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

Ann Thomasson-Wilson was a two-time world bass champion in the 1980s. Before she retired from competition, she bought a struggling bait shop in the East Texas town of Jasper. More than 35 years later, Ann’s Tackle Shop is still going strong, and anglers flock from all over to consult Thomasson-Wilson’s expertise. The post More Than 35 Years Later, the World Champ Owner of Ann’s Tackle Shop Has Still Got It appeared first on Texas Monthly ..read more

Even in our carefully ordered world, there remain avenues for chaos to thrive in its purest form: the wild pig. Groups of them, called sounders, cavort across golf courses at night like drunken teenagers. Security cameras catch them careering through suburban neighborhoods, where they dig up gardens and lawns. They create shambolic crop circles in fields—Texas’s agriculture industry alone suffers $118.8 million in damages annually. The most recent estimates suggest that tens of thousands of them are involved in car accidents each year. They affront us even in death, vandalizing graves as they ..read more

On a Wednesday morning in mid-December, Cari Ray drives her dark green Toyota Tundra into the parking lot of Lazy L&L Campground in New Braunfels. There’s a hockey puck–size Zen Fly Fishing sticker on the outside of the truck. Inside, each nook and cranny is jammed with rods, waders, and gear. “My truck looks like a fly shop exploded in it,” Ray says as she hops out. From her home in Granite Shoals near the shores of Lake LBJ, she owns School of Zen Fly Fishing, a school and guide business. Ray is also a member of the Texas Women Fly Fishers (TWFF), a 22-year-old club that organizes t ..read more