By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

On the other side of the country, where Maine fisheries officials recently opened the first Atlantic salmon season in seven years, Beau Peavey of Glenburn hooked the first legal salmon since the 1999 closure--a 12-pounder below the Veazie Dam on the Penobscot River Wednesday morning. The experimental catch-and-release season designed to bolster public support for the state’s salmon restoration continues until Oct. 15. Click here for the story.

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

I was saving for an Austin & Halleck Mountain Rifle Select, the prettiest non-custom sidelock available as far as I’m concerned. Sadly, it (along with the 420LR Classic, the only truly handsome production in-line I can think of) will no longer be available by Sunday, as the company announced it will suspend operations on October 1. As the move toward uglier and uglier guns rolls on, this is a real blow to sportsmen who still appreciate beauty in a gun.

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

Some years ago, there was a senior editor at Field & Stream who was afraid of squirrels. I used to give her some grief, asking, “What in heck’s a squirrel going to do to you?” Well if this story is any indication, the rodents may well pounce on you unsuspectingly from the trees and start biting and scratching—which is exactly what one squirrel did to a 4-year-old boy in California’s Mountain View’s Cuesta Park on Tuesday. As usual, the editor mentioned has been proved smarter than me.

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

Last week, The Orvis Company threatened to withdraw a $100,000 grant for habitat restoration on Vermont’s Battenkill River if state fisheries officials went ahead with a plan to stock the ailing river with non-native rainbow trout. Now, after a public hearing, Vermont Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Wayne Laroche announced that the stocking plan is dead: “The public at that meeting was I’d say four to one against stocking rainbows on that stream,” he told the Associated Press. “We’re absolutely going to listen to that.” Here's the story.