What My Father Taught Me About the Land

Some fathers hand down a rifle. Some hand down a truck, a ranch, a name on a deed. Larry Wentrcek handed his son Jim something harder to pass along: a way of seeing the land.

Jim Wentrcek, 32, grew up between Salado and a small family ranch outside Junction, Texas. Hill Country cedar and limestone, South Llano River bottoms, and the kind of wide-open sky that makes a kid ask questions. Today he works as Program Coordinator for the Texas Wildlife Association's Adult Learn to Hunt Program, runs his own outfitting operation, and sells ranch real estate. But he'll tell you the resume is just what came after.

"The greatest lesson my father gave me," Jim says, "was not a ranch, a rifle, or a place to hunt. It was a love for the outdoors, and an understanding that our role is not simply to enjoy these resources, but to care for them."

Larry Wentrcek wore a lot of hats. Firefighter. Farm and ranch insurance executive. Real estate professional. And as long as Jim can remember, an outdoorsman.

Jim started tagging along on hunting and fishing trips around age six. By eight, he'd harvested his first animal: a Corsican ram in London, Texas. But the bigger education was happening between those moments: at the annual Texas Wildlife Association convention their family attended every summer, sitting across from landowners, biologists, and conservationists who were quietly shaping how wildlife gets managed across the state.

"Those events helped me understand that hunting and conservation are inseparable," Jim says. "It wasn't just about the hunt."

Ask Jim about a single memory and he comes back to one spring night in Junction. He was about ten. A thunderstorm rolled in: heavy winds, lightning, the whole thing. Scared the heck out of him.

The next morning, Larry took him kayaking and fishing on the South Llano River. They tipped the kayak a dozen times. Never really got to fish. Jim told his dad he never wanted to come back to that river for as long as he lived.

Fast forward to 2026. The South Llano is his favorite place on earth. He and Larry kayak, fish, and hunt along that stretch several times a year.

"The lesson I take away from that memory is always trusting in my father," Jim says. "He's never led me astray, and he is usually right."

The hunting trips were memorable. But Jim is quick to say the real classroom was the work in between.

When the family bought their Junction ranch, Larry made sure Jim was involved in every part of the stewardship: filling feeders, building and maintaining water troughs, clearing brush, fixing fencing. Learning to read tracks in the dirt. Learning the names of native plants.

"My parents taught me to pay attention to the details of nature all around us," he says. "From the native plants to the tracks in the dirt, they taught me a lot."

That attention to detail, that slow accumulation of watching and doing, is what shaped both his career and his values.

Jim now coordinates the Texas Wildlife Association's Adult Learn to Hunt Program, where he introduces new hunters to the traditions, ethics, and conservation principles that have long defined Texas hunting. He also runs a hunting outfitting operation and works in ranch real estate. Both, he says, keep him rooted in the land and the people who depend on it.

He and his wife recently had their first child, a daughter who just turned one. He already knows what he wants for her.

"I hope she will one day ride beside me while checking feeders," he says, "help with ranch projects, learn to identify tracks and native plants, and develop her own connection to the outdoors."

That's the thing about what Larry Wentrcek gave his son. It didn't come in a single gesture. It came across years of early mornings, hard work, and a river that eventually became a favorite place.