In the 1950’s the Katy Prairie stretched from Farm Road 1960 west to the Brazos River and from the pine tree line northwest of Houston, south to the farm country around Richmond/Rosenberg, an area of over 400 square miles. The corner of Texas Highway 6 and F.M. 529 was known throughout the area as “Wolf Corner” (today a shopping center) because the trappers and hunters would string the carcasas of Red Wolves, Coyotes, Bobcats and Foxes from the barbwire fences. “Wolf Corner”, that is F.M. 529 was one of the entry points to the Prairie.
Rice, cattle, oil and gas were the main products of the Prairie, but the sub-product of rice farming was Geese and Ducks, at one time, hundreds of thousands of them, and the hunters flocked to it. I have hunted with and without permission, as a guest and had my own leases, but finally the urban sprawl of Houston closed down this wonderful enclave. Most of the Prairie now is sub-divisions, schools and shopping centers and the Geese and Ducks have moved away.

Just this year, on a Pheasant hunting trip to the Texas panhandle, Brad and I spotted hundreds of thousands of Geese and Ducks. I thought then that years ago, I relentlessly chased their fore bearers across the Katy prairie!

In 1952 I shot three times and missed at the largest Canadian Goose I have ever seen, later finding out it was a Canadensis Maxima, thought to be extinct since 1922, however some sightings are still reported. In 1980 I saw an “extinct” Red Wolf cross a road that ran through my hunting lease. And to top that story, in 1988, while quail hunting near Waller, on the Katy Prairie, I came upon, and my Brittany Spaniel, “Gus”, pointed two “extinct” Red Wolves. “Gus”, me, and the Wolves, all froze. “Gus” and I both held our points, while the Wolves trotted away into the thick grass and brush. This ended our Quail hunt.

In the past the State Of Texas had tried to plant Pheasants on the Prairie and apparently into the 1980’s people were still running across some. The birds couldn’t cope with all of the winged and fur bearing predators. In 1989, I was Quail hunting south of Hockley, on the Prairie, and shot a male Pheasant, pointed by “Gus”. Maybe that was the last one?
Isn’t progress wonderful?

Now that Deer season is ending and our special doe and spike hunt ends on January 20, I wanted to recount several stories about a couple of wonderful Goose and Duck hunting spots, “The Katy Prairie”, west of Houston and the marshes and rice fields around Anahuac, east of town. Always having lived on the west, I spent much more time on “The Prairie”, but was involved in some memorable hunts on the Anahuac Prairie side. Anahuac was east of Houston, in Chambers County.

Both places had huge concentrations of Geese and, I believe, that Anahuac had more Ducks. Urban sprawl has killed “The Prairie”, but Anahuac still offers some fine Duck hunting. Its secret is that Trinity Bay, and the Trinity River bottom lands, blocks the eastward sprawl of metropolitan Houston.

Like any hunting spots, I had good days and bad ones, but a bad one never kept me from going back again! Some of these adventures follow.

Bubba Broussard and I had driven up to Haney’s ranch to chase some Quail and this particular hunt stands out in my memory for a number of reasons.

Our first afternoon, we had enjoyed good hunting and the next day as well. Sonny, my Brittany’s, work finding and retrieving the birds was excellent and we welcomed the steaks cooked over Rick’s “old timey”, fired brick, barbeque pit. After the meal we talked for a long time about hunting, ranching and business and turned in around midnight.

The night was cold and Rick’s old ranch house, built in the 1900’s, was drafty and hard to heat. As usual, Rick was hidden under his covers with his AC running full blast, when I was jolted awake by my door being thrown open and Bubba running through my room in his long-johns, .357 Magnum in hand, shouting, “Where is that son of a bitch, I’ll shoot him if I catch him!” He continued his “hunt” for several minutes, bursting into Rick’s room and awakening him, and then, Bubba told us his story.

