Outdoor Guide Magazine Jan-Feb 2019

Januar y -Februar y 2019

Outdoor ag Guide M

e n i z a

HUNTING • FISHING • CAMPING • BOATING • SHOOTING • TRAVEL

Dogwood Canyon..............Page 2

Ted Nugent......................Page 13

Sheds.................................. Page 18

Winter Bluegill................Page 19

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MISSOURI - ILLINOIS - AND OTHER EXCITING OUTDOOR DESTINATIONS

Outdoor Guide

Page 2

January-February 2019

All My Trails

Dogwood Canyon Is Not Like Anything Else Photo and Text

By CARL GREEN

It would be understandable to be a little confused about Dogwood Canyon Nature Park. After all, big parks that preserve nature and let people come and visit are usually public things – state parks, national parks and forests, some of the bigger county and city parks.

But the 10,000-acre Dogwood Canyon, south and west of Branson on Missouri Route 86, is emphatically private.

It’s beautiful and rangy – you can’t see it all in a day. But this park has to pay its own way, so visitors do, too. They can also do things there they can’t do anyplace else. There’s no other place like it.

As with so many of our outdoor adventure opportunities, this story starts with Johnny Morris, founder and CEO of Bass Pro Shops. Intrigued by the possibilities of the gorgeous, park-like canyon along a scenic stream, Morris started buying up parcels of it in 1990, and he ultimately turned it over to the non-profit Dogwood Canyon Foundation.

That group’s purpose, it states, is “to promote natural conservation and to protect the natural environment and its wildlife and plant life by

acquiring and maintaining ecologically significant, undeveloped land to benefit the general public.”

You know they are doing it, because when you spend a day touring around the place, you don’t see anywhere near 10,000 acres – a lot of the land is being left in its natural state.

When you spend a day there, it’s like going on a cruise ship or to a theme park. First, you pay to get in – $10 for adults, $5 for ages 4-11 and $9 for 65 and over. Then you select which activities you want to try, buy your tickets and go for it. One tip: Get there early. The hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., so closing time comes fast.

THE BASIC TICKET The basic ticket lets you visit the mill and artifact display, the Canyon Grove Restaurant, an astonishing treehouse, the museum-like Nature and Conservation Center, and finally, to take a short walk on the half-mile Hickory Ridge Trail. That’s not a bad day’s work for $10.

But most visitors will opt for some of the pricier attractions. The ultimate ticket is the two-day adventure pass, $65 for 12-and-ups, $35 for 4-11. That lets you walk and bike on 6.5 miles of paved

Seeing these twin waterfalls is part of your reward for hiking or biking all the way to the end of the main road through the park.

path and hike three miles of wooded trails, attend the day’s conservation activities, take a two-hour wildlife tram, spend two hours trout fishing – $5.25 a pound if you keep your fish – plus take $10 off the cost of a horseback ride or a Segway tour. That’s a bigger visit, indeed.

Most visitors will land somewhere in between those two, and one popular option

is to combine a visit to Dogwood Canyon with a trip to its cousin, Morris’ Wonders of Wildlife aquarium, about an hour away in Springfield.

THE ADVENTURES Some of the other adventures readily available at Dogwood Canyon include: • Private Guided Tours – Groups of one to three tour the park, including some back

country, in all-terrain vehicles driven by guides.

• Tram Tours – An easy way to see the park, the two-hour tram tour follows the canyon floor past bluffs and waterfalls and stops to visit a wedding chapel, feed the fish and see a big pasture that is home to bison, elk and even longhorn cattle. A Saturday tram ride throws in a chuckwagon evening meal.

• Horseback Riding – The park has a stable for 24 horses that go for rides from one to 2½ miles over ridges, hollows, old logging roads and scenic views.

• Segway Tours – Visitors can learn to pilot a Segway motorized platform and go on a 90-minute tour through the park.

• Fishing – No license or stamp is required, and rental rods and tackle are available to pursue the rainbow trout that flourish in the many ponds and streams. They’ve added a Fly Fishing Academy that teaches visitors the basics of that esoteric sport.

• Hiking – This most basic activity at public parks will cost you here, but it’s enhanced by paving of the 6.5-mile path and routing along bluffs and waterfalls, over stone and wrought-iron bridges and alongside ponds and streams.

become Hunter CertiFied onLine todaY! Missouri adults 16 and older can complete hunter education training all online. _ Flexibility to learn at your own pace _ Access 24/7 _ No in-person skills session required The all-online course includes engaging video and animation on hunter safety, firearm safety, ethics, regulations, and wildlife management.

Learn more about MDC’s hunter eduCation program at

MDC.Mo.gov/huntereDucation

The cost is tolerable – $10 for adults, $5 for kids and $4 for dogs. Stroller rental is another $6. Three more miles of unpaved woodlands trails are included.

• Biking – The park sets up perfectly for a leisurely 6-mile ride through the main canyon area on a rental bike, or bring your own. Make sure the rental fits you – they have several sizes – and don’t run over the walkers while you’re avoiding the trams! The cost is $15 for adults and $10 for kids.

• Groups – We should mention they are big on group events with 20 or more people.

To arrange one, call (417) 348-3322.

VISITORS TO THE CANYON My wife Lois and I were at Dogwood Canyon this past fall with our adventuring friends Steve and Nancy Horrell. We arrived without any prior knowledge of what to do here, so it took a little while to figure it out. We worked through the free stuff first, including the short hike and the museum-like displays, and finally we opted to invest in a bike ride. We were able to see most of the park’s special features while taking an easy pace, and it made for a good See DOGWOOD page 14

January-February 2019

Outdoor Guide

Page 3

Share the Harvest donate venison to those in need

Find information and processors at mdc.mo.gov www.confedmo.org

Outdoor Guide

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January-February 2019

Nothing Like North Country Winter

By BRENT FRAZEE When winter arrives, my mind often drifts back to the days when I fished hard water in Wisconsin.

Back then, I would look forward to the time when the lakes froze over and the

ice would be safe enough to walk or even drive on.

The North Country is where winter was … well, really winter.

I have to laugh every time Missouri gets four or five inches of snow and everyone thinks it’s the end of the

world. In Wisconsin, that’s called a dusting.

The Badger State doesn’t shut down for winter. Rather, it embraces the frigid temperatures, ice and snow.

Winter creates a whole different culture in North Country. People don’t sit inside by the fire and wait for spring. They’re out in the elements.

They travel by snowmo-

bile, they build villages of huts on the ice, they gather at lakeside taverns to drink beer, and they raucously talk about the Packers.

Roll out the barrel. It’s winter, and that’s a good thing in these parts.

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Winnebago and he gave me directions. I mean, directions right to his ice shack on the lake.

He told me to go down Main Street, take a left on First Street, then look for the place with a big walleye flag flapping in the breeze.

I was confused. Drive on the ice? Look for street signs?

I saw what he meant when I got there, though. There were plowed roads right on the ice, and rows and rows of ice shacks were arranged neatly along those roads.

There were street signs and even addresses on the shacks. And these weren’t any primitive shacks, mind you. Once I stepped inside, I was greeted with warmth provided by a heater, a front room with five holes cut in the ice and a back area with two sets of bunk beds.

In the “back yard” were several tip-ups set over holes in the ice, with lines baited with minnows dangling in the icy water. If a big northern or walleye hit it, we would know. The flag would pop up.

ICE ROD FISHING Several big yellow perch on the ice indicated that the fish were biting. My friend handed me a short ice rod rigged with light line and a small teardrop ice jig. I threaded a small minnow onto the hook and slowly raised and lowered it.

When I felt a faint bite, I set the hook and quickly pulled a walleye through the hole.

I tossed it onto the pile and continued to fish. We alternated between fishing with minnows, small worms and waxworms, and we caught an assortment of walleyes, yellow perch and bluegills.

Suddenly, I wasn’t worried about my vehicle falling through the ice or the building snowstorm sweeping across the lake.

We had to drive slowly to get off the ice, follow-

ing the plowed, makeshift roads. But we got it done and planned a fish fry the next day.

It was a great time, the first of many I would experience during my winters in North Country.

ONE UGLY FISH I especially remember going to Leech Lake in Minnesota for the Eelpout Festival, which celebrates one of the ugliest freshwater fish you will ever see. Fishermen travel from near and far to attend this quirky ice-fishing tournament.

They set up elaborate campsites on the ice, and bowl, have a Polar Plunge, attend black-tie dinners and even have weddings right there on the ice. But mostly they fish for the lowly eelpout.

I remember visiting one ice house and being greeted by a shrine to Old Milwaukee beer, complete with a pyramid of empty beer cans and an illuminated sign.

The organizers of the event, now called the International Eelpout Festival, even forced me to eat eelpout nuggets, which I grudgingly admitted “tasted a lot like chicken.”

I also tried more serious ice-fishing endeavors over the years, traveling out to the middle of frozen lakes by snowmobile, setting up a portable shelter and drilling holes with a gas-powered auger. It was a lot colder – and lonelier – than sitting in a heated shack on Main Street. But we caught more fish and had more tales to tell at the end of the day.

I miss those days. I sometimes think about getting together with old friends to relive some of those moments. But then another cold blast of wind hits me and I think otherwise.

Maybe I’ve gotten soft after living in Missouri for four decades. But at times, I still miss real winter.

January-February 2019

Outdoor Guide

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January-February 2019

Wild Goose, Italian Style What Can You Do with a Tough Old Bird?

Photo and Text

By JERRY PABST Of all the North American game birds, web-footed or not, probably the most challenging to turn into delectable table fare is the wild goose. Unlike its domestically raised relative, it is layered with juicy fat, and its muscles are not pampered and soft.

Quite the opposite – the wild goose is a tough old

bird, accustomed to long, annual migratory flights, constant foraging for food and strenuous activities on the nesting grounds.

The result of this rigorous lifestyle is a lean, heavily muscled critter that defies conventional waterfowl cooking recipes.

The average goose hunter puts in a lot of time and effort and goes to no little expense to knock down a couple of 8-12 pound Canada geese,

a 6-7 pound white front (speckle belly), or some 4-5 pound snow geese.

High fives all around, and having a few celebratory cocktails later highlight a successful hunt. Life is good!

But when the proud hunter returns home with a sack full of goose breasts, he may well be met by the Joy of his Life, who demands to know, “And what do you expect me to do with that?”

BACK TO SHOE LEATHER She may well remember the last few times she attempted to turn a wild goose into something palatable.

She had brined it for a couple of hours, packed it with a bread stuffing made soggy by the addition of a can of fruit cocktail, layered it over with raw bacon and then popped the bird in a 450° oven and roasted it to

Januar y -Februar y 2019

Outdoor agazine Guide M HUNTING • FISHING • CAMPING • BOATING SHOOTING • TRAVEL

Volume Twenty Seven, Number One • Published Six Times A Year Office: 505 S. Ewing, St. Louis, MO 63103 Office/News Department — 314-535-9786 www.outdoorguidemagazine.com e-mail: ogmbobw@aol.com COVER PHOTO: Southern Illinois Snow Geese by Kevin Wright Bobby Whitehead, Editor/Co-Publisher Kathy Crowe, Graphic Designer Maria Murphy, Production Coordinator

John Winkelman, Associate Editor — ogmjohnw@aol.com Lynn Fowler, Circulation Manager Carl Green, Copy Editor

— Account Executives — Dan Braun, Marketing Director Lauren Marshall — Regional and Specialty Editors — Joel Vance Darrell Taylor Ray Eye Brent Frazee Brandon Butler Bill Seibel

Curt Hicken Bill Cooper Thayne Smith Steve Jones Larry Dablemont

John Neporadny Jr. Rick Story T. J. Mullin Ron Henry Strait Larry Whiteley

Ted Nugent Ron Bice Colin Moore Jim Cassada John Sloan

In Memoriam — Jared Billings • Charlie Farmer • Richard Engelke • Mark Hubbard Spence Turner • Hank Reifeiss • Bill Harmon • Barbara Perry Lawton • Danny Hicks • Ron Kruger

Scott Pauley Tim Huffman John Meacham Bob Holzhei Jeannie Farmer Kay Hively Tyler Mahoney

— Staff Writers —

Claudette Roper Brad Wiegmann Mike Roux Craig Alderman Randall Davis Jerry Pabst Ryan Miloshewski

Kenneth Kieser Gerald Scott Russell Hively Roxanne Wilson Gretchen Steele Jo Schaper Jed Nadler

Don Gasaway Terry Wilson Bill Keaton Charlie Slovensky Michael Wardlaw Larry Potterfield Tom Watson

Bud Grignon bagged his limit of Canada geese and then had to figure out what to do with them.

medium rare, all in an attempt to produce a flavorful, juicy entree.

And it worked, for the initial slicing at least. But once the meat cooled, just a little, that goose returned to its original tough-as-shoe-leather state that defied mastication (chewing).

So it’s back to the drawing board.

Ground goose breasts make excellent sausage, but they must be mixed 50 percent with ground pork. You can also braise them in a slow cooker for hours in a half-and-half mixture of water and barbecue sauce. Not bad, but …

I know all these things because I went through all these things. Then I found the one perfect way to dispose of goose meat and earn accolades from the whole family at the same time.

Forget the time-honored idea that a goose should become the main course of a traditional banquet. Hey, if you have a lemon, you make lemonade, right? So, if you have a goose, put it to its highest and best use. Make “Italian beef” sandwiches out of it. It is easy, and it works every time. Here is how.

You will like it, I guarantee!

A SICILIAN SAMPLES IT Here is an endorsement for this recipe. I have a friend who emigrated here from Sicily.

He was in love with the Italian beef sandwiches from a very popular Italian restaurant in

Chicago. Recently, he had a chance to compare the Italian goose breast with the storebought recipe, and he chose the goose breast.

Like I said, try it, you will like it. I guarantee!

GOOSE ITALIAN BEEF You will need: • A slow cooker or Nesco Roaster Oven.

• Goose breasts sliced about 2” thick.

• One jar, for one or two breasts, of pepperoncini, available at most stores.

• One package of Seven Sea Italian dressing mix.

• Beef stock to cover the meat.

I make my own with water and beef soup starter powder.

• Giardiniera, optional.

• Loaves of Italian bread.

• Red wine.

Place the meat in the slow cooker, and cover it with beef stock. Mix in the package of Seven Seas dressing mix and dump in the entire jar of pepperoncini, juice and all.

Set the cooker to a low simmer, and let ‘er go for several hours, until the meat is falling apart, and can be easily shredded. While you are waiting, drink the red wine.

Cut the Italian bread into lengths of about 6” and then horizontally in half. Sprinkle a little juice on the bread halves and then on the goose meat. Add some Giardiniera to taste and enjoy.

January-February 2019

Outdoor Guide

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Outdoor Guide

Page 8

CWD: Anatomy of a Killer

By GERALD J. SCOTT Missouri’s deer hunters, deer watchers and deer managers are well aware that the anagram CWD stands for Chronic Wasting Disease. Or at least they and a bevy of other stakeholders in the economic clout that deer wield in this state should be, because this as-of-now statistically rare malady, is already causing the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) to make far more sweeping deer management decisions than have other, more prevalent diseases.

For example, as of June 2018, Linn, Adair, Macon, Cole, Franklin, Jefferson, Ste. Genevieve, Perry, St. Clair, Cedar and Polk were the only Missouri counties with one or more documented cases of CWD. The MDC reacted by declaring a 43-county, gerrymandered block of counties plus a separate five-county block along the state’s southwestern border to be a “CWD Management Zone.”

CWD testing was mandatory for all deer killed Nov. 10 and 11 in most, but not all, of the counties within the zone, and hunters have been encouraged to voluntarily test all of the deer they kill throughout the various deer 2018-2019 deer seasons.

These are drastic measures to be sure, but the state’s deer herd has never before faced an ongoing threat anything like CWD. WHAT IS A ‘TSE’?

CWD is among a group of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), all of which present as progressive, invariably fatal, conditions that affect the brain and nervous systems of specific mammalian genera or families.

TSEs are neither caused nor transferred by a bacterium, a virus or any other living organism under the common definition of that term, so technically, they aren’t contagious. Instead, each TSE is caused by its own specific protein molecule that, for unknown reasons, becomes “improperly folded.”

If these misshapen proteins – called prions – are transmitted to a member of their target species via ingestion of tainted food, water or the bodily fluids or excrement of previously infected animals, the prions usually remain dormant for months or even years. Then, for reasons and by methods unknown, prions cause their normal counterparts to begin replicating as prions at a cascading rate that kills the animal, usually within months.

Since they weren’t alive in the first

Guest Editorial

place, prions can’t be “killed” by cooking, freezing or even the techniques used to sterilize surgical instruments.

Furthermore, once they’ve been deposited into the soil via the urine and feces of infected deer or the improper disposal of the carcasses of infected deer left behind by humans, predators or the disease itself, prions remain capable of infecting formerly healthy deer for years.

ONLY CERVIDS, SO FAR As of now, the prion that causes CWD appears to be capable of infecting only members of the Cervidae family (i.e. all species and subspecies of deer, elk, moose and caribou.) There has never been a documented case of CWD in a human. That said, the admittedly unrelated prion that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is readily transmitted from cattle to humans through the consumption of tissues from infected animals. Therefore, the concerns of some scientists that CWD’s transmission barrier between deer and humans might be neither permanent nor totally impermeable are not without merit.

That’s why the MDC strongly urges hunters to have any deer they intend to eat tested for CWD and to report any deer that tests positive. Deer taken in any county within the CWD Management Zone must be tested for CWD, before they can be submitted to Share the Harvest.

FIGHTING BACK Unless or until scientists find a way to render prions less invincible, it’s highly unlikely that CWD can be eradicated any place it becomes established. Even so, the MDC’s aggressively pro-active approach to CWD is anything but misguided or impractical.

While to the best of my knowledge CWD has never killed all of the deer that formerly inhabited a significantly large area anywhere it’s become endemic, the techniques the agency is developing to slow the spread of CWD will, at a minimum, give Missouri a larger, healthier deer herd than it was destined to have otherwise.

