Published: Mar 21, 2004 - 12:33:24 am CST Natchez native Strickland releases latest book as turkey season opens - By CHUCK CORDER

March Madness has a whole different meaning to Ronnie Strickland.

Besides following his Mississippi State Bulldogs steamroll their way through the NCAA Tournament's field of 64, the third week in March signals the start of Mississippi's turkey season - Strickland's Christmas morning.

The Natchez native, who is currently the senior vice president of Television and Related Media for Mossy Oak in West Point, "Cuz" lives for hunting turkeys. So much so that Strickland has written a series of engaging books about the sport.

The second, "The Whole Truth about Spring Turkey Hunting According to Cuz," was released late last month, and it's a must-read for diehard turkey enthusiasts, especially for Strickland's Natchez friends.

"I wrote the first book, and it was pretty successful. I was very surprised. It's not exactly a John Grisham novel," said Strickland of "The Truth about Spring Turkey Hunting According to Cuz."

"You've gotta be a hardcore turkey hunter to get it. When a real turkey hunter reads this, he's gonna start nodding his head."

He credits Natchez with the first chapters of the "Truth" series. Strickland and hunting buddies like Ross McGehee and Bubba Bruce used to take to the woods with a cumbersome camera in tow to make some adventurous home movies.

"Back then the camera weighed 80-some-odd pounds. We didn't know what we were doing," Strickland said. "They were doing it with me because they were my friends. If you thought about doing this because you wanted to hunt to be some hero, you were doing it for the wrong reason."

Still to this day, when folks ask where Strickland is from, he tells them Natchez is his home, despite living in northeast Mississippi for the better part of 14 years now.

For a hunter as addicted to the sport as Strickland, Natchez was the ideal place for him to grow up. He still remembers the willingness people had to share knowledge about their successful spots

"The hunting was so good. I remember the people more than anything," said Strickland, whose father was the sports editor at The Democrat, and he himself contributed a hunting and fishing column for some years before he left in 1990.

"Natchez was a special place to grow up if you were hunting or fishing. I've gone all over and I still think it's one of the best places in the world."

Strickland produces five television shows, with his "Hunting the Country" remaining the highest-rated outdoors program on ESPN2 currently. In July, a new show titled "Step Outside" will debut.

Last summer the Golf Channel ran a Strickland program called "Second Season," which featured current and former PGA Tour pros in their element on hunting adventures.

The series, which included a Texas' bow hunt with legend Jack Nicklaus, will have its episodes increased from 13 to 26 this summer.

"It's more than the hunt. It's about storytelling. I think the reason we've been so successful is we relate to more people. It's not about the size of deer you get, but what your experience was like. I think people pick up on that.

In the upcoming weeks, Strickland related he will take a 21-year-old Alabama Marine, who has just returned from Iraq, on a hunting trip to Texas.

Keeping to his roots, Strickland has already enlisted the services of Natchez's Bad Boy Buggies, which makes the first-ever, all-electric four-wheel drive vehicle.

He's confident that there will be a bumper crop of turkeys this season statewide in Mississippi.

"Mississippi has a lot to be proud of with the MDWFP (Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks)," Strickland said. "Twenty years ago it wasn't much, but now, these are the good old days. They've done a great job at setting limits."

He spent last week near Scuba on a youth hunt, where he watched a 12-year-old harvest his first turkey.

While he loves the sport, he knows all too well that its success depends on intangible factors, namely the weather.

"It's all about the weather. If it rains, they can't stand that," Strickland said. "It's hard to raise a turkey from a brood. They lay their eggs on the ground, and every predator in the world has a chance to get those. It's almost a miracle if they do hatch."

Strickland said he found in doing seminars his audience enjoyed being entertained with engaging stories, not bored with meaningless facts or statistics.

The stories led to penning some magazine articles, which led to those being compiled into a book, which in turn became the "Truth" series.

"It's not something where you say, 'OK, I'm gonna write a book and put my kids through college,'" Cuz said. "But turkey hunting is a cult. Everybody knows everybody."

The Natchez Democrat story archive contains stories and related material published online after August 1, 1999. The archive does not include the complete text of the print edition of the paper.