The Tar Heel Outdoorsman

I'll preface by saying this---I'm a very novice turkey hunter.  I've only been a handful of times.  Never shot at a bird, never seen a gobbler . . . and to be honest, never even heard a gobble while out turkey hunting, though I've heard them when other outdoor pursuits have called me into the woods or the swamp or onto the river.   I met up with my cousin, Jay, for opening weekend of turkey season.  The other side of his family owns some land near Laurel Hill.  The land is largely used for timber.  Lines of pines in neat rows, so open in the understory that you could drive a truck though, with a bed of pine straw covering the sandy ground.  There's almost no underbrush, aside from the stray hardwood, and the stray dogwood, blooming now with their white petals. It's cleared from regular prescribed burns and raking, I learned, so some money can be made off the straw while the trees grow.    They don't call it "the sand hills" for nothing, ...

          The section of the Rapidan River that runs along Woodberry Forest School's rural Virginia campus is a special place.  A place that brings me back to simpler times.  When you could run down to the river after class or after sports on Tuesdays or Fridays or Saturdays or before chapel on Sunday, and you could catch all the smallies and bream you'd want on a simple popping bug fly.  You'd find some surprisingly nice smallmouth in there, on occasion, especially considering the size of the river.                      Woodberry was the place where I really fell in love with casting a fly rod.  For my birthday my tenth grade year, my first year up there, my dad got me a casting lesson with someone at the Orvis store in Richmond, and got me my first decent fly rod.  The feeling of casting, of feeling the bend in the rod propel line through the air, stuck with me....

I'm a strong believer in learning how to do things yourself.  And I'm a strong believer in understanding, at least a little bit better, how your stuff works, especially something you rely on, like a vehicle or an outboard motor.  It's cheaper (as long as you don't mess anything up . . . ) and you gain confidence.  The suspension on my 2012 Tacoma was starting to sag.  Years of boat hauling (including multiple trips from North Carolina to Maine), as well as my putting on a camper shell and carrying around too much gear, was taking its toll on the original suspension after 180,000 miles or so.  After bottoming-out a few too many times driving over dips in the road, I made my decision.     So after probably too much research, I pulled the trigger on a full Old Man Emu suspension , made by ARB in Australia.  (Get it HERE ).  It's not a "lift kit," per se, but instead a whole new suspension---new front coil springs, new shocks in front and re...

          There's the sound of a splash.  Over there.  Off to the right.  Right on the edge of that thin, stick-like, sparse and spread out bit of spartina grass.  25 yards from the skiff and closing, with the boat drifting ever closer as the tide pulls it out of the tidal salt marsh.  Ever closer.  Won't be long until the fish sees the boat and it'll be too late.  There's a wake, like a bow-wave of some miniature coastal Carolina submarine, chasing bait.             Sling a cast just ahead of it.  Bump.  Bump.  The line goes tight, you feel the tension, you set the hook, and the rod bends over.  The fish runs.  Line peels off the spool.  Steer him clear of the oysters.  You work him back.  He runs again.  Work him in, closer and closer.  Closer.  Scoop him in the net.  Doesn't get much prettier.