In addition, managing for one disease should also lessen the impact of other diseases, some of which have literally decimated deer numbers across broad swaths of habitat.

Despite my best efforts, I was unable to determine if a deer infected with CWD sheds enough prions during the disease’s asymptomatic stage to pose a serious danger to other deer. I’m not a microbiologist, but logic tells me it doesn’t. Otherwise, wouldn’t CWD spread like a wildfire being fought by a handful of men with damp blankets?

Missouri is requiring CWD testing in 48 counties.

– Springfield News-Leader photo

January-February 2019

— Random Shots — Hometown Memories Fishing and Mysteries,

By JOEL M. VANCE

I am seven years old and my cousins Pat and Sam and I are in a rowboat about 20 yards away from shore. My mother is splashing in the shallows of Birch Lake. She calls teasingly, “You boys had better get out of that rowboat or the owner will put you in jail.”

JAIL! In panic, I immediately leap overboard, forgetting that I cannot swim. Instantly I am under the water. I flounder to the surface to see my horrified mother starting toward me.

Even as I go down for the second time, I am counting, because I’ve been told that if you go down for the third time, it’s for keeps.

You drown.

As I bob up again, I think that I’ve only got one chance left. Then I sink and know my life is all over. Then a miracle! My feet touch the bottom, and I stagger ashore, whooping and bellowing. I have been spared and the world is wonderful!

Birchwood, Wisconsin, is the town where I spent my summers, or nearly didn’t. I’ve never really left Birchwood. It lingers in my mind like the sweet memory of a teenage crush. It’s in northwest Wisconsin, near Hayward where the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame features a building-size concrete muskellunge, a fish so large you can climb into the mouth and peer far down through the massive teeth at the tourists below.

HAIL, BLUEGILLS Birchwood is nothing like Hayward. My town is the self-proclaimed bluegill capital of Wisconsin, and no one builds temples to bluegills. But there is a bluegill festival held during the third weekend of July. Tourists from Indiana and Illinois get swept up in the annual street dance.

One year, my son-in-law entered the beer keg throwing competition. He lost to a beefy individual who looked as though he had emptied the keg before he threw it.

There also is competition between the fire departments of area towns in which the volunteer firefighters try to push a beer keg, suspended on a cable, to their opponent’s end of the cable with powerful jets of firehose water.

Birchwood is a resort town. It has the feel of the Northwoods. Even in summer, there is a pine tang in the air. The folks here have a wind-bit look, as if they’ve gone often to the woodshed for kindling when it’s below zero. Winter temperatures routinely are below zero, and nearby Rice Lake once recorded -60, the nation’s coldest that day.

Everyone fishes in Birchwood. Fish and a veneer mill are the lifeblood of the town.

Once, the fish were northern pike, walleyes and bass. Those heavy stringers of long ago

are mostly gone. Today’s catch is smaller fish. Tourists concentrate on bluegills and crappie. The old lakes simply had too much demand on them for too long.

GRANDPA’S SECRET My father once caught a 20-pound northern pike and made the mistake of hauling it into the old wooden rowboat before the fish was exhausted. The pike flopped around on tackle boxes and fishing lures untilAunt Vic worked up the nerve to dive on the fish like a football player going for a loose ball. My father sat back and laughed and told the story for years afterward. I grew up listening to men who sat around a table with a checkered oil cloth draped over it, drank Bruenig’s lager, and told colorful stories like that.

There was a time in my life when almost everyone in Birchwood was related to me. My grandparents came overland in an ox-drawn wagon and helped to pioneer this town situated midway down a 20-mile chain of lakes.

My grandmother ran a restaurant and baked bread for the logging crews who were laying waste to the virgin North land.

It was a tough life. Aunt Vic, later to become a nurse, watched in fascination as a doctor amputated her brother’s leg on the kitchen table by the light of a kerosene lantern. He had been pinned by a falling tree.

Nolan Eidsmoe, a Birchwood native who became a doctor in Rice Lake, said, “When we landed at Birchwood in 1919, the first place I can ever remember visiting was your grandmother’s restaurant. We ate our first meal there. She was a wonderful lady who raised a large family and still had time to run a restaurant and bake bread to sell to others.

She also had room for a couple of orphans at her table for meals.”

See RANDOM SHOTS page 10

An old postcard shows how Birchwood used to look.

– Reddit photo

Outdoor Guide

January-February 2019

Page 9

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Outdoor Guide

Page 10

• Random Shots

My grandfather? Well some years ago a middle-aged woman stopped me on the street and said, “I knew your grandfather.

I was his lookout when I was a little girl.”

“Lookout?” I asked, puzzled.

“For the still he had out in the woods on our farm,” she said.

She looked at me for a moment.

“You didn’t know he was the town bootlegger?”

No, I didn’t. The family had kept that secret for more than half a century. Family was important to my mother and

from page 8

her sisters. They worshipped their mother and, despite all his faults, loved their father. The only way you could criticize a Soper was to be a Soper.

MAKING A WAY Frontier enterprise always been characteristic of Birchwood.An uncle began a fishing resort by buying one-room schoolhouses as they were abandoned and turning them into cottages. His brother later started a bait shop, so the Sopers had tourists coming and going.

They were also partners in the only bar in town.

Birchwood, population 4,314, today is about the same as it was 70 years ago when I was a barefoot kid. My cousins and I sneaked into Hud’s Bar to feed nickels into a shooting gallery machine. The targets were Japanese Zero fighter planes. Yes, we were brave and strong. We were 10 years old.

My cousin Mike came home after World War II, yellowed and shaken by malaria. He had a thousand-mile stare and a tendency to hit the dirt when he heard a loud noise. He had been an island-hopping Marine in the Pacific.

There is a monument to Birchwood’s veterans next to the town hall. Two Sopers

served in World War I. Their children were just beyond draft age for World War II, but 225 men from the Birchwood area served in it, a tremendous chunk out of the young adult resource of a rural county.

Eight didn’t return.

BIRCHWOOD LIFE There once was a Quonset hut movie theater in town. We watched Charlie Starrett and Ken Maynard. But a big storm in the ‘40s blew the roof off and dumped it in the middle of the street, approximately opposite to where a little girl hit me in the back of the head with a brick.

I had said something to irritate her and turned my back to her.

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Birch Lake has a big statue to honor the humble bluegill.

– wi.com photo

That was a mistake. She caught me square with a brick from at least 30 feet away. I saw stars and bled copiously. Another time, I fell while running and ran the stob of a weed down my throat. I remember the hurts as well as the pleasures.

It’s a miracle any kid ever grows up. One Fourth of July, my cousin Pat threw a firecracker that didn’t explode.

Being silly, he picked it up and put it in his mouth like a cigarette. “Look at me,” he said.

“I’m smoking!” In an instant, he was! The thing exploded, burning his mouth and face. It made my ears ring for two days.

Many years ago, out-oftown investors restored the old Tagalong golf course, just south of Birchwood. It had been built by a millionaire in the 1920s, part of a lovely estate carved out of the woods. Now it is a country club for fly-in tourists, but for one summer, it was my private course. Back then it had gone to pasture. No one cared if I came out and hacked my way around the course. I played through worried knots of dairy cattle. I fumed at my wild hooks and slices, and the cows would moo apprehensively.

BACK TO BIRCHWOOD There is a saying that you can’t go home again, but I thought maybe you could. I went back to Birchwood one time. The Birch Lake Inn guarded the north end of Main Street – it since has burned to the ground. The inn was a few yards from the Northern States power company dam which created the lake. It was an old inn before it burned down.

I walked to the dam and looked at the roaring froth 30 feet down and shuddered.

They said my cousin Bob went over the dam once, but I never asked him because it’s deliciously scary enough to think it might’ve happened. It was starting to get late in the evening, and I was hungry. I stopped at the inn and ordered a superb walleye dinner for only $7.50. Try to match that in Minneapolis or Madison. It will never happen again. When I finished my walleye, I walked outside and headed south along Main Street.

Some towns measure their success by how progressive they are, how many new industries they attract, how much they grow and how modern they become. I measure Birchwood by how tenaciously it sticks in my memories. There, in my memories, it is a town

of sunlight in summer. And it is not reality. I walked down Main Street, looking in vain for the town I knew, and the kids of long ago who played tag in the summer evenings.

Little of what I knew remains. The bank, the hardware store and the bar have different names. A couple of other buildings still stand, but almost everything else is new. The old Soo Line tracks are gone. Now the rail bed throbs to the whine of snowmobiles in wintertime.

Another part of it became a highway that now speeds traffic right through the middle of Birchwood.

ALIVE IN MEMORY The Bruenig’s lager brewery in nearby Rice Lake is long closed. The icehouse is gone.

We crouched there on hot days atop thousands of pounds of ice cut from the lake in the winter to serve the town’s ice boxes in the summer. We dug through the insulating sawdust from the veneer mill to find chunks of ice to suck, and we sat in the door and listened to the dry stridulation of insects.

My Aunt Pill’s angular house, where I had awakened to see the roof of the movie theater sitting smack in the middle of Main Street, became decrepit and doomed for removal. Hud’s Bar, where my uncles dispensed beer and fishing advice, is now the Bluegill Bar. The bait shop across the street is now somebody’s office. The spidery bridge above the Narrows between Birch Lake and Lake Chetek has joined the town dock in history. How can Birchwood still be my hometown when so little of what it was to me is still there today?

My hometown is in my mind. Most of the reality of it lies in the Methodist churchyard or in old photos gone sepia with age that tell a different story than the one told today.As I reached the end of the street, feeling depressed, a couple of boys of about 10 raced by, intent on some childhood adventure.

Maybe they were going to the store for a double-dip ice cream cone or to dig some worms for bait. Maybe they were just yelling because kids yell when their sap rises. I looked at them and realized that Birchwood today is not my hometown – it is theirs.

They’ll go home again someday, too, and discover the home is where the heart is, that scrapbooks and memories are the reality of the hometown, not what it has become.

Outdoor Guide

January-February 2019

Page 11

Those Ducks Are Getting Smarter

Photos and Text

By LARRY DABLEMONT

If you have never been hiding behind a tree or sitting in a blind watching a flock of wild ducks circling decoys, you have missed one of the most thrilling and beautiful sights in the outdoors.

I have been getting everything ready for my first duck hunt of the season … not expecting a whole lot perhaps.

I will be sitting behind a big fallen tree in the back of my favorite cove for most of a day with Bolt, my Labrador, watching a handful of decoys before me.

I’ll take a notebook with me and try to do some writing,

and I’ll build a little campfire if it gets too cold. Sometime in the mid-day, Bolt and I will take a little walk up into the woods behind me and see how many buck rubs we can find, or if there are any good photos to be taken, or maybe look for unusual rocks in the creek.

DUCK CALL DAYS In that same spot 40 years ago, things were so different. You could actually use a duck call quite a bit and watch a flock out over the lake respond.

I wouldn’t have thought about leaving my post, with the possibility of coming back to find a flock of ducks in my decoys. Today, you won’t see a whole flock sit in a group of

Christy Dablemont learned duck hunting from her dad, Larry.

decoys, and you had better call sparingly and perfectly to get mallards to respond instead of flaring away.

The old dull decoys with faded paint that worked back then aren’t good enough today – you better have really convincing blocks. That word, “blocks,” was used a lot when I was a young duck hunter. It was a term for wellset decoys. You seldom hear it used today.

But if evolution is indeed a slow change, wild ducks certainly have evolved.

Wood ducks have come back from dangerous lows in the 1950’s to very healthy populations now, but they leave the Midwest, where they nest prolifically in the summer, at least three or four weeks earlier today than they did back then.

Gadwalls have greatly increased but remain the stupidest duck ever created. They’ll pitch into a set of decoys with little fanfare.

Mallards were somewhat like that once, but not today.

They will flare away at the slightest suspicion and often spend 20 minutes circling decoys before they commit to them.

FOOLING MALLARDS To fool mallards – and it is always some old hen that leads

Mallards are arriving in the area. Just don’t spook ‘em.

a whole flock away – you had better be good with a duck call and use it sparingly. When a flock is wheeling away, you can make them reconsider if you know how to imitate an old hen, but if they are over the top of you, it is best to make no call whatsoever or else that old wary duck that warns the rest of the flock will spot you.

It was once easy to hunt from a boat blind, but today’s mallards have just seen too many of them. By the time mallards get south of the Missouri-Iowa line, they have heard a few duck calls and shotgun blasts.

In Manitoba in September, there are lots of young dumb ducks, and hunting there is great. There are almost no brightly colored drakes, as they are just forming their winter plumage.

As a kid I hated eating mallards because we ate lots

of them, always pressurecooked. Today I cut mallard breasts into cross-cut steaks.

You can get four out of each side of a mallard, three from a gadwall, two from woodducks and teal. Then you season the steaks, put them on a skewer between pepper and onion slices, wrap a small piece of bacon around each and put the skewer on a charcoal grill Or you can make stroganoff out of slices of duck meat, or fry finger-strip slices with onions.

Don’t shoot mergansers!

They aren’t any good.

A GREAT DAY I’ve been expecting the first visits in our area from the redlegged northern mallards, and I may kill a limit this time. Or I may sit there all day and kill none. But Bolt and I won’t come back at dark without

having a great day.

We will have some new photos, maybe a couple of rocks like nothing I have found before, and perhaps some really pretty pieces of driftwood.And we will not spend any time in city traffic, or hear one word spoken in anger.

I kind of like days like that.

But if I get to wanting to eat a mallard or two, there are always the secluded ponds I know about where I can sneak up over a pond bank and collect a really good supper in a hurry.

I’ll have more to say about duck-hunting in a column to come later this winter … a column telling anyone who wants to work at it how to eat ducks.

Larry Dablemont’s books and magazine can be seen and ordered at his website, larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot. com, or send email to lightninridge47@gmail.com or call (417) 777-5227.

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Outdoor Guide

Page 12

January-February 2019

Wildlife Wrangling and Outdoor Ramblings

Being Cheap Has Its Rewards

Photo and Text

By RANDALL P. DAVIS

In the business of wildlife wrangling, seeking one’s fortune is simply that – seeking.

Dollars are often as elusive as leprechaun cowboys at a unicorn rodeo.

So when it comes to professional equipment – particularly footwear – I strongly hold to Mr. Boyd Packer’s quote: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

In the earlier years, my waders had the uncanny ability to locate submerged barbed-wire fences and ancient, drowned thorn trees with the same radar accuracy I have ferreting out the local donut shop. Most of the time when I climbed up the bank, I was packing along enough water to lower the impoundment by several inches.

I suffered numb legs and toes for years until I found an antiquated, vulcanizing inner-tube repair device in Dad’s shop – an ingenious contraption in which a diamond-shaped metal cup has a rubber patch attached to the flat side and some sulfurous material packed into the cup.

The whole thing is clamped over any latex laceration. A wooden kitchen match is then

struck and pushed into the cup, igniting the combustible.

The ensuing slow burn sizzles and flares and you feel like a medieval alchemist staring into an iron crucible.

It welded those hot-dog red patches waterproof tight.

In fact, it worked so well that one year, my green waders looked like a bullfrog with an advanced case of German measles.

ALL ABOUT MAKING DO Since then, I’ve incorporated the “make do” portion as a personal manifesto in constructing a bat exclusion device from a vinyl highway cone, a rigid backpack from a plastic 50-pound dog food container, and a snake hook from an old golf club (the No. 2 wood is perfect).

But when it comes to shoes ... well.

You see, I’ve got these special shoes. No, no, they’re not any type of corrective footwear – though of late, as much as I totter around, I could use a bit more ankle support.

No, these are those inexpensive slip-on models with the rubber soles and suede uppers that look like low-cut buckskin moccasins. I’ve had

The author’s mole-trapping shoes needed a little TLC to get a few more miles out of them, even though they’re 10 years old and appear to have rabies.

them for years and they are ideal for feeling the subtle tunnels moles make.

They’re as comfortable as an old friend and as loyal as my bird dogs and ready to go any time. Easy on, easy off, they’re the go-to shoe for most of my nuisance control outings.

So when the rubber sole began to separate from the upper I was almost in a panic.

Oh sure, the quick fix would be to bolt into the local big box store and trade twenty dollars for a new pair, but TWENTY BUCKS? (Mr. Packer’s words are burning my ears) Beside, these

10-year-old shoes were hardly broke-in.

NOT QUITE GORILLA GLUE So I instinctively tapped into my conservative, farm-boy, rural-ranger, mountain man DNA and decided these puppies could easily be repaired.

Fishing through the massive debris on my workbench, I found a bottle of a foamexpanding, glue-all substance much like Gorilla Glue. Of course, I can’t afford the original product. That’s why this bottle is labeled Sticky Ass Glue, complete with a picture of an evil, grinning, high-kicking mule right on the front.

Now I must say, this was a vintage bottle. It had a little age on it and required a pair of channel-lock pliers to remove the cap. And the fact it took several jabs with a long wood screw to penetrate the crust and reach the amber liquid instilled the notion, “This is the really good stuff,” rather like a half-full, fingerprintcoated whiskey bottle tucked under the handmade doilies at a moonshiner’s estate auction.

SLATHERIN’ TIME I proceeded to dip the woodscrew deeply in the vessel, then

slather the goo between sole and suede. The application was quite simple, and I was finished in a minute. However, the two parts wouldn’t remain together so I found a roll of electrician’s tape and strategically applied reinforcing strips over the toe and around the girth.

Placing the soon-to-be rejuvenated piece of footwear on a newspaper atop the kitchen counter, I was satisfied and then found a cup of coffee.

Minutes later, I smugly breezed past my project and noticed the shoe was drooling.

Actually, it was more like a regurgitation. In fact, with the lattice work of electrician’s tape, it resembled a panda bear in the advanced stages of rabies being pushed through a chainlink fence. All I could do was sip coffee and stare.

Twenty-four hours later, I deemed the endeavor a success. Sole and suede are permanently welded, much like vulcanizing waders. I have an almost new set of kicks, saved myself a Jackson and can savor the sweet satisfaction of selfreliance.

