Days GON By: August 2016

Each month we turn back the clock to see what was being reported in the pages of GON, both 20 and 10 years ago. Here’s a look back at what appeared in GON. 

20 Years Ago: August 1996

You Might Be A Slob Hunter If…: As a result of GON’s increasingly popular Hall of Shame department two decades ago, the GON staff decided to take an additional crack at those who willingly break game laws—or at least those who give law-abiding hunters a bad name. GON published an article titled “You Might Be A Slob Hunter If…,” and it certainly provided some comedic relief during the dog days of summer 20 years ago. Here’s a few of those highlights. 

John Megel Chevrolet has not only been a long-time Truck-Buck Shoot-Out sponsor, but John has been a good friend to the company. In an article 20 years ago, he fished with GON Publisher Steve Burch and Lake Lanier guide Doug Youngblood (pictured). John holds a 24-lb. striper.

You Might Be A Slob Hunter If…

• You’re playing outfield for the church softball team. When you see a game warden’s truck pull up in the parking lot, you instinctively dive over the fence and hit the woods.

• You are angry that despite being caught 23 times in the last year for various game violations, you haven’t seen your name in the Hall of Shame.

• You put your son to bed without supper because he almost shot that spike before you did.

• You drive Interstate 75 from Tifton to Atlanta with a doe strapped upright in the seat of your ATV like it’s driving the vehicle.

• You brag to your buddies about making good brush shots.

• You wear running shoes to a dove shoot.

• Your Thanksgiving table is complete with fresh wild turkey.

• Your wife keeps the police scanner at home tuned to the DNR channel so she can find out if you will be coming home each night.

• You don’t buy a deer stand because you hunt from everyone else’s stand while they aren’t at the club. 

• You pull for the poachers in Hall of Shame.

• The first thing you pack when you are gearing up for an extended hunting weekend is your bolt cutters.

• You don’t think you are required to purchase a Sportsman’s License because you are certain that the name doesn’t apply to you.

• In your collection of turkey
trophies, not all the feet have spurs.

Tony McCranie’s Dodge County bruiser was the best buck recorded for the 2005-2006 hunting season. Tony’s buck netted 169 1/8 inches and is currently No. 2 for the county.

In 2006, Sammy Wooten, of Eatonton, sent us this picture of his very concealed tripod stand. He put the tripod in an area of kudzu, and within a few years the creeping vine took it over, making it the ultimate deer stand for concealment. The stand was later stolen.