Like most northerners, I dread December. After all the fall weekends of preparation, and then all the November days spent in the woods hunting deer, the end of the season is just too depressing. But I've discovered a cure for this malady, and that cure is to go south.

This year I flew down to Mississippi, joining long-time hunting buddy Andy Dyess. Andy and another friend, Mike Jones, met me at the Jackson airport, then we drove down the Natchez Trace, to Andy's 1,800-acre hunting club near Natchez. That's the front of the club in the photo ... it's been a hunt club for more than 100 years.