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April 7, 2010
Corpus Christi, Texas
Joe De Santos
It was in the mid 60’s, young, married and living from pay check to pay check. In the summer of 1965, I had finally given my last payment on a Remington Model 243 BDL. A beautiful rifle that I had on lay-away for about 6 months at Oshman’s. I had given a down payment and paid weekly until I paid it off. Today, it was all mine! I bought a box of shells and was ready to go. I had been a soldier for three years so I knew how to handle a weapon, that was not a problem. I was an expert marksman, according to the U.S. Army. While in the Service, I learned plenty of weapons safety, they pounded it into you, everyday.
Ready to go! I had a rifle, bullets and the urge to get prepared for white tail season. I grew up in a hunting family, my dad was a big hunter. He even went Elk hunting in Colorado every year, however, I’m sorry to say that my dad didn’t take me hunting with him until I was already a grown young man. I, more or less, learned to hunt on my own. Anyway, ready to go hunting and no place to go. In Texas, one pays for a day hunt, a season or year ’round lease. Very expensive, no free open land. Of course, one could hunt their own land. I couldn’t afford a deer lease and didn’t know anybody that had a place to go. No invites. Funny, later when I had my own place, I loved to take friends and relatives to my little place to hunt. I’ll talk about that in another story. So, I had no place to go hunting and the deer leases were too expensive for my brittle bones. One day, I read in the local paper that an area U.S. Wildlife Refuge was going to draw names, awarding weekend hunts to some lucky folks. This place had thousands and thousands of acres. All one had to do is enter the contest and hope his or her name would be drawn. I sent my application in and waited. I guess I spent four to six weeks anxiously checking the mail everyday for word from the Refuge. One day, a letter arrived and lo and behold, I got selected! Man, was I excited! On top of that, I could take a guest with me. My long time best friend was the logical choice. Lonnie was also kind of a rookie hunter and was equally excited when I gave him the news. He had a Savage 22 Hornet. He was ready. We both had hunted rabbits with his 22 rifle several times at his uncle’s place which was about 100 miles from home. There were plenty of rabbits, no deer. We could hardly wait for the Refuge hunt which was going to be in early October.
The weekend finally arrived. We drove to the Refuge on Friday evening and spent the night in our vehicle, along with a bunch of other people, some pitched tents on the side of the road. All waiting for the Saturday morning hunt. The South Texas weather was still very warm, possibly in the high 80’s or low 90’s during the day. Early Saturday morning, once the gate opened, we were allowed to go in with our vehicle. We were all required to wear flourescent bright orange vests for obvious reasons. The U.S. Park Rangers gave us instructions, a safety lecture and a map pointing to the marked area that was ours to hunt. We were allowed to drive to the area, staying on the roadway and when we got to the marked spot, we would park the vehicle and walk into the brush. We were told that each hunting area was crossed fenced. We’re talking large acreage all to ourselves! Now, this is where the inexperience comes in. We starting walking into the brush, rifles only. Maybe some hunting knives. We took no food or water with us. That stayed in the cooler. Our plan was to hunt two or three hours and walk back to the vehicle, eat, drink and walk back in. We were told there were some open box blinds somewhere inside the very tall brush. They would not be hard to find. There were no senderos (shooting lanes). We walked in, possibly a half a mile or so and saw the top of two blinds not too far from each other. I got one, Lonnie got the other. We stayed up there for two or three hours, just as we had planned. We finally got hungry and thirsty and decided to get down and go get something to eat and drink. No compass, no reference points, nada! We started walking towards where we thought the vehicle was. After about an hour we passed a water hole and kept on walking. An hour or so later, we passed the same water hole again. Lonnie was really complaining about how thirsty he was. I suggested he drink from the water hole. He said, “hell no!”, are you crazy? “Don’t you see all the animal tracks?” “I ain’t going to drink from there and get sick!” For some reason, I wasn’t that thirsty yet. We walked for another hour or so and guess what? The same water hole! You all should have seen Lonnie. He ran towards the water and dove in, just like in the movies where people were lost in the desert. He started drinking out of the hole. By that time, I was also real thirsty and reluctantly joined him. We didn’t say anything to each other, things were getting serious, we were really lost! We eventually found a fence line and were able to walk out and find the vehicle. This was about 3:00 P.M. There was still plenty of time to hunt. We ate and drank, got in the vehicle and got the hell out of there! For a long time, when we saw each other, the first thing we would say was …… WATER – WATER! A very good lesson learned. Never forgotten. Nope, we didn’t see any deer.
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