Hide, Horn, Fish, and Fowl: Texas Hunting and Fishing Lore

HUNTING JAVELINA HOGS IN SOUTH TEXAS

Javelinas roaming the wild 7978-ch02.pdf 10/6/11 8:15 AM Page 146 HUNTING JAVELINA HOGS IN SOUTH TEXAS by James B. Kelly  I learned to hunt with my father. My dad, Franklin F. Kelly, was born the grandson of Irish immigrants in 1892, and raised in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. At that time Ft. Smith was just across the Arkansas River from what was then Indian Territory, later to become Oklahoma . Ft. Smith was the last Army outpost, the “jumping off place” for the Army—and for adventurers heading into the Indian Territory . Even in the late 1890s it was a pretty wild and woolly place. Dad’s grandfather, Tobias Kelly, had arrived in America from County Wexford Ireland through the Port of New Orleans in September of 1850, and made his way up the Mississippi and eventually the Arkansas Rivers to the town of Ft. Smith, which in itself was pretty wild in those early days. Tobias worked hard and made his way quite successfully in the cattle business and wholesale and retail meat sales. Dad’s father, James N. Kelly, joined the family business and they lived fairly comfortable lives. Dad always had a shotgun and small caliber rifles, and I have numerous photos of him with some rather good-looking bird dogs of various English pointer and setter breeds. He started hunting at a very early age. With the outbreak of World War I, Dad joined the U.S. Army and served with the A.E.F. in the European theater of operations. During that time he met a number of men and became good friends with soldiers from Texas. When he returned from military service he decided that, rather than join the family business, he would head to Texas to seek his fortune. At the time Texas was in the middle of the early oil boom and for those that wanted to work hard, there was lots of opportunity. Through a number of jobs he learned the oil business and especially the specialty of being an “oil landman,” the person who negotiates the lease on behalf of the oil company with the land/mineral interest owner. Some are company employees and others are independents who act as brokers of the lease. 147 7978-ch02.pdf 10/6/11 8:15 AM Page 147 In the late 1920s, he got a job as the “head landman” for the Texon and Big Lake Oil Companies that ultimately became the Plymouth Oil Company, and Dad was transferred from Texon, Texas to the company’s Texas headquarters near Sinton, Texas, the county seat of San Patricio County. I arrived there at age six and was raised in the Plymouth Oil Camp, which was two miles north of Sinton in the heart of the Welder Ranch. In those days the Welder Ranch was a huge place that ran from the Chiltipin Creek on the south to the Aransas River on the north, and from just west of US Highway 77 on the west to Copano Bay on the east. It was many thousands of acres. As young boys, I and my fellow Plymouth Campers spent a lot of time playing and watching wildlife in the pastures around the camp. While we were not allowed to hunt on the ranch as young boys, we had the run of the place and learned a lot about game birds, white tail deer, and javelina hogs. As the company landman, Dad knew a lot of local farmers and ranchers, and we always had places to hunt dove and quail. My early days of hunting White Tail deer were on a deer lease that Dad and several other company men had on the Rex Quinn Ranch in McMullen County, just a little northeast of Tilden. Dad started taking me along on weekend hunts during the season when I was nine or ten years old, and I got to go nearly every year until I finished high school and headed for college. I can tell you it was not easy to get from Sinton to Tilden back then. From Sinton you took the old West Sinton Road to Mathis, up to George West and Three Rivers. From Three Rivers to Calliham . Now, to there the roads were paved, somewhat. But from Calliham to Tilden it was nothing but a fifteen-mile dirt track, which wasn’t bad when it was dry, but deer...