Opinion

Unlike some other types of hunting, pursuing the turkey is very enjoyable doing it with a partner; especially if one is doing the calling and the other is doing the shooting. Most people who have hunted turkey for any period of time will tell you they enjoy calling in a bird as much as shooting…

The cicada invasion of 2024 is almost here. This one promises to be epic, and it will certainly be the last double emergence everyone alive now will experience. I’m trying to be positive about the fact that these huge, ugly insects are about to set out on a search for love and procreation. These bugs…

By Bill Hoagland Woolly mammoths were huge, four legged beasts that roamed the Northern Hemisphere during the Last Ice Age (from roughly 115,000 to 11,700 years ago), with the last known woolly mammoth believed to have died 4,000 years ago. They were roughly the size of a modern-day African elephant, covered with thick outer fur…

I just returned from Texas. I make a few trips there each year now. I get to hang out with some incredible guys. Some I’ve known for years, and some I meet for the first time. This last event was around a golf weekend. I don’t play golf any longer, but I, along with a…

A clothesline is one of the best things a backyard can have. You can keep your pools, rock gardens, and landscaped, manicured lawns. None of them can match the contentment and serenity I feel when I see those two metal poles with rope strung between. Those of us who grew up with a clothesline remember…

There’s nothing like the sound of a gobble at daylight. If you’re close enough, it seems that it reverberates throughout the hollows and ridges. It will truly make you wide awake like nothing else. The method most of us use to cause a tom to gobble is by using some kind of shock call. For…

By Bill Hoagland As most people know, we had a total solar eclipse mid-day on April 8. Millions turned out to see it, including many who traveled thousands of miles so they could visualize the “totality” of it all. For those who witnessed the total eclipse, the experience was described as humbling and emotional. And…

Circumstances change The turkeys are gobbling the woods down. Their call is one of the most recognizable in all of nature. Whether one is a turkey hunter or not, everyone knows this familiar sound. And even though a tom turkey will gobble the entire year, he is especially vocal during the spring mating season. The…

Child Confusion When you have more than one child, it becomes difficult to remember their names. Oh, you know who’s who. And it is easy to pick them out in a crowd of other kids: “mine…mine…not mine…looks like mine…etc”.

Will Jussie Smollett Ever Do Jail Time? By BILL HOAGLAND Even if you are not from Chicago, you probably remember the Jussie Smollett case. In 2019, Smollett, a well-known actor who is Black and gay, claimed that he had been physically attacked at night on a Chicago street corner by two men wearing MAGA hats.…