Later this morning, anyone who wants to see what duck hunting's all about without actually going duck hunting will have the opportunity to vicariously participate. Later this morning ESPNOutdoors.com Duck Trek will turn on five live streaming cameras located in and around duck blind in Mississippi.

Editors Note: I've been trying to watch. Having "technical difficulties." I can't see stream on ESPNOutdoors.com and it provides no error messages or instructions. However, go to www.duckhuntinglive.com and it requires the download of Microsoft Silverlight 2.0. Once I installed Silverlight 2.0, I'm watching.

The live hunt will begin at mid-morning and last until they bag their limit or the sun sets. Viewers will be able to see every call and shot. The hunters will also be blogging during the hunt to help with understanding the action seen through the five cameras.

"This is really ground-breaking stuff,'' said Steve Bowman, executive editor of ESPNOutdoors.com. "Live hunts aren't easy, but we've been able to pull this one off, by utilizing the help of some very good friends in the Mississippi Flyway."

In fact, there has only been one other live duck hunt shown on television. That was in 1956 when a nine-minute segment was broadcast on Dave Garroway's "Wide, Wide World."

The blind is owned by David Melton of Dundee, Mississippi. Melton has gone through the expense of outfitting this blind with streaming cameras and is in the process of building a Web site, duckhuntinglive.com. That site will show the duck blind 24 hours a day, seven days a week, letting viewers peek in on hunters or watch ducks feeding around the blind. Melton says it's because he wants young people in "urban environments" to be able to see what duck hunting is all about.

When the Duck Trek hunt is done today, Melton's site will be showing other hunters in the blind every day through February. Today's hunt will be on ESPNOutdoors.com.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune is reporting that the Minnesota Department of Agriculture will x-ray all venison donated to the Minnesota Hunter Harvested Venison Donation Program. That's in response to a random testing that uncovered lead ammunition fragments in venison headed to the program.

The testing turned up lead fragments in 5.3 percent of the whole-cut venison, an increase from about two percent in last winter's testing - despite changes in the program.

"While in most cases the amount of lead was very small, the contamination raises questions about the effectiveness of the program changes," the department says, "These changes included mandatory training sessions for processors, and prohibitions against ground venison and venison from animals with extensive damage from ammunition."

The continued public health concerns over lead in donated venison seems to indicate yet another reason elected officials are beginning to listen to groups who want lead banned in ammunition. Ammunition makers have fought the idea in public, but we are hearing whispers that most are looking at the inevitability of finding safer substitutes for the element that has been a staple in ammunition almost since its invention.

And the continuing economic challenges in the publishing industry seem to be impacting even the industry leaders. Word this week that budgetary concerns at Outdoor Life have resulted in Patrick F. McManus being let go. Sources tell us that McManus' final "Exit Laughing" column will appear in the April issue.

If McManus is being let go, it's more than likely other "known" writers will also be getting their walking papers.