Steve Pollick, Author at Outdoor News

Steve Pollick: A good day had on the quiet waters of Ohio’s Lake LaSuAn

Blogs, Featured, Fishing, National Fishing, Ohio, Opinion / Steve Pollick

Scratching the fishing itch sometimes means stepping outside the usual routine and trying something different, so fishing buddy Steve Hathaway and I did just that recently – with very satisfying results.
Our usual angling haunts lie in western Lake Erie, home of renowned walleye and yellow perch angling. But a spate of fickle winds and weather had kept us pinned down at the dock too long, so we decided to venture into the extreme northwest corner of Ohio to the Lake LaSuAn State Wildlife Area and its cluster of 13 lakes and ponds.

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Steve Pollick: An ode to two remarkable Ohio outdoorsmen in Mike Budzik and Roy Kroll

Featured, Fishing, Hunting, Ohio, Opinion / Steve Pollick

If there is someone who has poured more blood, sweat, and tears into fostering sportsmen’s interests in Ohio in the last 45 years than Mike Budzik, I have not met him, or her.

“Bud,” as so many thousands of Ohio outdoors men and women know him, would never tell you that. He is too humble, self-effacing, always giving others credit first and foremost. Bud recently was inducted into the 2024 class of the Conservation Hall of Fame of the Ohio DNR, the outfit for which he virtually has given his professional life.

Steve Pollick: An ode to two remarkable Ohio outdoorsmen in Mike Budzik and Roy Kroll Read More »

Steve Pollick: Red Ryder plinking a good tune-up for hunting season

Blogs, Hunting, Ohio, Opinion / Steve Pollick

It all started out as a tongue-in-cheek Christmas gift to my brother, Dave, several holidays ago.
It was a “genuine Red Ryder 200-shot carbine-action air rifle with a compass in the stock.” Just like the fictional nine-year-old Ralphie dreamed about in the now-iconic holiday classic, “A Christmas Story.” Then it became some genuine adult shooting fun.

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Steve Pollick: Forming fishermen one bluegill at a time

Featured, Features, Fishing, Home Page News, National Fishing, Ohio / Steve Pollick

If you want something to grow, you first must plant the seeds and then you have to water and cultivate the sprouts. I’m actually talking about turning kids into fishermen here.

That latter “gardening” action, cultivating and watering, is what my sons, Andy and Aaron, and I did about fishing with the youngest generation during a recent family reunion of our widespread clan. We had planted the “fishing seeds” with cane-poles, bobbers, and worms a few years ago at Froggy Bottom Pond during a family reunion at home. Now, in a sense, it was time for Round Two.

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Steve Pollick: Berry picking could help lead to your buck this fall

Blogs, Featured, Hunting, Ohio, Opinion / Steve Pollick

Picking the first batch of ripened black raspberries from the scattered wild patches in Froggy Bottom, as I did recently, is a reminder to get down my beloved recurve bow and start shooting.
Deer season will be upon us before we know it and for those of us who prefer more traditional archery tackle, it is time to loosen up those bow-drawing muscles and re-establish the muscle-memory so critical to good shooting. And the only way to do that is regular rounds of shooting.
Every year I wonder if it will be the last that I can ethically handle my 54-pound, 60-inch Kodiak Hunter on a deer stand.

Steve Pollick: Berry picking could help lead to your buck this fall Read More »

Steve Pollick: Ohio’s Cheryl Harner lived out an outdoor legacy

Featured, Home Page News, Nature Page & Night Sky, Ohio, Opinion / Steve Pollick

Cheryl Boyd Harner lived in a proverbial big tent in the outdoors world, where she ever preferred to be, rather than inside.
The closest she came to hunting was dining at times on wild game, agreeably so. But as a young girl she enjoyed plinking with a .22 rifle with her dad, the late John Boyd, along the Scioto River near their west-central Ohio home. Then as a younger woman living on western Lake Erie, she fished for and caught walleyes, but too soon ended up cooking and eating them almost daily, out of necessity, to the point where she lost her taste for the fish.

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Steve Pollick: H2Ohio doesn’t go far enough in Lake Erie cleanup

Featured, Home Page News, Nature Page & Night Sky, Ohio, Opinion / Steve Pollick

Every heavy rain event this spring into mid-summer in the western Lake Erie watershed is contributing to the now-annual, late-summer eruption of the infamously familiar “green goop” – toxic blue-green algae blooms – on the much-beloved big lake.
The forecast is gloomy, just given the rain events thus far. These nasty blooms will continue to expose a major smoke-and-mirrors flaw in a massive program so hailed by Ohio Gov. DeWine and the state legislature as the cure. We all know it as H2Ohio.

Steve Pollick: H2Ohio doesn’t go far enough in Lake Erie cleanup Read More »

Steve Pollick: Refitting an old air rifle

Blogs, Hunting, Ohio, Opinion / Steve Pollick

My latest foray into firearms rehabilitation, an old .177 air rifle, is all my buddy Fred Haubert’s fault.
Fred, who lives in eastern Pennsylvania, called to say he finally had had it with the array of pesky rodents, especially the likes of chipmunks, that were burrowing everywhere, getting up under house siding and pigging out at bird feeders. So, he broke down and bought a scoped .177 air rifle.

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Steve Pollick: Tending to Froggy Bottom Creek a labor of love

Featured, Fishing, Hunting, Nature Page & Night Sky, Ohio / Steve Pollick

Maybe the spirit of George Palmiter is smiling down on me this spring from the Great Stream in the sky. I could use the help.
Palmiter, who died a dozen years ago, was nationally known as the “River Rat” and celebrated for his low-tech, minimalist “green” method of keeping streams free-flowing without the need for bulldozers, backhoes, and other destructive machinery that too often has turned creeks and rivers into channelized, barren ditches devoid of habitat.

Steve Pollick: Tending to Froggy Bottom Creek a labor of love Read More »

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Steve Pollick

Steve Pollick: A good day had on the quiet waters of Ohio’s Lake LaSuAn

Steve Pollick: An ode to two remarkable Ohio outdoorsmen in Mike Budzik and Roy Kroll

Steve Pollick: Red Ryder plinking a good tune-up for hunting season

Steve Pollick: Forming fishermen one bluegill at a time

Steve Pollick: Berry picking could help lead to your buck this fall

Steve Pollick: Ohio’s Cheryl Harner lived out an outdoor legacy

Steve Pollick: H2Ohio doesn’t go far enough in Lake Erie cleanup

Steve Pollick: Refitting an old air rifle

Steve Pollick: Tending to Froggy Bottom Creek a labor of love

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