The cover art for December is an Al Agnew painting of a cardinal in a cedar tree. Definitely a scene one might see in the country about Christmas time. Al, incidentally, is Missouri's top wildlife artist. You can see more of his work on his web site alagnew.com

In this issue, Bill Cooper writes about the solitude that can be found in winter floating and camping. There's also a story on the grotto sculpin, a fish found only in Perry County cave systems that is evolving very fast as those things go.

Cedars were very useful to the American Indians and Kathleen Brotherton has a story about that. Jim Featherston writes about Christmas in the Lower Current River country during the Great Depression. No one felt poor or deprived.

Deer were still in a news. A new state record was set, for one thing. There was a story about a youngster's first deer, one about a very comfortable blind and another about recognizing a good place to set for deer hunting.

Clearwater Lake's fishing outlook remains very good despite weather patterns the past few years that are usually followed by a leveling off. At Wappapello, it looks like 2007 is when anglers will get a real payoff in bigger crappie from a length limit regulation that was in affect in 2006.

It looks like the progress on cleaning up Johnson's Shut-In, Taum Sauk Lake and the East Fork of Black River maybe slowing to a crawl as govenment agencies and Ameren diverge on an assortment of issues.

There is a picture story about Marble Creek Recreation Area as a winter destination. Although the campground is offically closed, the area is a good place to hike and picnic and makes a good trail head for a section of the Ozark Trail.

There is a story on Morris State Park, one of the newest. It is a small park in the Missouri bootheel, preserving a bit of Crowley's Ridge. At this site, plants that escaped the consequences of the last ice age still hold out. The issue also has a number of venison recipes, seasons, commentary about the state's list of impaired waters. It does not include the East Fork of Black River, nor lower Jacks Fork River, both of which have prominent problems.

There's a lot of other news and an expanding section of listings for recreational real estate which is for sale.

Below is one of the news stories. it is about a new habitat barge stationed at Lake Wappapello that is creating cover for fish and targets for fishermen there and on other area lakes.

New barge for area lake brush piles
It’s here and it is being used. The habitat barge, that is, now located on Lake Wappapello.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Lake Wappapello purchased the boat with help of the Conservation Department. Now, a habitat barge is available locally and can be used more conveniently - and more often.
We went along as some work was done on the Lost Creek arm of the lake.
On this occasion, whole trees were being placed in the lake.
What happens is this:
A backhoe with a clamshell bucket was used to pick up whole trees on the parking lot at Lost Creek. Several trees were placed on the deck of the habitat barge where they were secured by cables and weights.
The barge then backed away from the landing and tilted its deck up a ways with its hydraulic lift. This got most of the tree tops out of the water so the barge could motor to where the trees were to be deposited.
At the location, the cables holding the trees to the deck were released and the deck hoisted again, letting the trees slide off into the lake.
The Corps placed brush piles such as these in several parts of the lake in November and was to loan the boat to MDC for similar projects on Clearwater Lake in December.
For the Corps, it isn’t just a project for fishermen. Routine maintenance and habitat work along the bank often involves cutting down trees and brush. Disposal of this material can sometimes be a problem. But with a habitat barge, it will sometimes be possible to kill two birds with one stone.
Both Wappapello and Clearwater are nearing 60 years old and nearly all the original natural cover has rotted away or been covered with silt.
Fish love the new structure and should have “moved in” by the time early spring fishing gets underway.

Two dozen years ago, December, 1982

Traveler reported hunters set a new gun season record for deer harvest with 56,041. And Traveler reported on Missouri’s pheasant hunting. The limit had been raised to two cocks in northern counties and a new season was opening for a zone in the bootheel.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was sending mixed signals at Lake Wappapello. They closed the restroom at Chaonia Landing for the winter, to save money. At the same time, they finished construction on a restroom at Sulpher Springs. This whole Sulpher Springs area was about to be closed only a few months earlier - also under the heading of saving money.
Along this line, the new head of the St. Louis District of the Corps, Col. Gary Beech, said basically that outdoorsmen would have to speak up about the facilities they want if they hope to keep them. The administration’s approach to management was basically to announce closings and unless there was an outcry, to go ahead and shut down facilities.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officially declared the red wolf as gone from the Ozarks. Smaller than the gray wolf, the red wolf was common here in early days and continued to survive well into the 1900s. It might survive yet, but apparently they were bred out of existence by coyotes. Or you could say they live on in the larger than usual coyotes that show up from time to time.
There was a photo essay on a duck hunting trip to Duck Creek Waterfowl Area. Two woodies were bagged by three hunters, but there was lots of activity in the area.
Charlie Slovensky wrote about hunting with his grandfather’s shotgun, a Winchester purchased in the early 1900s.
A banded turkey hen, taken in the fall season, turned out to be at least 10 years old. It had been trapped on Ketcherside Mountain and stocked in Cape County 10 years earlier.

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