Frank Pritchard’s Jasper County Monarch

Frank Pritchard chased big bucks across Georgia for most of his adult life. He began practicing trophy management long ago before it was the “in” thing to do.  Fifty years ago, Frank shot a massive non-typical buck in Jasper County that sported a rack with 22 points. By every standard, it should have qualified for…

Read More

The Bone-Crusher Buck From Coweta

It had been a slow morning for Douglas Freeman. After several hours in his portable stand, he decided to climb down and do a little walking.  “I reached the edge of a large corn field that had been cut several weeks earlier. A lot of scattered corn was still on the ground, and some deer…

Read More

Arthur Woody’s Native Turkeys

Arthur Woody had a lifelong passion for his mountain turkeys. Next to his beloved deer and trout, wild turkeys were the most important game animal in Ranger Woody’s life. He hunted them as a boy, and during the 1920s and ’30s, at the height of his restoration program with deer, he worked hard to try…

Read More

The Quest For Blackbeard: Turkey Hunting Fiction Series

The large black gobbler came tip-toeing over the small rise like a perfectly balanced ballerina, zigzagging from side to side as if he were floating above the leaves on nothing but thin air. He took a few quick steps, paused, puffed up, and then continued his dainty toe-stepping ballet toward the unsuspecting decoy. His thick,…

Read More

Story of Zeus: A Potential State-Record Buck

By now, many GON readers are familiar with the recent controversy that erupted after Lee Ellis killed a giant buck named “Zeus” on Nov. 16 that could end up being Georgia’s best typical buck ever taken with a bow. Within a few days of killing the big deer in a north Atlanta suburb, a story…

Read More

Sam “The Bird Man” Fite

A worn 1976 Georgia license plate reads “RUFF61,” as a reminder of the previous 1975 ruffed grouse season in the Georgia mountains. It had been his best season ever with 61 birds. Not only is he a seasoned veteran, he’s also a seasoned backwoods philosopher. Seven decades of chasing the “big three” in Georgia has…

Read More

The Story Of Arthur Woody And His Deer

Arthur Woody was the most famous forest ranger ever to refuse to wear a uniform. Born in 1884 near Suches, in the heart of Georgia’s “high country,” legend tells us that he witnessed his father kill the last living deer in Fannin County around 1895, when Arthur was 10 years old. In 1912, Arthur was…

Read More

The Story Of Georgia’s No. 3 Bass

When George Perry caught his immortal world record 22-lb., 4-oz. largemouth in a backwater slough near Montgomery Lake in Telfair County on June 2, 1932, he unwittingly caused Nickie Rich and a handful of other singular Georgia bass anglers a great disservice. By setting such an imposing and seemingly unbeatable record, many of the exceptional…

Read More