Brad Whatley was anxious when he got his first glimpse of the west Texas wilderness.
But these were “good nerves,” the kind kids get waiting to tear into presents on Christmas morning. After all, Brad was the guest of honor on one of the quail hunts his dad always raved about.
Keith Whatley piloted the 1985 Dodge pickup. His best friend, Mr. Donald Ray Brown, sat on the right side of the bench seat. Brad, 9 years old at the time, was wedged between the two men. A liver-colored pointer named Susan sat huddled in the dog box behind them, likely just as excited about the trip as the boy inside the truck.
Young Whatley loved to hunt birds back home in Bivins, Texas, a tiny town tucked into the northeast corner of the Lone Star State. But the real action, as his dad often reminded him, was about eight hours west in a town called Aspermont, a place Brad remembers as “The Bird Capital of the World.”
It was a long ride for the eager young hunter, but Brad always liked being with his dad.
Back home in Bivins, he often would tag along when dad went to inspect one of the family’s shallow oil wells. Keith and his own father co-owned the OK Whatley Oil Company, a small business that never made the family rich like oil did for some lucky souls in east Texas. The Whatleys did alright for themselves, though, with hard work and discipline the pathway to a steady and honest living.
Brad remembers his dad having Elvis or Buddy Holly on the radio when he drove around Bivins, and as Keith Whatley urged the ’85 Dodge westward to Aspermont, Brad wanted to fiddle with the radio, too. He soon learned, however, that dad and Mr. Donald Ray preferred friendly conversation to rock and roll on these trips.
It was the first of many lessons Brad learned on his first quail hunt in west Texas.
Content to listen to the men share small talk and funny stories, he leaned back and began to relax.
The flat earth stretched beneath the Dodge and an unending west Texas sky soared overhead. Out there, past the lonely farms and dusty ranches, was the stuff Brad had dreamed about – the fantastic quail hunts, of course, but just as much, time with his daddy.
“If you’re like me, your dad is your idol at that age, so just getting to spend time with him, to be around the adults, was a huge deal,” said Brad Whatley, now a 38-year-old rookie on the Bassmaster Elite Series.
“That first trip quail hunting with him was special. It’s a different world out there (in west Texas). You go there to get away from the world. It’s a place where you can go to think.
Paradise found
When the trio arrived in Aspermont, Brad remembers checking into a place identical to the stereotypical motel of the American West.
“It was one of those shotgun (building) deals, and there’s always a diner connected to it,” he said. “The whole experience was memorable. You get up in the morning, you have your two eggs over easy, toast, bacon, coffee. You sit around talking to the old-timers that come in there every morning.”
Keith Whatley didn’t know a stranger, his son said, so he had no problem making friends with people in the diner. The locals offered tips on places to hunt, and more than one of them offered their land for the trio to hunt during their stay in Aspermont.
“An old man came in and he knew dad was a bird hunter because he had on orange and had a whistle around his neck,’” Brad said. “Before you know it, my dad had a lease. For free! Someone would say I’ve got land over here, a thousand acres over there. When we’d go back out there years later, dad would bring them some processed meat, deer or something like that.
“It was all just handshake deals,” he said, “and it’s almost like those are a thing of the past. But I valued all that because I saw it at a young age. I wish things were still like that.”
As well as Brad remembers the motel and the diner, the quail hunting in Aspermont is even more vivid in his memory. It was in the fields, walking behind the pointer and waiting for her to locate a covey, that he really learned about hunting.
“He told me what to do and how to do it,” Brad said. “I can still see him out there. ‘Never get out in front of the group. Don’t out-walk the dog. Don’t swing your gun toward anybody.’ They were small lessons, and it may sound silly, but it was discipline for later in life.”
He also learned how special the father/son bond can be on that first trip to Aspermont.
“We were hunting singles because the dog had busted up a covey,” he said. “A Blue Norther was coming in. That’s one of those storms when the whole sky turns dark and the temperature drops about 40 degrees in a couple hours. A quail got up wild and it flew straight over me. In that wind, it wasn’t going 60 miles an hour like a usual quail. I had a 20 gauge pump and when I shot, (the bird) folded up.
“It meant the world to my dad to see me shoot that bird,” Brad said. “I’ve killed hundreds and hundreds of quail through the years, but I will always remember that one.”
Reclaiming the past
The Whatleys would make many more quail hunting trips to west Texas through the years. Brad’s younger brother Blake, three years his junior, would eventually join them. Mr. Donald Ray Brown remained a fixture on the hunts, too.
Time passed, though. Brad graduated from high school, went to technical school and became a mechanic for a company that sold logging equipment. With added responsibility, there was less time for trips to west Texas, though they did sneak hunts in now and again. Father and sons made their last west Texas hunt in 2009.
When Keith Whatley died in 2011, several years went by before Brad and Blake hunted quail again.
“We wanted to go again for sentimental reasons, but also because we loved it,” Brad said. “There’s an honor to carry on something like this. Quail hunters are a dying breed. It’s hard work if you do it right, and dad was the one who did the work. He was the one who handled the dogs, who took care of the lease. I was the kid. I just showed up to hunt.”
Brad and Blake started hunting quail again in west Texas in 2015. They make the trip as often as they can, but the trips aren’t so much about what they bag anymore. Instead, they’re just as content to introduce friends to the sport much like their dad did for them 30 years ago.
“When my dad got older, he’d sit back and watch his boys walk up and shoot,” Brad said. “He liked to see the dogs work, watch other people have fun. That’s what made him happiest. And that’s what’s so special about quail hunting to me still. We kill birds and have a good time, but the best part is the camaraderie of it.
“You can’t buy memories like these,” Brad said, referring to quail hunts, but much more to the family ties that cemented his love for the outdoors years ago.