The Life of an Outfitter

I spent the last week with Colter Bedell of Big Johnson Outfitters in Snyder, TX as he prepared for this year’s season.  Through some very fortunate circumstances BJO was able to acquire an additional 63,000 acres bringing their total land amount to a little over 68,000 ac.  I was so excited to get out there and see what that size property would be like, I almost forgot how much work there was to do!

When I arrived there was a trailer with enough metal strapped down for us to build an additional 24 blinds for the ranch.  I will be the first to tell you that I know nothing about working with metal, but I was surely going to learn something this week…right?  Welllllll, come to find out none of us really knew a whole lot about the situation and the blinds were put on hold until Colter’s friend Gangster Gary could come out and show us how it was done.

We did however have a ton of new feeders and cameras that needed to be put out on the new property and on Thursday we headed out bright and early to Borden county and the Muleshoe Ranch.  Most people are familiar with the Muleshoe Ranch from its’ large amount of cattle but after this week I can assure you that the number of pronghorn antelope far outweighs the cattle.  I have always been told that a great antelope would have prongs that started above his ears.  In my 6 days at the ranch I saw 16 pronghorn that would all be considered “trophy” in the (prong above the ear) standards.  Also if you are looking for an antelope hunt this season, give BJO a shout.  These antelope did not seem like they would be too difficult to get a shot on.

Colter had a map the size of his truck that was strategically poked with thumb tacks to mark the areas he was wanting to place these feeders.  He and his buddy Chris plotted the course from the front truck while myself and land owner John Hamlett followed closely behind with the corn trailer.  Speaking of which, John had a brand new Bruton Corn Trailer and for those of us who are used to filling feeders by hand, this thing is AMAZING!

Working as a team is a necessity on a place this large, especially when you are trying to get a ton of work done in a single day.  When arriving to a spot John would pull out the feeder legs and assemble them to the barrel, Colter and Chris would drive three half size T-Post into the ground beside each feeder leg and tie them off using high strength wire, I would drive a full size T-Post into the ground and mount a Bushnell Trophy Cam in a straight line to the feeder.  Lastly we would all come together in running the hose from the corn trailer into the barrel and letting ‘er rip!  Although it was a good amount of work, we got things done quickly and efficiently.

Throughout the week with Colter I learned that having a plan is a very important part of being an outfitter.  Sometimes things go wrong or break down but as long as you have a group of guys working towards one ultimate goal, everything always seems to work out.

If anybody here is looking for what is going to be an awesome place to hunt, you should definitely contact Big Johnson Outfitters.  The hard work and dedication to making their business a first class operation is going to lead to nothing but great times for each of their clients, year after year.

Sky Watkins

Owner of Texasoutdoorsman.com