Anxiously Anticipating the Perfect Storm

Finally, after what seemed like years of waiting, in 1975 I broke into the ranks of the hunting fraternity immemorial. I went with my father and the guys to my first weekend deer camp at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Anxiously anticipating the time when I would finally get to go along, I had mentally envisioned just how the experience would unfold. Dad, on the other hand was old school and oblivious to my plans. He had camped for deer season for many years and he wasn’t one given to change. So, our trip to the grocery store for provisions was just as it had been for his many years previous - quick, to the point, and definitely not in line with my preconceived notions of what we would eat during deer camp. For the weekend our food grubstake included two packages of baloney, one loaf of bread, two boxes of Little Debbie’s brownies, and a case of soda…and that was it. No kidding. Well, at least you didn’t worry about needing a bathroom, with a diet like that you were bound up for the whole weekend! We were going after wholesome and nutritious wildlife sustenance but we were killing ourselves with processed junk food in the process. Looking back now it seems a little ironic.

It’s strange how experiences in a life morph in directions that one never really anticipates. That experience of my first deer camp and the underlying pursuit of hunting in nature formed the foundation for the primary interest and focus in my life. After that first deer hunt I became a student of the outdoor pursuits. I have become keenly interested in how we as outdoors folks interact within the greater scope of man’s society and how man’s modern society views our activities within nature. When one lays a timeline of the evolution of the outdoor pursuits within modern society over the corresponding timeline of the evolution of overall human society, interesting facts jump from the analysis. It appears that the outdoor pursuits began loosing their way after WWII and they have been searching for their collective identity for several decades since. From the 1950’s through today, as man’s society has become increasingly industrialized and mechanized, for some the outdoor pursuits have become less a necessity, descending to the label of a pastime or sport by large societal cross sections. As the population moved from the farm to major urban areas where mechanized agriculture fed more and more of the population, personal responsibility for sustenance became optional. Astonishingly, in just six short decades, there are those who have come to believe that participating within Nature’s Economy through harvesting wildlife for food and clothing has been relegated from natural participation within the fabric of Mother Nature to a cruel and inhumane barbaric activity pursued by the cruel and ignorant.

Hmmm, the cruel and ignorant. Really? This is not a description that I accept.

The people today who are passionate about trapping, hunting, and fishing are the very same types of self sufficient souls that provided the foundation for our human society. Seed stock I think would be an accurate description- a safety net for society, a reset button, much like the “Doomsday” seed vault currently being constructed on an island in the Arctic Ocean. With financial supporters the likes of Bill Gates, the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Corporation, various governments, and others investing literally millions in this project, it seems there is value in seed stock, a great deal of value. These financial, technology, and industrial giants see value in a backup plan, just in case we need to start all over. Like the seeds for restarting agriculture, preserving the independent and self sufficient personalities in this world is as important as maintaining a good foundation for a dwelling. Without the foundation, eventually all the rest is for not.

Ironic as it is, through technology I see great promise for the future of outdoor pursuits. While modern conveniences have embolden some misinformed and wrong headed groups to attack us with unscientific, emotionally based, flawed reasoning, modern technology will bring the truth to life. Along with a millennium of natural history on our side, as more and more outdoor enthusiasts become more computer and video savvy, real life video sequences will bring the brutally beautiful yet coldly indifferent truth about life and death in nature to the living rooms of all those who are open to the truth. The great bulk of real life hunting sequences will depict harvests that are exponentially more humane than the treatment those same game animals receive from predators in nature. The great bulk of real life trapping sequences will show, after the initial catch, calm and resting fur bearers in modern leg hold traps as opposed to those harassed and manipulated to the point of exacerbation for effect as depicted in anti propaganda. For decades now there has been a storm directed our way designed to quench the fire of human participation in nature. But the perfect storm is brewing for our benefit.

In this modern age I can see the perfect storm bringing our collective identity back to the outdoor pursuits. No longer just a sport, rather, the perfect storm of truth pertaining to nature, personal responsibility, modern technology, health and nutrition, modern equipment, and tough economic times will sway public sentiment in support of the outdoor pursuits. It is truly an exciting time for the outdoor types and we need to be interacting with all sorts from society proclaiming that the perfect design of Nature’s Economy cannot possibly be wrong. We need to be part of that brewing perfect storm. So says the One-Eyed Hillbilly. Good luck, be safe, and get a big one.

