If you are familiar with Traveler, and see it on newsstands this month, it may be a bit shocking. Bob and Pat Todd, publishers, went to a publishers conference and came away with some "rules" on how to do covers. Hence all the type in the cover image. The picture, incidentally, is of writer Bill Cooper and no, his nickname isn't "Ol' Craz". That's a story inside about the continuing efforts to hunt this slyest of all Ozark turkeys.

Wild Turkey season opens this month, and it is almost as big as deer season in rural Missouri. There's a number of turkey stories in this issue, leading off with Charlie Slovensky's guide to getting a youngster involved in turkey hunting. Before you know it, they're hunting on their own.

There's another story about a Ray Eye turkey camp and one by Jason Brooks about hunting on public lands. Season details, and even a story about the history of wild turkeys in America - Ben Franklin thought they ought to be the natural bird, the symbol of our nation.

Other stories included coverage of the situation at Presley Conservation Area on Current River, the first Missouri Smallmouth Alliance banquet, how the seasons are shifting to fishing even if turkey season seems to dominate. There's a story about a prescribed burn on the Coldwater Conservation Area, scene of the biggest wildfire ever recorded in Missouri. That story is repeated below.

Wild hogs are still in the news. They're apparently fairly numerous at Clearwater Lake now, and have spread to much of Lake Wappapello lands. There's also an editorial urging government land managers to open up truck and ATV access for hunters to areas infested with wildl hogs. They're hardly pristine with when infested with hogs.

There were several stories from a recent meeting of the Conservation Commission. We learned the antler restricted season in part of the state probably won't be expanded for 2005. And the Legislature is taking pot shots at the Conservation Department by illegally messing with the budget.

The Osage could be called the first hillbillies. Kathleen Brotherton tells us something of these Inidans who were here when whites first penetrated the Mississippi River valley.

There are also recipes, seasons, coming events, sunrise/moonrise tables and lots of news.

Fredericktown. It is too small for canoeing or kayaking, but it provides a sense of wilderness to those who go to the trouble to find their way to it. We did not explore as far as Cathedral Canyon this time, but it is worth he trip. Traveler has a two-page photo spread of the Rock Creek Canyon.

A number of changes in the Missouri Wildlife Code go into affect March 1. This year, most of the changes have to do with trout. Trout parks opened March 1 also. Traveler had stories on trout fishing, code changes and some improvements to the parks.

A controversy is in the works. Gov. Matt Blunt has named a commission to recommend changes in state government, and already mentioned is the notion of combining state parks with the Conservation Department. Currently, parks are under the Department of Natural Resources.

History writer Jim Featherston tells about Kilroy, the World War II symbol that reassured advancing troops that Americans had already been somewhere and were probably up ahead.

Bill Cooper writes about how he got into turkey hunting and some basics he learned. It was also reported the count of young turkeys was down some last year, but held pretty strong in the central and eastern Ozarks.

Charlie Slovensky writes about life on his grandfather's farm along the Meramec River.Kathleen Brotherton tells how Indians has a religious reverance for natural things.

Plans are being made to begin to restore Big River where mine waste washed in decades ago. Letters and response go into detail on catching walleye on Black River below Clearwater Dam.

At Lake Wappapello, the first of 70 large brush piles have been placed in the lake. A public meeting regarding crappie regulations there resulted in a recommendation for a length limit of nine inches and retention of the creel limit of 30.

There are probably more miles of horse trails than there are miles of float streams in southeast Missouri. Traveler tells you where they are located. That story is repeated below.

There are recipes, the sunrise/moonrise tables, seasons and coming events. Writer Gary Benton tells what goes into the making of a good pocket knife.

For land owners, there's an introduction to fescue control. And Don Rathert tells about the good fishing to be had on a stream most would consider marginal.

