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I'm not a smoker, so I've never pondered the question of what to do with my cigarette butts while out fishing. However, if the number of butts I see bobbing along the surface of the water is any indication, many smokers don't ponder either, they just take one last drag and flick it. After all, it's a just a little cigarette butt, right?

Well, no. In fact, according to this story cigarette butts are highly toxic to fish.

From the story:

Cigarette butts, one of the most ubiquitous forms of garbage in the world, have been found to be toxic to saltwater and freshwater fish. Even with a small amount of unburnt tobacco clinging to it, a single cigarette butt soaked for a day is enough to turn a liter of water a sickly yellow brown and kill 50 percent of fish swimming in it. Without tobacco, it takes about 4 smoked filters to do the same job. [ Read Full Post ]

You read that right, off campus. In the latest no-tolerance outrage, a California school has expelled a 16-year-old hunter for having two unloaded shotguns in his vehicle parked off campus. If this keeps up, school administrators are just going to take to the field en mass, confiscate guns from any and all student hunters, and promptly kick them out of school.

From the Chico Enterprise Record:

The Willows Unified School District board of trustees has expelled a 16-year-old for having unloaded shotguns in his pickup parked just off the Willows High School campus.

[ Read Full Post ]

If you bought Gorilla Inc.’s  latest safety harness, the EXO-Tech, you should stop using it immediately and contact the company for a refund. Yesterday, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the company, announced a voluntary recall of the product. Here’s the problem, according to this USCPSC press release:

Hazard: The webbing of the waist belt on the safety harness is not routed through the lineman's loop located on the front of the harness near waist level. Since the loops are not properly anchored to the harness webbing but are attached only through stitching not intended to restrain a user during a fall, they that [sic] can pull away from the harness when force is applied, leaving the user unrestrained. In addition, the manufacturer of the harness used a previously untested carabiner connector located at the end of the tether at the back of harness, which is the portion of the tether that attaches to the tree.

  [ Read Full Post ]

I’m feverishly preparing for my first duck season with Pritch. (Getting her used to decoys. Practicing pulling her in small boat. Etc.) I’m not expecting miracles, just looking to have fun shooting over my dog.

But I’m well aware of the problems that an unfinished dog can cause in a duck blind. I can already tell you that as soon as the guns go off or the ducks swoop close, Pritch will be whimpering with excitement. Still, if that’s all I’ve got to contend with then the Good Lord will surely be smiling upon me this season. [ Read Full Post ]

The pellets you see here make up the content of a pre-production sample of Federal’s new Prairie Storm pheasant loads,  a lead version of their Black Cloud.  The normal looking shot is copper-plated 4s. They are mixed with “Flitestoppers,” which are also 4s but have rings around them that look like Saturn, or like WWI helmets. The white stuff is buffer, which helps the pellets keep their shape as they go down the barrel.

Both pellets and the buffer are loaded into ... [ Read Full Post ]

From an American Sportfishing Association press release:
Without evidence that lead fishing tackle is posing a threat to loon populations, a proposed ban in Washington State is completely unwarranted!

Please send a letter to the Washington State Fish and Wildlife Commission demanding that they reject a proposed rule that would ban the use of lead fishing tackle. The proposal is based on the assumptions that lead fishing tackle poses a threat to loon populations and that many alternatives to lead are widely available for approximately the same price – neither of which is true. . . .

A study of common loons by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife found “no evidence of a declining population or a substantial change in distribution” in the state, and loon populations are stable or increasing throughout their range. Advocates for the proposed ban are using as evidence a finding that says over the past 13 years, nine loons are found to have died from ingesting lead fishing tackle.  [ Read Full Post ]

Recently I’ve heard a rash of stories about dogs ingesting foreign objects. Two weeks ago a good friend’s springer, Bailey, swallowed a cocklebur while on a pheasant hunting trip in South Dakota. The offending cocklebur lodged itself in the dog’s intestine and eventually had to be removed surgically. Thankfully, Bailey is recovering nicely. And over the weekend, a German shorthair owned by F&S Shooting Editor and Gun Nut blogger, Phil Bourjaily, ate an entire pack of sugarless gum, which can have dire consequences for a dog. Bourjaily spent a sleepless night watching his pup and was grateful for no adverse reactions except for minty dog breath.

