nutcrackin
06-30-2005, 11:00 AM
Thrill of the hunt
By Nick Schenck
HoustonTexans.com
Center, Texas is nowhere near the middle of the state. In fact, it’s less than a half hour from the Louisiana border. But as far as hunting in Texas is concerned, this is one of the central locations.
With far more wildlife than residents, Center offers the outdoor enthusiast a wide variety of hunting and fishing options. Driving north on US-59 from Houston, it takes a little more than three hours to arrive in this small town, where the pace of life is relatively slow, the sense of community is strong and the living is modest.
Which explains why, when a professional football player drove into town earlier this summer in a four-car caravan, including a tricked-out Ford Excursion and an H2 Hummer, it created quite a buzz.
“We came to the light in the main part of town, and there was a cop at the red light as we turned,” outside linebacker Jason Babin said. “He just looked at us and you could tell he was thinking, ‘Well, you ain’t from around here.’”
Since then, Babin has met the townspeople and realized he has a lot in common with them, namely a love for hunting. And that’s a good thing, because Babin is in the process of opening a hunter’s paradise on the 435-acre tract of land he purchased this off-season on the outskirts of Center.
Named “Babin Ranch,” the land has been stocked with a variety of exotic animals, such as zebra, rams, antelope, wildebeests and kudu, as well as deer, elk and buffalo among others. There is also a lodge, built from the timber on the property, complete with three bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, a bunk house and a game room. Babin hopes to host hunting parties of up to 10 people beginning in early September.
A budding entrepreneur, Babin understands that there is a lot of competition for hunting in Texas . In fact, before arriving in Houston , he only had visited five hunting ranches his entire life. Last off-season, shortly after he was chosen by the Texans in the first round (27th overall) of the 2004 NFL Draft from Western Michigan, Babin discovered there were hundreds of hunting locales in South Texas alone. As such, he’s taking measures to ensure his investment stands out.
“A lot of places just offer the hunt,” said Babin, who is leaving the day-to-day operations of the ranch to his former college football teammates, Jason Feldpausch and C.J. Jansen. “We want to offer the whole atmosphere, the nice walk-in cooler, the nice lodge, the pool table, the big-screen T.V. Everything is first-class.”
Babin has been an avid hunter for as long as he can remember. He recalls how as a kid growing up in Paw Paw, Mich. , he’d yearn to join his father on hunting trips, only to be denied because he was too young.
It didn’t take long for Babin to join his dad, though. He shot his first animal, a rabbit, with a BB gun before he ever recorded a tackle. Over the years, he moved on to larger animals, such as elk and white-tail deer, his favorite target.
After signing his rookie contract, Babin was able to fulfill a lifelong dream of owning his own hunting ranch. He toured approximately 25 plots of land before deciding on his current property, which he bought, in part, due to its resemblance to the wilderness he grew accustomed to as a youth.
“If you go to most places in Texas , it’s really dry and there are short little trees,” Babin said. “Up there in Center and in the East Texas area, there are a lot of hardwoods, a lot of rivers, a lot of green grass. It looks a lot like Michigan . It’s just the aesthetic beauty (that attracted me).”
Initially, the ranch needed a lot of work, including new fencing, more hunting stands, a bigger lodge and more protein feeders for the deer. Babin rented bulldozers to remove old equipment and to landscape the property, and also consulted with outside experts to determine other areas in need of improvement. He admits it’s been a lot more work than he thought.
“It’s kind of hard to imagine, I guess,” Babin said of the scale of the project. “You could name 10 things (to improve), but then when you get out there and see the size of it, how big the trails are, how hard it is to put a protein feeder out in the woods and put 2,000 pounds of feed in it…It’s taken a little bit longer than I thought to accomplish all of it.”
In addition to those improvements, Babin wants to construct a 25-acre lake on the land and stock it with different types of fish. He also plans to build a 30-acre hog pen and possibly buy more land adjacent to the ranch to form separate areas for African game, white-tail deer and other animals.
In the future, Babin is going to pitch a hunting show to the Outdoor Life Network (OLN) to publicize his ranch. He is currently filming a promotional DVD that he’ll use for his website (www.babinranch.com) and to send to OLN executives to demonstrate the concept he has in mind. According to Babin, many hunting programs are predictable and feature too much acting. His show will be less scripted.
