Volume 33 Number 1 - January 2013

FEATURES:

	Sibling Rivalry — How this brother-sister team hunt Atchafalaya WMA ducks This brother-sister team grew up in competitive sports, and their duck-hunting forays to the Atchafalaya Delta Wildlife Management Area are no different. Here’s how they find success. A midmorning hunt with a late arrival on the Atchafalaya Wax Delta was the plan. Adam Rhodes had no desire to get up at 3 a.m. to beat the weekend crowd to some of the better locations he already scouted and plugged into his GPS. The ... John Flores

	Amphibious Assault — Tips for duck hunting out of popup boat blinds Mobility can be a duck hunter’s best friend when hunting pressure builds and birds get skittish. And popup boat blinds are the perfect solution. I had never been a big fan of boat blinds, but the reality of the situation was finally beginning to settle in. All of the duck blinds that I had spent endless days over the years constructing, brushing up and renovating on my duck ... Capt. Steve Himel

	Back and Forth — Top winter fishing tips for Delacroix trout Delacroix speckled trout don’t typically camp out this time of year. You need to move with them if you want to consistently reach your limits. If you live in the northern tier of the United States during the month of January, you’d better really like your wife. The weather is remarkably consistent, and it’s consistently horrible. The snow doesn’t come down in ... Todd Masson

	Bark up the right tree - How to make the most of squirrel hunting with dogs The month of February makes feeding a squirrel dog all year well worth it. Somewhere inside the small patch of woods surrounded by sugarcane fields, Hoke hunted. Maybe no more than 20 acres in size, if you flew over it the woodland would resemble a postage stamp stuck in the middle of an envelope. A mix of ... John Flores

	Caney Chatter - An unusual Caney Lake tactic for winter bass fishing Cold water temperatures mean deepwater fishing, right? Not according to this angler, who catches big Caney Lake bass using chatter-type lures. The last thing that comes to most people’s minds when thinking about Caney Lake is a chatter bait. Kenny Covington isn’t most people. He is a bassaholic who isn’t afraid to buck conventional wisdom. Chris Ginn

	Cold fish — Winter fishing tips for Biloxi Marsh trout, redfish Water temperatures might be falling this month as winter really sets in, but that doesn’t mean you should sit at home. Instead, head to in the Biloxi Marsh to fill the box with trout and reds. According to the Biloxi Marsh Lands Corporation, the Biloxi Marsh is an estuary network of 210,000 acres of coastal wetlands. That network was crushed by Katrina, and battered and bruised by countless hurricanes and tropical storms before and ... Rusty Tardo

	East Bay C&B — Load the boat with ducks and a variety of fish Don’t worry about river level this time of year: Just head down the Mississippi River for an some great duck hunting and a smorgasbord of fishing around East Bay’s shallow rigs. After the stomping the Saints put on Detroit in the Dome, we were seriously pumped for the match in San Francisco the following week. For the occasion, Doc even installed an even wider screen TV in his Venice houseboat. OK, so da ... Humberto Fontova

	Looking back — Hunting has changed over the past few decades Today’s hunts in comfortable stands for abundant game have little in common with the good old days of the not-so-distant past. My butt hurt and my back ached. For several hours I’d been sitting against a small holly tree watching a glade filled with rubs. It was the last day of deer season, and I was determined to stay until dark to see if a buck would slip ... Terry L. Jones

	Rolling with the punches - Duck-hunting tactics for late-season success Sitting in one pond hoping ducks show up drives many crazy. But this hunter developed a tactic that allows him to go where the birds are and increase his hunting success. Picture this. You've had a good opening to the duck season. But now the season has been underway a while and you haven't had any cold fronts or strong south winds to bring in new birds or shake things up. They sky is blue-bird clear, ... Jerald Horst

	Rut crazy — Tips for hunting Louisiana’s late rut The rut extends through December and even into February in large swatches of the state. Here’s how to take advantage of that fact to kill more bucks. Gail “Bucky” McDavid of Carencro enjoys hunting during the diverse rutting periods of Louisiana. He’s so avid about it that McDavid will hunt Area 3’s early rut at Clear Creek Wildlife Management Area in October and November, and ... Chris Berzas

	Suspended Animation —Jerkbait tips for wintertime bass fishing Bass become lethargic in cold water, but that doesn’t mean they won’t bite. Tie on a jerkbait and hang it in front of a fish’s face for plenty of wintertime action. Cold water, shallow water, clear water; plenty of situations make it hard to get fish to bite. For largemouth bass, one of the biggest mistakes anglers make in these conditions is fishing too fast and pulling baits through the strike zone with only ... David A. Brown

	The more things change — Fishing for trout, bass, redfish at The Pen The Louisiana coastal marsh is always changing, but there’s one constant: The Pen out of Lafitte is a fishing oasis for reds, bass and speckled trout. Change is inevitable in coastal marsh. The tide gives when it rises and takes away when it falls. Land piles up in some places while washing away in others. Fish that you couldn’t stop from biting one ... Chris Ginn

	Tracking a Booner — One DeSoto Parish deer became a Boone & Crockett buck A three-year trail camera project reveals some interesting habits of a Boone & Crockett-class buck in the state’s northwest piney woods. Wildlife research is conducted to learn information about a particular species. Where does it live? What does it eat? What is its breeding chronology? What are its habits? I think you get the idea. The study is then designed to ... Dave Moreland