I have hogs on the brain today. I opened my email this morning to a nice message about a Women in the Outdoors hog hunt coming up next month. Then, in my endless scans of outdoor news headlines, I saw this Telegraph story about a high-speed hog chase in Australia, in which some fast-moving pig poachers were pursued across the Outback by police and angry airborne farmers. The story stated that in Australia, wild pigs (with an estimated population of 23 million) outnumber people. Learn something new every day.
     Back on this side of the ocean and the right side of the law, I'm sure a number of us have hog hunting plans coming up. I for one have never been, but I've heard plenty of tales from others about  horseback chases, and crazed charging swine, and one inconvenient situation in which a friend ended up with a hog mount so big it overtook her dining room.
     I also hear more than I'd like about the whole topic of Hogzilla Culture -- the killing of freakishly monster pigs resulting in celebrity hunters, scandalous headlines, pig parades, and even pig movies (yup, that's a movie poster at right).
     Insanity aside, I wonder how many of us are die hard hog hunters, and what some of our best swine stories are. And if you have pictures -- send them in and I'll put them up! -K.H.

     I got to the office today, and a co-worker had sent an email offering free golden retriever pups, with a picture of an impossible-to-resist litter of warm, fuzzy furballs. There's no way I could take another animal at the moment living in an apartment, but offers like that always make me seriously consider it just for a second before I have to talk some sense into myself.
     Later in the day, I saw this Arizona Republic story about a Lab who ate a pair of Super Bowl tickets totaling $1,900 in value. That helped get me off my new puppy kick as well. Apparently as punishment, the Lab, a 3-year-old named Buddy (at right with the incriminating evidence), isn't allowed to watch the game.
     I've been wanting to write a dog-blog for a little while, and kept looking for a good news story to give me an excuse to do so. But considering that we're passed the time of year when a great dog-saves-duck-hunter-from-drowning headline is likely to pop up, I figure this ticket mishap will have to do.
     So now's the time for your best and worst dog stories -- from great hunts to utter training disasters. Remembrances of past companions are also welcome (the first story I ever edited for Field & Stream was a one-page piece about the death of a bird hunter's favorite retriever - it's amazing how upset you can get over stories like that when it's not even your dog!). -K.H.

After our booth babes discussion a few weeks ago, blog reader Deb Tressler emailed to add a slightly different perspective. She's the head of the central Pennsylvania PR firm for the Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show (I'm sure a bunch of us have attended), and wanted to comment on her observations of the increasingly positive role of women at that event. -K.H.

     Over the years, I've seen our Show change from the kind of environment where we had vendors bring in "Booth Babes" because they knew our Show was almost 99 percent a male audience, to what it is today -- a family event, filled with women and children.
     Sure, we still have groups of huntin' buddies that come from near and far and don't miss this Show for anything -- straight out of the woods dressed in their finest camo and blaze orange. But I can guarantee that at our "Try Before You Buy" areas every other person is going to be a woman testing out a fly rod or shooting a few arrows to see how that high-tech bow will suit her before she plunks down her cash.
     We have woman callers entered in our calling contests, in our fly-tying and decoy painting contests; they are as much part of the fabric of this Show as any man -- and believe me, our exhibitors have adjusted their way of thinking to reflect what they now know -- hunting and fishing and the great outdoors just isn't a man's world anymore.
     In fact, we've been lucky enough to have some really wonderful woman huntresses as featured seminar speakers (like Joella Bates) and they've packed our seminar areas as full as their male counterparts.
     You have to look pretty hard to find the "Booth Babes" at our Show -- sure, we have a few, but nowadays, I can count them on one hand.
    And, after 19 years, when an outdoor writer ribs me about being a woman that handles the biggest hunting and fishing show around, I just grin and ask them, "What makes me any different than you in the woods?" That usually shuts them up! -D.T.

A few weeks ago, Field & Stream deputy editor David E. Petzal did a guest post for us on the difference (or lack thereof) between men and women hunters. I know we got a kick out of commenting on the topic, so Mr. Petzal -- endlessly accommodating gentleman that he is -- agreed to do another. (Note, the photo below is actor Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie "Jarhead," not editor David E. Petzal, but honestly, they could be brothers!) -K.H.

