Shake hands with OUTDOOR GEORGIA. This magazine has been created for the purpose of presenting to hunters, fishermen, farmers, campers and the thousands who m:e interested in Georgia's out of doors, a wholesome ration composed of news, information, features and art in keeping with the common interests of its readers. The policy of OUTDOOR GEORGIA if, aimed at the creation of a better understanding among sportsmen, and a greater appreciation of our state's conservation problems.-The Editor. Volume 1 Outdoor Georgia Number 1 CHARLES N. ELLIOTT, Editor JOHN MARTIN, Managing Editor E. L. GI BSON, Business Manager CONTENTS FOR MAY, 1940 Cover Painting, Rainbow Trout Edward Lane Gibson Authors 2 Editorial .3 The Old Clay Hole . . Elmer Ransom . . ..... 4 Nature Scores a Double. .John Martin .. 6 Bait, Plug, or Fly? B. C. (Fishin' Bill) Schoen. 7 Trout Don't Just Happen . 8 Dawn Hunter. .Charles Newton Elliott .. .10 Top Is Tops.. .Fred Jordan. . . .11 Tackling Trout. . . . . . . ........... . .. 14 Fishing Seasons and Regulations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 15 A Peek Under the lily Pads Jeff McCord .18 DEPARTMENTS CIRCUIT WRITER John Martin ABOUT DOGS John Woodward AROUND THE RANGERS' CAMPFIRE John W. Beall YOUR GUN AND MINE Charlie Hamby NATURAL HISTORY PAGE Edwin H. Gaither WHERE TO GO..... . . . . . . . . . . .. .. .. .. . . . . . .. . . . .. .. LETTERS JUNIOR RANGER TRAIL Earl V. Lord ' " 13 , .17 19 21 23 25 28 29 Published monthly at 412 State Capitol, Atlanta, Ga. in the interest of Georgia wildlife and for fishermen, hunters, nature lovers and conservationists. Single COpy, 15 cents. Yearly subscriptions to United States and its possessions, and Canada. 1; other countries 2. Subscribers must notify us of change of address four weeks in advance of next publication date, giving both old and new address. Contents of this magazine must not be reprinted without permission. This magazine is glad to receive photos, drawings, stories and articles dealing with outdoor subjects, but cannot guarantee return of unsolicited contributions nor insure against their loss. Contribu tions not accompanied by sufficient postage will not be returned. THIS ISSUE: 15,000 COPIES AUTHORS ELMER RANSOM ELMER RA SOM, who e fir t con- tribution to OUTDOOR GEORGI is THE OLD CLAY HOLE, occupies the front row of noted Georgia authors. Augu ta i his home, but he spend most of his time in the woods and on the streams and lakes. While doing this he carries along his pen cil and pad. His notes provide a rich store house of outdoor information. His name has by-lined many out tanding tories in leading magazine of thi country and England. He i widely known for his editorial in THIS WEEK. His "Perfect Fi hermen" stories in FIELD A D TREAM are outstanding examples of hi craftsmanship. There are few sportsmen who would not gladly lead an existence similar to the one enjoyed by this famous sportsmanauthor who live by rod and gun and pen. B. C. SCHOEN, "Fi hing Bill", a he prefer to be called, is one Ii herman who fishes by every known method and is adept at none. His close as ociate doubt that statement and they say also that he not only knows fish, but the heart of fi hermen as well. Bill Schoen was editor of FOREST AND CREEL, until that map;a zine merged with SOUTHER SPORT 111A ,after which he became outhea tern representative of the latter magazine. The name of "Fishing Bill" choen is known where Ii hermen meet for any purpo e. It has been said that Georgia contuins more miles of Ii hing stream than 'my (Continued on page 28) Bears Don't Den In T HE fir t game la\ in Georgia \ a pa ed in 1790. Thi law prohibited the killing of deer by firelight at night. The penalty for offenders wa a twenty. five dollar fine or thirty-nine la he "well laid on" the bare back. The fir t general et of la\ for the tate was pa ed in 1911. These law et up the state department, impo ed license fee and regulated hunting and hunter. ince 1911 the hunting law have undergone many change. eason, bag limits and other restriction have been set locally to fit the convenience of those who had the most political power. Today our game laws are a conglomerate kaleido cope of regulation. They are not clear-cut and forceful. They carry orne dignity and weight, but not enough. orne of them re trict the taking of game in one ection and remove all imilar re triction in orne other part of the