Hi Texans,
In December of 1968, I drove with my buddy's Mexican family (the Huerta's) from Fremont, Kali to Kingsville, non stop. I was still in high school and it was our Christmas break. They were from there, his dad had transferred to Alameda Naval Air Station when they closed a base in Corpus Christi in the early '60's. While we were in Kingsville, his uncle, who was the same age as us, had a friend who's dad was a foreman on the King Ranch, got us permission to hunt on their dirt. We could only take rabbits and Javalina, and were told not to disturb the deer stands. We drove for 2 hours (still on Ranch property), getting to where ever at dusk to spend the night. The next morning we got after it. I was using a borrowed Remington pump .22, I don't know what model but it was brand new and quite unique. It had blonde furniture and was bronzed instead of blued. Back home I had a Mossberg M44 US & a Savage 24, .22-410.
In those days I could see good and was very quick to acquire. There were six of us and we all split up. Right of the bat I started to jump Jacks, and knocked them down. Then I started to flush cotton tails and was knocking them out too. I was shooting quite a bit and one of the Caballeros came over to see what the commotion was about. By then I had a couple stringers of cotton tails, and when he showed up, I had jut shot one and it fell back in a burrow. I reached in to get it and he ran up and stopped me, "Nada chingon, Gila Monsters or rattlin snakes" he says. He was surprised that I had so many cotton tails already. I told him that I had shot a mess of Jacks too, but left them. He said to get the Jack as well, they'd make tamales out of those. By the end of the day, as a group we'd taken over 200 rabbits and a Javalina. I killed 112 bunnies on my own, not counting the early Jacks left behind.
As was their custom, we took all the game to a Brujo. It was just like the scene in La Bamba (but before the movie), snake heads, skins, and pelts strung along a barbed wire fence. He dressed out the game, kept the hides, and they gave him a shank of Javalina. All the home boys couldn't believe I kilt so may critters and really took kindly toward me. They nick named me Pancho a la Pena. I don't remember much after that we drank a lot of Tequila. PAX
In December of 1968, I drove with my buddy's Mexican family (the Huerta's) from Fremont, Kali to Kingsville, non stop. I was still in high school and it was our Christmas break. They were from there, his dad had transferred to Alameda Naval Air Station when they closed a base in Corpus Christi in the early '60's. While we were in Kingsville, his uncle, who was the same age as us, had a friend who's dad was a foreman on the King Ranch, got us permission to hunt on their dirt. We could only take rabbits and Javalina, and were told not to disturb the deer stands. We drove for 2 hours (still on Ranch property), getting to where ever at dusk to spend the night. The next morning we got after it. I was using a borrowed Remington pump .22, I don't know what model but it was brand new and quite unique. It had blonde furniture and was bronzed instead of blued. Back home I had a Mossberg M44 US & a Savage 24, .22-410.
In those days I could see good and was very quick to acquire. There were six of us and we all split up. Right of the bat I started to jump Jacks, and knocked them down. Then I started to flush cotton tails and was knocking them out too. I was shooting quite a bit and one of the Caballeros came over to see what the commotion was about. By then I had a couple stringers of cotton tails, and when he showed up, I had jut shot one and it fell back in a burrow. I reached in to get it and he ran up and stopped me, "Nada chingon, Gila Monsters or rattlin snakes" he says. He was surprised that I had so many cotton tails already. I told him that I had shot a mess of Jacks too, but left them. He said to get the Jack as well, they'd make tamales out of those. By the end of the day, as a group we'd taken over 200 rabbits and a Javalina. I killed 112 bunnies on my own, not counting the early Jacks left behind.
As was their custom, we took all the game to a Brujo. It was just like the scene in La Bamba (but before the movie), snake heads, skins, and pelts strung along a barbed wire fence. He dressed out the game, kept the hides, and they gave him a shank of Javalina. All the home boys couldn't believe I kilt so may critters and really took kindly toward me. They nick named me Pancho a la Pena. I don't remember much after that we drank a lot of Tequila. PAX