So if you see me meandering down the street and happen to notice my right shoe is oozing like a festering big toe, think nothing of it. It’s just me being cheap.

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• GO comfortably – There’s no need to sacrifice the comforts of home when you travel in an RV. Queenand king-size beds, gourmet kitchens, leather sofas, even fireplaces in some models make the RV lifestyle as comfy and cozy as you want.

• GO in the winter – Who said RVs are our fair weather friends? Not by a long shot. With plenty of storage for bulky items, such as skis, skates, even snowmobiles, RVs offer a unique opportunity to get out of the house when the temperatures drop and offer a warm place to retreat after a day playing in the snow.

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RV Model Listings by Dealer

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APACHE VILLAGE RV 9001 Dunn Rd., Hazelwood, MO Class A Motorhomes: Fleetwood, Jayco Precept Diesel Motorhomes: Fleetwood Class C Mini: Jayco Mehlbourne, Jayco Greyhawk, Jayco Redhawk Sport Utility Trailers: Jayco Octane, Jayco Seismic, Jayco Talon Travel Trailers: Jayco Jay Feather, Jayco Jay Flight, Jayco Eagle, Jayco Hummingbird, Keystone Bullet, Keystone Premier Fifth-Wheels: Jayco Eagles, Jayco Northpoint, Jayco Pinnacle

4

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COLMAN’S COUNTRY CAMPERS 2 Fun St., Hartford, IL Travel Trailers: Puma, Puma XLE, Flagstaff Classic Super Lite, Flagstaff Super Lite, Flagstaff Micro-Lite, Shamrock, Surveyor, Wildcat, Flagstaff E-Pro Sport Utility Trailers: Puma Unleashed, Puma XLE Fifth-Wheels: Flagstaff Classic Super Lite, Flagstaff Super Lite, Puma, Wildcat Folding Camping Trailers: Flagstaff

6

47 WEST TRAILER SALES 26 Dream Hollow, Troy, MO Sport Utility Trailers: Cherokee, Grey Wolf, Wolf Pack Travel Trailers: Grey Wolf, Wolf Pup, Cherokee, Alfa Wolf, KZ Connect Fifth-Wheels: Cherokee, Arctic Wolf, Sabre

BILL THOMAS CAMPER SALES 101 Thomas RV Way, Wentzville, MO Class B: Airstream Interstate, Airstream Atlas Sport Utility Trailers: Momentum by Grand Design Travel Trailers: all Airstream travel trailers including Nest and Basecamp, Rockwood and Salem by Forest River, Reflection and Imagine by Grand Design, all Open Range travel trailers, MPG by Cruiser Fifth-Wheels: Solitude and Reflection by Grand Design, Columbus by Forest River, all Open Range

BOURBON RV CENTER 133 Old Springfield Rd., Bourbon, MO Travel Trailers: Dutchmen Aerolite, Gulf Stream AmeriLite, Gulf Stream Conquest, KZ Connect, KZ Connect SE, KZ Escape, KZ Escape Mini, KZ Sportsmen, KZ Sportsmen LE, KZ Sportsmen SE, KZ Sportsmen Classic, KZ Sportsmen Classic SE, Riverside RV Mt. McKinley, Riverside RV Retro, Venture RV Sonic, Venture RV Sonic Lite, Venture RV SportTrek Fifth-Wheels: Dutchmen Astoria, Heartland ElkRidge, Heartland ElkRidge Focus, KZ Sportsmen, Riverside RV Retro Toy Haulers: KZ Sportsmen Classic, Riverside RV Retro

m o c .

V R L T S

BYERLY RV CENTER 295 E 5th St., Eureka, MO Class A Motorhomes: Tiffin Allegro Open Road, Thor ACE, Thor Vegas, Thor Windsport, Winnebago Vista, Winnebago Adventurer Class A Diesel: Tiffin Allegro Bus, Tiffin Phaeton, Tiffin Allegro Red, Winnebago Forza, Tiffin Allegro Breeze Class B Motorhomes: Winnebago Revel Class C Motorhomes: Thor Four Winds, Thor Siesta, Tiffin Wayfarer, Winnebago View, Thor Gemini Sport Utility Trailers: PrimeTime Fury, Forest River Wildwood, Sylvan Sport Go Travel Trailers: Keystone Passport, Keystone Hideout, Forest River Wildwood, Keystone Laredo, Keystone Sprinter, R-Pod, No Boundaries Fifth-Wheels: Vanleigh Vilano, Coachmen Chaparral, Keystone Sprinter, Keystone Hideout, Keystone Laredo

7

M.B. THOMAS RV SALES & Rental 275 Lemay Ferry Rd., St. Louis, MO Classic A Motorhomes: Thor-Hurricane and Axis Diesel Motorhomes: Thor Citation and Chateau Class C Mini: Thor Citation and Thor Chateau Travel Trailers: Heartland Trail Runner Folding Camping Trailers: A-liner

8

MIDDLETON’S RV 3441 US 67, Festus, MO Sport Utility Trailers: Keystone, Fuzion, Fuzion Impact, Fuzion Vapor, Springdale Tailgator, Forest River, Vengeance Touring Edition, Vengeance Platinum, Vengeance Rogue Travel Trailers: orest River, Flagstaff Classic, Super Lite, Micro Lite, Shamrock E-Pro. Keystone Springdale, Springdale Mini, Nucamp, T@G,T@B,T@B 400, Little Guy, Max Mini Max, My Pod Camping Trailers: Flagstaff Mac, Se, Classic, High Wall, Hard Side, Opus, Opus Air Fifth-Wheels: Forest River, Flagstaff Classic and Super Lite, Heritage Glen Ltz. Keystone, Springdale

9

MIDWEST RV CENTER 6200 Heimos Industrial Pkwy., St. Louis, MO Class A Diesel: Sportscoach by Coachmen Class A: Coachmen Mirada, Coachmen Mirada Select, Coachmen Pursuit Class C: Coachmen Leprechaun, Coachmen Freelander, Coachmen Concord, Coachmen Orion Sport Utility Trailers: Coachmen Trail Blazer, XLR Hyperlite, Keystone Raptor and Carbon Travel Trailers: Coachmen Freedom Express, Coachmen Freedom Express Liberty, Coachmen Apex, Coachmen Apex Nano, Coachmen Clipper, Coachmen Catalina, Keystone Cougar HT Fifth-Wheels: Keystone Cougar, Keystone Cougar HT, Keystone Montana High Country, Keystone Montana, Keystone Montana Legacy Toy Haulers: XLR Nitro Folding Campers: Coachmen Clipper, Coachmen V-Trec, Coachmen Clipper A Frame

10 VAN CITY RV 3100 Telegraph Rd., St. Louis, MO Class B Diesel: Chinook Countryside & Bayside, Roadtrek Etrek, RS & CS Adventurous, SS Agile, Pleasure Way Plateau, Ascent TS Class B+ Diesel: Leisure Travel Unity & Serenity, PleasureWay Plateau XL Class C Diesel: Renegade Vienna & Villagio, Coachmen Prism; Dynamax Isata 3, Isata 5 Class C Gas: Dynamax Rev, Isata 4 Class B Camper Van: Roadtrek, 190, 210, Zion, Zion SRT, Zion Simplicity, Pleasure Way Lexor TS Class Super C: Renegade Verona, Verona LE, Valencia, Classic, Explorer, XL, Icon, Dynamax DX3, Dynaquest XL, Force HD

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Plan Now for 2019 RV Outings

By THAYNE SMITH

An old phrase, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray,” comes to mind each January when planning starts for many and varied outdoor recreation sojourns.

The first item needed for the effort is a good, preferably large block, 2019 calendar.

Many are available, at good prices, for desks or folders or hanging on your office wall, at office supply and mass merchandise stores. Good ones can be downloaded for free if you have access to a computer, making it easy to present copies to family members, friends or anyone

that might be involved in your travels.

My choice is a simple 8.5” by 11” black and white, with small blank margins at the top for hole punches, to place in simple file drawers or file boxes for traveling. It’s low cost and easy to assemble.

Trips, important dates and more are noted with a black ink pen.

In most years, it has served me well, especially for trips I had longed to carry out in my RV travels.

Some entailed hunting and fishing, of course, with many journeys close to home to take advantage of my state licenses and seasons, and others rang-

Even in winter, RV owners can find southland areas with sunny skies for physical fitness hikes and adventures.

– The Fit RV photo

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ing to the four corners of the nation. Others note important conferences and meetings that I plan to attend, if at all possible.

Notes serve birthday names and ages of family members.

All that are most important are highlighted in various colors for easy recognition.

It’s a fine way to note family reunions, anniversaries, doctor and dentist visits and other special occasions.

TIP FOR TAX TIME If the unit is used in any kind of business travel, or for a known tax deduction cause, the calendar is a vital source for recall, dollars spent, miles traveled, maintenance and gas fees, and many more.

It’s only natural that some will follow the old saying and “go astray,” thanks to illnesses, necessary cancellations, weather problems and other unpredictable happenings.

However, I still recommend the system for all outdoor enthusiasts, and especially for those who do travel in recreation vehicles.

The calendar is not a cureall, however. Much depends on how well the unit, the motors that power it or the vehicles that tow it are maintained, regardless of how it will be used in the coldest

months.

Like people, RVs suffer in cold weather, especially when good care is lacking.

When properly maintained and winterized, however, they are put to excellent use in early and late months of the “new” year. During holidays, they’re great for traveling to grandmother’s house, with plenty of room for family and gifts, extra stores of food and other needed items. Add “tailgating,” using all the tools and supplies essential for attending football games, NASCAR events or other favored winter activities.

Snow skiers use them for chalets at campgrounds near their favorite runs throughout the winter months, while others utilize their ease for ice fishing, snowmobiling and hunting.

OUTAGE, NO PROBLEM For those living where extreme winter might prevail, the possibility of emergency is an incentive for keeping the RV serviced and ready to roll at all times.

If equipped with a good generator, the unit can serve as a “second home” when parked or garaged nearby, and it is most welcome during power outages at the primary

Beautiful desert-to-mountain vistas await traveling RVers in the western states.

– RVIA photo

residence.

Then there are those who love RVing but don’t favor winter in any way, shape or form. These “snowbirds” trade colder climates for the warmth of RV camps in Arizona, southern California, Florida, Nevada, south Texas, Alabama and Mississippi.

Most are retirees who devote October through April to warm-weather activities such as fishing, golf, tennis, swimming, races of various sorts and socializing with longtime friends of like interests.

FREEDOM RINGS The freedom, self-reliance and family values that mark the RV lifestyle have become an important part of the North

American scene in recent years.

They are praised by many public and private officials of federal and state governments, while reaffirming staunch commitments to outdoor recreation and citing those freedoms many enjoy and hold dear.

When you’re ready to brave the cold and participate in well-planned activities like hunting, snowmobiling, ice fishing, skiing and the myriad of others that await the outdoor recreation enthusiast in winter, the RV can serve you well.

All it needs is proper service and a lot of tender loving care.

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National Forest Needed a Local Push

By KATHIE SUTIN

Some things you’d rather not do in the dark. Trying to find your cabin while driving alone on a remote road deep in the forest after sunset is one of them.

Siri helps, but not when you’re deep in southern Illinois where Sprint cell phone coverage is spotty.

At least I wouldn’t have to pitch my tent in the dark.

Been there, done that, more times than I care to admit.

BEST LAID PLANS The plan was to leave St. Louis County early enough to arrive during daylight, but we know what happens to the best-laid plans of mice and men. Ever since I bagged a moose with a rental car in Alaska a few years ago, I’m well aware that anything can lumber onto the road in the wilderness, making for an even more nail-biting trip.

But after a couple of stops to peer at a good old-fashioned paper map and a lucky spot where cell phone coverage returned momentarily, I was able to find my way to Shawnee Forest Cabins where owner Carrie DeVore greeted me and acquainted me with my lodging for the next two nights.

I had been in Shawnee National Forest a couple of times before, and while I spent several days exploring Illinois a few years ago, I only made it to this part of the 280,000-acre national forest late on my last day. Still, I had seen enough of this special place filled with springs, canyons, limestone bluffs and incredible rock formations to consider southern Illinois a vast natural playground for St. Louisans and others who visit there. Hiking, biking, hunting, fishing, boating, bird-watching – the amazing array of outdoor recreation opportunities seems limitless.

What I didn’t know until I talked with Todd Carr, a local historian of sorts, was that the hills weren’t always lush and beautiful. In fact, by the Depression, years of logging and farming had left them stark and bare.

By day, Carr is quality director at Hardin County General Hospital. He’s also led tourism efforts in Southern Illinois for 20 years, was president of the Southernmost Illinois Tourism Bureau and authored Trigg’s Ozark Tours at Shawnee National Forest.

“The land was exhausted,” Carr said. “When you

FISHING

think of Illinois, you think of the plains and fertile fields. For most of Illinois, that’s what it’s like. But in southern Illinois we have these hills. The problem is these hills should have never been farmed and should have never had trees removed from them.”

Crop rotation was unheard of in those days. “They just planted stuff until the soil wouldn’t support anything anymore, and then they moved on,” Carr said. “A lot of the topsoil in southern Illinois ended up down in Louisiana.”

A NEW DEAL FOREST? Then in 1930, the Chicago Tribune published an article calling for one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal forests” to be in southern Illinois. That triggered federal inquiries to determine if this was a good place for such a forest.

Meanwhile, the Harrisburg Kiwanis Club formed a group from Hardin, Pope, Gallatin and Saline counties called the Illinois Ozark Reforestation Unit to promote selection of southeastern Illinois as a national forest.

Among the group was newspaper publisher L.O. Trigg.

The feds sent an agent

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Illinois, even bringing petitions to sign.

Two years later, in 1933, the group again approached the National Forest Commission.

“By that time, they had a stack of petitions two feet high that they sent to Washington, D.C.,” Carr said.

THE CCC ENTERS The Commission finally agreed to put a national forest in Southern new book explains how a series of Illinois. They A tours played a major role in the creation started buying of the Shawnee National Forest. up property and in September, 1939, same time as well. The CCC FDR signed a proclama- camps really did the lion’s tion establishing Shawnee share of the work, rebuilding roads and planting all these National Forest.

“Remember, this was trees.”

Todd Carr’s illustrated coming out of the Depression,” Carr said. “National book, Trigg’s Ozark Tours forests weren’t just for con- at Shawnee National Forservation. They were also est, is available at book a means of putting people stores and online. The back to work because the cover shows visitors atop the CCC camps came in at the famed Garden of the Gods.

Record Walleye Is Caught on Jug Line at Truman Lake Jason Reynolds of Warsaw, MO, became the newest state fishing record breaker Nov. 5 when he caught a walleye on a jug line at Truman Lake.

The alternative-method record fish weighed 6 pounds, 14 ounces and broke the previous record by 1 pound, 1 ounce. Reynolds was using bluegill for bait and trying to catch blue catfish. Jug lines are lines suspended from floating jugs.

“I first thought I caught a carp, but when I got the fish in the boat I realized I had caught a walleye,” he said.

“I was in shock that I caught a large walleye.”

He didn’t know it was a record until he checked the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) website when he got back to Osage Bluff Marine.

Reynolds also holds the spotted bass alternativemethod state record, also for a fish taken by jug line.

Jason Reynolds with his state record walleye.

“Lightning does strike twice in the same place,” he said. “I caught the walleye about a hundred yards away from where I caught the spotted bass.”

MDC staff verified the walleye’s weight on a certified scale at Lost Valley Hatchery in Warsaw. It was the seventh state-record fish of 2018.

State record fish are recognized in two categories: pole-and-line and alternative methods. Alternative methods include: throwlines, trotlines, limb lines, bank lines, jug lines, spearfishing, snagging, snaring, gigging, grabbing, archery, and atlatl.

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to assess the situation, and in March 1931, he reported that there was plenty of deforested land in southern Illinois to make a national forest.

However, the National Forest Commission, which decided where the national forests would be, denied Illinois’ request.

TRIGG STEPS IN So the Illinois Ozark Reforestation Unit launched a public relations campaign.

They invited “influencers” on a three-day camping trip into what’s now the Shawnee National Forest to drum up support for turning it into a national forest. Calling it Trigg Ozark Tours, the newspaper publisher hosted one every year until he died in 1949.

“Starting in 1931, every summer there would be a three-day camping trip out into the woods somewhere,” Carr said. “Trigg also got a slide show together and went to women’s groups, chambers of commerce, and basically any fraternal organization or community group that would let him give his presentation.”

Trigg encouraged his audiences to promote a national forest for Southern

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Tips, Tricks and Thoughts for the Great Outdoors

Use Your Precious Time Wisely

By LARRY WHITELEY

Can you believe another year is gone and a new year is here?

You have a choice how you will use your time in 2019.

You can spend your time in front of the TV, watching what is supposed to be funny or watch a horrendous crime being solved

by CSI. Or you can spend some time camping with your family, watching the stars or a beautiful

sunset reflecting in the water as you reel in a fish.

You can spend your time texting, posting on Instagram or on Facebook. Or you can be out hiking with family or friends, communicating face-to-face about the beautiful scenery or the wildlife you see.

You can spend your time worrying about the economy, corrupt politicians, the news media or the mess our world

is in. Or you can spend your time teaching your kids how to enjoy our great outdoors or even learn how to do something new yourself in the outdoors that you’ve always wanted to try.

Our time on this Earth is short. The choice of how you use that time is entirely up to you.

NATURE QUOTE “Of all the paths you take in

life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” – John Muir IN A WINTER WONDERLAND I love to walk in a winter woods. Sounds of dried leaves and dead limbs crunch under my feet. I hear the flitter of birds’ wings. Crows call, deer snort, owls hoot. Naked trees allow me to see through the winter woods. I catch glimpses of

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LARRY L. WHITELEY is the host of the internationally syndicated Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World Radio and nationally syndicated Outdoor World newspaper and magazine tips.

animals in whose home I walk.

I marvel at the way nature has formed trees into unique shapes. Big rocks formed by wind and water line the trail.