Going on a forest fire: then and now

By Bob Todd
I was invited along to a forest fire on Coldwater Conservation Area.
It was the second time. This time the goal was to burn about 300 acres of forest to encourage a change to white oak/pine savannah, the condition of this particular land before settlement.
The Missouri Department of Conservation is managing about 1,100 acres of Coldwater for this type of habitat - something loved by deer and turkey.
About 800 acres to the east of this tract were burned last year. It would be a bit touchy today, burning the other 300.
The last time I’d been invited to a forest fire here was the infamous Cascade Tower fire, almost 40 years ago, and the goal that time was to keep wildfire from claiming any more than the 3,000 plus acres it ate up that day and night.
It was the largest recorded forest fire in Missouri history.
Today, foresters are better equipped, both to fight fires and to create them. It starts with a weather forecast, and they are probably better, but . . you still keep your fingers crossed.
It was to be a low humidity day, very good for burning. Now if the wind just did as predicted and layed low. It would be southerly.
Forester Jason Jenkins was in charge. He briefed the fire crew on the situation. They’d begin on the north side, burning along a road, into the wind. Then the east end. Then the west end. Finally, the fire spread along the south boundary would have the wind to its back and would move rapidly uphill to meet the slow advance of the other fires.
A problem on a day like this is that wildfires were likely to be popping up over the region by midday or early afternoon. It was likely some of the crew would have to be called off from here to go do battle with fires elsewhere. So the plan was to get the tract surrounded with burned-off woods as early as possible.
It would take only a few people to work the fire once it started to converge on the center. A few could patrol the perimeter, looking for burning snags and stumps and other things that might spring to life and spread fire to unintended areas if the wind came up.
I rode with Anthony Lee, a young MDC forestry person. We and two other fireman would patrol the north boundary as the fire was touched off and spread by men walking with what’s called a drip torch.
They walked along the road, dripping a flaming mixture of diesel fuel and gasoline on the tinder dry leaves and brush. We and the others lagged behind, spread out, watching for possible jumps of the fire across the road.
There was a small jump behind us, we heard on the radio. It was quickly dispatched.
A radio call from the headquarters at Piedmont. Could Jason spare anyone for a fire south of Piedmont? Jason had rounded up as big a crew as he could and would use them all if available. But he could send three men to handle this and other small fires that were likely to spring up.
Anthony and I had patrolled to one junction, returned to the other end of the section we were responsible for and were turning around when a call on the radio said the fire had jumped up near the junction, at the other end of our sector. Two or three others were already there, fighting the fire with rakes. We carried a tank of water in case things got really bad.
We hurried back. It seemed odd. Men on one side of the road encouraging the fire to move on, while across the road, men were working furiously to contain this unwanted blaze.
And it seemed incredible to me that the fire had jumped. It had eaten 40 or 50 feet into the woods on the left side of the road, but apparently a gust of wind picked up a spark and carried it over the burned ground, across the road, and another 20 or 30 feet into the woods before dropping it and touching off this blaze.
Soon, however, it was circled. But it did not want to just flame out and die.
Memories of the Cascade fire came to me. Pat and I had been fishing on Crooked Creek that Saturday near Marble Hill and the smoke from the fire - 30 miles or so to the west - darkened the sky. We feared fire would come roaring over the hill above the creek at any moment.
We had returned to our home at Jackson, and late in the day, a forester friend called and invited me to go along to Cascade. It was a fire totally out of control that afternoon that kept jumping fire line after fire line.
Fire fighters basically had to get out of its way and wait for something to change. Night would bring a change.
The Conservation Department was calling in people from anywhere that could get there. Dick would lead a group of local fire fighters. They hoped to pinch the fire in during the cool, more humid night. I would be needed to take photos and write about it later.
We learned later the fire had actually started Friday when a young hunter tried to smoke a squirrel out of a hollow tree. The fire had been extinguished, it was thought. It had even rained some Friday night.
But Saturday morning, desert air was blowing in from the southwest. Apparently a spark remained from Friday’s fire and by noon, fire fighters were fully engaged.
I remember something about humidity of 10, maybe lower that day. This time, it was down to 14 by noon, lower than the forecast low of about 20. I thought of this as I noticed the jumped place still smoldering, still putting up a tongue of flame now and then, as we passed it on continued patrols. It was contained, but I wondered how long it would be so if a strong gust of wind came by with the humidity so low.
Forty years ago, fresh firemen and very tuckered veterans set in again at dusk to try to control the fire. Two main teams. They checked the sideways spread of the fire and began the task of pinching it down.
Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, the wind laid and they were able to get a line ahead of the fire and start a backfire to stop it.
Equipment was much different then. The little dozers, not much bigger than a lawn tractor. But mostly just men and rakes. Plow a line, rake fuel back from it so the fire is starved and dies. Or widen the line by setting fire along the line to create a patch of scorched earth, again to starve the fire.
Managing a fire is almost like fighting one. Imagine a fire in the middle of the area you want to burn. Then create fire lines and backfire to snuff out the imaginary fire.
Back when, fire was nearly always considered an enemy in Missouri woodlands. They’d been burned and burned and burned to the point that there was virtually no quality timber in Missouri. All trees were fire scared and opened to rot.
There is nothing different about what fire does to a forest today. But at last we have a lot of woodland that is not fire damaged, producing high quality wood products.
We have the luxury of managing some of our forests for other things besides maximum wood products.
“There will be deer and turkey in here tomorrow,” I was assured. Indeed, turkey seem to hurry to burned over areas. Maybe they like acorns slightly roasted and easy to find. Maybe bugs are revealed when leaf litter is removed. They definitely like the new vegetation that follows a fire.
In the long run, burning creates the conditions needed for pine and white oak to sprout. That’s what dominated on this relatively flat ridge we were burning.
I left about 1. They’d pretty much circled three sides of the area and were about to touch off the south edge. It would be a hot, fast fire toward the middle, but nothing to watch.
Anthony and others would continue to patrol and begin snuffing out snags and stumps that might smolder and come to life to spread the fire after it appeared to be all over.
What about wildlife in the burn area? Mostly wildlife is well adapted to avoiding the flames. But not always.
Anthony said he saw a bobcat with most of its hair burned off, coming out of a wildfire near Lowndes. Back then, I remember seeing a whippoorwill take off ahead of the flames, flying up into thick, orange smoke, and falling back to the forest floor.
This day, we saw a wood rat that looked confused, no doubt having been smoked out of its burrow.
As in all things, there are costs. To do nothing has costs too, though not as easy to see sometimes.
The vegetation that springs up after the fire will make much better nesting cover for turkey than was there before. Fewer nests will be destroyed by predators.
I’ve been planning two small burns on my place. Nothing like 300 acres. One spot is about two acres, the other maybe 10. But I’m not going to go out in the woods and start playing with matches. I want help drawing up a fire plan and assurance I’m going to do some good by burning.
After all, I was at a very destructive fire at Coldwater too. The worst of that is still not much to look at today.

