It's Gonna Be A Good Day, Sluggo!
By Mike Faulk

Seated in the rocking chairs on the front porch at the cabin, it was dusk and still in the 60s. Broadbent country ham, October beans, and biscuits had filled our tummies. With fine cigar in one hand and an ale in the other, I thought to myself, "it doesn't get any better than this."

I was wrong. Geese were honking from two or three different locations. Twice I heard ducks chuckling as they plied the air above the Holston. Then a hoot owl barked out, "who cooks for us all", "who cooks for us all" [at least in English the owl call sounds like those words].

The arch nemesis of the old hooter then cut loose. Then another. Then another. Three gobblers from three distinctly different locations were responding to the owl. When the three gobbles were triangulated, it appeared the cabin was roughly dead center of the triangle.

Comedian Ron White then came to mind. Often he talks about his bulldog, Sluggo. Most yarns spun involving Sluggo end with Ron telling him, "It's gonna be a good day, Sluggo!"

It was.

8:15 a.m, within site of the cabin, two toms let their presence be known with commanding gobbles. Even in the Holston River bottom fog of this March morning that followed a rain shower sometime over night, I knew I couldn't move or I'd be busted. They had gotten in on me before I could set up. The shot would have to come on the move. Safety off. Deep breath. Shoulder, aim, fire!

He wasn't huge - about 22 pounds. The beard was about 9 inches. The spurs were less than 1 inch with the point broken off the left side no doubt from a recent fight.

With the fog still hanging and before the cloud of smoke from the old Charles Daly pumper had cleared, I thought about Ron White and his dog. "It is a good day, Sluggo!"

Mustard Fields Carpeting
the Holston River Bottoms

Photograph by Mike Faulk

The Eagle Has Landed - on the Holston!
By Mike Faulk


The bald eagle, our nation's symbol, and its struggle to survive all that mankind has put into and taken out of its habitat is also, in no small measure, symbolic of the comeback we are slowly making in our environment.


For several years now, an eagle brood house has towered over a secluded cove on Douglas Lake near Dandridge, Tennessee. From there, many a raptor has made its way back to nature - a nature better than it was when the majestic birds were so very threatened only a few decades ago.



In this last decade, we first spotted a golden eagle along the banks of the upper Holston River near Strum Island. About two and a half years ago, we watched a bald eagle stand sentinel in a shag bark maple towering over the sluice that forms the island.


Now observed with regularity throughout the length of the Holston, these bald eagle photographs are submitted courtesy of my friend and fellow outdoorsman, Joe Holt, who gladly conceded he would tolerate this new competition for the smallmouth bass near his Mascot, Tennessee home.

Legendary Reelfoot Call-Maker Leonard Douglas Wins NWFT Working Duck Call Competition
By Mike Faulk





Troy, Tennessee's Leonard Douglas has spent a lifetime in the duck business - a business he knows from top to bottom.

Leonard is a consummate duck guide serving private clients from the Douglas Family Blind tucked within the marshes of Green Island on Reelfoot Lake in northwest Tennessee.

While his son Warren operates the guide service these days, Douglas is still the duck blind cook with a knack for frying eggs, sausage, and ham, slapping them with sliced cheese between two slices of light bread, and making the clients salivate as the sandwiches come together.

That Leonard is a charmer, too. His lifetime of duck hunting on the Mecca of Tennessee waterfowl lakes has allowed him to live many of the colorful stories he'll share if one asks. An he's a fast-talking, sweet sounding suitor according to wife Gracie and according to the ducks that have succumbed to his pick-up lines.


The expertise he uses to guide duck hunters such as me includes meteorology, hydrology, wildlife biology, and woodcarving.

Just this past month at the National Wild Turkey Federation Convention and Sports Show in Nashville, Douglas was asked by the Chairman of the Duck and Goose Call Makers Competition, Mike Warmath, to enter. True to form, and with an audience of over 42,000 attendees, Leonard Douglas took home the Blue Ribbon for Working Duck calls.



Douglas reports his pleasure in being recognized for his carving but confirmed what I already suspected. That winning working call was one and the same as the call he carried beneath his boat seat during the entire duck season recently passed.

Leonard Douglas is a turn-key duck man. He makes a sweet sounding call that has turned many a Susie's head over the years. But wife Gracie is on to him. He'd better hope she never finds a way to warn those female ducks.

Venison Stew
By Mike Faulk

Wednesday evening I moved a packet of venison stew meat from the freezer to the refrigerator. Last night I washed the thawed meat and put it in a bowl to marinate overnight. The marinade was teriyaki sauce, a tablespoon of olive oil, minced onions, a teaspoon of dry mustard, salt, black pepper, a half cup of table wine, and enough soy sauce to cover the meat.

This morning I drained the stew meat, lightly floured it, and then browned it in a frying pan.

From there it went to the crock pot with 3 cups of water and a packet of beef stew mix. I quartered 4 small red potatoes leaving on the skin. To the mix I added 2 small quartered onions, a half dozen small carrots, and 2 stalks of celery. The stew cooked on low all day.

This evening I added four mushrooms each halved, 3 rotelle tomatoes each halved, and chopped a handful of parsley.

Thirty minutes later I had a fine winter's meal, filling, warming, and most satisfying.

The bounty we're allowed to enjoy from his marvelous creation is unending!