This is where I sit and think and dream. The smell of decaying leaves is in the air. They give life to new trees.

The air is crisp and cold. Icicles hang from rock bluffs like long, thin diamonds. Flowing streams run clear. Snow starts falling softly to the ground.

It adds white to this gray and brown world. The snow helps me see tracks of what lives in this winter woods. White-tailed deer, bobcat, turkey and a squirrel looking for buried nuts.

I look behind me and there in the snow are the tracks of another visitor to this quiet, beautiful winter wonderland and it is me.

NATURE FACT Mating is a risky venture for scorpions. They are not immune to their own poison.

Did you also know they glow under ultra-violet light?

IN THE NEWS According to the syndicated column Earth Week, a Brazilian fisherman was fishing on a river in theAmazon when he became sleepy. When he yawned, a six-inch fish leaped out of the water directly toward his face and became lodged in his throat.

Although his fishing companions attempted to get him medical assistance, the unfortunate angler choked to death on the fish before they could get him to the hospital.

The moral of that story is, if you are going fishing, you’d better keep your mouth shut.

DID YOU KNOW? Did you know men are struck by lightning seven times more than women? Men also are struck by thrown objects 100

times more than women.

WEIRD LAW In Georgia, by state law you cannot keep any native species of lizard or snake as a pet, with one exception – venomous ones are legal. You can keep a sixfoot diamondback rattlesnake in your bedroom, but don’t get caught with a garter snake.

SNOW FIRES If there’s snow on the ground where you live, there’s no better time to get outside and enjoy a campfire, whether it’s on a winter camping trip or in your own backyard.

If the snow isn’t too deep, dig down to build your fire on the bare ground. If you’re on top of deep snow, stomp out a flat spot and construct a platform of logs so that your fire won’t be resting directly on the snow.

I like to use those little fire cubes that light easy and burn hot and then place my tinder on top, and arrange sticks tepeestyle around it. I then light the cube and add gradually bigger sticks until I build up a good and hot coal base on which to add even bigger wood.

Campfires in the snow are great any time of day, but my favorite is at night. I can watch the flames dance and reflect off the snow as sparks float hypnotically upward in a dark night sky.

It’s sure a whole lot better than being inside watching the evening news. Snow fires will warm your body and your soul.

QUOTE TO REMEMBER “TV does not care about you or what happens to you. It’s downright bad for your health now, and that’s not a far-out concept. I think watching the TV news is bad for you. It is bad for your physical health and your mental health.” – Tom Petty

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Custer Wouldn’t Know Today’s Fishing A Grand Time on the Upper Mississippi

Photos and Text

By KENNETH L. KIESER

Fall winds cascade down the upper Missouri River chute with reckless abandon, shivering golden leaves in the ash and aspen trees that line the bank.

Soon temperatures will drop, and this North Dakota flatland will become a launching pad for arctic cold masses that will eventually reach the Midwest.

General Custer and his 7th Cavalry spent their final days at Fort Abraham Lincoln, close to the Upper Missouri, before their meeting with destiny a few hundred miles away at Montana’s Little Big Horn in 1876.

They hunted and fished this range when not patrolling on well-trained horses, somehow surviving chilling cold winters in long barracks heated with a fireplace on each end and a pot-bellied stove in the middle.

HISTORY LESSONS The Bismarck-Mandan region of North Dakota is rich in history. Fort Abraham Lincoln is a tribute to the toughness of American soldiers in the late 1870s. They patrolled in miserable conditions and likely froze at night in drafty barracks heated by a couple of fireplaces and one or two stoves. General Custer’s two-story home was more luxurious, with heating and an indoor toilet.

The North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum is one of the finest Native American exhibits ever built and is free to the public. The site is loaded with prehistoric man’s tools and homes, and it steps through time into the Plains Indians’ possessions. A huge collection of firearms and other items are on the sight.

The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, the Knife River Indian Villages Natural History Sites, Buckstop Junction Historic Town, Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site, Camp Hancock State Historic Site and the former Governors Mansion are other interesting places to complete your historic tour in the Bismarck area.

BISMARCK AND MANDAN Bismarck is the state’s capitol and was once a busy mining town. Today you can find a variety of businesses and, yes, a few bars. Driving around Bismarck and Mandan, located just across the Missouri River, is a step back in time. The older buildings, mixed with new architecture, are loaded with interesting shops.

The area has many fine restaurants. According to locals, Frieds German Restaurant in Mandan never disappoints, and so we tested this widespread opinion.

We enjoyed Frieds’ stuffed cabbage with mashed potatoes and green beans after a bowl of borscht, which is a delightful vegetable soup loaded with beets, potatoes and other vegetables in a moderate broth. The food was reasonably priced and delicious.

THE RIVER TODAY Sportsmen in North Dakota use the Upper Missouri for hunting and fishing. North Dakota has 57 boat launches for Missouri River access, and anglers catch a mixed bag of heavily sought-after walleye, northern pike, freshwater drum, catfish and bluegill. An occasional crappie is also common as the fish are gorging on a variety of baitfish over a long, chilling winter.

Roger Niesen, Qwest’s midwestern sales director, and Qwest Executive Director and fishing guide extraordinaire, Brad Dupuie, launched their Pro-Troll Angler Qwest 24-foot-long, eight-foot wide pontoon at the Hazelton boat ramp. The pontoon provided a shallow draft in the strong current and the ever-changing Missouri River bottom.

Amy Hamilton, marketing director at Qwest, dropped her baited jighead to the bottom, then took two reel turns before a “jolt” told her to set the hook. The 18-inch walleye made several good runs in the current before giving up to the net. Minutes later, she hooked another walleye and then a northern pike.

“They really fought well, and I caught two more a couple days later,” she recalled. “This

is a fun way to fish and you never know what’s going to bite next.”

IN THE CURRENT Niesen said they caught most of their fish by vertical jigging minnow-tipped jigs, drifted in the current.

“We found an eight-inch strike zone on the bottom where active fish were feeding,” he said. “We caught 12 fish, including walleye, northern pike, catfish and a white bass. This was my first

time to fish this area, so we started by finding out what the fish were feeding on, then the best structure where that type of baitfish was found. That combination helped us find these quality fish.”

Both the soldiers and Native Americans of the 1800’s would be shocked at the technology used today for fishing their beloved river.

The pontoon was fitted with some of the best graphing units, including Lowrance Carbon 12 with total scan on

fish finder, and a Motorguide bow mount trolling motor with a Lowrance High Definition Screen up front, showing Niesen where the fish might be found, especially around drop-offs, shelves and submerged bank cuts where baitfish and walleye might hang out.

For more information, contact the BismarckMandan Convention and Visitors Bureau at (701) 2224308 or check their website, noboundaries.com.

This buffalo mount is found in General Custer’s home at Fort Lincoln.

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Is M17 Commemorative Worth It? Photo and Text

By TJ MULLIN

I have always said a commemorative firearm is a foolish purchase, since it typically involves merely engraving a few lines on an otherwise common example, and I doubt that such a thing will make it worth more in the years ahead.

But I must acknowledge an exception in the case of the SIG M17 Commemorative pistol.

The adoption of the com-

mercial SIG P320 to replace the aging fleet of Beretta M9 pistols by the U.S. military was a major news event. The military variant, or what has been designated as the M17, is slightly different, thus what we are all familiar with in its commercial variant.

EARTH FINISH The most obvious difference is the color, for rather than black, it features the popular flat dark earth finish on both the polymer lower

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and metal top half.

Looking closer, a few other special items exist. The actual firearm part – a trigger assembly mechanism, I would call it, but designated by the BATFE as a weapon (so let’s call it that just for fun) not only has the serial number but also the dotted matrix coding so it can be quickly scanned in and out of arms rooms.

That’s not likely important for you and me, but a nice touch if you want one just like the GI model.

Then there is the manual safety, which I recognize that many think is worthless on striker-fired weapons, but the military disagrees. You don’t have to use it if you prefer condition zero because you cannot remember to manipulate such things in times of crises or truly believe your index finger is the safety.

With all the “junk” hanging off a soldier’s outfit waiting to snag a trigger, I can see it has a usefulness perhaps not appreciated by those never in the service. Might well be useful for SWAT cops also, and also even for non-SWAT types who wear coats and carry pens in breast pockets (or wear jewelry!), waiting to snag triggers.

GEE-WHIZ FINISH The interior parts are coated with a special “gee whiz” finish, which can’t hurt even though most will never need it, really. The slide is pre-cut for a dot-type sight, which I think is a fine idea.

Such units are a little slower for presentation from the holster, in my experience, and offer no more accurate results than iron sights in actual tests I have conducted, but they do

make it easier to achieve the results.

They do make holster selection something of a trial, however, at least for now. In the future, it may be easier.

The iron sights of the M17 glow in the dark naturally.

There are some special markings on the slide and also on the barrel, just like its GI variant, so this model looks just like it went AWOL from an arms room.

A TIME MACHINE All of this, plus the spare 21-round magazine, comes in a nice military package just like SIG supplies to the military. Absent your being issued one or “liberating” your issue weapon, this is about as close to being a 19-year-old trooper getting issued the new service handgun you are likely to get.

In that way, it is rather like a time machine, I suppose, which is kind of nice for those of us of a certain age.

While most commemoratives are merely standard weapons inscribed to honor a certain event or person, rarely if ever a good investment, the new SIG M17 Commemorative is more than that.

Perhaps it’s a good investment, perhaps not. But certainly, an enjoyable timetravel trip will be taken by you, especially if you were ever in the military, as you open that brown cardboard box and lift out the contents.

It is also a very fine weapon as well. Makes you proud to be a U.S. citizen, for what other country allows its citizens to purchase the standard current-issue militaryapproved handguns? Keep it in mind when you go to the polls to vote!

Illinois Has Spring Turkey Hunt

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The Illinois Department of Natural Resources has leased acreage throughout the state for spring turkey hunting, including a special two-weekend youth season.

The youth season will be March 30-31 and April 6-7, using about 15,000 acres on 170 sites in 39 counties, free of charge to the hunters.

Applicants must be under 18 years old and return an application by Feb. 26 to be in the drawing for those weekends.

In addition, 344 sites will be available to adult hunters on a first-come basis. These hunters must first obtain a spring turkey permit through a lottery and then apply to an individual county. Preference will be given to youth hunters and first-time adult hunters.

The first state-only lottery

was in December, but applications will be taken for the second lottery for state and non-state residents through Jan. 11. Applications will be taken for the third lottery from Jan. 12 through Feb. 11. After March 12, any remaining permits will be sold over the counter.

Applications and more information can be found online at www.dnr.illinois. gov/hunting/Pages/TurkeyHunting.aspx The landowners allowing these hunts get a minimal lease payment, a habitat management plan and assistance with habitat restoration of their property.

“It is an ideal publicprivate partnership that delivers positive results for everyone,” said Wayne Rosenthal, director of the department.

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Why Not a 6,000-Mile Float Trip?

As you look back on 2018 and plot for a big adventure in 2019, you would be hardpressed to match the accomplishments and ambition of Steve Chard from Dorset, England, during those two years.

He is pausing his trip in Florida for the winter, and maybe even going back across the Atlantic for a “vacation” before he completes his journey, but he plans to finish a 6,000-mile float trip before his 62nd birthday in September.

I crossed his path along the Mississippi River in Crystal City, where he stopped for the night at a local boat club and headed into town for a meal that he didn’t make for himself.

On June 1, he left Halifax, Nova Scotia, paddling his kayak through Canada, down

Lake Michigan to Chicago, into the Illinois River and then downstream in the fourth month of an adventure called the Great Loop that will take him to the Gulf of Mexico and eventually back up the Atlantic coast to his starting point.

THE OLD SUBMARINER When I met him, he was expecting to spend his 61st birthday somewhere south of Chester, IL in two more two days. The trip was to be his personal reward or quest after he turned 60 and retired in September 2017. He also wanted the excursion to attract attention to fund-raising efforts for veterans’ and health-care charities in Great Britain, Canada and the U.S. He designated those or-

ganizations because of his personal history, most recently serving 12 years as a paramedic assistant with the Southwestern Ambulance Service in England. Prior to that he served 14 years as a submariner in the Royal Navy.

All donations have to be made online, he said, and in the U.S., the charities he is helping include Disabled American Veterans, Navy Submarine Force Library and Museum and the American Kidney Fund.

Links to the donation sites and almost-daily trip logs can be found on Chard’s Facebook page, called “Kayak the Great Loop – Paddle with Steve.”

Most of his posts include pictures of his stops along the way, including a few from the Gateway Arch and his museum visits while in St. Louis. But when I asked about the most memorable things he had seen so far, he was quick with his answer.

“It’s the people I’ve met,” he said. “I’m not too shy to ask someone if I can set up my tent in their garden for the night, and no one has turned me away yet.”

WHAT TO EAT? During his trip he has lost more than 40 pounds. Most

Steve Chard got help for the portage around the Mississippi River lock and dam at Alton.

of his meals are what he can carry and cook from his 18foot kayak, plus an occasional splurge or donated food from his hosts along the way.

“Your town cafe was exceptional tonight,” he said.

“Mike (Clark) from Big Muddy Adventures put me up the last two nights and fed me, so I had a little extra money to treat myself.”

Those meals were the exception 110 days into his adventure.

“I have a jet boil stove and a bag of rice, bag of pasta and oatmeal. I will have a tin of meat or tuna and mix it for a meal. Of course, in the morning I make oatmeal and add a bit of honey,” Chard said.

His trip has included side trips to the Tennessee River and Kentucky Lake, the Ohio River, several outings

throughout Florida, and along the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico. The rest of his adventure should be fun to follow.

Even if you cannot plan or pull off a solo tour of eastern North America in a boat, you can still live it vicariously on

Facebook with Steve.

John Winkelman is community relations manager at Mercy Hospital Jefferson.

He can be reached by e-mail at ogmjohnw@aol.com or follow him on Twitter at @ johnjwink99.

The Tom Sawyer riverboat was one of the attractions Steve Chard visited while on his adventure.

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Claudette’s Kitchen

By CLAUDETTE ROPER

Acorn Flour Is a Tricky Task

Modern research has confirmed that acorn flour is rich in protein, carbohydrates, fats, phosphorus, niacin, potassium, calcium, magnesium and fiber.

These are essential for human health, and they are not found in wheat flour.

Reading about Native Americans using acorns to make porridge and breads piqued my interest many years ago – until I read that they had to keep soaking, cooking, draining and repeating the process to leach out the toxins.

That was a deal-breaker.

Several months ago I was confronted with the idea of acorn flour again (thank you FaceBook). Try it, they said!

You’ll like it, they said! It’s gluten-free, they said! There must be something to it – it’s being sold online anywhere from $15 to $35 per pound.

At that price you know this tightwad won’t buy any, so why not make some? Who knows – I might have been onto a gold mine!

The first lesson learned was that it is not wise to pick acorns off the ground when it’s really windy. Those little suckers pack a bit of a punch when they come down!

Second, do it early in the season.

HAMMER JOB The shells aren’t extremely difficult to crack. One of Mountain Man’s good-sized hammers worked well. Just throw the nutmeat into some water to keep it from turning dark. Some say that freezing them first makes them

easier to crack and as a bonus, the skin comes right off the nut.

Once that has been accomplished it is time to leach them.

Apparently the word “toxins” was not quite right. Leaching removes the (or most of the) bitter tannins. It can be quickly accomplished through boiling, which is fast but turns the resulting flour dark.

Cold leaching takes longer but no more effort. Daily draining, rinsing and replacing the water is easy. Four days seemed good – the water became clear. That should be enough to assume they are done, one would think.

At this point, there are two ways to proceed. You can put the nutmeats in a blender with water and grind them up. This requires drying the resulting “mush.” This old gal decided to dry the nutmeats first and then grind them, since I was equipped to do so.

It was a little tedious and time consuming but worth it for this gluten-sensitive person if the end result worked. The conclusion: I will do it again – just as soon as we’re flat broke or there are no more grocery stores!

VERDICT: YUCK! Mountain Man never allowed the kids to say “yuck” to anything on the dinner table, but “yuck, really yuck” is all I can say. There’s no telling what went wrong, but I’m sure the high-dollar stuff they sell has to taste better than this.

In all fairness, I may try it again this fall with fresher acorns and from a different species of oak. Until then, we’ll stick to eating acorns after the squirrels have eaten them. Fried squirrel is definitely better than acorn porridge!

Because we like fried squirrel so much, we’ve at times been tempted to fry them even when they are a little too old. Chewing them is great exercise. NOT! Usually. the only solution for the older ones is to boil them and make dumplings.

Grandma often used a pressure cooker in those instances, but who still has a pressure cooker? How does that help with fried squirrel? Nowadays, many homes have an updated version of grandma’s pressure cooker. My brand is called an InstantPot,

It’s not easy to make a mess of acorns into something tasty! – Pixabay photo

but there are many others.

Fry your squirrel as you would for a young one. Mountain Man does all the frying in this house. He likes to use coconut oil for frying and Andy’s fish breading on the squirrel. After he has it nicely cooked, it comes to me.

FRY FIRST OR COOK FIRST? Add one cup of water, broth or apple juice to the InstantPot, then add the rack. The liquid should not come up and over the rack. Add the fried squirrel. Vegetables like onions and carrots can be added if there’s room.

Seal it and set it for somewhere between 10-20 minutes on high. Yes, that’s a wide range. It will depend on how old the squirrels are and how many you have in there. When it’s done, let the pressure come down naturally before opening it.

Mountain Man and I will almost consistently go about the same thing in just the opposite manner, so I shouldn’t be surprised to discover that some people do just the opposite of this process. They pressure cook first, then fry. If you prefer that method, cut back your cooking time to about 8 minutes so there’s no risk of it falling apart as you fry it.

Maybe next time I’ll try rolling it in acorn flour.

Three Down, Three to Go for Turkey Slam Photo and Text

By BRANDON BUTLER There is nothing I enjoy more than traveling somewhere new to hunt. I’ve never been into the trophy aspect of hunting. Antler inches and beard lengths do not motivate me. But seeing a sunrise over a new horizon trips my trigger, so I set personal goals that require travel to complete.

