I’ve been a proponent of the Dallas Safari Club for a long time. The organization has contributed millions of dollars through the years to ensure conservation of wildlife through public engagement, education and advocacy.
Don’t let the name safari club trip you up; the Dallas Safari Club is just as much about hunting deer and dove here in the Lone Star State as it is hunting impala or buffalo in Africa or, moose in Alaska for that matter.
With seven chapters scattered across the state and many more nationwide, members can connect locally and know that money raised through local events, etc. will be largely put to use for conversation in their immediate area.
For years I have tried to help get the word out on DSC through my newspaper columns and the radio and TV shows I am involved with.
One of my best friends is Larry Weishuhn, aka “Mr. Whitetail,” who for many years has worked closed with DSC as ambassador. A few months ago, Larry asked if I would like to help him with a member’s dinner at the DSC headquarters in Farmers Branch. I was all in from the get-go.
My job was to procure some wild pork to mix with domestic meat and prepare a bunch of well-seasoned, smoked pork and also make a huge pod of peach cobbler. Larry has sampled my pork recipe at hunting camps through the years and felt pulled pork sandwiches seasoned with Best of Texas BBQ sauce would go over well.
Larry and our friend David Cotton from Kaufman County went to work grilling close to one hundred burgers made from ground meat from a bison bull that Steve Hornady killed on the Choctaw Hunting Lodge back in late winter as well as some jalapeno poppers.
Last week, Weishuhn and Cotton wrapped up the grilling of the bison burger and rounded up all the necessities to make tasty burgers. I began smoking the pork a day in advance and prepared a huge peach cobbler. It’s a challenge to know just how much to cook for a big crowd and Larry and I agreed that it would be better to have too much food than have our guest staring at empty serving plates.
Our good friend Joe Dunn was on hand to help set things up. Joe for many years had a barbeque ministry and he and his lovely wife Donna served the homeless in Dallas many meals. I have always enjoyed smoking meat for family and a few guests but as Joe’s helper for several years, I learned a bit about serving food for large groups.
After the meal, there was plenty for pulled pork and a few burgers left to give to a few of our friends to take home. Nothing went to waste and the cobbler pan was as clean as a whistle at the end of the event.
Weishuhn is a master storyteller and after dinner I took the stage with him. We had planned to tell a few comical stories and visit with the crowd. Through the years, I have spent a whole lot more time writing my outdoor articles and recording radio than being on a stage in front of people but at this event I felt totally comfortable.
The members in attendance made me feel as though we were all sharing a campfire at hunting camp. I was among friends and the setting was totally relaxed. Weishuhn and I have spent hundreds of hours recording our radio segment “Campfire Talk.” I honestly think we know what the other is about to say before they open their mouth.
Larry kicked things off by talking about the time he and I were trapped in a hunting blind on a big ranch down in Freestone County. A good buck had been working a scrape line near the blind and we hoped he might make an appearance that frosty fall morning about 12 years ago.
The door to the blind had a hasp set in a vertical position and as we entered the blind, we left the hinged hasp in the open position, we didn’t give a thought to what would happen if the hinged hasp fell down when we shut the door from the inside. When we were inside the blind, we pulled the door closed and guess what? The hasp fell down and we unknowingly locked ourselves inside the blind.
No buck showed that morning and we attempted to call in a coyote without luck. As I remember, we shared many stories of hunts past and those we were planning that fall. It was time to walk back to the truck. A gentle push on the door and we felt resistance. A stronger push and we discovered we had locked ourselves inside the blind. The hasp had fallen and we were trapped. Granted we could have put our shoulders into the door and busted our way out, but this was an expensive blind and would have been hard to explain.
Finally, after much thought, Larry poked his tripod out a side window and thanks to having long arms, was able to lift the hasp off the keeper and free us.
I recapped a hog hunt up in Jack County decades ago when I was hunting with a scoped TC Contender handgun Larry had shipped me when he was with Thompson Center. The ranch manager drove me to a distant spot he planned for me to hunt that afternoon. In the back of his truck was a couple of plastic tubs of trimmings for butchering exotic animals his hunters had killed.
We pulled up to a two-acre pond with a big rock sloping into the water. He dumped the buckets of trimmings into the water, and I watched three big “V’s” swimming across the water. Three big gators swam up to the rock and began dragging the meat scraps into the water. A feeding frenzy ensued for about 10 minutes, and then the gators then swam back across the pond.
I later shot a small “eater” boar that was sniffing around on that big rock, and he kicked his way into the pond. After the shot I quickly got to where the boar was and saw bubbles coming up about five feet out in the water.
It was a hot afternoon in late August and I just had to have that pork that was a couple steps out into the water. But I didn’t have a change of clothes and didn’t wish to drive back home wearing wet clothes, that would have been miserable. I was a good three miles from the nearest human and after much thought made the decision to strip off to my birthday suit and wade in and retrieve my pork.
I sort of scooted my feet along bottom and will never forget the first part of that little boar I felt. My right foot landed on his snout, and I could feel those teeth. I had earlier watched those three alligators swim back across the pond and there were absolutely no ripples in the shallow water to indicate they were anywhere close but still, I felt teeth and somewhere in that pond were three big gators. You just don’t forget something like this.
Listen to Luke’s weekly radio show/podcast “Catfish Radio with Luke Clayton and Friends” on many radio stations and just about everywhere podcasts are found.
