August 5, 2023

Fly-fishing for smallmouth: Streams, rivers a great place to start

Featured, Features, Fishing, National Fishing, Ohio / John Tertuliani

Ever wonder whether fly fishing is all it is cracked up to be? If you want to give it a try, a more noble native fish will be hard to find than the smallmouth bass. The flowing water where smallmouths like to live is often less crowded than lakes, and the scenery along rivers and streams is unmatched.
The learning begins with the cast. A weighted fly increases the challenge in proportion to how heavy it is.

Fly-fishing for smallmouth: Streams, rivers a great place to start Read More »

Outdoor Observations: Michigan deer harvest dwindles despite rise in license opportunities

Featured, Hunting, Michigan, Opinion / Bill Parker

Michigan’s deer population is growing. A steady decline in hunter numbers in Michigan – and across the country – has led to a decline in harvest numbers as well.
Michigan’s deer hunting population peaked in the 1990s. An estimated 785,000 deer hunters hit the woods in 1998, and they combined to kill just shy of 600,000 whitetails. Just 24 years later, last year, 586,595 individuals purchased a license to hunt deer in Michigan, and we combined to kill an estimated 303,087 deer.

Outdoor Observations: Michigan deer harvest dwindles despite rise in license opportunities Read More »

Bridge bass: Savvy tips for hot spots on every river

Featured, Fishing, Fishing, Fishing, Home Page News, Illinois, National Fishing, Ohio, Pennsylvania / Vic Attardo

God, what a racket.
As the sleek Amtrak Acela came along from the south side of the bridge, the mechanical uproar grew and grew and grew. The train appeared out of the thin distance at the bridge’s far end, roared up in speed and expansion as only a train can, then, as we sat in the narrow boat, passed over us like something fleeing a war zone.

Bridge bass: Savvy tips for hot spots on every river Read More »

Faulty assumptions on Pennsylvania fishing license sales

Fishing, National Fishing, Opinion, Pennsylvania / Ben Moyer

We humans are prone to assumption. Often, we think we know some truth or fact, but we haven’t examined the information that prompted our position.
I was driving home from a recent meeting when an SUV passed me, with a bundle of fishing rods visible through its back windows. Those rods, their tips jiggling along between two unknown (to me) points in Pennsylvania, piqued my brain out of blank highway-mode, and I began ruminating about fishing license sales, and what we may be assuming about that important statistic.

Faulty assumptions on Pennsylvania fishing license sales Read More »