Cast & Blast: Opening Weekend in the Heart of Texas
At exactly 4:27 pm on Friday, Sept. 2, 2022, a white 20-year-old SUV raced through West Campus. Sunroof opened, “Hit the Road” by Double A-Ron mixed with siren sounds of the city as the din of constant construction faded.
Foot on the floor, merging onto MoPac; the heart of Texas beckoned.
My destination was Brady, a town of just over 5,200 people in the geographic center of Texas and host to the Annual World Championship Barbecue Goat Cookoff. This year, for the 48th time in a row, hundreds of pitmasters from around the country arrived to make smoke. The event always falls on Labor Day weekend, marking the end of summer and illustrating notions of cooler temperatures.
Opening weekend, as it’s known outside the People’s Republic of Austin, also kicks off Football season. At the time of writing, the Longhorns are 1-1 in the SEC having nearly upset Alabama in a heart-wrenching home game. For someone without tickets to either game, I found myself leaving Austin in pursuit of another Texas tradition: dove hunting. In the late afternoon heat, soft thumps from distant shotguns can be heard throughout the rolling hills of South and Central Texas.
There isn’t much to do in a town so small and isolated. That is, there aren’t many things to do indoors. In sans Wi-Fi purgatory, cable television can only distract from boredom for so long. Keeping sane is synonymous with keeping outside; get outside early enough and you can beat the heat and the boredom. Saturday morning, I chose fishing.
Fish bite early. If you want them to take the bait, you’ve got to be up with ‘em. Unfortunately, despite my effort of waking up before dawn, the bass apparently didn’t get the memo. Mornings like these are what my dad calls the land of 10,000 casts.
Though he must’ve cast 10,001 times because this happened next:
I envy the ability to just relax; my dad can stay out all day, not catch a thing and have a great time. So quickly, I lose interest and begin to fidget, turning to the camera for buttons and dials to mess with.
Exercise as intense as our morning on the water requires a proper post-activity meal. Luckily, the cookoff was just getting underway back in town. This year, a reported 206 competitors arrived with their smokers. By Saturday, a fog of mesquite smoke wafted through Richardson Park carrying its sweet aroma.
My stomach growling ever louder, I set off to tour the competition and to see if I might snag a sample or two. When I could no longer stand the hunger, it was time for lunch: barbecued goat, provided by Piggy T’s BBQ and overseen by pitmaster Clinton Tinney. The cowboy potatoes and beans were fine, but the star of the show was the slice of shank on my plate.
After inhaling all food within arm’s reach, I had enough energy to people-watch and listen to Mason Lively sing a country-ified Neil Young song. Idly picking at the bone marrow with my spoon, I realized the bone was open on both ends.
After sucking one end, I held onto an empty bone with a surprised expression on my face. I love marrow for its rich nutrients and buttery flavor, but after my bone-straw trick, I was choking on it.
“That’s worth the price of admission right there,” Dad said.
Aside from expertly crafted cabrito, the goat cookoff is simply a chance for a small community to mingle with out-of-towners. Local venders form an impromptu Main Street of trestle tables presenting their wares. Custom knives, face painting, T-shirts and flags offer the few artisans of Brady a chance to hawk their livelihood.
As lunch winds down, the drinking can begin; the perfect time to skedaddle, I’ve seen doves flying all morning.
Seeing, is different from hunting of course; animals are smart and have good senses. Traditionally, doves are hunted as they come to feast on crops like sunflower and milo, however, planting fields of crops solely for the pursuit of a small migratory bird is more than cost-prohibitive.
It is without the bait that the sportsman must use his mind. Pacing a brushy clearing I could sense a flight pattern from a few birds. The San Saba river, a tributary of the Colorado, to my East, and a barren field to my West. It was here, on a three-legged folding chair with my Remington Wingmaster — adjacent to the rough-cut-road I’d driven in on — that I waited quietly for my quarry to come to me.
Different from rifles, hunting with a shotgun requires the hunter point the gun at the target rather than aim. When shooting a moving object, the hunter must swing through the shot, keeping the bead at the end of the barrel moving through the air in front of your target. If you can do all of this smoothly and quickly enough, you might be able to knock 1/15th of the legal limit out of the sky.
Patience and a keen eye netted me three birds. Similar to fishing, however, I am always the first one to succumb to boredom and begin my display of body language, signaling defeat.
“Well..?” I call out after a period of studying the red ants at my feet.
“It’s a deep subject.” Dad replies.
Haw-haw.
Two days after fleeing, I welcome Austin’s shimmering skyline rising from the twists and turns of SH-71. From far away, the UT tower is visible from the rolling hills west of town. Driving east, back into the land of 20-year-olds, cactus thorns trade places with cast-away screws; no matter the place, there’s always a chance of getting a flat, but home hits different.
Sweet, sweet Wi-Fi.
Editor’s Note: The size of this magazine’s staff has quite literally doubled since the last story. Meaning this is the last bit of copy that will come from the brain of Drift’s crazy editor-in-chief Rushton Skinner. Looking ahead, expect to see James Sam writing about his time learning to SCUBA dive in Costa Rica, and Ramble On’s upcoming episode featuring the one-and-only Tracy Dahlby.
We’re so excited to bring ever-diversifying student coverage of the outdoors — we hope you drift along with us.