I was going through one of my many emails when I came upon a bit of a write up for DUTV that was headlined "Body Booting.". Yep, that was exactly my reaction to the strange-sounding term, and I immediately wanted to find out what the heck they were talking about.

Apparently, it's somewhat of a tradition for Capt. Charles Jobes and family for hunting ducks and Canada geese on the Susquehanna Flats around Chesapeake Bay, and they began it back in the early 1950s for ducks, adapting it to geese later on.

The concept here is to be where the ducks or geese are: in the water! They wear chest waders or a survival suit and hunker down among a large spread of decoys in knee- to chest-deep water. "There is something about standing in water several hundred yards off shore, in a large spread of decoys, with birds coming right for you at eye level that will make your heart jump into your throat," the write-up read.

Well, heck yes! I used to do something similar out at Grizzly Island while hunting sprig in the big, barren ponds out of parking lot 3 back in the 70s, when I would wade out into the shallow ponds and literally lie down in 3 or 4 inches of water, surrounded by a few dead bushes and all the decoys I could lug out there. It was tiresome, uncomfortable, and sure, I got busted by a lot of birds, but enough of them came close enough so that I always got my birds.

The piece on Body Booting is or will be airing on the Outdoor Channel, DUTV.

Arizona opens municipal lands to hunting

I was surprised and please to find a story out of Phoenix, Arizona, where public municipal lands in the great Phoenix metropolitan area were actually opened up for the public to hunt in.

This was the first year hunters were able to hunt much of the open, undeveloped public lands within municipal boundaries, and wardens and law enforcement officials reported nothing out of the ordinary in problems or calls into the Arizona Game and Fish department.

How much land was involved? A mind boggling million acres, according the Assistant Director Leonard Ordway, who said that just as agency experts had predicted, opening around a million acres to small game hunting actually spread out hunters, reduced possible hunter congestion, and overall reduced potential conflicts.

Prior to the opening of dove season on Sept. 1, Game and Fish officials designed and implemented hunt strategies within municipalities that emphasized reducing potential conflicts.

"We certainly did our best to go the extra mile and work closely with municipal law enforcement agencies. As we hoped, because hunters were better able to determine where to hunt legally on open lands, conflicts and potential violations truly diminished," Ordway said.

On the plus side, Ordway said, lots of hunters have been thanking the department for opening such vast tracts of open desert lands to small game hunting thanks to Senate Bill 1334, which granted authority to regulate hunting within municipal areas to the Arizona Game and Fish Commission.

Part of the reason for the move was for the youth.

"Youth who hunt and fish or routinely participate in other outdoor activities typically do better in school, have better self esteem, have enhanced problem-solving abilities, and demonstrate increased abilities to overcome challenges," Ordway pointed out.

Studies have also shown other increased attributes to participating in healthy outdoor activities such as hunting, fishing, camping, hiking and wildlife watching. Those include:

* Increased self-concept and self-concept domains such as independence, confidences, self-efficacy, and self understanding.

* Enhanced psychological well-being.

* Increased leadership competencies.

* Enhanced academic achievement and academic self-concept.

* Increased personality dimension such as assertiveness, emotional stability, achievement motivation, internal locus of control, and maturity.

* Improved mental strength and interpersonal dimensions, such as social competence, cooperation and interpersonal communication skills.

It's unlikely that anything like hunting municipal lands will come to California, and in fact, it's quite the opposite. Almost all lands around the Bay area are closed to most any activity, and certainly hunting. Despite a huge population of destructive wild pigs, the public landowners there outlawed hunting and are actually paying a hired hunter to kill and dispose of the pigs. Idiotic, but that's California.