Warm Season Food Plots

Nothing screams ‘hillbilly took a wildlife habitat class’ like a fellow in this bib-overalls working his 1942 Farmall H with the sole purpose of putting in food plots for deer and turkeys. I have a 1942 Farmall H. She’s been a workhorse her whole life and by the looks of her you’d think she was on her last leg but she is still the best, toughest, easiest to work on, old tractor I have ever owned. Since she is also a magneto tractor I still use the old hand crank to start her up. Most folks have never crank started a tractor in their lives so it’s just too much trouble to mess with her and I like it that way. After I bought her I’m sure the old workhorse must have thought I had cracked my gourd the first time we dropped in the disk to plant exclusively for wildlife management instead of her usual row crops or hay production. Times have changed since 1942.

Until I entered college in the mid 1980’s wildlife management and food plot production was largely unknown in the hunting community outside of universities and game and fish departments. Back then I remember picking up an Outdoor Life magazine with a catchy article entitled ‘Quality Deer Management’, QDM for short. It described how these ubber-serious hunters had started actually rotational planting various crops strictly for wildlife and then harvesting wildlife on number, size, and sex quotas on their managed ground instead of the old “there’s one…Shoot” method. Wow, what a concept. And the results they were getting were unbelievable. Since that time every outdoor magazine you pick up has articles and advertisements for the newest and greatest crop to plant for growing 300 inch whitetails and 50 pound gobblers,…uh, ya. Times have changed since 1986.

For the most part folks in southern Missouri who have resorted to wildlife management efforts have mainly planted cold season, or fall time, food plots for deer hunting. What a lot of hunters don’t know is that there are actually two stress periods for wildlife in our southern Missouri climate. The winter time stress period and the summer time stress period. Each are characterized by differing needs for wildlife at that particular time of the year and each require different supplemental crops to be planted in order to fully maximize wildlife potential on the managed property. In winter, energy is the main concern and wildlife needs forage that provides for fat and carbohydrates. During the summer stress period, however, wildlife, deer in particular, need minerals and protein for antler development and milk production.

In the Ozarks, the predominant species to consider while developing a wildlife management plan are deer and turkeys. It is my opinion a multifaceted approach that provides for the best production and hunting opportunities for these game species while keeping in mind quail habitat and foraging opportunities is the best all around plan. The whole process must first be started with your local fertilizer provider. You can get soil sample bags at your fertilizer plant and for a few dollars a soil analysis will put you on the right track from the very start. A good rule of thumb when planting food plots is to plant plots totaling at least 1% to 4% of the total acreage to be managed (I typically plant around 7%). Plots should be smaller as opposed to larger - it is better to have 10 1-acre plots as opposed to 1 10-acre plot.

With spring turkey season just around the corner, warm season food plots not only provide for the often-times overlooked needs of wildlife throughout the summer stress period, they also provide for great strut zones for wild turkeys. These great green seas of delectable plant offerings are magnets for insects and subsequently, lots of turkeys. Big toms will spit and drum the late mornings away while showing off for the girls as they pick bugs and scratch legumes and grasses while grazing the food plot buffet. It is wise to plant food plots in combinations in order to best survive intensive grazing and variable soil type yields. In the Ozarks a combination of warm season legumes and warm season grasses as suggested by your local fertilizer and seed company is a sure fire path to wildlife food plot success.

If spring turkeys are on the menu this year along with the long range goals of fall deer and quail hunting, a wildlife management plan encompassing warm and cold season food plots in conjunction with proper harvest management quotas is a surefire way to get your property on the maximum yield trail. If you truly enjoy the Great Outdoors it is also one more excuse to get out in the open and play with the old tractor while improving nature’s ability to produce for wildlife quality and quantity. With youth turkey season little more than 7 weeks away, it’s time to start setting the stage for our young hunters to be successful in the warm season food plots. Instead of letting the kids play video games while you work in the fields planting the food plots, you might even recruit them to help. As I said earlier, times are changing and it’s up to us to make sure it’s for the best for our young folks. Good luck, be safe, and get a big one.

Jack and the Curse of the Competitive Fisherman

It’s a little less than three weeks until opening day of Missouri trout season. The anglers will be out in full force displaying all the newest equipment and garb in the fishing fashion subculture. Rod-and-reel, vest, waders, net, gloves, hat, and, of course, fishing shades. No respectable fisherman can leave home without all these highly utility yet highly fashion-conscience items in hand. We fisherman like to be on the cutting edge of fashion. The good Lord knows that outdoor sorts are fashion moguls…just ask my wife. Another trait we all possess in varying degrees is competitiveness. We are competitive in our equipment and in our accomplishments. For some of us it can be a curse. Enter my good friend and Alaskan fishing partner, Jack Fortney from Marshfield, Missouri.