“It’s like an in-your-face hunting show,” Babin said of his proposal. “It shows the reality of hunting. A lot of other shows, you have to assume a lot of things. We want to show how it really is…We don’t know if it’s going to fly, but we’re going to try.”
What hunting is really like, says Babin, is an experience that’s both relaxing and exhilarating. While he’s most fond of the solitude of being in the woods without “the hustle and bustle of the city,” he also enjoys the suspense of having an animal in his cross hairs. It’s a feeling, apparently, that never fades.
Recently, Babin hosted his father on the ranch. After spotting the deer he wanted to shoot, Babin’s father, Jimmy, began to tense up. Captured on film, his father’s breathing noticeably picks up. Looking back at tape, the moment draws laughter, but it also illustrates the allure of hunting.
“I was running with the cameras, and you can hear (the guide) say, ‘Jimmy, calm down. Take a deep breath,’” Babin said, smiling. “No matter how long you’ve been doing it, your adrenaline gets so pumped up and you get so excited when you see the animal.”
Babin, who finished second on the Texans with four sacks last season, said there are more similarities between hunting and football than most people imagine. The endorphins running through his veins after a sack are the same as if he’d just spotted his prey. His reaction, on the other hand, is quite different.
“You don’t really jump up and down and yell after you shoot something—people might think you’re kind of strange—but they’re definitely comparable feelings,” he said.
A number of players on the Texans hunt, including center Steve McKinney, guard Zach Wiegert and quarterback Preston Parsons. With that in mind, Babin is organizing a hunting expedition, possibly during the bye week in late September, for any of his teammates that are interested. Following the season, Babin also wants to host a charity hunt with players from around the league.
In the meantime, he’ll be closely following the progress of his ranch from Houston , where he’s working out for the upcoming season. He’ll have few chances to visit Center during the season, but that’s fine with him. While the ranch is important, Babin hasn’t lost focus of his priorities. To him, hunting remains more of a hobby than a business. He knows there are better ways to make money on the side, but none are as enticing as opening his own ranch.
“It’s just my love of hunting,” Babin said, explaining his motivation behind the ranch. “I just enjoy hunting, and I enjoy taking people out hunting. It’s the experience of passing it on down to other people that I like."
By Nick Schenck
HoustonTexans.com
Center, Texas is nowhere near the middle of the state. In fact, it’s less than a half hour from the Louisiana border. But as far as hunting in Texas is concerned, this is one of the central locations.
With far more wildlife than residents, Center offers the outdoor enthusiast a wide variety of hunting and fishing options. Driving north on US-59 from Houston, it takes a little more than three hours to arrive in this small town, where the pace of life is relatively slow, the sense of community is strong and the living is modest.
Which explains why, when a professional football player drove into town earlier this summer in a four-car caravan, including a tricked-out Ford Excursion and an H2 Hummer, it created quite a buzz.
“We came to the light in the main part of town, and there was a cop at the red light as we turned,” outside linebacker Jason Babin said. “He just looked at us and you could tell he was thinking, ‘Well, you ain’t from around here.’”
Since then, Babin has met the townspeople and realized he has a lot in common with them, namely a love for hunting. And that’s a good thing, because Babin is in the process of opening a hunter’s paradise on the 435-acre tract of land he purchased this off-season on the outskirts of Center.
Named “Babin Ranch,” the land has been stocked with a variety of exotic animals, such as zebra, rams, antelope, wildebeests and kudu, as well as deer, elk and buffalo among others. There is also a lodge, built from the timber on the property, complete with three bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, a bunk house and a game room. Babin hopes to host hunting parties of up to 10 people beginning in early September.
A budding entrepreneur, Babin understands that there is a lot of competition for hunting in Texas . In fact, before arriving in Houston , he only had visited five hunting ranches his entire life. Last off-season, shortly after he was chosen by the Texans in the first round (27th overall) of the 2004 NFL Draft from Western Michigan, Babin discovered there were hundreds of hunting locales in South Texas alone. As such, he’s taking measures to ensure his investment stands out.
“A lot of places just offer the hunt,” said Babin, who is leaving the day-to-day operations of the ranch to his former college football teammates, Jason Feldpausch and C.J. Jansen. “We want to offer the whole atmosphere, the nice walk-in cooler, the nice lodge, the pool table, the big-screen T.V. Everything is first-class.”
