What A Drag

This bear-dragging business just ain’t what it used to be.  For some reason or other, the last couple of years seem to have brought about either a decided increase in dead weight or a similarly marked decrease in my back’s desire to heave-ho for even a mile or three. Not that we’re talking actual highway…

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Sumter County’s Pound Cake Buck

Debra Durden Sloan cooks a mean pound cake. I know, because I’ve wolfed down a few. In fact, she procures her 100-acre deer lease not with dollars, but “with a couple of pound cakes every year.”  Since July, the Americus resident had been watching a certain 12-point buck on that Sumter County property, photos from…

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Bridge Creek Clays

Looking back at it after all these years, it’s likely that a BB gun with no sights was the starting point. Now, Mike Simpson is handling five-figure Perazzi over-and-unders while training Olympic gold medalists. “I learned to shoot by pointing that gun, not sighting it,” Simpson said. “I remember my first dove shoot, at 6…

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Doves Amidst The Wall Of Lead

“Just once,” I wheedled Dylan. “We’ve never tried it before. There ain’t any other option. And it’s what’s known as an adventure.” Probably should have left off that last statement, because he’s heard it all his life. And our “adventures” sometimes tend to turn out not so sporty… Here’s the deal: I had never been…

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Just Blame It On…

Uh-oh. Blue lights. Think fast. (Which, admittedly, ain’t one of my strong suits.) So we’ll simply do what everybody else does… First thing is to glance down—heart in throat—at the pickup’s speedometer: YIKES!!! That’s what you get for cruising—and I DO mean cruising—these lonely county-maintained roads. Secondly, try to figure out how long it’s been…

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Coastal Hog Hunting

For Martin Richter the hunting story started with his maternal grandfather, Richard Link. The time was shortly after World War II in the late 1940s. The place? Bamberg, in what was then known as West Germany. Fast-forward to last month. Late afternoon, Richter is somewhere between Brunswick and Jesup, some 35 miles from the Georgia…

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Take My Advice…

The time-honored tradition of giving and taking advice is all but lost these days. Mostly, it seems, because everybody already knows everything. Pity. It’s also possible that they may be surrounded by a host of would-be advisers who collectively are dumber than a cracked rock. (As I look around me in this convenience store, everybody…

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Practical Philosophying

When you have a mind like mine­­—or what’s left of it—philosophical discussions can turn into wondrous occasions. Eons ago, I learned all there is to know about philosophy from this one professor—Ol’ RC. That wasn’t actually his name, you see, which is but a portion of learning this philosophy business in the first place. So…

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Meet The Jack Crevalle

Funny, the things that run through your mind at a time like this… “It’s an overlooked fishery,” guide Capt. Garrett Ross had said. Three fishermen in a boat 75 yards away have been fruitlessly beating the bank’s rip-rap up and down for at least the last 20 minutes. Mere yards beyond them, the 8 a.m.…

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