I’m trying to finish a World Slam of wild turkey. To accomplish this goal, I must take at least one of each of the six subspecies – Eastern, Osceola, Rio Grande, Merriam’s, Gould’s and Ocellated.

I have three down and three to go. By the end of this year, I hope to have checked at least one more box and experienced another incredible hunting destination.

EASTERN – BIG PINEY RIVER Over the years, I have found much success in the middle of the day. One of my best birds ever was killed at 10:30 a.m. on the banks of the Big Piney River near Licking, MO. I had set up on a ridge that is a regular gobbler hotspot. Sure enough, a big old bird was fired up on the roost.

I watched him strut up and down a limb for 20 minutes before flying down, and he immediately started dancing on a ridge top-logging road.

He came within 40 yards of me, but I couldn’t take a shot. Before I knew it, he was trailing off down to an open agricultural field.

There were only two ways he could have gone, and since he hadn’t showed up in my direction, I knew he had chosen to head the opposite way. I took a hike. A long hike, circling around to the other end of the woods I was hunting and set up against a big oak tree. Then I let out a series of soft calls.

He gave me a strong courtesy gobble. Five minutes later, I had him flopping.

MERRIAM’S – SOUTH DAKOTA Wooded, western river bottoms rising from endless expanses of high plains are usually teeming with wildlife.

The stretch of Cheyenne River running through Mark Hollenbeck’s Sunrise Ranch near Edgemont, S.D. is certainly no exception to this rule.

Cutting hard on an old box call, Hollenbeck struck a bird less than 100 yards from where we parked the truck. After 10 minutes or so of silence, I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to slip down the river bank to view the large field leading to the next set of trees a few hundred yards down the bank. I figured the bird had split for the thicket.

I stayed hidden behind the high bank until I came to a

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It’s not just about the birds. It’s also the amazing finds along the way, like this South Dakota tipi ring.

large tree. Using the tree as cover, I slowly eased my head up, then my binoculars. The birds were nowhere to be seen, and they weren’t talking. I was just about to slip back down the bank to the truck when a gobble exploded so close it stood the hair up on the back of my neck.

The bird was just on the other side of the levee, no more than 20 yards away. I couldn’t have been in a better position. My gun was rested in the crook of a tree branch.

I was solid as a rock.

There was no reason to compare these two birds.

Both were true trophies based on experience alone. When the closer of the two entered the window of view afforded by my scope, I leveled the crosshairs on his head and thumped him.

OCELLATED – CAMPECHE, MEXICO A trip to the Yucatán Peninsula to chase ocellated turkey turned into one of the greatest adventures of my life. I took what is often regarded as the hardest of the six turkeys to kill while completing the world slam, and I enjoyed all aspects of the trip.

Snook Inn is located in the small village of Carlos Cano Cruz. It’s about an hour outside of Campeche. The accommodations are perfectly adequate for an authentic Mexican hunting adventure.

The food at Snook Inn was the best I’ve ever experienced in a hunting or fishing camp.

One night, we had all the stone crab claws we could eat paired with fresh-grilled Spanish mackerel. For dessert, we enjoyed pineapple drizzled with honey and rum.

The turkey hunting takes place in agricultural fields surrounded by dense jungle.

Jaguars roam these fields.

Ocellated turkeys often come through in flocks. The first morning, five gobblers came in front of me, and I ended my hunt before sunrise with a single shot.

The beauty of the ocellated turkey is in its colors. A shimmering aqua and bronze body is highlighted by a tail fan with each feather hosting an eye of blue. I spent the second morning behind the lens of my camera. More than 100 turkeys in a single flock flew down in front of my blind. The next hour was mesmerizing.

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EXPERIENCE ELLINGTON ~ Only 2 Hours South of St. Louis ~

Clearwater Lake and Webb Creek Recreation Area - Hwy H – Bring the family to

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boat, ski, fish, and unwind on crystal clear Clearwater Lake. This area of the lake is formed where Webb Creek and Logan Creek empty into Clearwater Lake. It is known for its crappie, bass and catfish fishing in the spring and Clearwater Lake fun for the entire family all summer long. Camping is available; at Webb Creek Recreation Park; plus a full service marina with boat/wave runner rentals on site. Webb Creek Park features over 40 campsites, swim beach, playground, showers, picnic pavilions, boat launch, and more. Call Webb Creek Marina at 573-461-2344 for marina, boat rental and campsite information or visit www.recreation.gov to make reservations. If you are interested in all the conveniences of home call Webb Creek Cabins for cabin rentals, 573-461-2244.

Black River and K Bridge 2 Recreation Area

- K Hwy – Float, canoe, fish and explore the beautiful Black River. Enjoy swimming, camping and picnicking right on the banks of the Black River. K Bridge Recreation Area and Campground offers playground, showers, electric and comfort station, visit www.

Black River reserveamerica.com to make reservations. Floats (raft or canoe) can be arranged on site by calling Jeff’s Canoe Rental at 573-598-4555. A small general store is also available on site.

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Current River -Hwy 106 to HH Highway- Fish, swim, camp and relax on majestic Current River. Great place to explore Current River. Rough camping is available at Log Yard Landing (known to the locals as Cardareva Gravel Bar) and the School Yard. These are available on a on a first come basis, electric is not available. Bring your tubes, rafts and kayaks; a perfect day float….put in at Current River Powder Mill and float to Log Yard.

Enjoy the quiet outdoors, a nice campfire and Current River this summer!

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Blue Spring- Hwy 106- This spring is the 6th

largest spring in Missouri and known for its deep blue color. It has been said that this spring is so deep, if submerged the Statue of Liberty’s torch would not be seen above the water and actually the bottom has never been found. Take your camera! Blue Spring can be accessed by boat, kayak, float or a short .25 mile hike from Powder Mill Recreation Area. Located on Current River, near Powder Mill.

5 Rocky Falls

- NN Hwy- A cascading crystal Rocky Creek drops from the Ozark Mountains into a lazy pool which eventually winds through the Ozarks to Current River. A must see if you are in the area and fun for all ages. Wear non-slip shoes and use caution when climbing on the falls. Picnic tables provided.

6 Current River Conservation Area

–Consists of 28,000 acres of state land. Deer, turkey, eagles, elk and a multitude of wildlife can be seen. UTV’s, ATV’s and vehicle traffic are welcomed on miles of gravel roads that wind through some 60+ food plots. Buford pond, Missouri’s first fire tower, a 1926 log cabin and an earthen Fort Barnesville can all be found here. Buford Pond provides fishing and picnicking and is a favorite location of all. For hunting enthusiasts an unstaffed rifle and archery range are provided.

Current River Conservation Area is home to the Missouri Ozark Ecosystem Project, the world’s most comprehensive forest management study. This 100 year project spans over 9,000 acres.

Main park entrance located on South Road in Ellington, other entrances located off Hwy 106 and HH highway. Maps are available at the main park entrance.

7 Local Flavor

– Ellington Chamber of Commerce & Copeland-Shy Visitor Center – One of the oldest homes in Ellington, built in 1886 by Dr. William Copeland, was recently opened as a visitor center. We invite you to stop by and pick up brochures and information about the area. Located at 155 W. Walnut Street (Hwy 106) in Ellington.

Copeland-Shy House

Also while in town you won’t want to miss the Reynolds County Museum while visiting Ellington. This museum is filled with relicts from days gone by and the rich history of the Ozarks.

Volunteers staff the establishment and are happy to answer questions; Open Mar-Nov, T-F 10-4 and 2nd Saturday of the month 10-4. Call 573-663-3233 for more information.

Need a spot for the kids to play, then visit Brawley Park located on South Road. This park features a playground, basketball courts, picnic pavilions and short hiking trail.

Want some nostalgia from a couple decades back; how about a Drive In movie. One of only a few drive-ins left in the Midwest is located just south of Ellington on Highway 21., call 573-945-2121 for info.

9 Blair Creek

- Hwy 106 – This area is a favorite of the local’s spring, summer and fall. For the person who is looking for the unknown, adventure into the wild Ozark hills for the beautiful views, caves, swimming, picnicking. Here riding the back roads in ATV’s, UTV’s and 4-wheel drives is exciting Blair Creek and fun. Entrance located North of Hwy 106 across from Blue Spring entrance.

10 Scenic Highway 106

- This 26 mile drive between Ellington and Eminence is known state wide for its scenic views and beauty, and is especially a favorite in the fall. This section of highway is also home to the Mid Atlantic Bicycle Trail and sees many bicycle travelers from April-October. Bicycle enthusiasts say it’s one of the “toughest sections on the trail” and known for the steep hills & hollers.

11 Peck Ranch

- H Highway, Shannon County- Listen for the bugle this fall! Elk are now roaming the hills of the Ozarks and can be seen in Peck Ranch, Current River Conservation Area and the surrounding region. Thanks to the Missouri Department of Conservation’s recent Elk Restoration Program elk were released into the elk zone beginning in the summer of 2011. With the third release the summer of 2013 the elk herd is nearing 200 bulls, cows and calves. Peck Ranch is open from sunrise/sunset daily and offers a driving tour. Bugling occurs in the fall, Sept-Nov. Check the Missouri Dept of Conservation website for park closing details. Maps are available at park entrance.

Elk

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9 8 4

8 Ozark Trail

- Hwy 106- Blair Creek & Current River section; Hwy 106 – Whether you are looking for a one day hike or want to make a few days of it; hiking these sections of the Ozark Trail is rewarding and adventurous.

Such splendid locations as Rocky Falls, Klepzig Mill and Buzzard Mountain Shut-Ins are located right on the trail.

For the adventurous visitor this is a must!

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Ellington Chamber of Commerce | www.ellingtonmo.com | Find us Content provided by Outdoor Guide Magazine – outdoorguidemagazine.com

RV Page 18

St. Louis RV Vacation &Travel Show Program

Camping Gear & Gadgets Intex Air Beds Give Great Rest Anywhere

Intex Recreation offers a series of luxury air beds made with Fiber-Tech, which uses thousands of high-strength polyester fibers to provide lasting durability and comfort that is easy to inflate.

The beds have internal 110-120V air pumps and handy carry bags. They are perfect for a busy life on the go.

Thicknesses include the 22” High-Rise, a punctureresistant 18” Prem-Aire and a 20” luxury model with insulation and moisture control.

Intex air beds list at $69.99 for the High-Rise and $99.99 for the Prem-Aire at retailers nationwide and online. The luxury model lists for $145 and is available only at Wal-Mart. For more information, go online to intexcorp.com/airbeds.

Color Crystals Bring Out the Beauty in a Campfire How about a sparkly, colorful camp fire? Sounds like fun! All it takes is a package of Outdoors Unlimited’s Enviro-Log Color-Flame crystals.

Just toss a few of these crystals into your fire and amazing things will start to happen.

Outdoors Unlimited also makes a wide range of handy fire logs and fire starters.

Enviro-Log Color-Flame crystals are available from Midwest RV for $104 for 48 packets. Go online to midwestrvcenter.com, choose Shop Online under Parts and search for Outdoors Unlimited Enviro-Log Crystals.

The Best Holding Tank Treatment Made Here

The Kronen Holding Tank Treatment is a bacteria-based and nature-safe solution to RV holding tank issues, in liquid or drop-in form. It will: • Neutralize odors instead of covering them up.

• Liquify waste and tissue for faster transfers.

• Require less physical cleaning.

• Soften and reduce grease build-up.

• Help floats and sensors stay clean.

• Do its job nature-safe and formaldehyde-free.

All Kronen products are made in St. Louis.

Kronen Holding Tank Treatment is available at 47 West Trailer Sales, 26 Dream Hollow, Troy, call 1-866-464-5434, and from other local RV dealers.

These Sweet Smells Keep Rodents Away

RV Survival Kit Keeps It All Ready

Not much can be worse on a camping trip than a rodent infestation, but AP Products has a solution to keep those “little friends” at bay – Fresh Cab Botanical Pest Repellent.

The repellent comes in a four-pack. It is a 100 percent natural blend of corncob chips, plants and herbal extracts that both freshen the air and keep rats and mice away.

Independent studies verify that it works in leisure vehicles and hunting gear, and it was awarded the USDA Green Seal of Approval.

Fresh Cab Botanical Rodent Repellent sells for $22 at Midwest RV Center. Go to mwrvcenter.com, select “online sales” under Parts and search for Fresh Cab.

The new RV Survival Kit has everything adventurers will need to survive three days in the wild (for two people) or one day (for up to six.)

It has emergency food and water, an LED flare, a solar and hand-crank NOAA radio with built-in flashlight, plus a phone charger, water purification tablets, survival blanket, poncho, hand warmers and much more, all packed in a compact utility bag with handle and shoulder strap.

The kit has a five-year shelf life and is approved by the U.S. Coast Guard.

RV Survival Kit lists for $95.99 but was selling online for $79.99 at emergencykits.com, with discounts for quantities.

Adjustable Clothesline Is the Handiest Hanger Out There An adjustable, movable clothesline is a

nice thing to have on any camping trip.

Byerly RV has one of the best, made

by Rollumup.

This three-tier clothesline can be easily moved anywhere the sun shines. It hangs from two included hook-and-loop fabric accessory holders that slide into the utility slot of an RV awning.

When clothes are dry, just release the clothesline from the holders and store it away until the next time you need it. It also comes with two 9” ground pegs.

The adjustable clothesline is available for $26.99 at ByerlyRV.com under the Parts section’s Online Parts Store.

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Handy Folding Table Has Four Height Levels Here’s one of the handiest travel tables we’ve seen, the Folding Table with Mesh Storage Shelf.

It has a sturdy but light aluminum frame, laminated fiberboard top and a mesh shelf underneath. Best of all, its adjustable legs allow for four different heights, for use on the floor, on counters and on tabletops.

Leveling feet allow for adjustments on uneven terrain, and it folds into a suitcase-style carrying case with handle. The table is 31” wide and 15” deep. It weighs 6.66 pounds and holds up to 66 pounds.

The Folding Table is available for $69.99 at ByerlyRV. com under the Parts category.

Take an Antenna Along on a Camping Trip

Winegard has answers for RV users who need reliable satellite antennas.

One is model 71-8393, a TV antenna for single satellite viewing that supports two single-tuners or one dual-tuner receiver. It is 13” high, 7 pounds and 17” in diameter.

The model 81-0609 is an in-motion antenna for viewing while driving that is lighter and smaller than comparable model, but with improved tracking capabilities.

Winegard’s 81-0609 in-motion antenna retails for $1,626 and the 71-8393 is $605, both at 47 W Trailer Sales, along with other Winegard products, at 23 Dream Hollow Road in Troy, MO, or call (636) 528-4301 or go online to www.47westtrailers.com.

St. Louis RV Vacation &Travel Show Program

RV Page 19

Winter Bonanza Awaits Trout Fans

By GERALD J. SCOTT

The catch-and-release fishing available at Missouri’s four trout parks from Fridays through Mondays from midNovember through mid-February has received decades of well-deserved publicity.

In addition, selected ponds in Kansas City, St. Louis, Columbia, Jefferson City, St. Joseph, Kirksville and Sedalia are stocked with trout each Nov. 1 and are available for catch-and-release angling through the end of January.

Finally, proponents of the “angling-as-art” set can enjoy themselves at the state’s Blue Ribbon and Red Ribbon Trout Areas. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) manages these streams to provide high quality catchand-release angling for large, oftentimes wild, trout. It’s technically possible to harvest a trophy trout, although, for the life of me, I can’t see why anyone would want to kill one.

Conversely, I have no trouble at all understanding why someone would want to take home a limit of rainbows, each just the right size to feed one person at a single sitting. I am, as a matter of fact, one of those people. Furthermore, the winter months are my favorite time to enjoy a day of high-quality

trout fishing followed by an equally high-quality meal of grilled trout.

THE LONG WAIT I suppose I could wait until Feb. 1, when it will be legal to keep trout caught in the city trout ponds, or until March 1, when catch-and-keep fishing opens in the parks. But “wait” has never been among my favorite verbs under any circumstances. Furthermore, when paired with any action verb used in connection with fishing, I consider “wait” to be an abomination.

Happily, the MDC has “felt my pain.” The agency’s overall trout management plan designates a number of streams or portions of streams as “White Ribbon Trout Areas.” By definition, these are “cold water streams capable of supporting trout populations year-round.”

All receive periodic stockings of rainbow trout, and some also receive brown trout. They provide great opportunities for harvesting (i.e. eating) rainbow trout of any size and the occasional chance to tangle with a brown trout, grown big and mean under the stricter regulations governing this species.

There are nine White Ribbon Trout Areas. They range in length from three tenths of a mile on Pulaski County’s

Scott Gerit of Mid-Missouri Trout Unlimited lands a rainbow on the Niangua upstream from Bennett Spring.

– Conservation Federation of Missouri photo.

Stone Mill Spring to 14.2 miles on Oregon County’s Eleven Point River. Most of them offer several miles of uncrowded wintertime trout angling with enough access sites to spread the minimal angling pressure.

The basic regulations governing White Ribbon Trout

Areas include the statewide four-trout daily creel limit with no size restriction on rainbow trout and a 15-inch minimum length on brown trout. Both artificial lures and live or prepared baits may be used. That said, more restrictive regulations are in effect on a few of

these streams, so, to slightly paraphrase Davy Crockett, “Be sure you’re right, before you go ahead.”

NOTHING LIKE THE NIANGUA If I lived in eastern or southeastern Missouri, my choice might well be different, but from where I sit (literally), the Niangua River deserves a purple ribbon in the White Ribbon Trout Area category.

Technically, the entire river and its tributaries are included in the trout management area, and, during the winter months, I’m sure there are a few trout far upstream of the mouth of Bennett Spring. Nevertheless, the first dozen miles of river below the spring hold an overwhelming majority of its trout, even during the winter.

