-- It seems some folks here at the Buckmasters offices are snake-bitten. Of all the hunts that myself or the editors have taken, no one I know of has harvested a buck, or a doe for that matter. Every year I have been here, someone has gotten a really nice buck, and most have at least put a couple of does in the freezer, but this year is different. It is palpable.

Even the television guys are having a hard go of it this year.

I'm the type of person who needs to have things make sense. This whole season doesn't make sense. Maybe it's global warming. That is a joke, by the way. Don't get me started on that scam. Whatever it is, the reason eludes me, but like I said, you can just feel that something is different.

I cannot speak for the others, but maybe I have become complacent. I've just seen these guys (who are the best hunters I have ever been around) score on such a consistent basis that I equate their success to my own situations.

I think that the saying, "If you got a deer every time it would be called findin' not huntin'," seems appropriate here.

Pearls in Plain Sight
That brings me to a gripe which I have with a lot of hunters today. If I have heard or read the following statements once, I've heard or read them a thousand times: I cannot afford to buy or lease land so I have no where to hunt. It is turning into a rich man's sport.

If you are waiting on someone to hand you a prime hunting spot, or for one to fall right into your lap, you probably agree with the second statement.

Also, if you also believe that you have no good land to hunt, and you hunt public land, I'll bet the following scenario pretty much describes how you hunt: You drive your vehicle in as far as you can safely and legally get it in, and then walk 50 to 100 yards to the first good deer sign you find and hunt right there. I have talked to enough public land managers to know that this is how the majority of public land hunters operate.

I'll admit here and now that I have heard the Rich Man's excuse often enough that I almost started to believe it. Then I decided to get off of my rear end and find an area I can call my huntin' spot.

I started by looking in my home county and the counties bordering it, and I found a 10,000-acre Wildlife Management Area a mere 45 minute drive from my house. I then went to the Buckmasters website and clicked on the page that lists all of the state outdoor agency websites and visited the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources website. I found a ton of information on the very WMA I was interested in hunting. I was able to print out a map of the property, my WMA permit, and the locations of the sign-in booths.

Armed with that information, I headed over there to talk to the local manager who helps manage this WMA. If they were not there, which is true 90 percent of the time, I would have left a note requesting that they call me at their earliest convenience. By sheer luck, the manager was at the sign-in booth.

We talked for a good hour about how the season was going, and let me tell you, this gentleman was a fountain of knowledge about the property. Every WMA manager I have spoken with has been more than willing to share his or her knowledge of the land they manage. If you hunt public land, you have no better friends than these folks.

I left with the following knowledge that helped me select some locations to scout:

1. The location of 45 greenfields, most never hunted because of their remoteness. Most of the greenfields are one to two miles from the nearest road.

2. That fact that the greenfields were not being grazed upon because of all of the acorns that have dropped this year. That will change now that we have had 6 straight days of wet weather that will ruin the acorns on the ground. The greenfields should now become active.

3. The rut is on.

We talked about a lot more than this, and it all was great information that I will use, but these three facts stood out to me. Scouting this weekend will determine if this is true.

Another potential pearl is a decent sized wooded parcel which borders my subdivision. I live outside the city limits, but close proximity to houses makes this a bow hunting area. I do not know who owns the land, but a quick trip to the probate office should clear that up.

There are always pearls in plain sight for someone willing to look. Whether it be public land, a land owner needing help maintaining their land, or any of a million other things that can lead to you finding your pearl. You just have to be willing to look and apply a little elbow grease.

JD