All of us gravitate toward one expertise or another in our outdoor pursuits. Jack is a fisherman. Jack has fished from Florida to Alaska and all points in between. Hot, cold, calm, windy, cloudy, clear, day, or night, Jack is ready to fish. When Jack goes out fishing he wants to catch the biggest fish and the most fish. Whatever the limit is, he’s there until it’s reached. He is serious. Now, with this competitive trait comes great opportunity. Opportunity, that is, to aggravate and have great fun at the expense of the poor soul afflicted with such a severe case of fishing competitiveness. It just takes the right personality to exploit the situation.

The right personality would be a person with an ornery streak a mile long, a slightly devious demeanor, an undercurrent of humorous underhanded intentions, a great sense of humor, and finally, the right person must not care whether or not Jack got mad. Enter my other Alaskan fishing partner and lifetime hunting, trapping, and fishing compadre, Ellis Floyd. Ellis likes to have fun. Whether we are four wheeling in the mountains of Colorado while elk hunting, camped at Montauk the night before opening day of trout season, dining on an outfitter-cooked meal in a cabin in South Dakota while pheasant hunting, or walking the banks of a river in Kodiak, Alaska, nothing is out of bounds. Ellis will exploit the serious nature of your competitive spirit when it comes to the outdoors. It will be at your expense and it will be very funny to everyone else but you. You will see the humor in years to come but not at the time of the trespass. And he doesn’t care.

Montauk, February 28, 1984. I was in high school and I was completely eaten up with the competitive fishing bug. Ellis, Jeff Layman, I, and several others of our friends were camped at the park the night before opening day. It was a very social event but at 10:00 pm I thought the social time should end so that we could all get up at 5:00 am to prepare for fishing, and I was serious. Of course, Ellis, Jeff, and my friends didn’t see it that way. They continued to socialize and I continued to seriously complain about them quieting down so that we might get some sleep. Finally sometime well after midnight they got quiet and we all went to sleep. The next morning, as I cracked open my eyelids (eyelid for those that know me) I knew there was something amiss, the proverbial fly in the ointment. The sun was shining brightly through the windows and outside there were fishermen walking by our camp with full stringers of fish! Ellis had turned off my alarm. It was 7:45 am and all the good fishing was over. If I had been as big as he was I would’ve thrown him in the river. He was laughing until his eyes watered. I hated him.

Fast forward 24 years. Ellis, Jack, Steve and Trevor Neff, and my son, Alex, and I were walking the banks of the pristine Monashka Creek where it lets out into Monashka Bay in the north Pacific. We were salmon fishing for Pinks because that was the only species running at the time. Pinks are known as dog-salmon in Alaska because the locals feed their sled dogs with Pink salmon. To a hillbilly they just tasted like regular old salmon, and Jack wanted to catch his limit…every day we were there.

Now, when salmon are running in Alaska, the only thing I can explain that is similar is the fish hatchery at Montauk. The rivers are absolutely stacked with 3 to 6 pound salmon. You cannot cast in the river without your lure landing on a fish (this is no joke). Jack marched up and down the bank like a soldier, casting and reeling in fish. Directing us like a drill Sergeant, he instructed us to fill the cooler with each and every Pink that we caught. Ellis, on the other hand, was following Jack around and every time Jack caught a fish, Ellis took it off the hook. Jack thought Ellis was putting the fish in the cooler until he caught a glimpse of Ellis kicking one of his newly landed Pinks back into the water. Uh-oh, the devil had come to breakfast! You have never heard the belly aching that preceded to take place. Jack was mad! And, of course, now we all saw our opportunity to jump into the feeding frenzy. By the time it was all over Jack was grumbling to himself and wasn’t letting any of us fish next to him and Ellis, Steve, Trevor, Alex and I were laughing hysterically!

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This year, if you are down at Montauk on opening day and you have the non-humorous competitive spirit you better watch out – there is an Ellis in every crowd. I have learned the best way to deal with it is not take yourself too seriously. In Nature’s Economy a sense of humor is a grand way to emphasize the beauty that already surrounds you. And, if you've got it coming, it will put you in your rightful place! Jack, if you are reading this, I’m out of pinks…got any I can have? Good luck, be safe, and get a big one.