The Niangua is a popular recreational float stream during the summer months, and floating’s indisputably the best – or at least easiest – way to sample the river’s winter trout fishing as well. To be sure, many of the area’s concessionaires are closed during the off-season, but it’s far from impossible to locate an outfitter who’s eager to help anglers get on the water in January and February.

I’m a huge fan of the concept of float fishing, but, for a number of personal reasons,

I’m far less excited by the reality of float fishing. I prefer to access one, albeit far smaller, section of river from the bank, because this approach allows me to fish at my own pace, rather than either the river’s or the clock’s. Bridge crossings, boat access points, conservation areas and other public land along all nine streams make it easy for anyone to go his or her own way.

HE DID IT HIS WAY For what it’s worth, more often than not, “my way” is wading the riffles and shallow runs wielding a fly rod.

However, under “aggressive questioning,” I might admit that using spinning gear to work weighted flies, jigs, spinners and a host of other lures or baits is every bit as effective.

In fact, there are times when tight-lining commercial trout bait, corn or cheese on the bottom of a deep, quiet pool is an unbeatable tactic.

OK, I admit that last one sounds more like catfishing than it does something as sophisticated as trout fishing. On the other hand, propping his or her rod in a forked stick allows the angler to build a small handwarming fire on exceptionally cold days. Personally, I find that only minimally embarrassing.

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Creating the Best Hunting Spot

Text and Graphic

By CRAIG ALDERMAN

We all have names for it – the sweet spot, the honey hole. It’s the place where we feel we have the best opportunity to not only see game but harvest it, pursuing a heritage set long ago by our forefathers.

If we find it, it is a very closely guarded secret, nearly as protected as a B-2 Stealth aircraft. These spots are created not only by nature but by conservation.

But listen up! The reality is that these places, and every other location good for wildlife, may be slipping away, right before our eyes.

At a high-horsepower meeting recently, of many state wildlife and game directors, there was a common theme about hunting that should shake us all. We know whitetail deer hunters are the largest game hunting population in the U.S., and they have a passion for getting outside.

But! Research and state surveys are sadly showing they also are the least of hunters to do any wildlife habitat work at all, either on their own lands or that of lands they lease or use.

The most active in actual, on-the-ground, turn-the-dirt work are upland bird hunters.

WILDLIFE LOVERS MUST PITCH IN Now, we can argue about surveys, but the bottom line is that more work is needed, and fast, by the people using the resource. Most upland species are in a state of decline across the landscape because, for the most part, of a decline in suitable habitat – the “Sweet Spot,” let’s call it, that wildlife need to survive and thrive.

First, it is not food plots, nor feeders, bait piles, mineral deposits or high fence operations that we need.

Those are shooting locations – not habitat!

As biologists, there is blame to share. We have got to relate technical terms to common language. “Successional habitat” must now be called something like “the Sweet Spot” – the location where all the environmental factors of wildlife management come

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is uncontrollable effects of weather in all forms, and 20 percent is natural predators.

Make no mistake. If you increase habitat for wildlife, predators will find it first.

The formulas keep changing in percentages, in any given year. Weather can be 60 percent to 70 percent of the influence. Other years, predators can increase and hit any population hard and be the driver.

Make time. Plan it. Mark it on the calendar. I spend

better than three months a year on all types of habitat work, on our lands and those of others, but my old bones cannot do that much longer.

The rest of the year I’m trying to engage landowners, do research on making the task easier, coordinate battles against invasive species like the feral hog, and if I’m really lucky, spend time with my grandchildren. The old conservation soldiers need help and fast.

Further, we are losing

habitat due to owner changes – true acres being lost forever due to building encroachment and the selling of farms and ranches – because the next generation does not want to work the land and they like the “instant gratification” of pushing a button or selecting an icon.

Lose farmers and you do not eat. It’s that simple – no land to grow things, and the same result, just slower, as the game disappears with it.

Please do not wait too long

Take a Look

at Back Issues of Outdoor Guide Magazine

by Visiting outdoorguidemagazine.com

to see the light. Get involved!

And share this with anyone who hunts.

Craig Alderman is the founder and executive director of the Quail and Uplands Wildlife Federation. He is a certified wildlife biologist and forester, having been active in these fields for over four decades. His personal passion is preserving our natural wildlife and its habitat across the U.S. through private and public landowners.

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together to provide the best chance for survival, growth and, yes, hunting opportunity.

At right (or at left, above or below) is a graphic of that “Sweet Spot,” and it’s not about the exact locations.

This spot is where all ground-nesting birds exist, like quail and turkey, where whitetail deer, elk and moose thrive, where grouse do the best, plus rabbits, squirrels and a multitude of songbirds and even butterflies. They all will use mature timber, but it is not a primary environment.

They pass through it. Small softwood trees or smalldiameter hardwoods, as they progress from grasses to shrubs to mature trees, are the successional “Sweet Spots” critical to most wildlife.

Nature herself is always progressing on this chart, from the left to the right, and it never stops. Mature forests are pretty much dead to wildlife. “Sweet Spot” management means we have to manually cut the forest back (a very renewable resource), monitor and enhance native grasses leading to shrubs and not let shrubs grow into 80-foot trees. Whether it is farm, federal or state land, the battle is the same.

If you hunt, you can help.

Get out on the land, join an organization that actually does something, including insured controlled burns to set back unwanted species that grow too fast, such as cedars and to remove unwanted ground fuel, releasing native grasses.

You owe it to the land and your hunting future.

Help landowners with fencing, stream clean-up, timber removal and planting. Ask if he or she has a wildlife habitat management plan. Help them get one, they are free, and there may be multiple sources of cost sharing or outright financing for beneficial wildlife projects.

MAKE TIME FOR HABITAT Is it easy? No. Does it show immediate benefit?

Yes! At the Quail and Uplands Wildlife Federation, we have a basic wildlife habitat formula of the three main influences directly affecting wildlife – 40 percent of their success is directly related to the right habitat, 40 percent

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A 40-Year Love Affair with Beagles

By GERALD J. SCOTT

If this column isn’t as organized – to say nothing of coherent – as you’re used to reading, there’s a reason. I’m finding it almost impossible to concentrate on today’s duties because a beagle named Jill and I will be taking the first steps toward forming a partnership tomorrow.

Thanks to a mutual love of beagles, Mark Ackmann has become one of my best friends. When he and I finish

hunting, Jill will jump into my dog box instead of his for the ride home. There’s no way she could know, but the kennel she will occupy was her mother Happy’s home until about this time last year.

Jill and I will write our own chapters, of course.

Meanwhile, I can’t help but reminisce about some of the other beagles I’ve shared rabbit hunts with over the past 40 years.

My first beagle was a gift

from my mother-in-law. I named her Queen, after my grandfather’s favorite English setter. I knew less than nothing about beagles, and the only combo house and hunting dog I’d ever owned was housebroken when I got him.

To be sure, some of the less pleasant aspects of learning to live inside a house were left to Amber, Aaron, Susan and me to teach, but our cat Nieman took it upon himself to teach

Beagles have been his good companions for over 40 years. – National Beagle Club of America photo

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Queen manners.

A HARD LESSON The 10-week-old pup, who had pulled the same stunt with Amber a week or so earlier, decided it would be fun to get within a few inches of the cat’s face and start barking. I was watching when Nieman lashed out with both front feet and sunk his claws behind Queen’s jaws. He then proceeded to chew on the instantly repentant pup’s nose. Not only did Queen learn to leave cats alone, but she never again barked in the house.

Queen was a natural rabbit trailer. I have no idea how many rabbits my son, my daughter and I shot in front of her, but it was a bunch.

We would have shot a lot more were it not for a jerk who – deliberately according to my daughter – ran over her in the road in front of our house.

I bought Grace from a man who raised beagles.

He knew I was an outdoor writer, and he was reluctant to sell her to me because he thought she was “too shy to be showy.” But there was some intangible something about her that attracted her to me, and after she proved herself to my satisfaction in his training pen, I brought her home.

Even today, I’m not sure I fully appreciate how exceptional Grace was. The first season I had her, I shot 54 cottontails in front of her, and various hunting partners shot about that many more.

She hunted for the gun like an excellent bird dog does, and I swear she could find rabbits where there were no rabbits.

In the off-season, she liked to go bank fishing for catfish with me and was always up for a day in the timber, working on deer stands. When day was done, she divided her time between her official bed in a corner of the living room and my

office.

BAD TO GOOD I don’t always pick winners, of course. Grace was followed by Amy. The best thing I can say about Amy is that she introduced me to Mark Ackmann, who was training beagles professionally at the time.

Mark turned her into a good rabbit hunter, but Amy was one of those dogs whose bad habits made her very hard to like. To be honest, I was glad when I was rid of her.

Of course, the fact that Mark sent Happy home with me when I picked Amy up at the end of her training made going back to being a onebeagle man easier. Many of Happy’s puppies had gone on to win fame on the fieldtrial circuit, but she was 10 years old, and Mark felt that she had earned the right to retire. He rightly believed that I would give her a good home for the rest of her life.

Happy was aptly named.

In fact, she was the most laid-back beagle I’ve ever seen. But that didn’t mean that she didn’t give her all when she jumped a rabbit, because she most certainly did.

A GOOD WAY TO GO Happy and I had three good hunting seasons together before age slowed her and a pinched nerve in my lower back all but stopped me. Even so, last January, she went along on three trips to work on a deer stand for Susan that under ordinary circumstances I would have finished in less than one.

In retrospect, I think she acted unexplainably odd that last day. She wondered off to explore like she always did, but when I was ready to quit, she didn’t come when I called. I found her dead, curled up at the base of a tree. I wouldn’t mind leaving this world like that myself.

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Kayaking

Touch-Up Maintenance in Winter

Graphics and Text

By TOM WATSON

For most of us who paddle, year-end maintenance comes during those months when we are rarely on the cold waters of winter. It’s a good time for even a little “touch-up” maintenance on our kayaks, particularly those small scrapes and scratches we’ve acquired throughout the year.

Before sharing some tips on quick and easy fixes, it’s important to note that whatever you apply to your deck – be it resin, putty, glue or heat weld – you should first check with your dealer or your boat’s

manufacturer to make sure you won’t cause more problems by applying something that will damage your boat in any way.

DON’T MAKE IT WORSE Today’s watercraft include boats composed of wood, fiberglass, composite/graphite and thermoform plastics. Scratches that tend to leave tiny burrs of plastic curled up along the surface of your rotomold boat or unsightly streaks and microgouges in your fiberglass or thermo-form hull are among the mostly cosmetic blemishes boats acquire after even modest paddling. Each repair similarly

but with their own special requirements and concerns: • FIBERGLASS – Superficial surface dings can be filled with just fiberglass resin. Serious scratches may require a strip of fiberglass cloth along their length. Even deeper damage may require building up layers of filler cloth.

• WOOD – Since the outer layer of most wooden kayaks is fiberglass, surface scratches are repaired in the same way.

• GRAPHITE/COMPOSITE

– Similar to fiberglass, but special epoxy resins may be required.

• ROTOMOLD –Simple surface scratches can actually be

Repairs of deeper gouges vary only slightly among different boat materials.

“shaved” smooth and even carefully melted using hot air from a hair dryer. Plastic welding is an option but can lead to much more serious damage.

Some fillers/adhesives don’t work on rotomold plastic.

• THERMOFORM – Similar to fiberglass repair but may require special fillers and adhesives that are compatible with thermoform plastics.

Prior to any repair, all work surfaces should be cleaned of debris, oil and other contaminants. Any burrs, fragments and other loose segments of the base hull/deck material should be carefully removed. Most fill material can be applied by brush or putty knife-like tools.

Apply filler carefully, completely but sparingly – keeping in mind the set-up time of the filler you are using. Smooth over repair and coat with resin or gelcoat if appropriate.

A responsible paddler makes periodic hull inspections and attends to simple repairs as needed. Be safe.

Have fun!

Rotomold surface burrs and nicks can be shaved smooth in most cases.

February Is the Perfect Time for Prospecting A Guide to Finding New Hunting Ground Photos and Text

By JOHN SLOAN Let’s start with a few questions.

• Would you like a place to deer-hunt without driving for hours?

• Is everything near you posted?

• How much land do you think it takes to produce bragging-size bucks?

• Ever thought of hunting inside the city limits?

• That February is the best month to find new property?

OK, let’s face it. Hunting habitat is shrinking. Each year, there are fewer places to hunt, big farms are being sold and subdivided and broken into smaller, “gentleman” farms. Hunting land is lost.

Perhaps it has happened to you. I know it has to me.

So what are you going to do about it?

I am 74 years old. I no longer travel to hunt, and yet I have more land within 10

minutes of my house than I can hunt. And the largest parcel is 48 acres. The smallest is 13 acres.

JUST 13 ACRES A few months ago in November, a man at the car wash came up to my truck, introduced himself and asked me if I could help him with his deer problem. He owns 13 acres on the edge of town. I went, looked, placed two stands and the first time I hunted there, I killed two deer.

I admit, that is not normal.

But how do you gain access to hunt these small parcels if you don’t ask? The first step is to learn who owns them. You must know that. The next step is one you take in February, the perfect month to talk with a landowner about hunting.

That’s not asking to hunt, but talking about hunting.

Ignore the posted signs.

Don’t worry about the small acreage. Ten acres can hold a monster deer. There is no

I know, it sure is ugly, but I often hunt this 13 acres. The first time I did, I killed two deer within 30 seconds.

perfect place to meet said landowner, but church is a good start. But what if you don’t know the owner and don’t know anyone who can refer you? Simply stop and ask. Here is how I go about it.

HOW HE DOES IT First, I am NOT dressed in camo and my vehicle is clean.

I simply introduce myself and mention that I see deer almost every time I drive by. Usually this is met with some sort of positive comment from the owner. I then mention I am a photographer and wonder if I could get permission to stop, now and then, and take pictures of the deer. I say I will not hurt anything or leave any gates open.

If he agrees, that opens the door for me to ask to hunt a few months down the road.

Say mid-summer, after we are well acquainted. And that is done, almost always, in this manner: “Mr. Landowner, these deer are going to eat your (garden, shrubbery, flowers – whatever,) up. What would you say to me doing a little bowhunting and maybe thin them out some?”

Then go into your safety precautions, etc. It works 75 percent of the time.

If you cannot do that – maybe you don’t own a camera – just come right out with this. After mentioning that you always see deer, blah, blah, say, “They are becoming such a health hazard in terms of disease and auto collisions and crop damage, I was won-

dering if you would consider talking with me about possibly doing some bowhunting this fall and maybe thin them out a little.”

WHEN ‘NO’ IS THE ANSWER Again, February is the best month, because when they say no, as many will, you can come back in June and ask again.

You see, a “No” is almost always because either the wife loves them or his family hunts. Of the two, you want the wife to love them. The “family hunting” answer is a dead end. But by the time the deer have eaten all the wife’s shrubs, she may have a change of heart.

One of the prime spots I bowhunt is right behind my house. A neighbor owns two parcels totaling 23 acres. He built a 7,500-square foot mansion complete with manicured lawn and goose pond. His

Deer rubs are a good sign.

Some of the 28 deer I counted in front of my neighbor’s big house one August afternoon.

wife started feeding the deer … and geese. In partnership, they destroyed his lawn.

My first request to hunt was met with a friendly, “No, the wife feeds them.” I laughed and said, “You’ll regret that.”

In early August, six months later, he called me – begging for help. He wanted every deer and every goose killed. I can walk out my back door and be in a stand in six minutes. And, HE is the man who suggested the guy at the car wash get in touch with me.

REFERRALS & GIFTS Yes, there is a big turnover. Due to rabid land sales, you will lose some places.

But if you do things right, you also gain some. The key, just like selling insurance, is to ask for referrals. Hunt right, be polite, do things right and give each owner a small, token Christmas gift. I give each one a $25 gift card to a local restaurant.

If you cultivate friends, you cultivate opportunities.

On all but one of the places I hunt, and there are six of them, I gun hunt as well as with bow. They all are inside the city limits (it’s perfectly legal) and some are in actual large-scale neighborhoods.

Now is the time to start looking and asking. February is the perfect month.

Not much good for anything else.

Retired judge Bob Hamilton killed this handsome eightpointer across the street from my house.

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Outdoor Guide

January-February 2019

Hunting to the End of the Hunt

Photo and Text

By TED NUGENT

The conditions were just right for our bowhunting dreams. It was a wonderful, dark, dreary, overcast, cold, breezy, gray-cloud October afternoon.

Inspired by the hunterfriendly weather, I headed into the wind for my favorite west woods tree stand a couple hours earlier than usual.

Not really expecting to encounter deer on the way in, I typically would casually stroll through the half-mile of enchanting deer woods at a leisurely, somewhat alert pace to my stand.

I didn’t exactly walk along with my radar turned off like a city kid, but I also didn’t sneak in a perfect deadly stealth mode either.

This day felt different, you know, a bowhunter’s sixth sense kind of thing, and with a better tuned-in, more focused situational bowhunter awareness, I did my very best Fred Bear predator approach and took my time, more like outright stalking than just still hunting.

Staying in the shadows, I only took a few ultra-slow, cautious steps at a time and never stepped on anything I could step over.

HORIZONTAL LINES I moved with my eyes 10 times more than with my feet and forced myself to stand still and probe the forest with the utmost of attentiveness.

Like Fred and other master bowhunters taught us, I looked for horizontal lines and parts of a deer instead of the whole animal.

I reminded myself to look for a flicker of white or a quiver of an ear or head more than a deer’s body.

Not surprisingly the rewards were instantaneous, with nonstop increased sightings of birds, squirrels and the always titillating flora and fauna.

More than once I was inspired to increase my pace and finish the walk to my stand, excited to get settled in for what has become my standard operating tree stand ambush procedure.

But I resisted the urge and kept my movement slow and easy.

And then it happened! As I was about to take another careful step from the cover of a giant oak blowdown tangle, my eyes zeroed in on the slightest of miniscule movements, as the edge of an ear turned into a doe’s head. She was only 60 or 70 yards out and cautiously browsing along the edge of the cattail marsh-grass, nibbling here and there and reaching down into the fern-strewn forest floor for the occasional acorn.

