The Great Outdoors: Alex Magers
Apr 08, 2020 | Baseball
One of the traits deeply engrained in the Aggie Baseball program is the spirit of the great outdoors. Every season the roster is chocked full of hunters and fishers.
The following is a look at Alex Magers – an Aggie outdoorsman.
In 2020, Magers established himself as a reliable cog in Texas A&M’s bullpen. He pitched in eight of the Aggies’ 18 games, posting a 1.69 ERA and striking out seven in 5.1 innings in his rookie campaign.
What kind of sportsman activities do you partake in?
I am really into hunting and fishing.
What kind of game do you hunt?
I enjoy hunting for whitetail deer and axis deer as well as doves, hogs and varmints.
What is your favorite game?
My favorite animal to hunt is deer. Whitetail hunting is limited by season, which is great for ’the hunt.’ There is no season on axis deer, so that allows for year-round hunting.
Do you prefer bow or gun?
Gun, definitely, because I have not had the opportunity to bow hunt. The ranches we hunt on are not set up for bow hunting, so I have never had the chance to get into it. My dad has a bow, and one day when we have some time, I would like to try it out.
What are your favorite hunting and fishing spots?
For hunting, my favorite spot is on top of the mountain in Concan (about 90 miles west of San Antonio) looking out over the valley with my grandfather. It is peaceful and quiet and my grandfather’s stories are the best. Sometimes I even take the best naps out there.
For fishing, my favorite spot is Port O’Connor. We take a trip with my mom’s brother and his family every summer. Having that time with my cousins fishing offshore and in the bay are the best. My uncle always lines up a fantastic guide and we typically limit out - good times for sure!
Take us through a day of hunting.
If I am hunting with my grandpa on the mountain, we wake up around 5 a.m. and climb in his old white Dodge truck - we affectionately call it The Death Truck. We cross the highway and head up the caliche road that goes straight up the mountain. We hit every pothole in the road - the alternative is to roll off the side of the mountain. Once we get to The Spot, it is naptime until daylight when the feeder goes off. This is when it is important to have patience - waiting for the big whitetail buck or aoudad sheep takes time. The big buck doesn’t always show up, and that is okay. The best part is hearing my grandpa’s stories about Vietnam and growing up all over these mountains. That is a successful day. Bringing home the trophy buck is just icing on the cake.
How early did you start hunting?
My dad took me hunting as soon as I was strong enough to pull the trigger on the rifle while he held the gun. I was probably two or three years old. I have been hunting ever since. I got my own rifle for Christmas when I was 14.
Do you remember your first hunt?
Of course. I was five years old. My grandfather, my dad and all of his brothers, and myself headed out for the evening hunt. Not long after we got to our spot, an unsuspecting 8-point buck, that any kid would be thrilled to shoot, walked out. The plan had been that I was only going to pull the trigger because I wasn’t old enough to hold the gun, look thru the scope, find the deer in the scope, hold the gun still, and pull the trigger all at one time. An important bit of information is that the deer had his head down eating while it was quartering towards us. Just as my dad told me to pull the trigger, the buck turned its head to face us and the right horn shot sky high! I had shot its antler off! All you could hear was my grandfather mumbling some choice words about how he was going to have to fix that, since he is our taxidermist. However, the deer was down, and I was a happy little five year old!
What is your most memorable hunt?
My most memorable hunt didn’t even result in seeing a deer, but the memories will stay with me forever. I was a sophomore in high school and my grandfather had drawn into a hunt in Nevada. He, my dad, and I left early on a Saturday morning and drove straight thru to Caliente, Nevada (two hours north of Vegas). We stopped for a couple of hours in Las Vegas for fuel and groceries, and made it to the national forest around 9 a.m. on a Sunday. Once we made it deep into the forest, we lost cell service completely. We set up camp in a 3-man tent and got ready to hunt that evening. Over the next couple of days, we drove all over the national forest and hiked up peaks higher than I had ever seen with some of the most breathtaking views over the mountains and valleys. After three days of not seeing a single mule deer, my grandfather knew of another spot about two hours west of Caliente - Rachel, Nevada, which happens to be on the border of Area 51. We packed up and headed west. While we were there, we hunted the public land but were close enough to Area 51 that security followed us for several hours. We witnessed training exercises overhead while we were on top of a mountain and saw a Russian MiG fly BELOW us. While we never harvested a mule deer, the experience was second to none and the memories will last a lifetime.
Do you have a lot of mounts?
Well, my grandfather is a taxidermist and has been for over 40 years. In my family, if you shoot it, it hangs on the wall. Now my uncle is getting into the business. We have over 30 mounts in our game room, including two bobcats, a shoulder mount of an elk, a black buck, and numerous whitetail and mule deer - European mounts, horn mounts, and shoulder mounts. In addition, I have two in my apartment at school and one more in process. So, yeah, I guess you could say we have a lot of mounts. My mom does not allow them out of the game room, though, much to my dad’s dismay.
What type of fishing do you do?
I enjoy bay fishing and offshore fishing, and fishing in the lake and river with my grandfather. In addition, we have a couple of tanks we just built that we’re almost ready to stock with fish.
What skills would you say translates from hunting and fishing over to baseball?
Like baseball, hunting and fishing require patience and perspective. You have to be willing to sit and wait your turn. Some days you walk away defeated, some days you walk away with the victory, and some days you walk away with the 67-pound catfish or the monster buck. Either way, you learn something about yourself - sometimes it’s what you can do better and sometimes it’s what you did right.
Talk about the bonding that goes on over hunting.
Hunting isn’t always about walking away with the trophy buck. However, it's always about quality time with family, getting away from technology and the outside world, and being in the moment and making memories with the ones you love.
Who would you say the best hunters are on the team?
Me. All kidding aside, I like to hear the Coleman brothers' stories about duck hunting. I also hear a lot about the Kerrville duo of Asa (Lacy) and Rody (Barker) and their adventures in the Hill Country.
Who tells the biggest fish stories on the team?
Logan Britt.
How much do you think he exaggerates?
I don’t think he exaggerates much. He goes offshore fishing. It's hard to exaggerate about that.
Do you have a memorable fish you've caught?
The summer after my sophomore year, I was working for my grandfather doing grunt work in his camp on the river. I was just about to leave my house, when I got a text from him telling me to bring an extra pair of shorts. When I got to his house, he had the boat hooked up to his truck and he told me, ‘Get in the truck. You’re on the clock. We’re going noodling.’ If you don’t know what noodling is, it is true sport. You have to dive up to 8 feet under water, under big rocks in the river, and basically offer up your arm as bait. We took the boat up the river as far as we could, then walked the rest of the way. When we got to the rock, my grandfather dove down first to check for a fish. He came back up and told me there was a 15-20 pound catfish down there and that I’m going back down with him. We dove down together. He shoved his hand in the catfish’s mouth and I grabbed a hold of his gills and we wrestled it up to the surface. We were in about 8 feet of water and he fought us the entire way to the top. We tied him to a stringer and walked back to the boat. This was a tiny catfish compared to some of the monsters my grandfather has caught noodling - some have weighed up to 100 pounds.
Is there any game that you haven't hunted that you would like to?
I wouldn’t mind hunting for an elk and maybe an Alaskan mountain goat. My dad is planning a trip to hunt mountain goats in the Kodiak Mountains in a couple of years, and that would be great to be a part of!
