When It Comes to Gulf Fish, Don’t Fear the Sheeper
Move over, speckled trout and redfish. The misunderstood, toothy sheepshead is a tasty—and sustainable—catch.
Wes Ferguson was a senior editor at Texas Monthly who wrote primarily about the outdoors. His 2019 article "When Angels in America Came to East Texas" was nominated for a National Magazine Award in Feature Writing. An East Texas native, he is the author of two nonfiction books, The Blanco River and Running the River: Secrets of the Sabine, both published by Texas A&M University Press.
Move over, speckled trout and redfish. The misunderstood, toothy sheepshead is a tasty—and sustainable—catch.
By Wes Ferguson
Lucrative tournaments built around these river monsters are booming.
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Survivalist expert Bob Hansler found YouTube fame by testing his skills in the Texas wilderness. His biggest challenge was yet to come.
By Wes Ferguson
But many breeders say the new regulations go too far.
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Ready to commit murder most fowl?
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The ancient art of falconry is alive and well.
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So is a little fish that swam along the San Marcos River.
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A shoot-out at a Big Bend ranch captured the nation’s attention: first as an alleged ambush by undocumented migrants, then as a fear-mongering hoax. The real story is much more mysterious.
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The Hill Country offers fast-flowing streams and some nice bass. But for solitude and diversity of species, the creeks and bayous east of I-45 can’t be beat.
By Wes Ferguson
Ranch CEO Jason Molitor always loved hunting. Now he runs an 18,000-acre operation with more than 60 species on offer.
By Wes Ferguson
Exotic species brought to Texas from Africa and Asia fared poorly in freezing temperatures.
By Wes Ferguson
With its distinctive, raucous call, the chachalaca is often heard in South Texas—but good luck spotting one.
By Wes Ferguson
From the Big Bend to East Texas, the Panhandle to the Rio Grande Valley, Texas ranches have been transformed in recent decades by the proliferation of exotic game animals, many of them rare and endangered in their native habitats. With the rise of “Texotics” has come an army of
By Wes Ferguson
Jesse Griffiths goes hog wild to reinvent a favorite childhood meal.
By Wes Ferguson
Sprawling ranches. Rare animals. Rich folks with guns. Welcome to the state’s booming business of stalking wildlife from around the globe.
By Wes Ferguson
Crested caracaras used to range no farther north than Texas’s southern tip, but now they’re expanding across the state—perhaps because of climate change and habitat loss.
By Wes Ferguson
Affordable private places to pitch your tent when public parks aren’t an option.
By Wes Ferguson
Living hard and free, cedar choppers clashed with respectable townsfolk in the mid-20th century.
By Wes Ferguson
From the Estelline spring in the Panhandle and the foot of the Guadalupe Mountains to the hypersaline lakes in the Rio Grande Valley, the common mineral is all around us.
By Wes Ferguson
Not everyone in San Augustine is on board for local artist Gary Brewer's perplexing project, which is three stories high and counting.
By Wes Ferguson
In the aftermath of tragedy, members of the Caddo Nation are drawing on their culture and traditions to help restore Caddo Mounds State Historic Site.
By Wes Ferguson
The Redfish Wars changed Texas fishing. A fight over flounder could be next.
By Wes Ferguson
Texas offers some of the most-diverse fishing in the country—from stalking monster sharks on Padre Island to fly-fishing from a kayak on the remote Pecos River. And for three months, I got to try it all.
By Wes Ferguson
Here are four essential items to get off dry land and into a kayak.
By Wes Ferguson
The state has spent more than a century building up a world-class fishery, with some unintended consequences.
By Wes Ferguson
Tips from Texans who trap, kill, and study wild pigs.
By Wes Ferguson
A visit to the Zwolle Tamale Fiesta and Los Adaes, where our state’s Spanish colonial roots live on just across the Sabine River.
By Wes Ferguson
Ray Gene, proprietor of Longview’s singular It’ll Do Tavern, passed away last weekend.
By Wes Ferguson
Deer season is almost upon us, but don’t fret if you don’t have a lease. Here are four public places that welcome hunters.
By Wes Ferguson
Once widely hunted in Texas, the beloved game birds have been dwindling in number in recent decades. But a West Texas hunter and professor believes he’s found a way to save them.
By Wes Ferguson
These creatures—some creepy crawlers, some fearsome beasts, some microscopic threats—can and will kill you, maybe.
By Wes Ferguson
Twenty years ago my hometown made national headlines when the local college staged an internationally acclaimed play about gay men and the AIDS crisis. The people I grew up with are still feeling the aftershocks.
By Wes Ferguson
A revitalized downtown and a new network of hiking, biking, and paddling trails add to the appeal of this border town by the beach.
By Wes Ferguson
Trent Lesikar’s ongoing ‘The Shape of Texas’ series teases out connections between the state’s different eras.
By Wes Ferguson
Fifty years after humans first walked on the moon, you too can play astronaut for a day.
By Wes Ferguson
The invasive species hitches rides on contaminated boats from one body of water to the next.
By Wes Ferguson
Austin rockers Montopolis will premiere The Living Coast—an audiovisual homage to the Texas Gulf Coast—on August 2 in Austin.
By Wes Ferguson
Descendants of slaves who escaped across the southern border observe Texas’s emancipation holiday with their own unique traditions.
By Wes Ferguson
A constitutional amendment on the ballot in November aims to shore up funding for Texas’s system of state parks and historic sites.
By Wes Ferguson
Former train corridors pave the way for exploration and quietude through seven counties in this rural part of the state.
By Wes Ferguson
Where to find wide-open skies—or a big telescope—if you live in the big city or in the eastern half of the state.
By Wes Ferguson
With the state’s four highest peaks, Guadalupe Mountains National Park offers incredible vistas and rewarding trails, which you just might have mostly to yourself.
By Wes Ferguson
Friday night, lights out.
By Wes Ferguson
Getting a head in Pittsburg.
By Wes Ferguson
It’s time to go or get off the pot.
By Wes Ferguson
Lyndon B. Johnson conducted the nation's affairs under the Cabinet Oak. But is the three-hundred-year-old tree a goner?
By Wes Ferguson
A new documentary follows the lives of the 94 bayou folk, retirees, and reputed outlaws in the village of Uncertain.
By Wes Ferguson
Wes Ferguson has paddled and walked all 87 miles of one of the Hill Country’s most prized waterways. In this exclusive excerpt from The Blanco River, he uncovers a few of its natural secrets.
By Wes Ferguson
How long it will take the dreaded emerald ash borers to fully establish themselves in Texas? And how many native ash trees will they decimate?
By Wes Ferguson
A year ago, the Blanco River overran its banks and devastated Hays County—just as a handful of government officials had predicted decades ago.
By Wes Ferguson