[dramatic music]
- I'm Steven Bridges.
I'm fifth generation Texas newspaper owner.
The men in my family have been running newspapers
for the last 150 years.
There we are.
I own the Goldthwaite Eagle Newspaper here in
Goldthwaite, Texas, in Mills County...
right on the edge of the Hill Country.
It's the county seat.
A town of about 1,800 people.
It's just a little bit like Mayberry.
The newspaper, it's still the only place you can read
about small town stuff.
The kids and the old people and the deer hunting
and the Friday night football.
I tell people that we're telling the history of
Mills County one week at a time.
Agriculture is probably our largest industry,
followed by deer hunting.
Starting mid-week, we start seeing the trailers coming in.
When opening day hits, it's camouflage everywhere.
We're happy to see the green of the camo
because it brings the green dollars.
[bell rings]
- Twenty-five even.
My name is Rodney Spies.
Thanks very much, bud. - Thank you, I appreciate it.
- RODNEY: Our store is called Mills County General Store.
Not only are we an Ace Hardware store.
Is it a 177 caliber?
But we also sell a lot of hunting supplies.
I bet it is.
Anything a hunter needs.
You want to sign up for the Big Buck Contest?
- Yes.
- RODNEY: That's what I thought.
They come in early to sign up for a Big Buck Contest,
because everybody wants to shoot the big one.
- STEVEN: It's just an amazing amount of economic stimulus
that happens.
- CLERK: Got your receipt and your hunting license.
Thank you very much.
- CUSTOMER: Appreciate it.
- RODNEY: I just got a shipment of ammo on a backorder
than should have been here yesterday,
so I've got to get this out.
We buy approximately 70% more than we normally do
when we're gearing up for opening deer season weekend.
It's quite a chunk of change.
Little stuff.
Little stuff makes the difference.
[reflective music]
- This is my granddad, Darrell Head,
and this is my son Rhyder Dean.
- Yesterday was my birthday;
91 years old.
- LINDSEY: We're going to sight in my rifle and make sure
we're hitting the right spot on the target.
[gun shot]
You see it?
- RHYDER: This it right here?
- LINDSEY: Mm-hm.
A little high and to the right.
- DARRELL: That's a Remington Mohawk 222.
They're a fine little gun.
That thing's pretty old.
They quit making them a good many years ago.
- RHYDER: I see the bullseye.
- LINDSEY: Do you?
It's been Old Faithful for me.
I've been shooting it since I started hunting.
- DARRELL: It's about right, right there.
[gun shots]
- LINDSEY: Last two.
Right there.
You see it?
- RHYDER: Yeah.
- I think that's close,
close enough to go deer hunting with.
[Lindsey laughs]
- We're getting ready to make a little
breakfast sausage for a man.
A lot of times I stay here till sometime nine or ten o'clock
at night, seven days a week, four months straight,
until season's over.
Well, last year I cut the end plumb off that one
and it growed back.
I don't see how it did, but it did.
You're gonna be on TV right here.
- I'm gonna...
- He got summer sausage last year and he liked our jerky.
- Damn right I do.
[laughs]
But this year, you're going to make a little bigger jerky.
- Okay.
Bigger chunks.
- Yeah. - You got it.
When deer season hits,
it's good for all the local businesses.
I mean, everybody.
[soothing music]
♪ ♪
- WARREN BLESH: This part of Texas was really known for
its hair goats, Angora goats.
And, it was probably the hair goat capitol of the world
at one time.
This was a central buying point where ranchers
from all over could bring their wool and sell it.
And that changed from the hair goat to the demand
for meat goats.
[goats bleating]
What's been happening, probably started around 2000,
with kind of a land boom, as you call it in the Hill Country
when prices soared from 600 an acre to over 3,000 today, is,
the people that you're seeing buying this land are very much
conservation-minded and they're taking over-grazed land
and turning it into restored pastures, new lakes, new ponds.
I think that's a theme you're seeing with the land shift
is they're making it even better than it was when they found it,
and more like it was, probably, originally back in the 1900s.
- MIKE MILLER: I'll bet you've seen things change around
Mills County.
I bet hunting has gotten bigger and bigger over the years.
- Yes, it definitely has.
It's busy.
Gosh, it's busy.
Every year it seems like more and more hunters come in.
- MIKE: This area didn't have deer, historically.
And, as a matter of fact, the first deer sightings were
some time in the 60s in this area.
There's a bunch of good live oak up here on this hill.
- LINDSEY: Mm-hm.