Babin has been an avid hunter for as long as he can remember. He recalls how as a kid growing up in Paw Paw, Mich. , he’d yearn to join his father on hunting trips, only to be denied because he was too young.
It didn’t take long for Babin to join his dad, though. He shot his first animal, a rabbit, with a BB gun before he ever recorded a tackle. Over the years, he moved on to larger animals, such as elk and white-tail deer, his favorite target.
After signing his rookie contract, Babin was able to fulfill a lifelong dream of owning his own hunting ranch. He toured approximately 25 plots of land before deciding on his current property, which he bought, in part, due to its resemblance to the wilderness he grew accustomed to as a youth.
“If you go to most places in Texas , it’s really dry and there are short little trees,” Babin said. “Up there in Center and in the East Texas area, there are a lot of hardwoods, a lot of rivers, a lot of green grass. It looks a lot like Michigan . It’s just the aesthetic beauty (that attracted me).”
Initially, the ranch needed a lot of work, including new fencing, more hunting stands, a bigger lodge and more protein feeders for the deer. Babin rented bulldozers to remove old equipment and to landscape the property, and also consulted with outside experts to determine other areas in need of improvement. He admits it’s been a lot more work than he thought.
“It’s kind of hard to imagine, I guess,” Babin said of the scale of the project. “You could name 10 things (to improve), but then when you get out there and see the size of it, how big the trails are, how hard it is to put a protein feeder out in the woods and put 2,000 pounds of feed in it…It’s taken a little bit longer than I thought to accomplish all of it.”
In addition to those improvements, Babin wants to construct a 25-acre lake on the land and stock it with different types of fish. He also plans to build a 30-acre hog pen and possibly buy more land adjacent to the ranch to form separate areas for African game, white-tail deer and other animals.
In the future, Babin is going to pitch a hunting show to the Outdoor Life Network (OLN) to publicize his ranch. He is currently filming a promotional DVD that he’ll use for his website (www.babinranch.com) and to send to OLN executives to demonstrate the concept he has in mind. According to Babin, many hunting programs are predictable and feature too much acting. His show will be less scripted.
“It’s like an in-your-face hunting show,” Babin said of his proposal. “It shows the reality of hunting. A lot of other shows, you have to assume a lot of things. We want to show how it really is…We don’t know if it’s going to fly, but we’re going to try.”
What hunting is really like, says Babin, is an experience that’s both relaxing and exhilarating. While he’s most fond of the solitude of being in the woods without “the hustle and bustle of the city,” he also enjoys the suspense of having an animal in his cross hairs. It’s a feeling, apparently, that never fades.
Recently, Babin hosted his father on the ranch. After spotting the deer he wanted to shoot, Babin’s father, Jimmy, began to tense up. Captured on film, his father’s breathing noticeably picks up. Looking back at tape, the moment draws laughter, but it also illustrates the allure of hunting.
“I was running with the cameras, and you can hear (the guide) say, ‘Jimmy, calm down. Take a deep breath,’” Babin said, smiling. “No matter how long you’ve been doing it, your adrenaline gets so pumped up and you get so excited when you see the animal.”
Babin, who finished second on the Texans with four sacks last season, said there are more similarities between hunting and football than most people imagine. The endorphins running through his veins after a sack are the same as if he’d just spotted his prey. His reaction, on the other hand, is quite different.
“You don’t really jump up and down and yell after you shoot something—people might think you’re kind of strange—but they’re definitely comparable feelings,” he said.
A number of players on the Texans hunt, including center Steve McKinney, guard Zach Wiegert and quarterback Preston Parsons. With that in mind, Babin is organizing a hunting expedition, possibly during the bye week in late September, for any of his teammates that are interested. Following the season, Babin also wants to host a charity hunt with players from around the league.
In the meantime, he’ll be closely following the progress of his ranch from Houston , where he’s working out for the upcoming season. He’ll have few chances to visit Center during the season, but that’s fine with him. While the ranch is important, Babin hasn’t lost focus of his priorities. To him, hunting remains more of a hobby than a business. He knows there are better ways to make money on the side, but none are as enticing as opening his own ranch.
“It’s just my love of hunting,” Babin said, explaining his motivation behind the ranch. “I just enjoy hunting, and I enjoy taking people out hunting. It’s the experience of passing it on down to other people that I like."