He said, “I woke up and saw someone/something standing at the foot of my bed. Then it ran and opened the door to Jon’s room and I’m sure it ran through his room.” By that time, Bubba had armed himself and given pursuit. He added, “When I chased it into Rick’s room, I “lost” it.” We looked around inside the house and found nothing, no sign of anyone else with us and both outside doors were locked.

Rick went into his patented speech about having to sleep out here often and not wanting to disturb anything. Bubba said, “But something was standing by my bed.” Rick laughed, made sure his AC was roaring, got back into his bed, slipped his cap over his ears and covered his head with the covers.

Two years later, Rick “rebuilt” the old ranch house, and even before the stonemason had finished his work, the rock wall on one side of the house developed a serious crack. Rick said, “We put too much load on the rocks.” I answered, “Sounds like something didn’t like it being rebuilt.”

Bubba still doesn’t talk about “The chase”.

Bubba Broussard and I were driving to Rick Haney’s ranch for a Quail hunt and Houston to Abilene, Texas, is a pleasant 6 hour drive, counting a stop to grab something to eat. It’s funny how friends can talk for hours and not cover the same subject. This was one of those times.

Asking Bubba, “Have you ever heard of The Gift”, he replied, “What’s that?” I went on to tell him that some of my Aunts on my Dad’s side told me that I may have “The Gift”. My Dad’s family is three-fourths Irish, the Bryan’s stemming from Brian deBouf, the thirteenth century Irishman who united the island and became Ireland’s first King.

I continued, we were O’Brians until dispossessed by the British, forced to change the spelling of our names, and just made it to the New World in the late 1600’s, barely escaping the English hangman’s noose. Old Gaelic traditions die hard.

Closing I told him that having “The Gift” enables me to “witch” for water, and over half of the time when I’m about to receive a phone call, something internal tells me who is calling before the phone rings. In dreams, I’ve been visited by deceased relatives, and Brad calls this “Post Cards From Heaven”. Also, my hands are thick. This has something to do with it too.

Bubba’s answer to me, “Man, I never knew you were that strange!”

Mike Mitchell and I went up to help Rick rework his cattle pens, and after a long day and evening finally ate and went to bed late. I was awakened from a sound sleep, hearing the “thunk, thunk” of something walking around the porch. The weather was warm as I knocked on the door and went into Rick’s room.

The AC was on full blast and the lump under a pile of covers must be Rick. “You hear that sound, someone walking around your porch?” I almost whisper. He uncovers, I notice a watch cap on his head, rises up and replies, “What sound? Animals, I’m sure.” Blaming animals again?

Thinking to myself, how could he hear anything covered up like he was, with the AC roaring and his watch cap on. Later that morning we talked of the “thunking” I had heard and Rick said again, “It’s just those ‘Dillos rooting around.”

The next day more work on the cattle pens, and after steaks, we talked a while and turned in early and I finally found out why Rick had such strange sleeping habits.

Tonight, just like last night was warm, and I wasn’t even covering with a sheet, when I wake up with a start! What’s going on here, I’m freezing! Then I notice the foot of the bed is leaning and I sense that something/someone is setting on the end of the bed. What’s going on I ask myself, could this be a ghost, no way, I don’t even believe in ‘em!

Still freezing I say to the “whatever”, “I’m not afraid of you. I am a Christian and you don’t scare me!” Then something really strange happened, whatever it was on the end of the bed got up, I could feel the end of the bed rise as if a load was removed, the “whatever” moved away and the room returned to a normal temperature. Personally, “it” never bothered me again.

The next morning, when Rick and I had a chance to talk alone, I told him about my encounter the past night. His reply was, “I don’t want to hear it.” He was uncomfortable I could tell, but I went on with the entire story. He replied, “I have heard things go “bump” in the night before, but I have to sleep out here three or four nights a week. Why do you think I run the AC all year, even in freezing weather, wear a watch cap and cover up with all of those quilts? I really don’t want to talk about it.”

End of story, or so I thought!

