'Tis the season for good stories.

Byline: INSIDE THE OUTDOORS By Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

Ho-ho-ho! Season's greetings from the Outdoor Guy.

Ordinary outdoor news won't do for my good readers at this special time of year. So here's an assortment of stories of the season featuring decoys, Thanksgiving turkeys, Christmas trees, things that go down chimneys and something for the angler who has everything.

Using decoys to lure game is as old as Jim Zumbo. Even stories about game wardens' use of decoy deer to bust poachers aren't as entertaining as they once were. But have you ever heard of a decoy being used to discourage other hunters from using a prime spot?

Doug Smith of the Minneapolis Star Tribune tells the story of the "odd-looking" deer hunter game warden Brad Johnson saw sitting in a power-line clearing while on patrol in Minnesota. Johnson decided to hike in to check the hunter's license.

"About 100 yards away, I noticed the guy is not moving a muscle," Johnson said. "I kept walking up to him and about the time I'm about to say hello, I notice it's a dummy, stuffed with straw, sitting in the chair. He has a BB gun with a scope, blaze orange bibs and a sweatshirt. His head was a soccer ball with a ski mask and sunglasses.''

Turns out the dummy was a practical joke, sprung on a local hunter who had - to the chagrin of other hunters - set up a deer stand near the power line. The other hunters assembled the fake hunter and set him out in an attempt to frustrate the stand-hunter's efforts to bag a big buck that had been seen in the area.

No word as to whether the dummy actually "decoyed" the intended victim into hunting somewhere else.

Meanwhile, the grounds crew at the University of Nebraska has an unusual but effective way of combatting the poaching of campus greenery for use as "Christmas trees," which sell for a pretty penny in Lincoln.

To deter theft, all evergreens on the university's Lincoln campus are sprayed with a mixture of fox urine and glycerin, according to the Daily Nebraskan newspaper. "It is a strong odor, and it smells just like what it is," said Kirby Baird, campus landscape manager. "It is fine when it is outside. ... But once it warms up, you can't have it in your house for more than five minutes."

The university has been spraying its evergreens with the potent concoction for more than 12 years, Baird said. In the past four years, only one tree has been stolen from campus.

Evergreen trees bring a big price in Lincoln around Christmas. "You look at a six-foot-tall evergreen, it is anywhere between $200 and $400," Baird said. "It is a good investment to protect these trees."

Chimneys are always a focus of interest during the Santa season. And residents of a house in Two Rivers, Wis., got some unexpected excitement recently when a squirrel fell down their chimney and into their lighted fireplace, according to the Manitowac Herald Times Reporter.

The squirrel ran out of the fireplace and ran around the house, prompting a call to the local fire department. Firefighters caught the squirrel but were unable to save its life. There was no fire damage to the house.

Speaking of uninvited seasonal guests, guess who came to Thanksgiving dinner at Sandy Cobbs' house in Bloomington - a wild turkey, which flew through a picture window in the dining room.

Cobb was in her kitchen when she heard a thunderous crash. "I thought my buffet fell over, it was so loud," she said.

"It's terrible. My house is a disaster!" Cobbs said to a Star Tribune reporter as she stood amid shards of window glass littering on a bloody carpet in her dining room.

"Everybody thinks it's funny, but it's not. I just couldn't believe it was Thanksgiving and there was a live turkey in my house."

Actually, she could believe it, as this was the second holiday feathered fiasco at the Cobbs' house in three years. Bloomington police confirmed they had been called there on Christmas Day 2004, by neighbors noticed a hole in the same dining room window while the Cobbs were away.

The officers had to kill that turkey, and it cost nearly $10,000 to make repairs and replace carpeting, windows and curtains, Sandy Cobbs said.

She lives in an area frequented by wild turkeys, and Mrs. Cobbs speculated that the house-crashing birds thought they were flying to roost in trees reflected in her window.

Finally, for the angler who has everything, consider a fishing lure constructed of solid gold and jewels from Macdaddy's Fishing Lures (motto: "We put the bling on your string.")

The Southern California company attracted media attention with its "million-dollar lure," made of three pounds of solid gold, encrusted with 4,753 diamonds and rubies. (See it at: www.macdaddysfishinglures .com.)

Company founder "Mac" McBurney actually fished with the foot-long sparkler during the $4.1 million Bisbee Black and Blue Marlin Tournament in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

McBurney protected his bejeweled lure with 800-pound-test woven steel leader and 500-pound-test monofilament line. Plus a policy from Lloyd's of London.

Unfortunately - or, maybe, fortunately - the lure did not hook a marlin.

Mike Stahlberg can be reached at mstahlberg @guardnet.com.