Unusual game being hunted on ranch in Gonzales County

Exotic game hunting of an unusual bent is coming to Gonzales County this Thursday, as El Chupacabras Wildlife Outfitters will officially open the gates to its 3,200-acre hunting ranch.

Located in the northwest portion of the county, near Belmont and extending toward the Caldwell County line, the ranch will offer the sportsman more than he is accustomed to on traditional exotic game hunts.

"Most hunting ranches let fellas come out and shoot your basic exotics -- Axis Deer, Sika Deer, Fallow Deer, Black Buck Antelope, Red Stag, Oryx, Acudad Sheep, Texas Dahl Ram, Russian Wild Boar Hog, Mouflon Ram and such -- for a steep fee, of course," noted the ranch's owner, Phil Pill.

Pill explains that the animals he will be offering for sportsmen to pop goes beyond belief of most in the business.

"Some time back we'd heard a report of a hyena sighting in Gonzales County. We just blew it off as a spoof. But a friend of mine, a pilot, was doing some aerial reconnaissance of the area -- he was following the barn swallows' migration pattern -- and said he saw 'em with his own two eyes. He called me on my cell and said, 'Phil you ain't gonna believe it but I just spotted a whole passel of hyenas. They were the spotted ones, too, that I spotted. Must 've been 100 of 'em.'"

Pill admitted he was somewhat skeptical, but once he went up in the air with the pilot and saw the herd chowing down and clowning around a freshly fallen deer he just knew he had to buy the property.

The financier and sportsman purchased the land that was infested with hyenas. "They are of the laughing kind, also, I might add," added Pill. He speculated that the hyenas may have became indigenous to this region when a pair might have escaped from a circus that used to headquarter in Gonzales back in the 1930s and '40s.

He immediately contacted game providers and poachers worldwide to get the necessary game, in addition to the hyenas, to stock his property so that he could stage the slaying of animals for a fee.

El Chupacabras Wildlife Outfitters will provide day hunts and night hunts. Basic and deluxe packages are available. Fully-guided or semi-guided. Alcoholic and non.

Along with hyenas to stalk, other game will include:

Bongo: found in Africa and known of its spiraled horns and striped hides. A timid, almost camouflaged, mysterious animal. It's nocturnal and only comes out at night, so it is a great animal to spotlight hunt;

Capybara: found in South America. Basically a four-footed guinea pig known as the world's largest rodent;

Civet: found in Africa and Asia. A silky cat-shaped mammal;

Okapi: found in Africa. Looks like it is part zebra and part giraffe;

Tarsier: found in Southeast Asia. Has huge round eyes. A squirrel-sized primate noted for its night vision and its ability to turn its head almost all the way around. Another animal suited for spotlighting.

Other animals up for zeroing in on include zebras, Goliath frogs and mutated-gerbils.

A ribbon-cutting is set for daylight, possibly around 5:58 a.m., Thursday, April 1 on the premises.

Pill said it is then that he will announce a surprise prey placed on the property for armed-to-the-teeth predators to go after. But it will not come cheap. "It'll cost a hunter $50,000 a gun to go after the surprise species. Well, it is a surprise if we don't tell but I can't stand suspense," said Pill, with a smile the size of snockered shellfish.

"So I'm gonna snitch on myself. We have acquired a living, breathing Chupa. That's right. You heard me right. The El Chupacabra. What they call the 'goatsucker.' Part-bat, part-kangaroo, part-alien Grey slayer of livestock. I mean this is a wildlife icon and by golly, we got one right here at El Chupacabras Wildlife Outfitters. That's why we named the ranch that," explains Pill.

Pill said when the Chupa attacks a goat it is not a pretty sight. As the 'vampire kangaroo' leaves its victim a bloodless mess by sucking the sucker dry of all bodily fluids.

"Now we realize there are some niggling naysayers out there that don't buy no stock in the fact that we do have a Chupa and a herd of hyenas here on our property. But we welcome them to come on out April 1, which falls on a Thursday, to come have a look see for themselves," offers Pill.

Choice of weapons is a hunter's own, he adds, because the property is private and not subject to Texas or U.S. game laws. "They can come with a 30-naught-6 or a howitzer. Heck if they want to toss a Molotov cocktail or hunt with a rubber-band machine gun we don't care."

Serving as the safari guide at the outfitters will be a native Texan, James "Bugs" Caddell.

Pill said Caddell was chosen because he is familiar as no one else with the flora and fauna and folks of Gonzales County.

"It was explained to me that Bugs was reared in the wilds. As a child he would wander around jaybird naked with the wildlife. Eating berries and bugs and talking trash to the turkeys and wild hogs. One day a game warden trapped him, banded him and released him back into the wild. So it doesn't take no wise owl to know that he's sharper than stink bait in hooking up with animals of all sorts.

"We're pleased that we were able to offer Mr. Caddell his 13th career change in the past six months," noted Pill.

Pill, a millionaire and then some, allows he only recently acquired his wealth. "I was checking my e-mail one morning and received this personal note from a manager of a foreign financial institution in Nigeria telling me I could pretend to be the next of kin to some fool that had abandoned his fortune in the bank there.

"So I became one of the heirs by putting up $250 of my own money to negotiate the exchange into U.S. currency. I took that money -- $15 million -- and put it in botox futures and my future became secure."

He doesn't belabor that he is not a self-made man.

A member of the Wilkerson clan, we won't say which one but he goes by a nickname rather than his real name of Harvey, allegedly was the hunter that initially admitted spotting a hyena racing around in Gonzales County back in November of 2003. And it wasn't on April Fool's Day which falls on a Thursday this year.

For more information on El Chupacabras Wildlife Outfitters go on the internet and type in:

ihavebeenhadtwodaysbeforeapril1.edu.,