THE PAST - APRIL 1981

Charlie Slovensky headed off the April, 1981 Traveler with a story about his early turkey hunting failures - things like calling too much and impatience, which he writes about nowadays, but which he was experiencing back then.
The turkey outlook was good that spring. But a new record to top the 16,713 killed in 1980 was not expected.
The history feature was about the westward migration of the Shawnee and Delaware Indians to this area in the late 1700s.
Meramec Dam had been defeated by voters. Now the question was what to do with the land that had been acquired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The extreme views were to return it all to those who sold it to turning the whole thing into a federal recreation area.
There was an account of the year’s first camp out in early April. A tent had been set up a couple weeks earlier to serve as turkey camp. But the author choose to sleep by the fire, under the stars. He was awakened by a turkey gobbling on the mountainside above him.
There was a story on a float trip from Silvermines to Route E on the St. Francis River. A photo spread showed the bundled-up floaters on the early spring float.
The spring “turnover” of lakes was explained in detail. Most often it is concealed by spring rains, but it was observable in 1981. One day lakes were clear. Then as the turnover took place, they turned green or brown as the water from deep down came to the top, laden with algae and organisms that had died over the winter.
Don Slover had a story on the “spread head”, a snake that puts on a considerable show, but is harmless.
Ronald Reagan, a popular president, was not a friend of conservation or recreation. He was proposing to close 31 cooperative wildlife research centers in 29 states. In Missouri, the School of Forestry, Fisheries and Wildlife at the University of Missouri would lose four professors and 17 graduate students if the cut stood.
There was a story about history found in the rings of cedars in the Ozarks. The rings of 600 year old cedars, for instance, tell about the climate during the period the tree lived. The oldest tree found up to then was found on a bluff along Jacks Fork River. The tree, long dead but still there, was 720 years old, having died in 1892 after 512 years of life.
St. Joe State Park was opened for camping that year. Previously the park’s old mine waste dumps were used for off-road riding, and that’s about all.
People were traveling less but doing more. The number of people visiting Ozark National Scenic Riverways in 1980 was down by six per cent. But the number of float trips, picnics, fishing trips and most other activities were up for the year. Gasoline shortages in the late ’70s had people making fewer trips, but staying longer and doing more when they did travel.

Click here for back issues