Pickens to receive award as sportsman

Ray Sasser

Pickens to receive award as sportsman

Dallas Morning News

DALLAS — T. Boone Pickens is an iconic businessman whose unerring feel for energy trends makes him a regular prognosticator on major network television financial shows.

His philanthropy has been well documented with beneficiaries ranging from a Fair Park neighborhood to his beloved Oklahoma State University. What most people don’t know about the 79-year-old billionaire is the depth of his lifelong fascination for bobwhite quail.

On Thursday, the Park Cities Quail Unlimited Chapter will honor Pickens with its “Lifetime Sportsman Award.” The dinner and fund-raising auction is sold out. Proceeds benefit the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch.An impressive list of auction items is overshadowed by a quail hunting trip to Pickens’ Mesa Vista Ranch, located along the Canadian River in Roberts County. The trip is for six couples, who will fly aboard Pickens’ private jet and stay in his 20,000-square-foot lodge.

Pickens became addicted to pointing dogs and flushing coveys as a young boy in Holdenville, Okla. His father always kept two bird dogs in their modest backyard. When Boone’s father once asked his young son what he planned to do for a living, Boone said he aspired to Volly Biddy’s job.

Biddy was essentially a market hunter. Locals with a taste for quail furnished Biddy with a shotgun and shells and paid him to shoot birds for the table. Boone’s father suggested that he set his sights a little higher. Pickens exceeded his father’s expectations, but he never lost his love for bobwhites.

He bought the first small piece of what became Mesa Vista in 1971. It was 2,900 acres of overgrazed pasture near the Canadian River. The only structure was an abandoned building that was called the Cake House because it was used to store cattle feed.

Pickens and his hunting buddies would drive 100 miles from Amarillo and hunt all day. At noon, they sought refuge in the Cake House, building a fire in a 55-gallon drum to warm the place and eating cheese and crackers on a table assembled from discarded lumber.

“As any experienced quail hunter knows, the best hunting is along creek drainages,” Pickens said. “We had some good creek drainages on the ranch, but I got the idea of creating artificial creeks.”

The artificial creeks were made by burying PVC pipe and pumping water through the buried water system. Every 1,000 feet or so, the water bubbled to the surface to create waterholes that benefited quail and other wildlife.

To combat the sometimes harsh winter weather of the Panhandle, Pickens added quail feeders so the birds would have an abundant food supply, even when snow and ice covered the ground. The feeders were placed in plum thickets where birds had overhead protection from hawks.

“The system worked pretty well,” Pickens said. “We noticed better hunting wherever we put the water lines. Abundant water creates abundant insects, and insects are important food for quail chicks. Even when it doesn’t rain, I think the quail dampen their feathers in the waterhole and return to the nest.”

Biologists have scoffed at that idea, but they also laughed at Pickens quail feeding efforts. Research done in Florida suggests that feeding quail year-round increases their survival rate and produces bigger coveys for next year. Pickens was way ahead of the curve on feeding quail and is probably right about the water, as well.

For 20 years, the Mesa Vista quail hunters have averaged finding 22 coveys of quail a day. The ranch has expanded to 68,000 acres with more than 24 miles of frontage on the Canadian River.

“A lot of experienced hunters have said that Mesa Vista is the world’s best quail hunting,” Pickens said. “I don’t know if it’s the world’s best, but I’m convinced it’s the best that my team could make it.”