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Not too long ago, Mr. Merwin posted a blog about the boom in on-line social media, particularly the micro-blogging site Twitter, and how it relates to anglers. John is not a "tweeter," and (at the moment) neither am I, though I have been sucked into the black hole that is Facebook. Twitter basically allows you to track what your friends are doing 24-7, and that can range from drinking a beer on the couch to watching a man get ripped apart by a great white.

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Considering that fake fur is almost exclusively made from petroleum, I’ve never followed the argument that it’s morally and environmentally superior to the real thing. After all, real fur is made out of horny mammals -- an imminently renewable natural ingredient.

Neither, apparently, does the author of this article in Yesterday's Slate.

Let's run down what we do know about the two options. The knock against fake fur is that nylon, acrylic, and polyester are made from nonrenewable petroleum. [ Read Full Post ]

My Jeep Liberty chose the last Saturday of pheasant season to suffer power steering problems quite possibly related to -13 overnight lows.  When it warmed up to -1 or so, I closed out the year taking my wife’s car – a 2002 PT Cruiser – to the field.  Jed’s box fit neatly in the back with the seats folded out of the way.  It held me, my older son, our guns and gear, a snow shovel just in case, and, on the way back from the field, a couple of unlucky roosters.

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Fads and fashion in fishing tackle seem to wax and wane in waves according to the marketing hype behind them. For the new year, one hot thing seems to be fluorocarbon lines. There are more brands and more varieties (like the Seaguar example shown here) being touted in more and more advertising.

So here’s the question: Who’s actually using them?

Fluorocarbon does have some advantages over common nylon monofilaments: less visibility in some circumstances, a little less stretch (hence, more sensitivity), and much greater abrasion resistance. On the down side, fluoro can be stiffer and harder to handle on spinning reels, can be more difficult to knot well, and it sinks--so it’s not for surface lures. It’s also more expensive than mono.

I fish fluorocarbon occasionally as a leader on braid when bass fishing. And I’ll sometimes use fluorocarbon flyfishing tippet for fussy fish like winter steelhead that have been in the river for a while. When trolling for trout and landlocked salmon in the spring, I think fluoro line might get me a few more strikes.

But I also think fluorocarbon is kind of a mixed... [ Read Full Post ]

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Transportation authorities say a passenger inadvertently carried shotgun shells onto a plane at Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport. . . .

[According to another passenger] the pilot came on the intercom and said the plane had to return to the gate because a passenger had told a flight attendant he had the shells in his carry-on bag. . . .



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Fly fishers are usually pretty easy to pick out of a crowd. We like to literally wear our sport... from the Sage baseball cap to the sweatshirt from far-off Alaskan lodge, the angler's wardrobe usually includes more than a few signs of "I fish" and/or "been there done that."

As such, I've recently added two new favorites to my fly fishing T- shirt collection:

The "Steelhead Your Face" fishy take on an old Grateful Dead icon...

And this "in your face" take on the evolution of the modern fisher- man. (Hold the hate mail, spin fishers, I love fishing with conventional gear as much as anyone... but I do think this is witty.)

What do you think? Do you have a favorite element in your "fishy" wardrobe? By the way, you can buy the steelhead shirt here, and the evolution shirt here, respectively.

Deeter [ Read Full Post ]

Before outdoor writing became all how-to, all the time, one of the more common subjects was loss of friends, human and canine. This produced a great many maudlin, sappy articles but it also accounted for a few masterpieces.

Probably the best known is Corey Ford’s "The Road to Tinkhamtown," which was first published in the late 1960s and then again in our 100th anniversary issue in 1995. It has also, I believe, run elsewhere in recent years.

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From The Journal Times:

[Frank Hannan-Rock of Racine,] who was arrested while openly carrying a gun on his porch Sept. 9[,] filed a lawsuit Friday against the city and two members of the police department.

The lawsuit. . . challenges Wisconsin's Gun Free School Zone Act, claiming it "unconstitutionally deprives plaintiffs of a meaningful opportunity to bear arms. . . ."

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Okay folks, after four months the electronic doors have closed. As of January 1, no more new entries were accepted for the Gun Dog Photo Contest. Now the real fun begins.

In a little less than a month we’ll announce the winner of the Remington Model 1100 Premier Sporting 28-Gauge with nickel receiver and gold inlays (valued at $1400). And the best part is, the editors have no say in deciding the victor. That job is left up to you. And a job it is.

There are 778 photos to choose from. [ Read Full Post ]

Long-time bass fishing personality Jimmy Houston was in Norman, Oklahoma recently to conduct a halftime casting contest at a University of Oklahoma basketball game. What apparently transpired comes as no big shock, considering the state of modern manhood, but still a bit depressing. Here's how Norman Transcript Managing Editor Andy Rieger (who gave me my very first writing job many years ago) described it on his blog.
 
Four men, who appeared to be college students, were selected to participate in a casting contest directed by none other than America’s favorite fisherman Jimmy Houston. Houston tossed one into the net from half court while he was warming up. The man’s a master caster. Needless to say, many in the crowd were embarrassed when Houston had to show the contestants how to operate a fishing rod and reel. [ Read Full Post ]

My friend Bob is a very good bowhunter. He scouts exhaustively. Shoots continually. Hunts both hard and smart (and there is a difference). His trophy walls are proof of his skill and attention to detail; last time I was in there, I think Bob had close to 20 whitetails hanging that any hunter would be proud of.

So here’s the deal: For the last couple of seasons, Bob has known about a giant buck on property he has permission to hunt. Two years ago he passed the deer, knowing it had tremendous potential. Last fall the buck had made a big jump in antler growth and Bob was dialed into his early season patterns like a thief breaking a lock combination. Then an accident kept Bob out of the woods for much of the fall, unable to hunt the buck.

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From the Zanesville Times-Recorder:

A coyote-hunting tournament. . . in northern Nevada is drawing howls of protest from animal rights activists. . . .

Wendy Keefover-Ring of WildEarth Guardians said coyotes play an important role in the ecosystem.

"These kinds of high body-count hunts are completely unethical and go against the spirit of ethical hunting," she said. "They're not going to use the bodies for food or anything else. It's just a waste."

Organizer Matt McFarlane said he doesn't understand the fuss, noting similar tournaments have been held to help protect livestock elsewhere across the West for decades. . . .
McFarlane expects about 20 to 30 teams to bag up to 60 coyotes.

"That doesn't put a dent in the coyote problem," he said. "The feds don't have the money to do the killing. They rely on us."

It’s no shock to learn that animal rights activists don’t approve. But the fact is, many hunters balk at body-count-for-cash tourneys, too. What’s your take? [ Read Full Post ]