"We have an active forest management program for wildlife," Zimmerman explained. "We do direct habitat management practices like planting food plots. We've had an outbreak over the past few years of pine beetles -- a major explosion of pine beetles that killed acres and acres of pine. At Catoosa, we tried to salvage what we could by cutting pine as fast as we could cut it. Because of that, hardwoods were left in those areas. We began burning, trying to create a savanna situation with native grassland scattered with hardwoods."

Now the 850-acre savanna is burnt annually to encourage growth of native warm-season grasses with scattered oak trees. Catoosa is in the process of creating similar savanna habitat on an additional 1,500 to 2,000 acres.

"There's a lot of benefit, specifically with grassland, open area and early successional habitat," Zimmerman said. "It creates good nesting habitat for birds -- particularly turkeys and quail, possibly grouse. It offers real good brood habitat for quail and turkeys. It's a habitat that is really economical to us, and is native and natural. We can burn 850 acres with four or five people in a day with the right weather conditions. The cost for a food plot can be $100-$300 an acre depending on how far we have to travel to get there. It can be pretty expensive."

Chuck Swan WMA is a great place for small-game hunts, according to Wildlife Manager John Mike. The area is closed to small-game hunters during three weekend deer hunts, but is open the rest of the time for those in search of smaller critters.

"We have an excellent squirrel population," Mike said. "We had great mast last year. They raised two different litters; I observed two different age groups."

Squirrels aren't the only small game doing well here, however.

Rabbits weren't doing that great," he continued. "We got rid of the hay sharecroppers and boosted the soybeans -- that's the only thing we changed, but apparently that had a direct effect on rabbits because the last two years we've seen more than ever. There were our loyal hunters who came every year whether they got a rabbit or not, and last year I talked to some of them and they were tickled to death. They hadn't jumped a rabbit in a long time."

Chuck Swan doesn't allow quail hunting at this time, but restoration efforts are underway. Quail have not responded to calling efforts in recent years, underlining their scarcity. At Chuck Swan, local landowners have allowed TWRA folks to trap wild quail to be released onto the WMA.