- MIKE: That's actually a pretty important plant for deer.
So there's a big wildlife management association
in this part of Mills County.
It's a cooperative effort between land owners.
They're actually managing this wildlife resource together.
They look at it as a group effort rather than trying to go
about management on their own.
Simms Creek specifically, has close to 80 properties
represented now and nearly 55,000 acres.
So that's pretty powerful.
Now, when you have that kind of acreage, you can start
making a difference by making the right decisions,
both in terms of numbers of deer harvested
and the types of deer that you harvest.
[traffic road noise]
- I will shoot several thousand photos tomorrow,
and interview a hundred people at least,
with, with their information of what's going on.
And everybody's gonna want to know in the paper.
So I'm just covering the news.
But, the hunting is the news.
[morning crickets chirping]
- Make a little jalapeno and cheese link sausage.
Got to get a little fire going.
This is going to give it the smoked flavor.
- CAMERAMAN: Sawdust?
- WESLEY: Yes sir.
- CAMERAMAN: What kind of sawdust are you using?
Is this a special secret?
- It's a special secret.
Little bit of coffee and a whole lot of creamer.
Just about, I guess every place in Mills County's
got a hunter on it.
Lots of deer in Mills County, Goldthwaite.
[clock ticking]
- CAMERAMAN: No deer come in yet today?
No hunters?
- None yet.
- CAMERAMAN: It's early though, right?
- Yeah. A little early.
Maybe they'll be here in a little bit.
[uplifting music]
♪ ♪
[crickets chirping]
Fog's pretty heavy this morning, you know.
It's hard to see.
You can always keep your ears open, kinda listen
to what's going on around you.
Why do I hunt?
My whole family has hunted ever since I can remember.
It's always fun to challenge yourself to find the big buck.
'Cause you have to be quiet, you have to know where you
want to go or where the deer are coming into.
I just love being outside and be able to enjoy the outdoors
and get away and, you know, look at all of God's creation,
see, you know, all of the neat things that He's created.
All the little critters running around and enjoy the
peace and quiet of the outdoors.
[metal clanking]
Well, we saw a bunch of deer this morning,
but we didn't get anything.
Everything was out of shooting range, but hopefully
this evening we can regather and try a different location.
[uplifting music]
- STEVEN: So you hit him perfect, right there.
Great shot.
How far was he?
- KALEE COMEAUX: About 65 yards.
- STEVEN: Alright Kalee, let's take a few photos, can we?
One, two, three.
Got it.
Yeah, hold him out here for me.
Alright, push him out.
When I say ready, push him out toward me.
One, two, three, push him out.
Nice.
Well, how far was this buck?
How far do you have it set?
- 107 yards.
- STEVEN: 107 yards.
- Well, the feeder was at 100 and he was seven yards past it.
- STEVEN: I knew you'd know the actual yardage.
I know you too well.
Alright, go field dress him.
Y'all take care.
- GARY: You, too.
- STEVEN: We've got our share of characters in this town,
that's for sure.
My stomach runs me just like it runs these deer half the time.
And as you can see, like the little restaurant,
it's gonna be completely swamped today.
It's already swamped and it's, you know, 10:40.
[phone rings]
- NANCY RODRIGUEZ: I love deer season.
We look forward to this every year.
Give us about 15 minutes.
If we didn't have deer season, it wouldn't be busy.
[food sizzling]
The cook, he was sweating, drenched in sweat back there
because it's so hot.
Our hunters, one of them said he had killed a, uh,
12-point or something.
- Oh, and then I saw a dozen turkey come in
and they were, they were a little upset because the deer
had already eaten all the corn.
- I mean, I was expecting it to be busy,
but just not, like, overwhelming busy.
[laughs]
We didn't even get to have a break, you know,
but now that deer season just started,
it's gonna be like that from now on.
Have a great day.
- All right, you too.
- Yay! Money.
[uplifting music]
- On to the next place.
[uplifting music]
We sort of, our bread is buttered, when deer season
starts is when our bread starts getting buttered
in Mills County and it can really make or break a year.
So, we're gonna head to Ranch Land Feed.
That's another place where people congregate
to see who shot what.
It's scary.
If deer hunting went away, a quarter of our
sales tax rebates would disintegrate.
And that's an incredible hit to our county.
- CLERK: What can I help y'all with today?
- KRISTI MCCOY: We're very busy, all the hunters are coming in.
They're all coming in to get corn,
supplies for their deer camp.
- MAN: Those are a 110.
