The only things seasonal around my house are allergies and holidays. That's why I get stuff like this emailed and texted to me year round, I suppose. That's fine with me. I grew up in Alabama, where college football was pretty much all there was. All year, all football all the freakin' time. There was nothing seasonal about it, other than the playing of the games. It's really hard to describe, but keep in mind this was decades before the 24hr news cycle and instant news awareness of the internet and mobile devices. The Birmingham news outlets covered every little grain of information 365 day a year, for both schools, year after year. It's pretty common now as we get all of our sports information 24-7/365, but we were country when country wasn't cool in that regard. The point, however is I tend to blame my patience/obsession with my seasonal hobbies on that deep south tradition of keeping your interests on boil every last day of the year. It's not my fault I talk just as much about hunting ducks on May 25th as I do on January 7th. It's how I was raised.

Three years ago when I bought my house, one of the selling points was that mature older neighborhood with shade and landscapes that you just can't get overnight. One of the obvious features with all of the mature trees and bird feeders ended up being squirrels. I've shaken my fist at them and warned of what war might break out if they ever crossed the line.

For some reason, the differences between southerners and everyone else seem to come up constantly. Some seem to think that there's a certain charm to southerners and life in the south. Being one and living there, I'd have to agree.
For many of us, careers have put us in direct contact with, let's call them "less charming" folks, at one time or another. At first the abrasion just inspires you to call them names or write them off. Time proves that it's not that easy or even necessary really. You just have to learn the species to know how to deal with them, much like poisonous snakes.

There's a huge difference between hunters in the field these days. It's a difference that impacts us all right down to the pennies spent to improve hunting conditions in your own back yard. Ducks Unlimited-Tennessee State Chairman Bob Foster and I had lunch recently. Over pizza we talked about the recent DU state convention and the flooding in Nashville that weekend.

Part of the convention contained reports and lectures from DU's top biologist. The information is interesting to say the least and indispensable to the hardest or hardcore waterfowlers. Inevitably we drifted into the standard conversation of how most people argue that no matter how much they give, hunting seems to get only worse. Add a comment Read more...

I've toiled for the five years that this website has been up and running over many things. The look, the functionality, even its purpose for existing. I never wanted it to be about money or making money. I just wanted a pure dedicated website that fans could read and use.

It was obvious at the end of year two, that getting sportsmen to actually post articles, reports and pictures would be far tougher than I had originally thought. I scrambled to come up with new ways to make it all easier and scoured technologies for the best ways to get everyone involved. If I had a dollar for every hour spent tuning this website, I'd certainly be retired by now for sure.
In the end, the concept was sexy and people, who visit, love the site, but it just wasn’t the right concept. Maybe it was too far ahead of its time, or maybe it was simply too far off the mark of what the modern sportsman wants in a website. Oh man, I had visions of thousands of field reports flowing in and tens of thousands of images being posted, sure. I was even optimistic about the concept of growth and web propagation. Patience is something I have in spades. I've carefully groomed and marketed the site and its concept for years. Word of mouth, business cards, email blasts and social networking sites were my low cost ways to spread the word and try to drum up traffic.

Running downhill to the end of the 2009-10 waterfowl season, temperatures finally hit the bottom with hard freezes across much of our area. You wanted an instant reaction from the ducks, but they seemed content to sit tight for the first few days exposed to the colder temps. Perhaps nothing new to birds already seeing single digits further north, the scenario of mindless grain feeding hasn't kicked in yet. Food rots in flooded fields everywhere while the birds seem to find all they need in the refuge areas.