October represents the advent of another deer season with thousands of sportsmen gravitating to local grain fields and water holes to initiate the new hunting season in pursuit of dove. Like every September, I get to spend some quality time with my daughters whom, by the way, are exceptional shots.
 My daughter Beth with bird dog Riggs
waiting on an evening flight of dove near Uvalde.
Living in the quaint little town of Uvalde, often labeled as one of Texas’ renowned agriculture communities, has its advantages. Grain fields littered with milo, sesame and wild sunflower virtually surround the town, attracting dense populations of whitewing dove, mourning dove, and our new resident, the Eurasian dove.
Shooting is often fast and furious and one of the most enjoyable aspects of this sport remains the misses, and more importantly, the amusing comments that proceed. Those little gray bomb shells fly erratically, often confusing the best of shotgunners, but the abundance of birds affords sportsmen ample opportunities to fill their bag with these avian delicacies. Dove shooting also represents an excellent opportunity to introduce young kids to the outdoors.
 Daughter Beth with granddaughter McKenzie
with a few of our new inhabitants, the Eurasian dove.
As a deer biologist, September also represents the beginning of the busiest time of the year for me. Weekly field trips with 34 new wildlife management students along with my regular course load at Southwest Texas Junior College requires much of my time, but it remains extremely rewarding as I equip these future wildlife managers with the appropriate tools to manage our wild renewable resources.
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Spending time in the air with my good friend Dusty Holt, co-owner with his father Larry of Holt Helicopters, my weekends are spent traversing thousands of acres inventorying deer herds from inside a helicopter.
 My students at Southwest Texas Junior College,
acquiring the ability to score antlers, horns and skulls,
work on scoring a Boone and Crockett grizzly.
My first aerial game survey of the year was scheduled for the thirteenth of September on the 8,000-acre Preserve Ranch located in a rugged portion of the Texas Hill Country north of Brackettville. Characterized by rocky bluffs, dense stands of oak and cedar, to pinyon pine at an elevation of little over 2,000 feet above sea level, it’s not the safest place to fly even under ideal conditions, but with Hurricane Ike about to make landfall near Galveston on the 12th, we had some serious safety concerns. Wind can be a helicopter’s worst enemy, and compounded by the fact that we would by flying over rugged terrain, relinquishing little, if any, opportunity to land safely in case of an emergency, the wind definitely was on our minds.
Speaking to Scott Vaughan, one of 20 owners of the Preserve Ranch wildlife cooperative mid day on the 12th, he informed me that it was completely calm on the ranch, so Dusty and I decided to beat the predicted strong winds on Saturday following landfall and fly the ranch a day earlier.
 Much of my time is spent conducting aerial game
surveys in October and November. Here, pilot Dusty Holt
stops to visit some of my students at the SWTJC campus.
With ideal weather conditions, we conducted the survey over some of the most spectacular scenery Texas has to offer. Whitetail deer darted from one oak motte to another as we traversed the ranch. The survey was particularly enjoyable yet challenging as we looked over and counted a variety of unique exotic hoofed stock such as the beautiful white Scimitar-horned Oryx, aoudad sheep, elk, blackbuck antelope, and fallow deer.
While flying the ranch, Dusty talked about a plane crash that occurred some eight years ago, and he thought it happened somewhere close to where we were conducting the survey. Not twenty minutes later, I noticed a white colored object that appeared out of place in the densely vegetated green understory. Circling, we were shocked to see the wreckage of the plane Dusty spoke of only minutes before.
As we circled the wreckage, Dusty informed us that it took investigators eight months to locate the site, and I knew why as it was in an overly rugged area void of any roads.
Over my many years I have seen a variety of things from a helicopter, but never one that impacted me more.
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