For old times’ sake

TSCRA member bids farewell to the ranch that raised her in successful opening weekend
By Katrina Huffstutler
28-year-old Jordan Burchett has been deer hunting for more than two decades. But the 2020 season opener will be hard to top for the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association member, who lives near Victoria.
“I’m going to apologize in advance if I get emotional,” she says, her chipper voice suddenly turning somber.

Burchett harvested an eight-point buck any hunter would be proud of, but the deer wasn’t just a personal best. It was a sign of the times. A last great memory from the place she spent so much time as a kid. It was a little bit of her family’s legacy.
She took the buck off her family’s place in Brady, a ranch that has been in her family since 1887. Up until 2014, her grandfather, Bill Boswell, ran cattle and sold hunts on the property. Following his death, Jordan’s father, David Boswell, took over. But since he lives and works in San Angelo, the family decided to phase their own cattle out, and instead focus on leasing the land for grazing rights, while maintaining the hunting operation.
During that time, her dad worked to improve the size and health of the bucks on the ranch, through better nutrition and management.
“I have pictures of bucks on game cameras from each year, from 2016 to now, and you can see how the protein supplementation has made an enormous difference over the years,” Burchett says. “He’s done an outstanding job with the management. He’s worked very hard and it’s finally paid off.”

Because the ranch has always relied on hunters for additional revenue, Burchett says she always only hunted does or bucks they needed to cull, saving the better ones to grow or for a paying customer.
Over the last several years, it got harder and harder.
“I remember sitting in the blind each year with my now-husband saying, ‘OK, I’m going to text my dad. Maybe he’ll let me take this one now,’” she says with a laugh. “I’d send pictures of a big buck, saying, ‘Dad, please.’”
Of course, she understood. But she still wanted a big one.
This year, when the family decided to sell the place, she got her chance — bittersweet as it was.
Burchett, along with her husband, who works as the assistant manager J.F. Welder Heirs Cattle Co., drove up from the ranch they live on for one last opening weekend with her family at the place she loved so much. Unfortunately, her parents had to quarantine and were unable to join.
“We’ll have to come back soon to have that final farewell with my family,” she says.
And on the agenda? More time in the deer blind, naturally.