Life is wild on Tonkaway Ranch

By MINDY POEHL | Central Texas Edition

Kyle Kacal, owner of Tonkaway Ranch, near College Station, stands in front of a feeding plot. He has three 1,000 pound protein feeders for deer on the ranch. By feeding deer, he can better control the deer population and host deer hunts. Photo by Mindy Poehl

Oct. 14, 2004 - Two thousand, four hundred acres of land, known as Tonkaway Ranch, is filled with a diversification of wildlife. Sitting at the Navasota River bottom in Brazos County, on Tonkaway Creek, Tonkaway Ranch is a working cattle ranch and wing shooting operation.

On Thursday, Sept. 30, the Annual Brazos County Beef Tour was held at Tonkaway Ranch. Kyle Kacal, owner of the ranch and Brazos County Farm Bureau president, kicked the tour off with an overview of the ranch.

"We are mainly a pen-raised quail hunting operation," Kacal said. "We incorporate wildlife into our productions."

Being a commercial hunting ranch, Kacal clients are based in Houston and Dallas. Located minutes from College Station, students also do experiments on the property.

"It's a treat to have those kids that close and I like to utilize them as often as possible," Kacal said.

Bob McCleary is a graduate student at Texas A&M University and he uses the land to study and trap squirrels.

"I show my students how to track animals." McCleary explained. "We track carnivores, trap reptiles and amphibians, use trip cameras and fox urine."

McCleary and the students place radio collars on the squirrels and mark them with ear tags. Then, they look at the differences between urban squirrels from the A&M campus and the squirrels on the ranch.

"We do this to get a hands-on experience with live animals," McCleary explained. "We look at the population dynamic of the squirrels."

The goal at Tonkaway Ranch is to ensure that visitors enjoy their time outdoors. The ranch provides:

- Experienced and friendly guides

- Professionally trained/finished bird dogs

- Bobwhite quail, Mallard and wood duck hunting

- Dressed and packaged birds

- Excellent hunting grounds for quail and duck hunting

-Pigeon shoot and skeet shooting

-Five degrees of difficulty for hunters

Five degrees of difficulty for quail hunters provides five different hunting areas that require various levels of expertise. The five degrees of difficulty include traditional upland, prairie and brush, south texas style, wings and woods and dense river bottom.

The ranch also contains three 1,000 pound feeders for deer and Kacal hosts doe hunts for underprivileged children. Kacal also mentioned that two Red-tail hawks reside on the property year round. They stopped migrating because the ranch offers them everything they need.

Matt Wagner, wildlife biologist with the Wildlife and Fisheries Department at A&M, said is was critical to form wildlife management plans when utilizing wildlife as an economic resource.

Some main activities in wildlife management plans are:

• Controlling the habitat, erosion and predators

• Provide food, shelter and supplemental water for the animals

• He also suggested using controlled burns

"A cooperative group has merit," Wagner emphasized. "It's also critical to know your neighbor."

Eric Zimmerman, Brazos County Extension agent, was also on hand for the event. Zimmerman gave an overview of the Oct. 16 Brazos County Youth Commercial Heifer Show and Sale. The show is an educational activity that allows 4-H'ers from Brazos County the opportunity to gain knowledge related to the beef cattle industry. It also offers area beef cattle producers the opportunity to purchase quality replacement heifers for their operation and in turn support the youth of Brazos County, Zimmerman said. The Youth Commercial Heifer Show and Sale will be held at the Brazos Valley Livestock Commission Company, and the sale is set to begin at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 16.