With no thought at all and without taking my eyes off

Nugent used his best Fred Bear predator approach.

the distant deer, my right hand slowly withdrew an arrow from my quiver and silently snapped it onto my bowstring.

Whenever her head went down, I took a very small step toward an intersecting course.

CHALLENGE AND STEALTH I have killed a few deer while still hunting over the past 60 years, but the excitement of getting away with any movement whatsoever, hoping to get in bow range of this old, wise swamp donkey, was the essence of bowhunting challenge and stealth, and so far so good!

I was pretty much expecting her to nail me at any given moment, but I was closing the distance slowly but surely and beginning to tremble with excitement a little bit more with each tiny step.

A few times, her head jerked up and she scanned her surroundings like mature deer so often do for no apparent reason, and I was sure the jig was up.

But as luck would have it, she would eventually settle back down and resume her woodland feeding.

After about an hour of this nerve-wracking ordeal, only 35 yards of thick woods separated us, and as her chest entered a window between two trees, my bow came up unto itself and my eyes and entire being owned the path to her pump station.

The entire universe consisted of deer, opening, anchor, pin, peep, hand, fingers spirit. In an instant, my arrow was gone.

With the increased visibility of my black-and-white Nugent Gold Tip zebra arrows, the mystical flight was easy to follow, effervescent, and as if in slow motion, it lasered across the woodland gap from my eyeballs to her ribcage and flashed clean through her in a nano-second, right where the good doctor backstrap ordered!

Lord have mercy! It was phenomenal to say the least.

I just stood there grinning like a toothy Cheshire cat, simply amazed at such an amazing bowhunting moment.

ME AND COCHISE The whole world stopped. I literally just hung my head and pursed my lips with a slight snicker. It was just me, Cochise, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, White Cloud, Crazy Horse, Ishi, Fred, Howard, Ben, Roy, the Great Spirit and Dad. I’ve bow-killed more than 1,000 big-game animals in my life, and every one of them was special and powerfully seared into my memory bank. But this kill took on a life of its own, as all the possibilities of a dream bowhunt unfolded like a chapter out of time.

Her death run was short and noisy, the blood trail incredible and the recovery magic. She died at the edge of the beautiful, earth-tone colored marsh just below my big timber tree stand, so I was able to gut her and turn her over and prop her up to drain in the cool shadows, still make it to my tree, and two hours later arrow another fat slick-head she-strapper for a bowhunting night to remember.

There was no happier bowhunter on Earth that day!

HUNT TO THE END Do not fail to hunt all the way to your hunt. Once we leave the pavement, the house, the cabin, the tent or camp with bow in hand is when the actual hunt begins. You just never know if, when, how or where these tricky, unpredictable deer will be encountered, so we should remain in fullon kill mode at all times.

I promise you, it is worth it to start out early whenever we can to seriously hunt as we head to our stand. It is a low-percentage reality, but I have learned over time that even when no deer is encountered, much less killed, the tuned-in stalking lessons go a long way in preparing us to be better predators, no matter the chosen methodology.

There is, after all, a spirit to the wild, and the slower we go and the more attentively we dedicate ourselves, the betterconnected and more-efficient predators we can become.

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Outdoor Guide

Page 14

January-February 2019

Shed Hunt Brings Antlers, Info Photo and Text

By BRANDON BUTLER

Look for shed antlers along travel corridors, in bedding areas, in feeding areas, along fences and at water crossings.

After the long, brutal cold snap we just experienced, I had to find a reason to be outside. So I headed to a farm where I hunt deer to take down tree stands and look for shed antlers.

In case someone reading this is new to big-game biology, each year cervids, including deer, “shed” their antlers and grow a new set.

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shed and continue to grow throughout their lives. Deer typically shed their antlers from late December through February.

WHERE THEY ARE Looking for sheds can be like finding a needle in a haystack, but there are ways to increase your odds of finding antlers. Some key areas to focus on are travel corridors, bedding areas, feeding areas, along fences and at water crossings.

Bedding areas and feeding areas are key locations, because this is where deer spend the majority of their time. Fences are key because when bucks jump a fence, the jar of hitting the ground can knock antlers off. Antlers can just as easily fall off with the simple shake of a buck’s head while walking.

Finding a shed is exciting and educational. It lets you know what kind of bucks you might have around next season.

Water crossings are another good place to locate sheds. I often hunt along the edge of a large creek. From my stand, I regularly watch deer cross at the same spot. They hang up on either side as they scope out the direction they’re heading.

While they stand there, a shed could drop.

MAPS & PHOTOS Maps and aerial photos can cut your work in half. Look for natural funnels that force deer to pass by certain areas.

Any section of woods with an hourglass shape is a good place to begin scouting.

Deer, especially mature bucks, will generally hang

• Dogwood

day’s visit. If I come back, I might look into a horseback ride or at least the tram tour to see some of the larger wildlife.

We were glad we went, and I gained some understanding of the difference between a public park and private park – enhanced waterfalls being one – and I saw that they both have their roles to play.

One fan of Dogwood Canyon is Bobby Whitehead, editor of the Outdoor Guide, who actually knows Johnny Morris and has been around this scene for a long time. I asked him for a few recollections.

“Twenty-five years ago, I was lucky enough to fish Dogwood Canyon when it was private, and only VIPs and media were allowed,” he said.

That’s all changed, he added. “The stream flowing and cascading through the canyon teems with rainbow trout, and they are fed daily,” he said. “It is quite something to see.

as tight to cover as possible while traveling. Hunt in the “funnel” to intercept traveling deer. Certain areas that often produce funnels are water edges and roadways. Look for areas where two corners meet as well. Google Maps is a great way to obtain free photos of any property you plan to hunt.

A bonus of shed hunting is they are great for making crafts. I enjoy making crafts out of sheds. I don’t cut up the antlers of deer I’ve killed, but I have no problem turning a shed into a candleholder, key ring or wine rack. I’ve saved a bunch of money over the years giving such gifts at Christmas time.

NOT ROCKET SCIENCE Shed hunting isn’t rocket science. The basic premise is that bucks drop their antlers in late winter, and you hike around trying to find them.

However, just like with all other types of hunting, he who is prepared is most likely to be successful. Serious shed hunters develop and work a strategy. A likely part of that strategy is a canine companion. A good dog greatly improves your odds at this needle-in-a-haystack game.

This time of year, just getting out and stretching your legs is worth the trip.

Dogs enjoy it, too. On this trip, while pulling out of the farm, I was treated to a sight that warmed my spirit. Seven long-beards were scratching around in the cow pasture.

Turkey season will be here soon, and with a look out my window this evening, it can’t come soon enough.

from page 2 “My wife Debbie and I recently toured Dogwood,” Whitehead added. “Our escort, Chad Phillips, a longtime employee, pointed out the reconstruction of the property after last year’s historic flood.

Now we have more waterfalls and accessible areas than ever.”

The Whiteheads were especially impressed with the restaurant, a very recent addition.

“It sits right on the pond, overlooking the water with a waterfall overhead,” he said.

“The food and service is first class. Not a prettier place to play close to Branson, and just minutes from Big Cedar Lodge.”

ONE LAST TIP Dogwood Canyon is well worth a visit when you’re in the Branson area. But before you go, spend a little time on its website at dogwoodcanyon.org. You’ll see all the choices, with more options and prices than I can include here.

Outdoor Guide

January-February 2019

Page 15

Plastic Grubs Good for Catching Bass

By JOHN NEPORADNY JR.

off-color water, whereas the smoke works better in ginclear water. If the bites are The tantalizing, twisting coming close to the bottom tail of a plastic grub attracts and I am seeing tentacles strikes from a wide range of and crawdads coming out game fish including all three of the fish, that is when the species of black bass. watermelon color seems to Table Rock Lake guide work a little better.”

Pete Wenners has relied on A homemade darter jigthe single-tail plastic grub head equipped with a 3/0 in tournaments and also or 4/0 light wire hook is for his clients to catch bass Wenner’s choice for attachthroughout the years. ing to a plastic grub. He uses “It is a lure you can fish the jighead with a 4/0 hook 12 months of the year,” he for targeting heavier largesaid. “It matches the bait mouth bass and changes to size, and it is a superior bait jighead with the 3/0 hook for suspended bass. Before for catching spotted and the drop shot came out, all smallmouth bass. we vertical fished with were OPEN HOOK, a grub, tube jig or a spoon.”

MORE FISH The Missouri angler presThe tournament competients the grub horizontally and vertically to suspended tor favors rigging his plastic bass depending on the depth grubs on an open hook withof the fish. His favorite times out a weedguard. “I lose a to throw a plastic grub are few more baits like that, but during the pre-spawn and I feel that I hook more fish post-spawn, when bass on the open hook,” he said.

When rigging his grubs are staging on points at the mouths of spawning on the jighead, Wenners positions the grub so the eye pockets.

During the March 2017 of the jighead faces upward Bassmaster Central Open and the grub’s tail points on Table Rock, Wenners fin- downward. He believes the ished fifth by catching most grub’s tail displaces more of his fish with horizontalor water and generates more action with it pointed down. vertical plastic grubs.

Most of the time, Wenne“I was catching some suspended bass casting (in rs matches his grub with shallower water) and then a 1/4-ounce jighead. He I would get over a group switches to a 1/8-ounce in water over 20 feet or model for fishing in shaldeeper, where I would just lower water and opts for drop the grub straight down a 3/8-ounce jighead to get and vertical fish it,” he said. better contact with the lure in windy conditions.

TWO SIZES, The tackle Wenners uses THREE COLORS for grub fishing consists The Table Rock guide of a 7-foot medium action has used a variety of plastic Lew’s spinning rod and grubs made by Yamamoto, Team Lew’s spinning reel Bass Pro Shops, Kalin’s and filled with 6-pound test line.

Chompers in 4- and 5-inch He opts for fluorocarbon sizes. “Probably my favorite when he needs the sensitivday in and day out is the ity to feel light bites, and Chompers,” he said. The he switches to monofilasize of grub Wenners uses ment for most of his grub varies from day to day, but tactics because it is more he has noticed the 4-inch is manageable and kinks up the most consistent. less, especially in cold water.

Wenners opts for plastic A Garmin Panoptix unit grubs in three main colors: helps Wenners present his salt-and-pepper (white), plastic grub to schools of smoke with black flake suspended bass. and watermelon with black “The awesome thing flake. The forage bass are about the Panoptix is when feeding on and water clarity you get around a school of determines which color grub fish or bait and all of a sudden Wenners selects each day. you lose them, then you can “If I feel like the fish are just fan the trolling motor feeding heavily on shad, with the Panoptix and locate then the smoke or salt and where the fish are,” he said. pepper works better,” he “It will also tell you how said. “The white seems to deep the fish are.” work a little bit better in

A Chompers Double Tail Grub Jig Trailer

COUNTING IT DOWN When he figures out the depth of the bass, Wenners casts beyond the school and counts down his grub,

which he estimates falls 1 foot per second with the 1/4-ounce jighead. “The key is that as soon as the bait hits the water, you want to engage your reel and turn it a time or two to get the slack out of your line,” he said. “So as you are

A Chompers Twin Tail Skirted Grub

counting it down, you can watch that line, because a high percentage of your bites are going to come before it reaches the depth you are counting it down to.”

Two retrieves produce best for Wenners when he casts his grubs. He employs either a slow steady retrieve, keeping his lure at the same depth as the school of bass, or when his lure drops to the depth of the fish, he pumps the grub by lifting

his rod from the 10 o’clock position to 12 o’clock position. Then he drops the rod back down to let the lure fall.

“A lot of the bites are going to come on the drop as you drop the rod tip and your bait is going down,” he said.

His plastic grub tactics produce mostly numbers of bass but he has also caught quality fish with the grub. He usually catches his heaviest fish on the grub during the pre-spawn when female bass are laden with roe.

Outdoor Guide

Page 16

January-February 2019

Your Guide to

GREAT GEAR

Croix Custom Line Updates Ice Fishing Equipment

St. Croix has a new line of ice-fishing rods and equipment including solid carbon and solid glass models for panfish and walleye anglers.

These refined instruments provide an almost supernatural ability to hear, sense and detect, with antennae that perceive subtle electromagnetic pulses and stethoscopes that listen for the slightest acoustical arrhythmia.

In the new Croix Custom Ice rod series, two new elite-grade ice instruments use advanced solid carbon blanks for a superior ice fishing experience.

The 20-inch, solid carbon Sight-Bite rod was designed for cat-and-mouse games with choosy panfish. The 24-inch Pan Finessse rod hefts like a feather and twinges with the faintest bites. Other rods are the Micro Spoon and the Tungsten Tamer.

Croix Custom Ice equipment is available from dealers and the St. Croix website, stcroixrods.com. List prices there for rods range from $130 to $160.

GutDaddy Is a Smart New FieldDressing Kit

Hunters can field-dress big-game animals faster, safer and more effectively with the new GutDaddy field-dressing kit, which solves common problems hunters encounter cleaning game animals in the field.

The kit features well-placed posts to secure the legs in an ideal gutting position plus rib hooks and a set of knives, all secured in a durable scabbard.

The GutDaddy case cradles the animal securely in place, the uprights with leg restraints secure the front legs and the one-ofa-kind rib spreaders allow access to the chest cavity.

The knives include a stainless-steel gutting knife with gut hook, a knife for caping and skinning and a handy folding bone saw.

The set was designed to teach new hunters how to fielddress a large animal and create independence for physically challenged hunters.

The full set is $99.95 at GutDaddy.com. The field-dressing kit only is $69.96 and the knives only $49.95, with sharpener.

Mission Bows Feature Realtree Camo Finish

Mission Archery, of Sparta, WI, introduces four high-value bows to its 2019 lineup, all offered in Realtree Original camo finishes. Features include adjustable cam technologies, new riser designs and refined grips.

• MXR bow offers accuracy and speeds traditionally found in higher-priced bows; the 7-inch brace height enhances accuracy.

• Mission Switch is Mission’s most versatile platform with Fast Fit cam technology that offers half-inch draw lengths for a wide range of adjustability.

• Hammr is designed for growing archers and also has the Fast Fit system, with draw lengths from 17 to 29 inches to fit virtually any archer.

• Radik is for young archers and weighs just 3 pounds, uses Fast Fit technology, and its range of weight adjustability, 10 to 50 pounds, offers years of growth potential.

Products by Mission Archery can be seen at missionarchery.com.

Henry Rifles Will Honor Cody Stampede’s 100 Years

YOLOtek Offers Improved PowerStick Gen2

Mossberg Offers Three New Shockwaves

Radian Introduces California Version of Its Model 1 Rifle

Henry Repeating Arms is creating a limited series of rifles in the iconic caliber of .45 Colt to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Cody Stampede Rodeo.

Proceeds will go to preserve the history of Cody, Wyoming, the Rodeo Capital of the World.

Baron Engraving embellished the rifles with detailed scrollwork engraving on the bright silver receivers, surrounded by the 24K gold-filled lasso motif. The top of the receiver is engraved with the words, “1919 – Cody Stampede Centennial – 2019.”

The rifles are built on Henry’s Big Boy Silver platform featuring a blued steel octagonal barrel, fully adjustable semibuckhorn sights and a brass bead front sight, and fancy-grade American walnut stocks.

The 50 rifles will sell for $1,919 each through the Cody Stampede office and at Rocky Mountain Discount Sports in Cody. For information, go online to info@codystampederodeo.com or call (307) 587-5155.

Mossberg is introducing three new 12-gauge, pump-action 590 Shockwave models – the Nightstick, the Shock ‘n’ Saw and the Shockwave SPX. Each 590 Shockwave is 26 inches long with a 14-inch, heavy-walled barrel, plus non-binding twin action bars, positive steel-to-steel lock-up, an anti-jam elevator, dual extractors and an ambidextrous top-mounted safety. Bird’s head grips provide greater control while reducing recoil.

The Nightstick (pictured) has classic wood stocks and a leather strap, listing for $539. Shock ‘n’ Saw has an aluminum railed forend, for $560, and SPX offers an aluminum side saddle with seven polymer shell-holder units and a top rail for sight options or accessories, also for $560.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives classifies the 590 Shockwave platform as a “non-NFA firearm,” requiring no tax stamp for transfers. Purchasers must be at least 21 years old. It may be prohibited by some state and local laws. More information is at Mossberg.com.

Rumpl, Yakima Join for Outdoor Art Blanket

Rumpl and Yakima have come up with a new high-tech puffy camping blanket collaboration, this time with the Oregon artist Stockfort (aka Adam Haynes), to showcase Mount Hood and the Columbia River Gorge.

A portion of proceeds will go to Friends of the Columbia River Gorge to aid restoration after the recent fires.

Rumpl makes blankets and Yakima makes tents and outdoor gear. Their teams decided to feature their mountain home, Mount Hood and the Columbia Gorge, so they brought in Stickfort to design the blanket. The blanket is sized to fit Yakima’s SkyRise Rooftop tent. It is stain- and odor-resistant, handles cold temperatures and folds up small.

The Mount Hood blanket lists for $159. Go online to rumpl.com.

YOLOtek, from Kansas City, announces PowerStick-53” Gen2, the only powered GoPro mount designed for fishing boats. It plugs into the standard navigation light ports on the back or front of boat, no tools required.

The company set out to improve on its popular Gen1, used to power GoPro, Garmin VIRB and other action cameras. The ball, joint and power unit were designed.

The new PowerStick, made of aircraft grade aluminum and beautifully anodized, extends from 34 to 53 inches for many points of view. Its multiple threaded locking collars are rated for up to 70 mph.

The FLW fishing tour now requires boats to have a camera on board to record every catch, and other tours are expected to follow suit. YOLOtek is the official power mount provider of Major League Fishing and FLW. PowerStick-53” Gen2 was on sale for $129.95 at the website yolotek.com.

The popular, amidextrous Radian Model 1 rifle is now offered in a California-compliant model that includes a SilencerCO ASR compensator or a Dead Air Armament compensator, plus a Shark Fin pistol grip and non-adjustable Magpul stock.