- KRISTI: We try to influence the hunters to take
something back with them, you know, because the wives
are like, "You spent all that money on deer, you know,
you can bring me something."
- Go ahead and bring another one,
he's going to want some corn.
- STEVEN: The retailers always make their year,
across the nation, from Thanksgiving on to Christmas.
For us, it starts when the dove hunters hit town.
And then opening day of deer season when the deer hunters
hit town and that deer season keeps on giving all the way
through Christmas.
- WESLEY: Aw, you can't like beef jerky better
than deer jerky.
[winch rumbling]
- WESLEY: Yeah, it's been good.
I think we've got 30-something today.
- And we are slammed,
and we are still checking them in.
See, we knew it was going to happen.
- WESLEY: This afternoon there may be 20, 30 more.
- LINDSEY: It feels awesome to be able to go out
and shoot a deer and provide your family with meat.
And plus, you know where the meat comes from
and it's all natural, there's no antibiotics.
- CAMERAMAN: What's your favorite sausage?
- Jalapeno and cheese link and the summer.
I can make it all day and go home and eat it at night.
The cleanness that you put in the meat itself,
that you know what's in it, and the seasoning that we use,
and I just think it's all, makes it good.
- I don't think he was even chasing.
- Think that will stay on there?
- It will in a minute.
- Man, you must drive like a cop.
[laughs]
Oh, you're going to, you're going to latch it.
I was fixing to say.
- Cause I drive like a cop.
[uplifting music]
- STEVEN: We have an opening day chili luncheon
for all the deer hunters to come in and eat chili.
Alright.
Let's do 20 bucks worth on it.
- MAN: He always wins, by the way.
Every gun raffle.
- STEVEN: Shush, you're gonna jinx me.
They'll be gun raffles and gun drawings and all kinds
of specials going on at all the retailers.
[country music]
We've got interesting, sometimes goofy people,
I'm one of them.
We just enjoy everybody's differences,
as well as their similarities.
They are a hoot.
- MAN: Here we go.
Stephen Bridges, owner of our local newspaper.
- That's my third gun.
- Is that right?
- STEVEN: Every year my wife says,
"Don't buy any more tickets."
I'm just a lucky guy, what can I say?
- This is the biggest buck brought in this morning.
[cheer and applause]
The deer was about 80 yards.
My dad said I probably missed him.
And I was like, "No!"
And he said, "Yes, you got him."
So, I was like, "Yay."
- STEVEN: I grew up deer hunting in Mills County
and my children, they want to go hunting.
They're outdoor kids.
My wife has been a hunter for her whole life.
We hunted together in high school.
There's a lot of places like Mills County
in the Hill Country,
there's Llano and there's Mason, there's Ozona.
Deer hunting is big in lots of these places,
and it's just part of our culture number one,
and number two, it's part of our economy.
[country music]
It feels good especially for me because I'm a girl
and most people think that girls need a man to do
all their dirty work but women are completely capable
of doing stuff on their own.
Especially going hunting.
[gun shot]
Opening day of deer season.
Got me a good doe today.
There's gonna be plenty of more opportunities to get
a big buck, but I'm proud of this first doe of the season.
This is what I was talking about.
My favorite part of the day.
In the evening, whenever the sun sets and you see all
the different color clouds and the sky and the reds and blues.
Magical looking.
It's real peaceful out here during this time.
[soothing music]
♪ ♪
- Hey Wes.
- Come to pick up your deer?
- Yes, 95.
- 95.
Okay.
Come on in.
- STEVEN: This town, we don't boom, we don't bust.
- WESLEY: And we got your chicken fried steaks.
- STEVEN: So we just kind of click along nice and easy.
We're not growing by leaps and bounds,
but we're sustainably growing.
We get our fair share and a lot of that has come
from deer hunters who have moved here.
They say, "I'm a deer hunter, I bought this land.
"I love it here.
I need to make a living, here's what I can do."
And those are the kinds of businesses that have
started up here and they're thriving.
[van beeping]
This is one of our many deliveries we make
on Wednesday morning.
This is volume 124 for 124 years in a row
every Wednesday we've had the newspaper come out.
The newspaper, we cover kids and old people,
that's what we love to do, that's who we love.
That's our people here.
Now we may not have all the amenities of the city,
but there's definitely something to be said
about raising your kids in this little community.
You can enjoy this for what it is,
a beautiful little piece of the center of the universe
as far as we're concerned.
[soothing music]
- NARRATOR: This project was funded in part by a grant
from the Wildlife Restoration Program.
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