Josh Crumpton, known as Texas Josh, is a writer, wild game cook and the host of No Small Water.
He is a seventh-generation Texan who grew up between the Texas Hill Country and Telluride, Colorado. He taught himself to fly fish at 12 on the San Miguel River and hasn’t stopped since.
The sporting life skipped a generation in his family. His grandfather, James A. Joy, known as “The Judge,” spent most of his life planning the next hunt or fishing trip, and holidays at his house meant wild game and fish he’d caught himself. He died before he could hand the tradition down, and Josh’s father had other interests. So Josh went looking for it on his own.
He came to hunting in his thirties, after building a career in wine and restaurants and stepping away from it early. When he began spending time at Spoke Hollow Ranch, an interest in raising his own food turned into harvesting it. The first time he brought big game he’d taken himself to the table, he understood what his grandfather had been chasing.
Today he divides his time between the ranch outside Wimberley and wherever the hunting, fishing and cooking take him. He is making sure the next generation isn’t skipped. His view is simple: people who take part in feeding themselves from the land tend to take better care of it.
From the Field
