A lifelong outdoorsman and teacher's accounts of the powerful bond between nature and humanity

In Wilder Ways, Donald C. Jackson takes readers on a journey into the deep and very personal connections that can develop between people and wild places while hunting, fishing, and rambling across landscapes. Fishing by lantern light late at night for bullhead catfish in a small stream, hunting wood ducks and squirrels on his farm in north Mississippi, bow hunting deer as twilight creeps across a small clearing, catching crabs by handline in the Pascagoula River estuary, hunting caribou in Alaska and elk in Colorado, searching for blind fish in Ozark caves, and fighting a storm on an Indonesian river: Jackson leads us into reflections of our own journeys and helps us to understand that we can be part of a wilder way, often very near to our homes.

Jackson travels through tall grass, wet with early morning dew, light tackle in hand, down to a "ditch" under a Mississippi highway bridge to discover that the "ditch" is really a very fine stream full of fish. He recaptures the essence of hunting by stalking fox squirrels in a small patch of hardwoods. He describes the eerie, beckoning whistle of wings as ducks pass overhead in the pre-dawn fog. He reveals salt air and the power of a redfish as it strips line from the fishing reel while the sunset turns the marsh to gold. Under starlight along an Alaska river after an afternoon of grayling fishing, he contemplates the value of solitude. He will have readers falling in love again with tents, tractors, and old brown dogs. Through the shared journeys in Wilder Ways, Jackson taps into the rhythms of the earth, understanding that the wilds are not something separate from humanity.

Donald C. Jackson, Starkville, Mississippi, is the Sharp Distinguished Professor of Fisheries at Mississippi State University. He is the author of Tracks, also published by University Press of Mississippi.

240 pages (approx.), 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches, 14 b&w illustrations