle to imported barbed wire was so heavy in favor of the wire, we decided to find a natural solution to the problem by branding earlier and running shorter-legged English cattle less prone to jumping fences. Seemed to answer the question, but they did look puzzled.

For some reason, hunters were confused on the dates of the rifle season. The sheriff called the ranch one morning a week before the rifle season opened to ask if any of our hunters had been out putting corn in their feeder pens? He said, "A 16 year-old boy and his father were in the grocery store early this morning looking for the locker plant to cut up the boy's buck he shot while putting out corn." According to the sheriff, the cashier warned the season was closed, but they contended that 16 year-old boys were not under the same restrictions as adults (correct in reality but incorrect by statute).

Until the sheriff called, I thought the season was open too. In a law office over in San Angelo the day before, a legal secretary explained that the big bouquet of yellow roses on her desk was a tradition from her husband, "old super bubba," on the day he left for the hunting lease. While I waited, I imagined "old super bubba" by a campfire, wearing a red plaid shirt, the tail propped up by a hip flask, laughing how he always fools his old lady by sending a dozen roses.

I am sure he'd be surprised to know he was called "super bubba" behind his back, instead of the "snookums," or "honey bun" she uses on the final day of retrieving a dress from lay-away. And she'd probably be astounded to learn her old mother and grandmother pulled variations of the same tricks she uses.

Lots of outfits are going all out for the recreation money, by guiding and feeding hunters and opening camp grounds and bed and breakfast places to supplement income. On the Coastal Plains and in South and Central Texas, classified ads quote mighty hefty prices for deer, quail and turkey leases. Ruins my trip every time I go to San Antonio or Austin to hear how much hunters are willing to spend compared to the paltry amount we charge out here. I don't know why we are so far behind. It must be high school football and the basketball games and the hunting season coinciding. Sports are so important, we just don't have time to wait for the high bids on the hunting leases.

Too bad the ending to the story of the 16 year-old boy who jumped the season is unavailable. However, I haven't seen a chain gang working the roads in Mertzon, so the kid's dad was right; 16 year-olds can hunt any time they please ...