The rifle’s ADAC system allows the user to lock the bolt in the rearward position by drawing the bolt to the rear using the Raptor charging handle and depressing the magazine release button. This patented feature gives the operator unmatched functionality among AR-15 style rifles.

Every professional-grade Model 1 is assembled by hand by a trained gunsmith who inspects, test fires and cleans the weapon to guarantee it meets rigid quality standards. It was designed and manufactured in the United States. Weight is 6 to 8 pounds depending on configuration.

Products made by Radian, formerly AXTS Weapons Systems, can be seen at its website, radianweapons.com, which also has a list of its dealers.

Minimalist Backpack Inspired by Life in New York City

Solo New York set out to create the best bag for minimalist travelers and came up with the Unbound Backpack, part of Solo’s new Urban Nomad Collection.

Inspired by the hustle of the city, the bag is efficient, sleek and TSA-approved, with everything travelers need and nothing they don’t.

The Unbound has a full zipper, opening to lie flat so there is no need to take the laptop out for most airport screenings.

The body measures 19” by 13” and weighs 1.96 pounds. It has a padded, 15.6” laptop compartment, internal iPad pocket, front zippered pocket, front quick pocket, side mesh pockets, a back panel that slides over the luggage handle, plus padded back and back straps.

Solo New York has been making modern bag and tablet case designs since 2008, inspired by the streets of the city. The Unpound Backpack lists for $86.99. For more information, go to solo-ny.com.

Outdoor Guide

January-February 2019

Page 17

Gunsmith Tech Talk

Coming to Terms: Lockup, Head Space

By JED NADLER Master Gunsmith

OK, this issue’s topic represents a huge opportunity (read temptation) for bad puns. I pledge to practice restraint, but don’t lock me up if I falter.

Many people might feel they have a good grasp on the meanings of “lockup” and “battery” in the world of firearms, and they’d probably be correct.

Others would also understand “head space” (outside the world of the psychotherapist and the psychedelic 60’s).

And depending upon how much of their youth they spent with mind-altering substances or how much of the 1990’s they then spent in psychotherapy, they might also be correct.

But we are “all inclusive” here at Outdoor Guide Magazine so we invite any who’d like, regardless of their individual head space, to read further.

LOCKUP When the gunpowder in a cartridge goes off, the bullet wants to go forward. But thanks to Newton, we all learned that the cartridge casing wants to go backward, too. It will want to push gun parts out of the way and run into an innocent and unsuspecting shooter.

Lockup is the term given to

the condition that exists when the back of that cartridge, called the cartridge “head,” is sufficiently constrained. We usually jam a “bolt” up against the back of it and then find a way to restrain the bolt securely in the frame. In that way the brass cartridge will stay inside the chamber and only the bullet will depart the firearm.

It’s important that lockup is strong and solid because the brass cartridge case is unable, on its own, to contain the exploding powder. It needs the support of a good-fitting chamber surrounding it.

Please notice the crosssection cutaway of a cartridge in the photo. The brass wall is thicker at the base but perilously thin elsewhere. If the cartridge is permitted to move back too far out of the chamber, this thin wall will split, letting fiery, exploding gas into the back section of the gun.

When the bolt and action is “locked up,” it is said to “be in battery.” Please don’t confuse this condition as having anything to do with gun locks or safety buttons. They’re different. This has nothing to do with the battery in the laser either, but you knew that.

THE BOLT Bolts are locked to the frame

in a variety of ways. In bolt action rifles, the bolt has lugs – “ears” – that are rotated in front of abutments – “shoulders” – in the receiver. In the 1911 pistol and its many descendants, the barrel locks itself to the bolt by rising up into a cutout in the top of the slide. There are many creative methods to achieve lockup in a firearm, to be the focus of a future column.

In semi-auto firearms the bolt stays locked to the back of the barrel for a fraction of a second before the action begins to open and start the eject-cockreload cycle. The pressure in the chamber rises, spikes and then falls. It is important that lockup is maintained until the peak pressure has passed.

There are many interesting designs to delay the opening for this period yet still get a

reliable, automatic unlock and retraction of the bolt. Barrels are mostly stationary or tilting.

Bolts are generally the part that moves backward to open and extract the empty.

Browning rethought this strategy completely in the ubiquitous Auto 5 shotgun.

The barrel/chamber actually stays locked to the bolt and retracts with it during the peak pressure period. The receiver catches and holds the bolt in the rear position and then the barrel reverses and moves forward again, pulling itself off the empty cartridge that it has left, held by the extractor hook, on the bolt face. As the barrel nears its starting position, the ejector – a protrusion on the barrel extension – hits the back of the shell casing, kicking it out of the gun. Fun stuff.

HEAD SPACE It is not only important for lockup to be strong, it also has to be precise. Head space is the gap between the back of the cartridge and the front of the bolt, or “bolt face,” when the gun is in battery. We imagine there is none … the bolt is pushed up tight against the cartridge when closed.

But not so. Depending on how lockup is achieved, there is a gap. The cartridge can back up into this gap during ignition, exposing its vulnerable side walls. OK if it happens a little. NOT OK if it happens a lot. There’ll be a blowout of the sidewall.

So that’s why all us smiths are so anal about head space.

Some would say it’s because we have our head in the wrong space, but I would have a strong rebuttal to that contention.

WHEN LOCKUP ISN’T LOCKED There are a whole class of guns that don’t play by those rules. “Blowback” designs aren’t locked up at all. How dare they take that terrible risk, you might ask? It involves the bane of most gunsmiths and anyone else who has dared take apart a gun – a very strong spring. These firearms use a stronger-than-usual re-

coil spring behind the bolt. It forces and holds the bolt closed against the cartridge head.

Combined with an extra heavy bolt, this assembly recoils backward so slowly that that peak chamber pressure gets a chance to subside before the action is open far enough to be dangerous. The bigger the cartridge, the heavier the spring and bolt need to be, so this design is usually employed on smaller, handgun-sized cartridges. Most 22 semi-autos are blow back designs. So are 25’s, 32’s and 380’s.

Many of today’s handgun caliber carbines are blowback designs too. So are many machine guns because the action is much simpler, smoother and reliable without having to lock up. But they have the really heavy bolt and spring(s) to do that job.

Hope you enjoyed the read, puns and all. Keep your head in a good place until next time.

DISCLAIMER- Do not make changes to a firearm for which you are not qualified. Dangerous conditions can result. Take the gun to a qualified gunsmith.

Jed Nadler can be reached at FIRST Gunsmithing in Valley Park, at (636) 826-6606 or online at info@FIRSTGunsmithing.com

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Page 18

Outdoor Guide

January-February 2019

Rural Ramblings

Time to Hike and Find Sheds

A nice selection of elk antlers.

By RUSSELL HIVELY In January and February, when deer hunting season is over, there are still two reasons to take to the woods – going for nature walks and searching for antlers that deer have shed in the woods.

Finding a “shed” is special.

Old-timers considered it good luck to find one. Sheds have special ends, where the antlers were once attached to a buck deer. The end looks like wrinkled skin. Knowing what shed ends look like gives an outdoorsman the skill to tell if an “antler lamp” in the outdoor store was made of harvested deer antlers or from sheds. *** Shed hunting has one other positive aspect – scouting for next year’s deer hunting season. If a hunter sees where antler sheds are common, he knows that deer like the area. Perhaps he needs to hang a tree stand nearby for future use. *** Maybe it is the cold, but walking in the winter woods seems to be enjoyed by most outdoorsmen and women. If a light snow falls silently on the trail and a slight breeze moves the remaining leaves on the trees, a special quietness and peacefulness abounds. Adding the barking of a squirrel, the gurgle of a nearby stream, or the far off gobble of a wild turkey makes the walk even more pleasant. *** Why, when we hear a bobwhite quail whistle, “Bobwhite!” do we want to whistle back? *** When we walk and hunt in the woods, seldom do we think of the lumber industry.

Oak trees are common in Missouri. More than 2.5 million oak stave barrels are made in Missouri each year. This generates more than $10 billion worth of revenue.

The unique feature of the wooden oak barrels is that most are made for the whiskey and bourbon industry. After they have been used for liquor, they are then used by the hot sauce industry or cut in half for outdoor flower containers. *** Wood is a common fuel, either full-time or part time, in many areas of Missouri. After land has been logged, cords of firewood are cut from the logging waste. Today, huge outdoor wood furnaces make stoking the fire much more convenient – a one-time or two-time daily event. And who does not enjoy the special smell of wood burning or seeing smoke coming from a chimney? *** Hunters today cannot harvest the now-extinct American passenger pigeon. At one time, some flocks were estimated to hold over a billion birds. The birds were delicious to eat and easily killed.

Sadly, these two facts led to over-killing and eventually to extinction. *** Scorpions are quite rare these days. Still, they seem to pop up unexpectedly. If a scorpion disturbs you, drop a tiny amount of liquor on the creature. It will scurry off, or sometimes go so crazy it stings itself to death. *** Most people contract a winter cold. Today, we realize that colds are caused by viruses. Long ago, old timers suspected a person’s blood grew tired and thin from being indoors in cold weather.

Because of that, they caught a cold. *** Trapping season falls in wintertime. Dates of legal trapping vary per species. The newly introduced otters have survived and reproduced so well that they now can be trapped. They produce a beautiful pelt.

– Nature Conservancy photo

*** Outdoorsmen relish trapping or snaring as a chance to trick wild animals. Doing so is an achievement. Wild animals survive by not being tricked 24 hours a day. *** Another interesting winter outdoor activity is tracking. With snow on the ground, finding tracks of wild animals is much easier.

What is better than to take your child tracking in the snow, scouting for a future hunting season, and then going home to a cup of hot chocolate? *** Sometimes a nice winter walk gets a person to thinking about what is needed for next year’s hunting and fishing seasons. Winter gives people extra time to shop for items they need or think they need for the upcoming season. It’s easy to envision that big catfish or that 12-point deer while checking out new equipment at the outdoor shop. *** Sound can be helpful when hunting squirrels.

Listen for the grating sound of a squirrel chewing on a hickory nut or black walnut.

Cautiously, go toward the sound and then stop and wait for the squirrel to appear.

Just hope your hearing is as good as the squirrel’s. *** Did you realize that the Missouri Department of Conservation manages over 430,000 acres of oak and hickory forests? *** January and February are usually the winter months in Missouri. They are times for telling stories about past hunts and fishing adventures. Retelling stories can be even better than the actual happening. At least that’s what this Rural Rambler thinks.

Outdoor Guide

January-February 2019

Page 19

Locating, Catching Winter Bluegills

By TERRY AND ROXANNE WILSON

Bluegill fishing is synonymous with warm spring days and sultry summer evenings, not conditions that produce ice in the guides of your rod.

But there are fish to be caught when the weather turns frosty.

When woolen stocking caps, insulated coveralls and a thermos of steaming coffee are necessary accessories, bluegills may be warm water’s best option.

As water temperature drops, nutrients and sediments that suspended in summer sink to the bottom and the water becomes clearer. By the time water temperature reaches below 50 degrees, a bluegill’s metabolism will be noticeably reduced. The fish will school tightly and suspend horizon-

tally to a piece of structure and, although their location will constantly change, they won’t move very far from a favored area. This tight schooling makes finding them more difficult because the area they occupy is smaller.

On larger waters, fish finders can shorten the search considerably, but even with the aid of electronics, it’s never a good idea to wander about aimlessly. The mouths of coves, the bases of bluffs and the deeper edges of wood structures would be good places to begin.

DEADFALLS ARE GOOD If the lake or pond has deadfalls that extend into deeper water, wintering bluegills often will suspend over protruding branches or in open water off the ends of dead trees. If

Bluegill will school tightly as the temperature drops.

– Kokomo Tribune photo

there is standing timber, it’s a sure bet that cold-water bluegills will suspend within the limbs, but the problem then becomes finding the few trees that bluegills have chosen as their winter addresses.

Remember that the fish are moving from shallow areas to these deeper locations, and they will use creek channels for travel. Their progress will lead them from the shallow flats to the nearest “point tree,” then progressively along that path toward deeper water.

Once bluegills are located, the battle is only half won.

Remember that these coldblooded creatures have been slowed considerably by falling temperatures, so few of these fish will be actively feeding. This means that the angler’s window of opportunity is comparatively small, but the good news is that at water temperatures of about 38 degrees, there will usually be a significant portion of the school interested in feeding.

If we can hook and fight one of those fish within its school, others will likely become interested and shake off their lethargy to become active feeders. The hooked fish, swimming actively with food visible in its mouth, will serve to pique the interest of other nearby fish.

TAKE IT SLOW Retrieves should be extremely slow, interrupted by long pauses. When trolling to locate a school, the use of the motor should be intermittent.

Even drifting with a mild breeze can be too fast for this kind of presentation.

Where obstructions interfere with the retrieve, fishing becomes more of a vertical jigging operation. Maintain contact with your fly or lure as it is raised and lowered through the water column, because hits in cold water are usually quite soft and strike detection can be difficult. Jig the lure slowly in one spot for up to a minute before moving only slightly along the same structure and repeating the process.

When you feel a take, drop the rod tip slightly before gently raising it to set the hook.

In warmer water, bluegills can reject a forgery quicker than a hiccup, but these lethargic bream aren’t nearly as fast.

Bluegills tend to suspend in shallower water in small ponds. On sunny winter days, the fish will often suspend over dark mud bottoms that absorb the most sunlight and in turn raise the water temperature a degree or two.

LOCATIONS, LURES For stream anglers, winter bluegill locations are even

Retrieves should be extremely slow, with long pauses.

– Missouri Department of Conservation photo

easier to find. Search for deep, slow, structured pools just downstream from a spring’s entrance. This situation will hold fish throughout the winter.

Bluegills will reject areas with even moderate current, so look for current breaks, slow eddies, and shoreline pockets.

Spring-hole wintering bluegills will be invigorated by the warmer water and likely will feed much more aggressively than their stillwater brethren.

Despite that, a cautious approach and careful presentation are important. The clarity of the water better enables them to detect the angler and scrutinize the offering. Longer casts with less splashdown disturbance are recommended.

Lures replicating small minnows or any of the nymph population will likely be successful.

Because of the bluegill’s small mouth, hooks should be in sizes 12, 10, or 8. Light line, 6-pound test or lighter for spin fishers, and 4X tippet for fly casters is recommended not only to prevent its detection but also to enhance lure action.

This year, extend your warmwater season throughout the winter. Solitude is sure to be a side benefit of the outing. The most satisfying fishing of the entire year awaits, and catching a bunch of wintertime bluegills is sure to warm your spirits.

Terry and Roxanne Wilson are the authors of five books including their latest, The Bluegill Diaries: A Fly Fishing Chronicle. Their website thebluegillpond.com has more articles or check their fishing log on Facebook at Warmwater Fly Fishing.

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Page 20

Outdoor Guide

DIRECTORY Outdoor

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Outdoor Guide

DIRECTORY Outdoor

January-February 2019

GUIDED FISHING

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Page 21

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Page 22

Outdoor Guide

January-February 2019

Outdoor Gallery Send in your favorite outdoor photo to ogmbob@aol.com and be featured in the Outdoor Gallery of Outdoor Guide Magazine.

RIVER MASTER – Jeff Friedhoff of O’Fallon, MO, took this beautiful specimen at Steamboat Island along the Missouri River, in St. Louis County north of Eureka.

ON THE BUFFALO – Larry Sheppard, a retired judge and farmer from near Kansas City, enjoyed fall colors with float-fishing guide Dennis Whiteside in an adventure that featured smallmouth, Dolomite bluffs on the Buffalo River at Steel Creek and lofty views of an Osage Creek dairy farm from “Lover’s Leap” near Rule, Ark.

YOUNG BUCK’S FIRST BUCK – Sam Dickinson, 9, will always remember getting his first buck, a 9-point he shot on the Sunday of Youth Season, near Swiss in Gasconade County. He used a Marlin 30-30 that his older brother and his dad both used to shoot their first deer.

FATHER’S DAUGHTER – Clair Mullen, 14, has been hunting with her dad, hunter Scott Mullen, since she was 5 years old. She harvested her third deer during the 2018 Youth Season in Ellsberry, MO, and is hoping for many more.

Thanks to property owners Steve and Jeff Kaiser.

DAUGHTER’S FATHER – Clair Mullen’s father, Scott Mullen, owner of Auto America Detailing in St. Peters, harvested this big old guy with archery equipment on property owned by Herb Schultz and Edwin Harpole’s Xtreme Hunts in Pike County, Illinois. Their website is xtreme-hunts.com.

January-February 2019

Outdoor Guide

FATHER AND SON – Matt Harris and son, Kellan, proudly display Dad’s deer on left. Kellan took his own deer at right, and is seen here proudly displaying his prize. This was the first deer for both of them.

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ALL IN THE FAMILY – Harrison Miller of Norwood, MO, took this elk in New Mexico in October on a hunt with his new father-in-law, Bob Ziehmer, conservation director for Bass Pro Shops. They also encountered mountain lions and coyotes.

12 POINTS – Chris Clark of Collinsville, IL, took this 12-point buck in Massac County at the far southern tip of Illinois.

The buck was field dressed at 185 pounds and green scored at 152”.

SMALLIE STORY – Steve Grossman reports he got his first smallmouth in the Meramec River upstream from the Highway N bridge near Bourbon. His story: “Five fish were chasing my lure and the littlest one grabbed it. I slowed the lure down and then the biggest of the bunch grabbed the other treble. What a day!”

Outdoor Guide

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W E

N

January-February 2019

LU

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No Soft Plastic Required!

3 Patterns, Shiner– #1 Hook, Large Fry– #2 hook and Small Fry– #4 hook & 7 Colors To Choose From, Emerald Shad, Black Shad, Shad, Craw, Pearl, Red Shad and Chartreuse Shad

To give your drop shot rig a boost, try using a jig, like a Road Runner, instead of a drop shot weight. The sound, flash and vibration of the Road Runner enhances your rig.

Visit

ttiblakemore.com for more info.