— by Bob Hines, Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

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Identification is Important

Identifying waterfowl gives many hours of enjoyment to millions of people. This guide will help you recognize birds on the wing - it emphasizes their fall and winter plumage patterns as well as size, shape, and flight characteristics. It does not include local names.Recognizing the species of ducks and geese can be rewarding to birdwatchers and hunters - and the ducks.

Hunters can contribute to their own sport by not firing at those species that are either protected or scarce, and needed as breeders to restore the flocks. It can add to their daily limit; when extra birds of certain species can be taken legally, hunters who know their ducks on the wing come out ahead. Knowing a mallard from a merganser has another side: gourmets prefer a corn-fed mallard to the fish duck.

— by Mike Faulk

I’m not much at calling woodies. Who is for that matter? And I’ve never enjoyed great success at having the crested-king of the early migration landing in a spread of woodie decoys. But the late summer draw down of the TVA reservoirs in northeast Tennessee provides a good mid-September opportunity to have a great hunt bushwhacking woodies.

With big meandering bends covering 3-4 miles of water, numerous feeder creeks, and one-half of its volume of water coming from the uncontrolled northern branch, the Holston River below the confluence of its forks and below the restricted Holston Army Ammunition plant is prime territory for hunters willing to invest a little extra effort to bushwhack woodies.

— by Mike Faulk

The moral to this story is: listen to your guide. My Canadian spring black bear hunt was booked with an outfitter in Minitonas, Manitoba – a small town a few hundred miles north of Winnipeg in the Swan River Valley north of the Duck Mountains.

The outpost called Northern Outfitters is run by John Eisner. I figured out the first evening why Eisner calls his organization "Northern Outfitters." That far north, it never gets fully dark in May. And, the long hours of daylight tend to modify traditional meal times.

Bear were plentiful. "Don't shoot the first bear you see. Learn to size them up", John preached. "They're all lean coming out of hibernation. So look for breadth in their skull and fullness of neck and limbs." A juvenile bear has many of the same characteristics of a human juvenile: gangly, awkward, and impulsive. "On the other hand," John relented, "if you want to stay in camp the rest of the week, play cards, and drink a bit, shoot the first bear you see."

— by Kenneth Fore

It was late November in the dark swamps of south Alabama. The leaves were about gone, and it had been raining off and on for four days and nights straight. Now it was almost dark, the wind was picking up, and rain started to drizzle on me. I was sleeping when I awoke, shivering. Ominous black clouds were looming in the western sky. I stood up slowly and stretched out my arms and inhaled the cool damp air, which smelled of soggy swamp mud and the odor of decaying leaves, a scent to which I’d grown accustomed. I picked up my longbow and rested it on my right shoulder.

by Leland West

January 26, 2004

Did you have a nice hunting season? Did you shoot a nice buck or maybe even two or a doe? That's good. Now that this season is over, when should you start to get ready for next year? Maybe sometime this fall, say September? Well I'm here to say hogwash, now is the time to start getting ready for the fall hunt. There are three areas that you should not only think about but also start to improve upon - yourself, your gear and finally your weapon.
Yourself

I'll bet you did your usual hunting routine; Park your rig, walk maybe 100 yards in, find a nice comfortable spot to sit down and wait. How's that sound? My question to you is why are you hunting like this? Is it because you're a little or a lot out of shape? Does your gut hang over your belt like Santa's? Not only are you a prime candidate for a heart attack or a stroke you must be miserable the rest of the year. What's in your head? Are you nuts? Well maybe you are but let me go out on a limb and say you've gotten wise in your old age and want to start the process of getting into some kind of shape. Maybe this year you'll actually be able to get far enough away from the road to see a nice buck and get a shot at it. So where do you start?