state. Game law are not intended for the inconvenience of portsmen, but for their protection. The theory of the game code is that all game will be protected during the nesting and breeding ea ons of the year, and that in open seasons only enough game will be taken to insure a perpetual supply. That i the theory of a game code. To be succe sful in practi e, game law mu t be \ ritten to fit conditions that exi t; they mu t have the upport of hunters and fishermen and they must be strictly enforced without political or other fa or. The must have the unqualified support of jurie and juri t . GEORGIA need a new game code. Eery game law since the first one to appear on the tatute book , should be aboli hed and a new game code \ ritten to fit condition a they exi t in thi tate. Innumerable examples may be cited of the inconsi tencie of game law now on the books. They are filled with loophole. They do not command the proper respect. There is one law which allows eining for fi h in certain ections of Georgia. Fish are protected in Wilke County, with the exception of waters ben een the bridge on the WashingtonElberton highway and the avannah River. La t fall the quail sea on in 18 South Georgia countie opened twenty day ahead of the ea on in the remainder of the tate. Hunter who vi ited the section reported that young quail \ ere hardly off the nest. everal returned to their homes after half a day's hunting. Th quail were too mall to fly \ ith porting speed. Georgia' game fi h are old in the market place of the tate. Black ba , bream, perch and other porting fi hes bring a few cent a pound. This practice encourage law violation. It provoke the u e of fish ba ket and eine and trap. The e device cut down the number of game fi h in a tream, and at the arne time eliminate port pur ued by hone t port men. Rabbit, which are declared in orne section to be de tructive to crop and orchard are not protected by a clo ed eason. The are hunted throughout the year. Iany female rabbit are killed in the pring, while they carry young. Thi i against all the la\ and principle of nature. Rabbit do erve a useful purpo e. They perhaps are the mo t economically important wild animal in the state. They provide more meat for rural families than any other wild bird or animal. They provide food for hawks, predatory bird and predator animal thu protecting quail and mall bird which are 0 valuable to the farmer. T HE game laws do not contain a regulation to allow the closing of countie or ections in time of emergency. La t winter the entire northern portion of the tate was blanketed in now. While the bitter cold did not cause a much destruction of Georgia' wildlife a ranger first e timated, counties hardest hit by the cold weather should have been closed to all hunting for the remainder of the ea on. Jo law on the statute book provided for such an emergency. The sportsmen of the tatc; gradually are beginning to realize that without adequate laws, all the entiment in the world will not save the game. Judges and court cannot enforce laws which do not exist. The work done bone portsman' club for an entire ear to bring back fishing to a tream may be wiped out in a ingle night by one commercial plant which dump poi on into the current and kill ever living creature in the waters. And yet there i no law which allows the protection of this tream by the Divi ion of Wildlife. Indi idual landowner living along the tream may take action, but they cannot, or will not, jeopardize the livelihood of the community by bringing legal action and clo ing down the plant. Without a strong foundation any building will collapse. Men do not build citie on hifting and. B the arne token, the laws and regulation which are the vel', foundation of any agency or organization, must be a nearly flawle a pos ible. They mu t be strong without being tyrannical, just without overbearance, and simple without the tigma of inadequacy. They must cover features of game protection and propagation which are important to the game and fish of Georgia and to its port men. The code hould be 0 closel \ oven that no violator could e cape through it me hes. Enforcement of laws which have no power i imilar to firing blanks at quail. The noise is there but the bird oon know it can do no harm and they are no lODger frightened. W HO E re ponsibility i thi new propo ed game code? It may be prepared by any lawyer, but to make it into law