It’s trade show season! It’s also squirrel, rabbit, coyote, bobcat, and waterfowl season too. Hopefully, yours truly will dabble in all the seasons over the next month.

One of the more exciting tasks ahead of me is waterfowl hunting with a sweet local gun store find, a Manufacture d'Armes de Saint-Étienne (MAS) 16-gauge side-by-side shotgun built in 1946. The gorgeous case-hardened, French walnut-stocked shotgun was built with a set of fixed-choked full and modified barrels, so I’ll be using Boss Ammunition’s copper-plated, non-toxic, non-steel loads for waterfowl. In the upland fields, I’ll chase quail, chukar, and pheasants with Fiocchi’s fantastic Golden Pheasant loads. I’m also looking forward to chasing turkeys with the MAS this Spring.

The author’s old-school French-built MAS 16-gauge shotgun will work the Virginia skies for waterfowl and upland game in 2022.

For 2022, we travel to New York for the second Mossberg/GPO All-Rookie story in our new series. We are also alternating Larry Weishuhn and Luke Clayton’s Hunting Wire Radio and Kenny Corder’s American Signature Podcast every other issue. We’re excited to tell you LSU professor Bret Collier will start a new Collier’s Corner column next issue. He’ll teach and inspire hunters of all levels about how wildlife biology impacts us as hunters and conservationists.

I’d also like to give a Hunting Wire shout-out to Tom Ryle, the Sales and Marketing Manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife who reached out to me via email to let us know that they’re launching a new R3 effort there soon. Tom’s an accomplished hunter himself. Here’s a story about Blacktail hunting he wrote. Thanks for reaching out, Tom, and keep up the good fight for all hunters in Washington!

We’re looking forward to a terrific 2022! If you have questions, concerns, or ideas to improve The Hunting Wire, feel free to contact me directly jay@theoutdoorwire.com