We try to keep our family vacations real and natural. That means we avoid Disney World and other theme parks like the plague. The natural world is so much more unpredictable, and it’s reality, not fake concrete waterfalls and $20 plastic mugs.

When it comes to outdoors hunting and fishing adventures, you tend to remember the toughest ones almost as much as the best ones. That was the case on a family fishing charter in the Atlantic Ocean out of North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on June 15 as part of an 11-day trip to the Carolinas.

It’s a tall task to recruit a new hunter to the turkey woods and kill one on the day planned.

Wisconsin’s sportsmen largely support increased hunting, fishing and trapping fees, but a 50% increase is too much, according to results of the combined Conservation Congress and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources spring hearings and online survey of 44 questions.

The magazines and the internet trolls make it sound so easy, but it’s a rare hunt that goes down simply and quickly.

Wild animals are never predictable, and wild turkeys never seem to do what they are supposed to do, according to those experts.

The internet is now full of “what if” hunting scenarios, and a recent one that caught my eye said, “A gobbler hangs up at 50 yards and you have tungsten shot. Do you shoot?”

In about 60 years of hunting, I’ve read a lot of articles around deer, small game, upland bird, predator and turkey hunting. It’s hard for magazines to come up with something truly new to say about hunting anything, although I keep buying them. You probably do, too.