Letters To The Editor: May 2025

Knox Matthews writes, “Over winter break, my mother, Jennifer Wiggins Matthews, and I went to Americus, where we booked a thermal optic nighttime hog hunt through Pig Problem, Inc. on Feb. 17. We had a little trouble finding hogs until around 5 a.m. the next morning (I think that sets the record for most fields I’ve been in during a 24-hour time period). We spotted a hog on the screen inside the Pig Problem van that uses a thermal optic camera. We got out of the van and walked about midway across the field and shot the hog. It was a unique experience learning how to hunt hogs, especially with the thermal optic cameras and scopes. The rest of my story is wrapped up in my freezer. I am attaching the photo of us with our hog if you can use it in your next magazine.”

Young Hunter Checking A Few Boxes

Dear GON,

My name is Knox Matthews. I’m 14 and I’m part of BSA Troop 15 in Cartersville, run cross country, track, tennis and shoot on the 4-H air rifle team. I don’t consider myself a reader, but when it comes to y’all’s magazine, it’s very different. One of my favorite things to do is hunt and fish in my free time and have had myself and my buck in your pages before.

When I saw one of the requirements in my Scout merit badge/requirements was to write to a magazine company, you were the first people to pop up in my mind. My main point of this email is to check off this requirement but also to tell y’all that your work is greatly appreciated, and I always enjoy getting to look through and even read the monthly magazine every time I go to my grandparents in Moultrie.

Also, if you didn’t know, in the movie Sweet Home Alabama there is a GON sticker on the back of a truck during one of the scenes.

Sincerely,

Knox Matthews

Turkey Permits Won’t Recruit New Hunters

Dear GON,

I just read last month’s editorial regarding HB 432 that would add a $100 turkey permit for non-resident hunters.

My family and I have been hunting in Georgia since 1998 and have paid out a lot of money each year in fees.   We live in Florida, but we own a house and 80 acres in Georgia and pay a lot of taxes, but we don’t get any kind of a break on license fees.   

This new fee is pushing us over the edge! My mother is 93 years old and still loves to call in a turkey, but because of the new permit, she will stop turkey hunting.   

You say you want to recruit new hunters, but each time there is an increase in fees, it makes it more difficult for new hunters to get involved!

Our hunting family hopes this bill NEVER becomes a law! Thank you,

Larry Minor & Family,

Orlando, Fla.

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Dominic Rizzi was fishing in Lake Acworth when he caught this largemouth that he guessed weighed around 6 1/2 pounds. He was fishing a grassbed with a Neko-rigged Senko.

When the turkeys don’t cooperate, you go crappie fishing, at least that plan worked for Robbie Howell, of Woodstock, and his 16-year-old daughter, Addy. They were fishing a private lake in Carroll County.

Silas Newsom, 8, of Milton, took this Laurens County bird on April 9.