The Inside Passage

The Inside Passage

The Inside Passage

From the Ozarks to Alaska's Inside Passage

Turning back the clock barely three generations, just 70 years ago, there was not even a single road connecting the great land of Alaska to the rest of the world. The ALCAN (Alaska-Canadian Highway) was not yet complete and the traveler who didn’t want to climb or ride a dogsled over the impending, snow-swept mountain passes had two choices - air or sea. By sea, the Inside Passage was, and still is, the preeminent coastal route for oceangoing vessels providing the greatest sense of adventure and the most scenic route of travel to Alaska. Sailing through literally hundreds of mountainous, coniferous-covered, snow-capped, and mist-blanketed islands, based on the relative absence of any sign of human inhabitance, you feel as if you were sailing into an unexplored new world.

As a young child, when you put a canoe into a crystal clear Ozark stream for your first overnight canoe trip, the sense of excitement and adventure seemed overwhelming. All the sights, sounds, and smells became more intense and the sense of adventure was electrifying. Since those days, with each passing season you appreciate the beauty of the Ozark wilderness even more, however that pang of excitement subsides somewhat with subsequent trips afield as the Ozark wilderness becomes more familiar. You learn that, while sitting around the campfire at night, there is little to fear from the sounds coming from beyond the fire’s light. As an adult however, onboard the Alaskan Marine Highway System ship M/V Columbia, while turning west into the setting sun as you prepare to leave the Puget Sound, that pang of excitement rushes back as vivid as it was many years ago in your childhood. While standing on the upper deck the excitement and mystery of the unknown is as constant as the wind in your face. The great low-frequency blast of the ferry’s bull horn echoes for miles around, notifying all vessels that this lumbering giant is leaving port headed for the Great North country. You are now past the point of no return.




Far different from the canoes, johnboats, and jet boats of the Ozarks, the M/V Columbia is a giant. At over 400 feet long and with a beam of 85 feet, this behemoth is almost half the length and breadth of the RMS Titanic. Fully loaded the M/V Columbia can carry 134 automobiles (based on 20’ lengths) and displaces almost 8,000 tons. With 3 passenger decks, over 100 passenger cabins, a cafeteria, a restaurant, a theater, a gift shop, an outdoor solarium, and a covered forward observation auditorium, this vessel is more like what an Ozarkian would consider a cruise ship than any ferry we are used to (such as the one at Akers Ferry on the Current River). The M/V Columbia is also a campground. For the truly adventurous there are two decks that provide areas for tent camping or an open-air solarium with overhead heat lamps where experienced ferry travelers can claim their covered spot for the multiday trip to the north. Being over 2,000 miles from home on the adventure of a lifetime it seems criminal not to embrace the full potential exhilaration of the experience by camping on the ferry. Camping on a ferryboat is an experience to which few can lay claim and all who do experience it will forever remember.

Turning from west to north the ferry makes for Chatham Sound just past Vancouver Island. Through the narrow straights along Vancouver Island orca whales are visible from the ferry’s decks. These huge black and white eating machines with color schemes similar to Holstein cattle (only a Hillbilly can make this comparison!) break the surface and splash back into the surf in a great performance of acrobatics. It is as if they are performing a grand choreographed performance welcoming you to the entrance to Southeast Alaska. After Chatham Sound while steaming through the Inside Passage you will pass through maritime geographic locations such as Frederick Sound, Stephens Passage, and Lynn Canal, each resembling some fabled rocky, timber-lined Norse coastline of ancient legend and all contained within the Tongass National Forest .

Like the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, the Tongass National Forest is a place of unsurpassed tranquil beauty. Encompassing 17 million acres, it is the largest temperate rainforest in the world. This enchanted land is a land defined by water in one form or another. There are huge glaciers, snow capped mountains, ice fields, over 11,000 miles of ocean shore-line, wetlands, and rain…and more rain. The Tongass averages 146 inches of rain annually compared to approximately 34 inches per year in Missouri. With that rain comes unparalleled forest growth with seemingly impenetrable canopies of spruce, hemlock, fir and cedar variants as far as the eye can see. From the ferry’s decks it reminds the voyager of what the Missouri landscape must have looked like in the Ozarks during the 1880’s when the giant timber mill owned by the Missouri Lumber and Mining Company at Granby, Missouri was just beginning.


With no roads to the outside world, everything on which the few inhabitants of this beautiful and remote wilderness survive is either shipped in or provided for by the land. Subsistence living is a way of life here. Nature’s Economy is not a novel way of living but rather a required means of survival. It is a perfect system today just as it was a millennium ago, everything is used, and nothing is wasted. The food and resources are available for surviving for those hardy enough to make a life here - a free living designed by Mother Nature. All of this bounty and beauty, and you are just on the front porch of the great land of Alaska. I hope you get to see it one day. It’s a game changer. Good luck, be safe, and get a big one.