Can You Take It?
     Thank you for all your kind comments. I was especially intrigued by the comments on women getting colder than men, and men picking on each other. I don't think women get any colder than men do (unless their clothing is inferior, which I doubt nowadays) but men simply don't admit they get cold.
     When I was a kid, back in the middle of the last century, one of the prime factors in how much respect you got from your peers was how well you could "Take it." Take what? Take anything. Cold, heat, teasing, pain, you name it. We would punch each other on the upper arm to see who could endure the pounding longer, and God help him who quit first, or cried, or said, "This is stupid." He was done. Finished. If you would like a perfect illustration, see the movie "Jarhead" (which also contains some scenes with Jake Gyllenhaal's naked butt, in case you're interested. Personally, I prefer his sister's.)
     Eventually, we became conditioned to this way of thinking. A couple of years ago I was hunting Cape buffalo with a friend, and we were walking maybe 10 or 15 miles a day. After a couple of days of this he allowed how his toe was annoying him, and took off his boot. He had a gouty toe that was the size of a ping-pong ball and colored purple, red, and black. How he even walked on it was beyond me, much less what we were doing, and never a word.
     But then he is of my generation. I have no idea what one of today's kids would do in the same situation. -D.E.P. 

     I suppose we should talk about Hillary Clinton at some point, and the occasion of her Nevada win seems as good a time as any.
     First of all, I'm sure a number of us vote our sport -- When Field & Stream's 2007 Women Hunters Poll asked, Do hunting or gun issues affect the way you vote? 78% said yes. But in the throws of the current campaign season, it's hard to resist asking the question, do some women vote their gender?
     If the news coverage following Mrs. Clinton's teary-eyed moment in New Hampshire can be taken as an indicator, the answer seems to be "Yes" for a number of voters. The New York Times, for example, quoted a local woman saying that the show of emotion in and of itself convinced her to cast a ballot for Clinton instead of Republican John McCain. "She is a woman," the voter reportedly said by way of explanation. "Give her a chance." The news story went on to point out that many women cited that display of humanity as a turning point that secured their support for Mrs. Clinton.
     Of course, if you're a woman who hunts, personality points aren't enough. Mrs. Clinton's well-known track record on gun control alone deserves grave consideration to say the least (The NRA's Political Victory Fund gave her an "F" grade as a result of her position on firearms ownership).
     Deciding your vote is a complicated task, and I for one am humbled by the responsibility. My interests as a sportsman weigh in, and I'm sure on some level my sensibilities as a woman weigh in as well. But my concerns as a human being on issues such as health care, education, and foreign policy are also key among the many considerations that determine my vote. - K.H.

     Reader Lou Alexander just got back from a vacation in England (Lou, it sounds like you take some killer trips, by the way), and emailed me, commenting that, "Hunting is a rich man's sport there."
     While it's true that in this country you don't have to be rich to be a hunter (yet!), sportsmen as a group spend some serious bucks. Around the time I got Lou's email, I was reading that Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation report on the money spent by hunters and fishermen a year. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's currently on the CSF homepage.
     Just to post some fun facts for a Friday afternoon, I yanked a few of the most interesting annual numbers out of that report.

$76 billion - Amount sportsmen spend on hunting and fishing a year (that's more than the revenues of Google, Microsoft, eBay, and Yahoo combined)

12.5 million - Number of hunters in the U.S.

$23 billion - Total amount hunters spend on their sport a year

$1,992 - Individual amount the average hunter spends on his or her sport a year

     And here's what the report says those bucks buy each year:

$493 million - Spent on hunting dogs

$2.4 billion - Spent on guns and rifles

$203 million - Spent on binoculars, telescopes, and field glasses

$459 million - Spent on apparel

$187 million - Spent on decoys and game calls

$696 million - Spent on ammunition

$3.50 - Spent at a yard sale by me on my newest pair of camo gloves (I talked the guy down from $7 - what a steal!)