Before Christmas, 1988, Brad was home on leave from Ft. Knox, and along with my son-in-law, Mike Mitchell, we loaded up my Suburban and headed for Rick’s ranch. Rick had called during the week and said that a number of, Hogs had been rooting up one specific field and tearing up his fences. He had asked us for some assistance in “controlling” them. For mid December the weather was very warm. Short sleeves in Houston and just long sleeves in Abilene, but Rick mentioned, “A good “norther”is headed our way Sunday.”

Friday morning found us checking out some corn, bait, that we had helped Rick put out the night before. The Hogs had visited the corn during the night so we headed south to the Hog’s “favorite” field and sure enough, about 6oo yards across the field we saw them and began a roundabout stalk, trying to use the brush along the fencerows for cover. The last 100 yards was wide open so Mike took a shot, Boom, and the Hogs, 4, 200 pounders, were off and running, one considerably slowed by a pretty good hit from the .257 Roberts.
Mike hurried to retrieve his prize and Brad, Rick and I took off after the Hogs. We were all in good shape but after about a half-mile, it was no contest, with the Hogs easily outdistancing us and making it to the safety of an adjoining ranch and us with no permission to offer “hot pursuit”.

We put out more corn that night and with steaks cooked over Rick’s old timey, fired brick, bar-b-que pit, planned our next mornings hunt. We would split up in twos with Mike and Rick approaching the bait from the south flushing the Hogs north, providing Brad and me, stationary east of the hogs, we thought a 50 to 100 yard running shot. No problem with the iron sights Brad and I were using, but our planning didn’t include the cold front hitting a day early.

In fact the front hit just before sun up with the wind howling from the north and the temperature dropping like a rock. We had been dressed and eating breakfast when it hit so this required a quick addition of long johns to our apparel.

Out into the teeth of the storm we go and set up our ambush and waited for the Hogs. Our wait was a short one and the Hogs, probably 10 or more, exploded from the bait and scattered, headed toward the northwest, except for one that was headed our way.

Brad and I were about 5 yards apart and here came a Hog, a 200 pounder, right at me and I was square in the middle of his path of escape. Brad couldn’t swing on it for fear of hitting me and all I could do was get ready. The Hog charged closer and I put the sight on its nose, tracked down with its movement and the .223 cal., Ranch Rifle, Boomed and the Hog rolled right at my feet! The shot hit right above the Hog’s eyes and thinking back, I would have gotten “rolled up” by him if I had missed!

After another chase, Brad collected a nice one out of the bunch and we called it a day. With the “norther” howling, we cleaned the 2 and then loaded all three on to the luggage rack of the Suburban, tied them down securely for the almost 300 mile drive to Houston, bid Rick a fond good bye and headed out.

We had a tail wind all the way home, but the cold followed us and turned into sleet and rain by the time we arrived at my northwest Houston home and found to our surprise that our Hogs were frozen solid. Hopefully, we’d process them the next day.

I even had a water pipe freeze that night!

There were no unusual sounds or sightings on Friday night.

The spring before Brad joined the Army, he and I went up to help Rick repair his barn and, since it was very comfortable for early spring, both nights we slept out on the “sleeping porch”. The screened in porch was on 2 sides of Rick’s old ranch house. I noticed that Rick was sleeping with his AC roaring, but said nothing to him about it. Maybe it covered up our snoring!

The next morning, sunrise found us along a creek, in a makeshift blind, making hen Turkey sounds. Brad leans over to me and whispers, “Dad, did you hear those animals bumping around under Rick’s house last night?” Whispering back, “Yes, Son. It sounded like someone walking around the porch, or a herd of ‘Dillos!” (‘Dillos is Texican for Armadillo.) I continued “They were “bumping” right around my bed.”

The second night there was more “bumping around” but barely waking, we both slept right through it. As we were leaving for Houston, I mentioned to Rick, “You need to trap those animals under your house and close up where they are getting in.” His short reply was, “I’m going to.”