But the story that surpasses all is that of a 110-pound Rottweiler named Luciano and his owner Deirdre Murphy Lofft. Seems when Lofft wasn’t looking Luciano sniffed out her engagement ring on the bedside table and decided to make a snack of it. After ransacking the house for a day the Lofft’s began to suspect Luciano and called the vet. They were told to watch the dog and its stools, which Deirdre did religiously. But after 48 hours of sifting through stools with rubber... [ Read Full Post ]

With all due respect to the many great Marlins of the past, this rifle bears an uncanny resemblance not to them but to the cult favorite Winchester Model 71. Both rifles are lever guns that deliver Serious Thump—in fact, the ballistics for their respective cartridges are almost identical. The main loading for the 71’s cartridge, the .348 WCF, is a 200-grain bullet at 2,530 fps. The sole loading for the .338 Marlin Express (developed and loaded by Hornady) is 200 grains at 2,500 fps.

The rifle I got to try out is ... [ Read Full Post ]

And when I say upstate, I’m talking way upstate. Namely, Moira, NY—only a handful of miles from the Canadian border and just down the road from North Bangor, where I grew up. I can tell you, there is not a lot for the deer to do up there, so I’m not surprised to read about one getting into trouble, but this was uncalled for. From the Watertown Daily Times:

For a few terrifying minutes, a Moira man became prey for a disgruntled buck.
An attack by a 10-point buck Friday sent Gerald A. Dabiew, 56, to the emergency room, covered from head to toe with cuts and bruises. . . .

“[H]e looked at me, and the next thing I know, he was coming right at me," he said. "He got me down on the ground, and it was then I knew that he really wanted to kill me. . . .

"I've got bruises from head to toe," he said. "He picked me up in the air and pounded me into the ground. . . .

"I don't know why he came around. All I was doing was throwing wood," he said. "I'm not even a hunter."

So what do you think?... [ Read Full Post ]

Yet another reason for a NJ bear hunt, from the New Jersey Herald:
When she heard a different kind of sound coming from the llama pens that night, Lynn Gannon knew something was wrong

"I grabbed the flashlight and went out. It was a kind of scream I had never heard before. Then I saw it. A bear was tearing at Lily[, one of the llamas]," she said. . . .

"The bear. . . ripped her open," Gannon said of the wounds, and the veterinarian euthanized the llama. . . .

As Gannon and her husband were standing over the animal . . . the bruin returned.

"He was right about here," Gannon said as she stood in the pasture Tuesday afternoon, reliving that night. "We yelled, waved our arms, but he didn't run off. He just kind of walked away, not afraid of us at all." [ Read Full Post ]

It's the middle of November... It gets dark by 4:30, lakes have started to freeze over, ice forms on your guides now at 2pm, and any sign of decent sized dry flies is way gone. Come another couple months you'll be jonesing for any kind of serious fly fishing entertainment, no matter the flavor...

Enter The 2010 Fly fishing film tour. This year the tour officially kicks off in January and hard and firm dates will be posted on their site December 1st of this year. 

There will be upward of 40 stops in major cities and 50 other independent promoters of the tour in smaller cities, put on by fly shops and groups like TU for all you folks who don't live near near the regular tour towns... Everyone who shows up will get a free fishpond hat ($20 value) and tickets can be bought online for $14 or $12 dollars at your local fly shop.

Official selections haven't been made, but it's a good bet there will be films by RA Beattie, World Angling, Confluence Films and the previously unreleased...

[ Read Full Post ]