Daryl Kirby's GON Blog

First and foremost, GON makes a magazine. We’ve been at it for 37 years. Quite a bit has changed and we’ve weathered some storms since that first tabloid-newspaper style GON hit the store racks with a cover picture from a West Point crappie tournament. The storm of the century began as barely a ripple in…

Go big or go home. That’s all good and well, great advice. Unless, of course, the impacts of going home are far worse than the potential rewards of going big. Stating the obvious there, but there seems to be an ever-escalating ‘at all costs’ mentality in all walks of life. A young hunter seems desperate…

In three and half decades of making outdoor magazines in Georgia, I can’t remember the idea of a group of politicians getting together that has me more interested—and fearful—than a House of Representatives Study Committee that will be meeting this summer. If you own land in Georgia with a stream or river flowing through your…

Few events are more distressing than waking up to the news of some deranged idiot shooting people at a school or mall. Is there a solution—a magic wand move that would make it 100% certain we never wake up to that news again? The answer is no. But if we’re going to do something to…

It’s a sad day in America when a good man passes away yet we have to worry about labels like environmentalist and conservationist as being bad words. Long before there were terms to describe what we were doing, it was hunters and fishermen who protected and enhanced our lands and waterways. Regardless of the word…

Time to put a period on 2022 and turn the page on what we pray is a better New Year—that’s always that hope and promise this time of the year. Long-time readers have a treat this month, an excerpt written by GON founder Steve Burch, whose monthly musings in this space are certainly missed now…

Is it just me, or does it seem like nothing works quite as well as it did five or so years ago? From something as simple as ordering a meal and expecting to get what you ordered, to something big, like expecting the service department of a car dealership to actually fix your car.  I’ll…

Look on the bright side… hearing that can be annoying at times, especially when there is lots not to like about the current state of affairs.  You don’t need me to tell you that inflation is a serious issue. It’s affecting all of us, some of us profoundly. But for the hunting industry, and for…

One thing we learned during the craziness of COVID is how quickly everything can go to hell in a bucket.  The two top stories in the news on April 3, 2020, was no toilet paper in the stores and an absolute meltdown of outrage because the Georgia governor said it was OK to take a…

Deer season is here. For GON, that means another year of the Truck-Buck contest. We love Truck-Buck entries because we get to see so many great Georgia bucks and so many familiar faces. Week 17 last season was extra special. As the entries rolled in, there were some familiar names.  There was Ritchie Sharian, who…