The author told readers how special a whitetail hunting destination the Texas Hill Country was then. Luckily, nearly 40 years later, it still is. (Photo By: Danita Delimont/Shutterstock.com)
In the third-ever issue of North American Whitetail, published in early 1983, contained a homage to my homeland. “Hill Country Texas: America’s Whitetail Mecca” read the feature’s title, and in it I proudly pointed out that this region — several million acres of dry, rocky ranchland lying west of Austin and north of San Antonio — was something special. At the time, roughly 10 percent of all the world population lived in or near those hills. It was the center of the whitetail universe, and it was where I still lived.
I wasn’t the only one extolling the region. For years, such respected writers as Byron Dalrymple, John Wootters, Russell...