Elmo Ziebach's 'A Bubba on Polecat Bay' is a must-read for outdoorsmen

The first full weekend of college football is in the history books now and there were very few surprises in the opening games of the season. Alabama and Auburn both won, which means most local fans are happy, and Vanderbilt was the only SEC team to lose its season-opener.

This coming Saturday, fans have more than a few good games to look forward to, and here are my predictions for this week’s slate of SEC games. I like Alabama over Middle Tennessee State, Auburn over Jacksonville State, LSU over Mississippi State, Tennessee over Oklahoma, Georgia over Vanderbilt, South Carolina over Kentucky, Florida over East Carolina, Missouri over Arkansas State, Arkansas over Toledo, Ole Miss over Fresno State and Texas A&M over Ball State.

Last week: 11-2. So far this season: 11-2.

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This past weekend also marked the first weekend of our local ESPN College Football Pick ‘Em Contest. Contestant DD11 finished in first place, and Glennis Curry, last year’s defending champion, came in second. Ricky Taylor was third.

Three contestants were tied for fourth place – Steve Stacey, James4433 and Bamabelle. Sambo was in seventh place, and Hunter Norris was in eighth place.

Hillcrest assistant football coach Arthur Ingram III finished in ninth place. Ricky Powell, Casey Grant and Mike Dailey were in a three-way tie for tenth place.

In the interest of full disclosure, your friendly neighborhood reporter finished the weekend in 17th place.

If you’re one of the contestants in the contest and didn’t do well over the weekend, don’t sweat it. We’ve got 12 weeks to go before the end of the season, and the Top 10 will change a lot over the course of the next three months.

I’m also asking those of you in the contest to send me your real name if I don’t have it already.

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Before I close this thing out again for another week, I want to be sure to mention an outstanding hunting and fishing book that I recently read, “A Bubba on Polecat Bay: And Stories of Other Incorrigible Characters” by Monroe County outdoorsman Elmo Ziebach.

Released on June 7, this book is an entertaining collection of Ziebach’s hunting and fishing stories. In almost all of these stories, Ziebach tells of a “Bubba,” that is, one of his sidekicks, and their many adventures together.

Not only is this book flat out hilarious, but it’s also educational. You’ll not only find yourself laughing, but you’ll also learn a lot about hunting and fishing in the process.

Copies of this 199-page book are available through Amazon.com, and I highly recommend that you check it out, especially if you enjoy the outdoors.

For those of you who have read and enjoyed “A Bubba on Polecat Bay,” I also highly recommend that you check out Ziebach’s first book, “The Second Head of Chocalata.” That book came out about 10 years ago and is also a great book about the outdoors. “Second Head” is mostly about duck hunting in Mobile and Baldwin counties, and if (like me) you don’t know much about duck hunting, you will know a whole lot more after reading Ziebach’s book.