Tennesee’s Wild Side Weekly Article

Country Star Craig Mogan Walks On Tennessee’S Wild Side

By Steve Hall

In turkey season, Country Music Star Craig Morgan spends about as much time “gobbling” as he does singing. During deer season, the voicemail message on his cell phone leaves no doubt how he’s spending his time. “I’m either on a stage or in a tree,” Craig tells callers, in his familiar Tennessee twang.

Ask him whether he would rather be singing or hunting, and Craig lets you know with a line of laughter that you’ve asked an unfair question. He can’t deny that singing pays the bills. His country music star has been constantly rising over the past few years with such big hits as What I love About Sunday, the most played radio song in 2005, Almost Home, named song of the year at the Music City Music Awards, Redneck Yacht Club, Paradise, I Love It, and When A Man Can’t Get A Woman Off His Mind.

But hunting holds a part of his heart with a zeal that borders on obsession. “I love hunting with a passion like no other human being. Turkey and White Tail are my two passions - probably more turkey than White Tail,” he confesses. “But there’s something really cool about waiting in a tree stand and seeing a big White Tail walk right under me.”

You can’t be around Craig for long before you realize that God and family take priority over all else in his life. He and Karen have been married 16 years. They have four children, three by birth and another by adoption. But, of course, Craig finds a way to blend his spirituality, family life, and career with his enthusiasm for hunting. “Being in a tree stand gives me a special private time when I can write and pray. Without a doubt, my relationship with God is strengthened during that time.”

Those quiet mornings in the tree stand also inspire his music. His album, My Kind of Living pretty much spells it out. “Everything in my music refers to my lifestyle, and a lot of that has to do with the outdoors. I’ve got a line in one of the songs that says ’There’s a 10 point buck on my living room wall, and a squirrel and two ducks are hanging in the hall.” The rhyme is much closer to truth than fiction. The Morgan home in Dickson County is in fact a bit of a shrine to his success in the woods.

Just as his dad passed on a love of the outdoors to him, Craig shares the tradition with his young sons. Thirteen-year-old Kyle shows strong signs of being a chip off the old block. He and his dad even make their own arrows for bow season. “I took Kyle on a muzzle loading hunt and he got an eight-point buck. It was more exciting for me to see Kyle take a deer than if I had done it myself. He was thanking me and telling me how great it was and how much fun he had. He was shakin’ he was so excited and I was shakin’ because I was so excited for him. He made a great shot with a muzzleloader. The deer dropped as soon as he shot him. He hit it right behind the shoulder.”

Craig’s faith in God and commitment to family has motivated him to become the TWRA spokesman for the “Hunters for the Hungry” program. “The bottom line is we’re feeding hungry people. Hunters donate their portions of harvest, or their entire harvest and the meat processors donate their time. I had one hunter tell me he didn’t have a way to keep the meat fresh, and I told him I would give him a freezer. All he has to do is plug it and pay for the electricity. This is really important. It’s not just in Tennessee. It’s all over the country. Hunters are providing more than 480,000 meals a year.”

As Craig sees it, this opportunity to provide venison at no charge to families who need it represents the relationship of man and nature working at its very best. And he credits TWRA for a great resurgence of turkey, deer and other wildlife. “Growing up, we didn’t have the wildlife and game we have now. If my dad got a turkey, it made the papers. To harvest a deer was a great thing.”

“As long as we keep the wildlife in the forefront,” Craig predicts, “There will always be a positive future. Hunting is really the primary way right now in this country of managing wildlife. If it weren’t for hunters there would be no turkeys left in this country. In Tennessee, if not for hunting, we would have more of the disease that’s killing deer in so many other states. The overpopulation of deer in some places is making national news because of so many people hitting them with cars. But in Tennessee, the work of TWRA has brought increased harvest numbers for the management of wildlife. What’s happening is that deer in Tennessee are getting bigger, stronger and better.”

“I’ve become really good friends with some of the TWRA personnel, Jerry Odom, in particular. He’s working very hard on Project Tennessee that involves high school students in the state. When I come off the road, I plan to spend more time with the kids in that organization. They’re doing things like cleaning up beaver dams that damage the environment, transporting turkeys from one place to another, and helping local farmers build buffer zones that provide habitat for small game.”

Craig is also managing his own land to attract wildlife in accordance with recommendations of TWRA biologists. “I have food plots during the early months outside the season. When we’re not hunting, we have automatic feeders out. We’ve even starting doing things in the last couple years to manipulate the terrain so we can control movement of wildlife. If you clear out paths for deer, it makes it easier for them to move through certain areas. But food plots have become such a big thing these days. Hunting has become such a science, and we’ve figured out we can manipulate movement of the wildlife while providing food source. We’ve found out the food source needs to be familiar. There are only a few things important to wildlife: food, water and shelter. You provide those things and you’re creating the ideal environment for them to live in. By doing that, you can manage them by removing the ones not doing so well, helping eliminate disease and other things that have a negative effect on our wild life.”

It’s pretty clear that Craig never does anything halfway. When he was in the Army, he served as a Ranger, sent on missions requiring him to jump out of airplanes wearing a 65-pound backpack, landing under heavy fire, and marching 50 miles at a time. He was part of the Special Forces team that ousted Manuel Noriega from Panama during Operation Just Cause. He remains active in the reserves and performed for troops serving in Iraq.

With his family, hunting, responsibilities to the reserves and touring, you may wonder how Craig finds time to do anything else. But the old philosophy that “if you want something done, give it to somebody who is busy,” definitely applies to Craig. He is also very actively involved with Tennessee’s Wild Side, the Emmy-Award-winning television show produced in partnership with TWRA and broadcast across the state. “It’s probably the best produced outdoors program on TV,” Craig brags, “not just in Tennessee, but anywhere. That’s saying a lot because I watch all the outdoor channels. I really appreciate the educational value of the program and I’m proud to be a part of it.”

Craig is quick to tell people to call him if they need him. But even if he’s not hunting and singing, callers will probably still have to leave a message and be patient. He’s kind of busy right now.

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