Posts by Daryl Gay
Youth Shoot-Out Winner Cashes In On Grand Prizes
Even if there was such a thing as a cookie-cutter whitetail hunt, it likely wouldn’t be a whole lot of fun. But they’re nearly always different, each its own. And sometimes, you just gotta take a break to make things work out. Ask John Kilpatrick, of Thomaston. Setbacks seem to crouch in the shadows for…
Read MoreOcmulgee PFA: Big-Bass Paradise
The lure floated dreamily down into less than a foot of water, drops spraying the lake’s grassy edge. The cast appeared almost too good to be true; and as every bass fisherman has experienced—it was. Twenty feet back toward the boat, the line draped squarely over a partially submerged stump, sickly 3-foot limbs sprouting just…
Read MoreNext Stop: Africa?
Got this friend—uh, acquaintance, accomplice, abettor?—what wants me to take a little trip: “Let’s go to Africa!” He ain’t much on mincing words. Africa. Just, wow! AFRICA! Cause he knows that’s the place(s) of my dreams: North-Eastern Rhodesia, Luangwa Valley, Kalahari, Lado Enclave, Caprivi Strip. (Plus all the new names they’re tagged with once we…
Read MoreOld Schoolin’ It For Eufaula Slabs
It’s too easy to get caught up in it all. Oh, I’ve been there; was snared for a couple of years. A jury of my peers would unanimously have found me guilty: Laboring While Fishing. It’s easy to lay it at the fins of that old largemouth, the species that shook fishing’s foundation and built…
Read MoreGood Times And Bad
Lookahere, I’m in a tad of a dab of a hurry—leaving for three days on Eufaula (YEEHAW!)—so hush up and lissen. This won’t take long, and includes some stuff you likely won’t believe and others you’ve known for years. Sort ‘em out for yourself. I’ve got a fan! Finally! Took 37 years, but one showed…
Read MoreThe Legend Of Jake The Hermit
From the time I was old enough to play in the yard—and I started early—there had been stories about the old man seen, briefly and on a few occasions, slipping wraithlike past my grandparent’s house. He would move slowly out of the woods and walk the dirt road almost as if he disdained to touch…
Read MoreThe Future Of Fishing
As a card-carrying Redneck of long standing, I am, of course, an inveterate tinkerer. Comes with the territory. Now, please notice I did not say “Tinker,” because it does not match up a’tall with Redneck. What tinkerers do—solely in the name of making things, uh, “better”—is tinker with stuff tinkers have already tinkered with.…
Read MoreJae On Jackson: Slow & Steady
One of the things I love most about our state is variety. Especially when it comes to outdoor pursuits. Think Dahlonega. Then Savannah. See? For at least the first half of this year, I’ll be on impoundments, rivers, PFAs, ponds, creeks… and very possibly an oversized swamp. Those are the ones I know of. Three—Sinclair,…
Read MoreCatch Sinclair Bass Between The Fronts
It is a dreary, drizzly Monday morning as the throbbing Mercury idles its Ranger bass boat away from Little River Marina on Lake Sinclair. There is one other vehicle besides ours in the parking lot; no trailer behind it. Apparently, we have the lake to ourselves. This end, at least. So, where are we headed?…
Read More98—And Still At It
So, how did you ring in the fabulous New Year of 2025? Or is your head still too swollen to remember? Well, if this was your 98th—no misprint, and I ain’t expecting I got many takers out there—new year, maybe you were knocking down the latest in a very long line of whitetail bucks. Like…
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