will require the upport of every portsman who i intere ted in impro ing the hunting and fi hing condition in Georgia. Thi la\ affect not onl the man who carries his gun into the woods two or three time each season. It is important to the man on the farm who ha a potential income from hi game. It i important to all of u who have any intere t in the economic and ocial welfare of our tate. OUTDOOR GEORGIA' May 1940 THE OLD CLAY HOLE By ELMER RANSOM ~~w E ain't been snake-bit yet," The Perfect Fisherman replied to my gloomy resume of our two day on the Ogeechee. ow the Ogeechee is a good river, one of those attractive, black, freshwater, tidal streams of the southern Low Country. The barometer was steady, the moon in the dark, the weather perfect. Only, the bass hadn't heard about it. They had been on the wrong kind of a strike. The kind that keeps them shy of the silver doctor or the crippled minnow. Oh, we'd used everything we had. We'd even resorted to live bait, and had spit on it for luck. All but a jig- 4 gel', that killing devilment devised of atan, and darned if we'd use that. I'm not too good a fisherman m elf. I'm as liable as not to stop fishing, and watch a big blue heron tab minnow with his pointed bill, or look around for an Osprey, hoping to ee a Bald Eagle rob the fish hawk. I'm that way, much to the disgust of The Perfect Fi herman, and there's nothing I want to do about it. But The Perfect Fisherman is all efficiency. His parents baptized him as "Sam" (Samuel, really!) but then you couldn't blame them. Who, I ask you, could look at a lob ter-like bawling brat and know that he was going to be bad news to a fish? The other title came later. May 1940 OUTDOOR GEORGIA You have heard of fishermen who claimed to be snake-bit-some of them really are Illustrated by JIM SPRINGER As he had remarked, we hadn't been bitten by a snake, but that wa the only adversity the red gods had spared us. You know how it is; the wife gives you leave of ab ence, expecting bass for the inlaw's dinner Sunday, and everything goes haywire. Well, there'd be no smell of hard liquor on my breath. I'd dropped it overboard (the liquor, not the breath! ) while pawing around the boat for a sure-fire bucktail. Sam held that again t me, too. "I'd hanker for a chance to get bitten by a snake if I could catch some fish," I said. S AM was silent in the only two Ian guages he knew-American and profane. Augusta, ahead, dozed under a hazy smoke, and the windows of the taller buildings were aflame from the late sun. The spires of the Southern Finance Building loomed against the afternoon sky. Deep borrow pits, on each side of the road, reflected a steelblue water. "Turn left ahead." I looked at am out of the corner of my eye. Traffic was heavy. "Turn left," he said petulantly. "We're going to fish." ow, I ask you, ain't that just like a fool fisherman who doesn't know when he's had enough? Dead tired. The canoe joggled and bounced on the trailer behind, one tire of the trailer going soft on us. And, aside from mud cats in the river, not a fish for miles around-or 0 I thought. But I turned left over as ornery and rutty a road as ever a loose-living jallopy complained about. The road wound and twisted for half a mile, and gave every indication of petering out up a tree but it didn't. It brought u to a series of old clay diggings, relic of the brick.industry days. The shores were rank with vegetation. The water late blue with springs hidden deep beneath the surface. WE decided against the boat on account of the precipitous, slippery banks. We put our casting rods together - no room here for a back cast with a fly rod. Within a few hundred yards of u the e ter n a 1 traffic lumbered north and south. Within a mile the busy sleepiness of Georgia's third largest city spoke in smokestacks, fac tory whistles and the lovely, (Turn to page 22) "My heart stopped for a moment and then fought with my tongue for a place in my mouth" OUTDOOR GEORGIA May 7940 5 Nature Scores a Double NATURE poured Rain, Snow and Drought through the fields and scored a lop-sided victory Rain, Snow and Drought silenced big guns of Hunters and outdoorsmen predict that the quail population will increase at a con iderably fa tel' rate than that over Georgia's army of hunters who lugged their weapon on their shoul Georgia hunters of 1939. It's all because of the helping hand del's and never got close enough to