The Season

Kelly (Better on a Rising Tide), an authority on the wild turkey, particularly as it is found in the American South, conducts classes and serves as a guide for hunters. Those raised on the notion that the domesticated turkey is among the most stupid of animals will soon discover, on the hunt, that its wild counterpart is an alert, easily spooked and elusive bird; Kelly usually takes only two in a seven-week season. However interesting the account of his few successes and frequent failures as a nimrod, he pads it with many barely relevant passages, including animadversions on the Endangered Species Act, mistakes made in federal land management, the history of the timber industry in the South, the unique character of the Alabama National Guard, to mention a few. Every so often Kelly adopts a tough-guy tone, as when he observes that older hunters can't afford to waste an opening day because they ""damned sure ain't got enough left."" This becomes annoying. (Jan.)