Turkey Hunting

Freeze, you’re busted!

Don’t tell me you’ve never done this. You turkey hunt and you’ve never been caught on the short end of the stick? Yeah, right. I’ve been busted so many times the stick is worn down to a nub.

The best part of that means I have had the blessed fortune to turkey hunt a lot and be guided by some of the best, but I really wish I could say I have learned from my mistakes. I just chalk up all the goofs to the nature of the game of turkey hunting. […]

Fishing

When familiarity breeds content

Whoever said that familiarity breeds contempt was not talking about their marine electronics. The plain and simple truth is that the better you know your electronics, the more they can do for you. As a “for instance,” I’m still learning about the side- and down-scanning features on the newer Humminbird and Lowrance sonar units. […]

Bass Fishing

Maynor Creek Water Park

Maynor Creek Water Park, consisting of about 500 acres and located near Waynesboro, once was a very productive bass-fishing lake before going into a downturn, but it’s currently making a comeback.

Big bass are being caught again at this lake that once produced numbers of 10-pounders. The lake was drawn down several years ago to repair the dam. Because of that drawdown, the buck willows and other groves of trees flourished on what was the lake bottom. When the lake was brought back to normal pool, an abundance of cover had sprung up close to the shoreline in the shallow water. […]

General

The house search

Nothing is more terrifying to a homeowner than a “hot” burglary. That’s what detectives call incidents where cold-blooded cretins, crawling out of their skins with drug addictions, creep a house with the occupants home, generally asleep. […]

Inshore Fishing

March Madness

“If you have young folks, old folks or a bunch of buddies who want to go fishing and have their strings stretched, their rods bent and their muscles crying for relief, come fish with us at Bay St. Louis Bridge on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in March,” says Capt. Kyle Jarreau of Shore Thing Fishing Charters. […]

Columns

Managing the data — Part 1

My farm in west-central Mississippi is my personal field laboratory for experimentation with trail camera techniques and practices, as I continue to study and learn about local buck patterns.

When used fully and properly, trail camera data can become one of the most effective tools in a hunter or property manager’s toolbox. This is true not only from an overall deer population survey standpoint, but also from the hunter’s standpoint as one learns how to convert piles of trail camera photos into predictions about deer movement. […]

Other Hunting

It’s leisure time

By this time of year, most hunters are worn out. Deer hunters have been in the woods since way back in October. Bowhunters are tired, deer dogs are thin as wheat wafers, even the deer are glad the season has finally come to a close. […]

Bass Fishing

Fish stems and rocks

This month, I’m picking Lake Ross Barnett, near Jackson. To find the bass, we’ve got to shrink the lake and concentrate on where they’re most likely to be and the lures they’re most likely to take. This month, bass have spawning on their minds, and they’re looking for warm, shallow water, and structure in the water in those two areas. […]