Posts by Daryl Kirby
The GON Subscription Drive Contest – Help GON!
We need your help, and in return and as extra incentive, we’re giving away a bunch of great stuff, including a $1,700 Bergara rifle. Through Dec. 31 of this year, for each gift subscription to GON that you buy for a family member or friend, you earn a chance in a drawing for some great…
Read MoreEditorial-Opinion December 2024
That’s a monster buck killed at Piedmont Refuge a few weeks ago. If you didn’t see it, look back at the picture on page 48. It’s not the first time this historic piece of Georgia hunting dirt has thrown out a big buck, and I’m betting it won’t be the last. Like so often when…
Read MoreA.H. Stephens State Park Lake Buncombe Topwater Bass
Back in the day, before internet search engines were around to give anglers instant information, we relied on word of mouth—or we hoped GON might send a writer—when looking for information on small lakes open to public fishing. It’s surprising how many small public lakes there still are where there’s simply no information about the…
Read MoreBest Georgia Counties For Trophy Bucks 2024
A joy and highlight of deer hunting is the anticipation. Each sit, you just never know what might walk under your stand. And yes, while most of us hunt primarily to fill the freezer, even for meat hunters the sight of a big-racked buck ghosting through the woods gets the juices flowing like few things.…
Read MoreHuge Buck Sported Ear Jewelry
A bowhunter’s elation after killing a 15-point buck quickly turned to concern and dismay when he saw small tags in each of the buck’s ears that said “Call Before Consuming” and listed a DNR phone number. “My heart dropped,” said Chandler Bowen. “I thought I had done something wrong.” Chandler lives in Cordele but has…
Read MoreBPI Outdoors: A ‘Georgia’s Own’ Company
When you grow up with a passion for hunting and fishing, maybe, just maybe—if you’re lucky—you might end up working and earning a living in the outdoor industry. A love for the outdoors puts its hooks in some of us, creating a desire to do it for a living. But to earn a paycheck in…
Read MoreEditorial-Opinion September 2024
Few calls generate a more pronounced roll of the eyes as the cougar sighting. Brad Gill and I have been at this for a very long time—35 years for me and 26 for Brad. We’ve easily looked into more than a thousand reports of a cougar in Georgia. We even ran a year-long Georgia Cougar…
Read MorePanther In Georgia?
It’s rare for a week to go by without GON being contacted about a Georgia cougar or panther sighting. Even more rare is an ounce of credibility to any of those reports. Although not definitive, two recent trail-camera pictures from rural Muscogee County east of Columbus are certainly compelling—to say the least. The images above…
Read MoreThe Fab 40: Georgia’s Best Bucks Of The 2023-2024 Deer Season
Next month, in the September issue of GON, we will feature our annual “Georgia’s Best Bow Bucks” article, but this year’s Fab 40 provides more than a sneak peek. The top four bucks killed in Georgia last season and six of the Top-10 bucks were bow-kills. The Fab 40 is GON’s annual compilation of Georgia’s…
Read MoreEditorial-Opinion July 2024
A curious mind, sprinkled with a touch of skepticism, serves a person well. It’s how we sort fact from fallacy, and clarify the gray areas between. Several years ago you might have seen an email or text of an aerial photo showing a gator swimming across the surface of Lake Allatoona with a grown deer…
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