Outdoors

New MDC booklets on hunting and trapping available this month

The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) reminds hunters, trappers, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts they can get free copies of its updated booklets beginning in mid-March on 2025 Spring Turkey Hunting Regulations and Information and Summary of Missouri Hunting and Trapping Regulations at MDC regional offices, MDC nature centers, and other places where permits are sold.

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Missouri’s only bald eagle camera goes live in the Kansas City area

A nesting bald eagle pair can now be viewed on a live video feed from a site in the Kansas City area. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) along with its partners the City of Blue Springs, Evergy, Capital Electric Line Builders, Axis Communications, and Wild Souls Wildlife Rehabilitation have installed the only live camera

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MDC investigates reported fish kill at the Lake of the Ozarks

The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) received several reports earlier this week of dead fish at the Lake of the Ozarks. An investigation into the reports revealed that this was likely a natural fish kill event, and that there is no reason for concern. Fish kill events can occur naturally in Missouri, and they are

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Slaughter!

The deer slaughter is over! It goes from mid-January to mid-March. Last years extermination project killed more than thirty-seven thousand deer. That number may reach 50 thousand this year. I don’t know how a “Conservation” department could be a part of such meaningless killing of a wild creature of any kind. Conservation is not what

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Browns on the White…

There may be no better fishing to be found in the Ozarks in March than the brown trout fishing on the White River, for many miles below Bull Shoals Dam. Brown trout actually spawn in the White in December into February, and there are some fish there in those waters well over 20 pounds. In

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Time to buy MDC 2025 annual hunting and fishing permits

The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) reminds Missouri hunters and anglers that related annual permits expire at the end of February, including 2024 permits for small game, fishing, trout fishing, and combination hunting and fishing. Annual permits are available for purchase. Permits for spring turkey hunting and some other upcoming hunting seasons will be available

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Outlaw

Lane Davis—-An Excerpt from the Book “Life and Times of the Pool Hall Kid.” In the 60’s, Houston Missouri had a weekly newspaper called the Houston Herald. The owner and editor was a man I got to know well. His name was Lane Davis. I started guiding float fishermen at a young age, in an

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Short-Eared Oddballs

Several years ago in late February a gentleman called me to tell me he had seen around 200 owls the day before in one small area in the western Ozarks.  He said that on one corral fence there were more than thirty in a group! When you are a grizzled old outdoor veteran like me,

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Outlaw

I don’t remember when the old hound wasn’t around. He was that old. Jess called him Outlaw…raised him from a pup. In his day he was a big powerful trailing hound with a voice they talked about all across the county. I remember those nights in the Big Piney River valley when old Outlaw struck

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