By Chad Love

When I was a senior in college, I took a three-week intersession class at the University of Oklahoma Biological Station on Lake Texoma taught by the late Dr. Loren Hill. If you fished for bass during the '80s and early '90s, chances are that at some point you threw a lure either designed by Loren Hill or one directly influenced by his groundbreaking research on bass behavior. I was not, however, a biology or zoology major, so what was I doing taking a field class with one of the nation's preeminent bass researchers?

I was, uh, learning how to fish. That's right: During the course of that class, for which I "earned" three hours of upper-division elective coursework, I spent every day on the water chasing stripers and bass with either Dr. Hill himself or one of the two or three active professional bass anglers (including Dr. Hill's son, Kenyon) who helped teach the class. It was a fishing class, and to this day it remains the single coolest college class I ever took, or could ever hope to take.

But I have to admit, this one sounds almost as cool. Did you know that Penn State University offers a hunting class?

By Chad Love

Two Utah wingnuts are behind bars after setting a series of bizarre booby traps on a popular hiking trail. Then (as all master criminals seem to do these days) they bragged about it on Facebook.
 
From this story on Gawker.com:
 
Two men whose parents did not raise them well have been arrested in Utah after allegedly setting up potentially deadly homemade booby traps to ensnare travelers along a popular hiking trail. One of the traps was designed to send a tripped victim tumbling into a bed of pointy wooden stakes protruding from the ground. Another, pictured above, was to be triggered via a fishing line trip wire; when crossed, it would send a 20-pound boulder, to which several sharpened spikes had been affixed with what looks to be just tons and tons and tons of rope, speeding at a victim's head. The traps were set around the entrance to a makeshift wooden shelter used by hikers as a sleepover and campfire site. 

By Chad Love

In response to a large turnout at its latest meeting, the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission will not close the sage grouse season in NE Wyoming.

From this story in the Casper Star Tribune:

Despite recent declines in sage grouse in northeast Wyoming, a three-day hunting season will continue this fall. Dozens of people came to the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission meeting Wednesday protesting a proposal to close the sage grouse hunting season in northeast Wyoming. After hours of debate, largely from falconers and other groups, the commission ultimately voted to keep the season open. Game and Fish biologists proposed closing the season because of declines in the population and because some members of the public worry hunting a species that could be placed on the endangered species list isn’t a good idea, said Tom Christiansen, sage grouse program coordinator for Game and Fish.

By Chad Love

A Florida man accidentally shot his girlfriend when he fired blindly into the brush during a hog hunt.

From this story on ABCnews.com:

Life at home for one Florida man got a lot more complicated when he accidentally shot his girlfriend in both legs thinking she was a hog. Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies say 52-year-old Steven Egan was hog hunting Saturday night with girlfriend Lisa Simmons at a hunting camp off a rural county road in Flagler, in the northern part of the state. Around 7:30 p.m., officials said, Egan shot at a hog and then left Simmons behind in the tent to go look for it. When he heard a noise in the woods he fired his gun again, thinking it was the animal.