     Reader Wanda Hyleman had sent me a nice email that she hoped I could share with "the girls." If you remember, Wanda lost her 29-year-old son Jerami in November. She wanted to let everyone know that she'd taken two does at the end of December (a 140-pounder and a 120-pounder). And she had this to say about them:

I have been hunting as much as I can, it sure has brought me some peace. Ya know, before Jerami passed away, I never wanted to stay in the woods past dark, now I hate to leave. The afternoon I shot the first doe, I looked up to the sky and said wish me luck. I guess he did.

     I was very glad to get such a nice field update - also glad to see Wanda's comments back on the blog lately. ALSO glad to hear she spotted 25 hens and jakes and 2 huge gobblers in the pasture where she turkey hunts - I know she's not the only one counting the days! -K.H.

     First of all, "Taxidermy" is just a fun word to say.
     Beyond that, the practice itself is fascinating -- and busy around this time of year. I wonder how many of us have hides and horns currently piled in the back room of some workshop somewhere.
     When I was a kid, I used to think those heads on people's walls were simply lopped off a dead animal and nailed to a plaque. The idea of there being a "craft" involved never occurred to me.
     Of course, as it turns out, the world of taxidermy is a wide, varied, sometimes disturbing place. There's competition taxidermy (the 2008 World Taxidermy Championships -- a National Taxidermy Association sanctioned event -- will be held this February in Salzburg, Austria), novelty taxidermy (the jackalope is a proud example), and just plain bizarre taxidermy (I keep running into "rogue" taxidermy associations that make mythological creatures out of game animal parts).
     I've had pretty good experiences with taxidermists so far - my favorite piece is a European antelope mount in my living room. I've also met some pretty interesting taxidermists themselves - most notable is an old order Amish gentleman in Lancaster, Pa. His barn is half horse stables, half workshop, and his oldest son is busy learning the trade (that apprentice system still at work is really special to see).
     My first experience with the excitement of finally getting a much-anticipated mount in the mail, was watching a co-worker on the day his delivery from an African safari arrived. This crate was easily the size of a small tool shed (how they got it up to the 10th floor of an office building is still beyond me). And the sight of all those heads packed so efficiently inside was impressive to say the least. I was excited, and it hadn't even been my hunt!
     My own deliveries have been much humbler affairs. I recently got the hide from that same antelope mailed back to me (I was told that particular hide wasn't the best, but in the spirit of using the whole animal, I had it done anyway). I was thinking about taking part of it to make a guitar strap - the rest I'm looking forward to figuring out. - K.H.

As many of you know, around this time every year, the National Shooting Sports Foundation holds a convention of outdoors exhibitors called the SHOT Show. I went for the first time in 2005, and came to appreciate how truly massive the exhibition is -- acres of booths displaying every gun, bow, backpack, boot, knife, and camo innovation imaginable (the 2007 show had 1,870 exhibitors and was attended by 42,000 people).
     As the industry gears up for the '08 SHOT Show in Las Vegas at the beginning of February, I thought it was worth zeroing in on one particular element of the event -- the booth babes.
     Of course, show attendance is dominated by men, and to get their attention, some exhibitors hire women to hang around their displays who seem to have forgotten their clothes that morning.
     I remember walking around the exhibition floor at that 2005 show, doing my job as an outdoors journalist just like any number of men in attendance. But the second I spotted the first of those booth babes, I immediately felt like an outsider -- like the only way a woman could fit into that man's world was to have killer legs and a chest that could knock an eye out. In a strange way, it was kind of like the time I went to Disney World as a kid and caught a glimpse of Goofy with his head off and the guy inside smoking a cigarette - I was in this incredibly impressive place, but one little detail sucked the fun right out of it.
     Maybe I could have been more of a sport about that whole thing. I mean, boys will be boys, and the booth babes are a kind of tradition at SHOT. And I'm sure the babes themselves are very nice. But -- not to be a downer or anything -- every time I spotted another one of them, I just ended up feeling, well, kinda depressed. -K.H.

Check out this YouTube clip when you get a minute -- maybe you actually saw this particular episode? Video aside, the comments below it from various non-hunters are fairly interesting (er, frustrating). -K.H