"In the middle of downtown, you’ve got paddleboarders and people swimming—none of them know there's a fish bigger than their dog in that lake, swimming right below them," the angler says ..read more

An environmental group turns to spearfishing as it wages war on the menace known as the suckermouth armored catfish in the San Marcos River ..read more

Anglers and spearers can hunt for these menaces across the state.  ..read more

Jesse Griffiths was sitting in a field sprinkled with bluebonnets in the spring of 2022 when his phone rang. The Austin-based chef wondered why his girlfriend would be calling, since she knew he was hunting turkeys. It didn’t take long for it to become a welcome interruption. She told him his cookbook had been nominated for a James Beard Media Award, a prestigious honor given to top cookbook authors, food journalists, and more in the nation.His first cookbook, Afield, received a nod in 2013, but this recognition felt different. The Hog Book: A Chef’s Guide to Hunting, Preparing, and Cooking Wi ..read more

After a career that took him around the globe, retired Navy veteran Donny Crain settled in his hometown of Sabine Pass. Crain spends much of his time at Sea Rim State Park, teaching others what he has come to learn—that the Texas Gulf Coast has some of best fishing in the entire world. See more in this dispatch from Texas Country Reporter. The post He Fished Around the World and Landed Right Back Where He Started—at Sea Rim State Park appeared first on Texas Monthly ..read more

In Texas, native, hoofed ruminants—white-tailed and mule deer—are held in a public trust, meaning they are owned by the people of Texas. It is illegal to sell the meat of those animals in a restaurant, so if venison is on the menu, it is exotic—and probably from Broken Arrow Ranch.Established in the 1980s, Broken Arrow Ranch is headquartered in Ingram, in the Hill Country. The company sells blackbuck antelope, nilgai antelope, axis, and other game to more than eight hundred restaurants across the country. One of its notable clients is the French Laundry in Napa Valley, which has three Michelin ..read more

When Danielle Prewett and I talked, Instagram was down. There had been some sort of internal meltdown at Meta, and Instagram and Facebook were suddenly inaccessible. The outage was a minor inconvenience for most casual Instagram users, who use the app primarily as a way to distract themselves between meetings, to online shop, or to see what their ex has been up to. But what was it like for Prewett, a cook, blogger, hunter, and influencer (she doesn’t love that word, but we’ll get to that later) who has amassed a significant following on the platform and owes much of her success to it?“What a r ..read more

North and East TexasWood Ducks and MallardsThe male wood duck, with its head of iridescent green and its dappled chestnut breast, is stunning to behold: a wildlife painting come to life, gliding gracefully through the forest. Wood ducks reside near streams and lakes in North and East Texas, which is also where you’ll find the much larger but similarly hued mallards, the nation’s most common duck. For hunters who covet these birds, Gus Engeling Wildlife Management Area, northwest of Palestine, is a good bet. The public reserve boasts thousands of acres of bottomland forests and wetlands, all tr ..read more

Of  all the red-tailed hawks that have ever soared on a Texas breeze, only one gets to live in Charlie Alvis’s house, at least during the winter hunting season. “My bird has its own bedroom,” said Alvis, a falconer who’s based in the unincorporated community of Porter, just beyond the northern outskirts of Houston. “When I come home at night, that bird comes in the living room with me. We socialize for hours at a time.”The 43-year-old Alvis, who’s temporarily living in Brownwood, in Central Texas, for work, is long and lean and sports a gray beard. His five-year-old hawk has a golden chest, da ..read more

From the Big Bend to East Texas, the Panhandle to the Rio Grande Valley, Texas ranches have been transformed in recent decades by the proliferation of exotic game animals, many of them rare and endangered in their native habitats. With the rise of “Texotics” has come an army of hunters, eager to take aim at aoudads, axis, bongos, nilgai, and even zebras. But you don’t have to be a hunter to enjoy these wondrous critters. Here are ten ranches open to the public for hunting or viewing. Map of exotic hunting locations in Texas. Illustration by Claire McCracken1. Ox Ranch, UvaldeDrive real mi ..read more