Former Soil Conservation Service employee and longtime writer Mat Taylor offers his outdoors column for Dispatch Record readers. He can be contacted at (254) 518- 2262 or via e-mail at mntaylor@wildblue.net. Every year just after Thanksgiving, I receive Christmas catalogs with hundreds of items for the outdoor-minded person.

Christmas is only about one week away, and if you haven’t purchased a gift for that family member or friend who likes to spend time in the outdoors, I have a few suggestions.

Useful items include a highquality knife, or a compact flashlight that will help a hunter going or coming from a deer blind in the dark. If the hunter is having trouble with his deer feeder, a new timer motor may be in order.

Another useful item would be a game camera. With the camera, a hunter can tell how many and what kind of animals are coming to his feeder.

If the hunter has plenty of knives, maybe a good knife sharpener would be appreciated.

Other suggestions would be a new scope for the hunter’s favorite rifle or a range finder. A GPS unit also would be a useful item for anyone who spends a lot of time outdoors.

Of course, the ultimate gift would be a new rifle or shotgun, or a rod and reel combination, but be sure to follow all laws when purchasing a gun.

Additional items might be camouflage clothing, a rifle bipod or a combination walking stick and rifle rest.

For the hunter who did not get a buck this year, I would suggest going to a local processing plant and buying a bag of jerky, a jalapeno cheese salami or a log of summer sausage.

A number of items would make good stocking stuffers. These include a box of ammo, fishing lures, a hand warmer or gloves for those cold mornings in the deer blind.

There are many other items a sportsman would like to have, and the above are just a few suggestions. Remember, though, that everyone is different, and each person has individual wants and needs. If you can’t decide what to purchase, you can always just buy a gift certificate.

A final reminder: Be sure to shop for your Christmas gifts at local businesses, if possible.

Although most of us will spend time with our families during the holidays, remember that many firemen, emergency services personnel, law enforcement officers and game wardens will be on duty during the holidays.

Speaking of game wardens, TPWD periodically releases excerpts from recent game warden reports. Some of the more interesting ones follow.

Last month, two Montgomery County game wardens were running a deer decoy operation when they apprehended three subjects night/road hunting deer. A vehicle passed the decoy, turned around and, on the way back, started shining a flashlight.

As the vehicle approached the decoy, the passenger shot at it one time, hitting it just below the head with a .17-caliber rifle. The wardens stopped the vehicle and after identifying the occupants realized they had caught the shooter three years before.

The subject confessed to having done this many times before. The driver and the shooter were arrested.

A Trinity County game warden received a call that a local subject had killed a deer off a county road before the season opened. When the warden arrived, he found two subjects with one skinned buck deer head arguing over the proper way to measure the spread, along with a cooler full of meat on top of two hoop nets behind the barn.

The suspect said he was dropped off by his friend in the national forest to squirrel hunt but could not pass up the large buck.

When the subject was asked why he had his friend drop him off to hunt, he stated, “so the game warden would not catch me.”

In late October, a Camp County game warden received a call from a landowner in Franklin County about two bucks he found on his property that had gotten their antlers locked together and were stuck, each on opposite sides of a fence.

One buck was a nine-pointer that already had died, but the other was a huge 14-pointer that was still alive. The warden called another warden for assistance, and both met with the landowner. They were able to pry the bucks apart and untangle the huge buck from the fence. After lying on the ground for a few minutes, the buck stood up and walked into the brush, escaping what would have been certain death.

The wardens and landowner all said it was one of the biggest bucks they had seen in the area.