John Jefferson had a college English degree and wanted to be a writer, but didn’t know how to begin or what to write. So, he went to Law School.

After graduation, he practiced law for ten years, although he read more J. Frank Dobie, Russell Tinsley, and Jack O’Conner than legal opinions. Serving as a deputy prosecutor helping corral bad guys along the South Texas border, he realized he was much more interested in the sights and sounds in the chaparral than in seeking convictions – although he won his fair share of those.

Finally, yielding to the call of the wild, he walked out of his Austin law office one afternoon and retreated to a shack on the shore of Lake Travis that Thoreau wouldn’t have lived in and began writing seriously.

Country living helped him develop as a writer/photographer. He led photo safari workshops on the legendary Y.O. Ranch, the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, in Colorado and New Mexico and other intriguing venues for seventeen years. To pay the bills, he also divided writing and workshop time with a stint in the Austin office of a prominent Houston law firm and at Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

At TPWD, he applied his legal background as regulations coordinator before becoming director of information and education. An opening occurred for executive director of the Texas Chapter of The Wildlife Society and he accepted it. He testified before state legislative committees and other regulatory bodies on wildlife issues for six years.

Jefferson learned much from the dedicated wildlife biologists, game wardens, university faculty members, and others he met during those rides, helping educate and mold the outdoor journalist he was becoming. He found a niche, his writer’s voice, and how to visualize art through a camera’s viewfinder.

He has published over a thousand articles on the outdoors, including the first hunting article ever published by Texas Monthly, and around a hundred magazine covers. He has credits from practically every regional outdoor magazine and some out of state publications, including the New York Times, Outdoor Life, and others.

The Professional Outdoor Media Association honored his works five times with its annual Pinnacle Award for the top written magazine article. One article memorializing fallen Game Wardens published by Outdoor Life was entitled “Officer Down!” His Pinnacle Awards came between 2010 and 2022. He has received numerous other state and national awards for both writing and photography including the Texas Chapter of The Wildlife Society’s Outstanding Member Award.

John authored Deer Hunters Guide to Texas, Hunters’ Guide to Texas (both published by Pemberton Press) and co-authored Texas Wildlife (Texas A&M University Press). He has been published in Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine, Texas Sporting Journal, Texas Outdoors Journal, Texas Wildlife magazine, Texas Monthly, Texas Trophy Hunters Journal, and served as whitetail editor for Texas Fish and Game magazine. He edited Texas Parks and Wildlife Outdoor Annual, published by Texas Monthly, for twenty years.

Entrepreneurially, he founded “Open Seasons Newsletter” and published it for five years before selling it. In 2017, he created a syndicated outdoor column for Texas newspapers entitled, Woods, Waters, and Wildlife that he still meets deadlines for every Monday morning!

He is past president of Texas Outdoor Writers’ Association and received its lifetime achievement award in 2001. He is a member of numerous conservation and sporting organizations, national writers’ organizations, and Operation Game Thief. He was a Buckskin Brigade instructor, served on the Texas Game Warden Training Academy Advisory Committee, the Texas Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame Selection Committee, and is an Honorary Texas Game Warden. He was also a director of Texas Outdoor Partners (TOP).

John and his helpmeet/wife, Vicky, market their work through this website, social media, and published works. They keep their passports current for assignments. He has written about hunting, fishing, photography or “just being” in forty-four U.S. states, Mexico, Canada, and South America.
Vicky has been an indispensable partner in the operation through over forty years of marriage, five kids and numerous dogs. She is a published photographer in her own right — and in his words: “A strict proofreader!”

The lines became blurred on which one of them had taken various pictures, so the photographic side of the business morphed into “John and Vicky Jefferson Photography,” patterned after their late friends, Erwin and Peggy Bauer.

Together, they are fulfilling a 50-state bucket list of travel, photography, fishing, hunting, kayaking, and writing about the endless appellations of the outdoors.
They don’t include the foregoing to boast, but merely to illustrate who they are and how they can better serve you.

And they sure hope they can!