It was Saturday, a crisp October morning in the early 1950’s. My friend, Ben Sturgeon, and his friend from Skellytown, Don Haslam, invited Bill Culpepper, Marion Stone and me to go quail hunting. Ben’s dad had a lease on some land close to McLean, Texas, where there were lots of canyons and brush. McLean is 36 miles southeast of Pampa. In 1942, a prisoner of war camp was built northeast of the town and ·was operated until 1945, housing about 3,000 German prisoners. Thought you might enjoy knowing about that little town.
Back to the hunting tale...the combination of canyons and brush is a quail paradise in the Texas Panhandle, which they gladly called home. Lots of quail...
You must understand that all Texans had guns or rifles or pistols or a combination of the three. Sooner or later you would use one for sure: for hunting, shooting varmints, just shooting for fun, or for protection. You’ve got to remember that our parents grew up during the era of Bonnie and Clyde Barrow and the Great Depression. One story about Bonnie and Clyde happened really close to where we were hunting ... This was in 1933, Clyde was driving north when he missed a detour sign. He crashed his automobile into the Salt Fork of Red River. The Pritchard family farm was located south of the river. They attempted to help, but the situation ended in a gunfight with law officers. Bonnie and Clyde escaped.
There were lots of unsavory characters during that period of Texas history. So naturally, we grew up with guns in the house and most of us kids were introduced to guns at an early age.
Okay, Okay, so it’s back to the hunting story ... So when Ben called, it was no big deal to reach for the Remington 12-guage shotgun and a couple boxes of shells and dig around for my gear so I would be ready for a great day of hunting.
By 8 a.m. the following morning, we were loaded up and headed south in the Sturgeon’s new Buick Roadmaster Sedan... big, black, and shiny. If we had Italian names, we could have past for the the mafia! Here we were, driving down the back roads of the Panhandle with gun barrels sticking out the windows and all of us wearing sunglasses! All we needed to complete the image were the big black hats.
Now quail live together in a “covey” which is a family with a ma and paw and including all the kids, their cousins, aunts, uncles ... they live on the ground under a bush or bushes.
I’m serious ... and when they fly, they always fly away from you, all in different directions. It’s like they whisper to each other, “you go that way and I’ll go this way; you stay low and I’ll go high; let’s all meet back here in fifteen minutes.” Their only mistake is that they wait until you arrive at their doorstep before they finally decide to fly.
We must have come across ten coveys with at least fifteen to twenty quail in each. By mid-afternoon we had all the birds we wanted and were ready to head for home.
Now, what I’m about to tell you is the gospel truth! Back on that October day my amigos didn’t believe me ... and until this day they still don’t.
