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By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

About a month ago, 11-year-old Levi Lenard of Burlington, Kansas, caught an enormous rainbow trout while flyfishing Arkansas’ Dry Run Creek with his dad. As state regulations require the immediate release fish caught from the creek, father and son took a picture of the monster trout and let it go. Now, after studying photographs, an Arkansas Game and Fish Commission trout biologist has estimated the trout’s length at 30 to 32 inches, its girth at 20 to 22 inches, and its weight at near 25 pounds—more than enough to break the Arkansas state record of 19 pounds, 1 ounce. Here’s the story, with a picture of Levi’s would-be record.
http://www.baxterbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060201/SPORTS/602010335/1006 [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

After much prayer, meditation, and fasting (well, no, no fasting, screw that) I have realized that our deterioration as a nation is not due to our addiction to gasoline, Internet porn, a Congress that has pretty much given up, a pinheaded President, or Senator Hillary R. Clinton's nightmarish, nonstop whoring after the Oval Office. No, it is due to the Lead Sled.

In case you're not familiar with this infernal device, it is a metal pan upon which is affixed a rifle mount. To use, you lock your rifle in the mount and throw lead-filled shot bags on the sled. Then you aim the rifle and shoot, and the monstrous combined weight of sled and lead completely eliminates all recoil.

If you use the Lead Sled you will not suffer from detached retinas, blinding headaches, crying jags, spinal injuries, or any of the other neat stuff that recoil can cause. That's the good news. The bad news is you will be a sissie boy, a girlie man.

Friends, listen to me: The way you learn to shoot a rifle that kicks is by shooting a rifle that kicks. My brother, a sixth-degree black belt (Tae Kwon Do), tells me of martial arts experts... [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

As this Idaho Mountain Express and Guide article points out, while global warming and development is driving some animals north, Shiras moose are heading south and west, populating some areas well beyond their historic range. Scientists admit they don't know what accounts for the move, but at least one wonders about the Western reintroduction of wolves, noting that "If wolves are putting pressure on moose, they will go some place where there aren't wolves." (Click here for the story) [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

OK, here’s a questions for all of you out in blogland: I’ve been arguing all morning with a friend at one of the gun companies about looks—not hers, the guns her employer makes. I claim that their best-selling model is coyote ugly, or as ugly as several recent Presidential daughters. And my question to you is, how important is a gun’s appearance? If it shoots good and the price is right, do looks matter? [ Read Full Post ]