Outdoors

Dennis Whiteside is a float-fishing guide who travels down a dozen or more streams across the Ozarks of Missouri each year, through all seasons. He also is someone very knowledgeable about wild turkeys and he reports on what he sees through a survey that he turns in regularly to the state’s Department of Conservation. “I’ve

Walleye are a different kind of fish! They may not always be in deep water, but they are almost always close to the bottom. If you are serious about walleye fishing, you have to give it some effort; walleye don’t often come easy in our waters. And the time for that effort is now. Successful

I’ve got a couple of things to pass along concerning Ozark lakes that are really interesting. One is about crappie fishing in Norfork Lake where biologists just recently finished a lead-net sampling of fish. They checked about 700 crappie to learn the ages associated with different sizes. From their reports it looks like there will

There is no more efficient predator than a great horned owl. Silent and deadly, he can eat whatever he wants, up to and including a roosting wild turkey. Their flight is completely silent, and they occasionally break the neck of roosting turkeys in the darkness before the dawn. But that does not happen often if

The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) is proposing changes to waterfowl hunting at the Montrose Conservation Area (CA) in Henry County in west-central Missouri. MDC is proposing eliminating the “waterfowl hunting only” designation for the area and making it an “open area” for hunting various game and other outdoor activities. The area would continue to

I went to Bull Shoals Lake last week and you can see the effects of the drought there, as it is lower than I have ever seen it. The Ozarks of both Missouri and Arkansas need inches of rain badly to fill our lakes and rivers to a level they all need to be. The

By the time you read this, the snow will likely be gone, and I will have eaten the last fried rabbit of the winter. If you don’t eat a fried rabbit or two each winter, you aren’t living right. There were so many of them when I was a kid, and from December until February,

Every year at this time I mention the great trout fishing found on the White River… where the brown trout reach gigantic sizes. Brown trout are more active in January and February because it is their spawning time in waters where they are native, mostly in Germany and Scandinavian countries. Browns are not native to

A few years ago the Missouri Department of Conservation paid out one million dollars as a result of a lawsuit brought about because two agents violated the law by entering a barn without permission or a search warrant. Another was charged with theft in Shannon County for stealing a expensive dog collar from a hunting

Missouri’s 2025-2026 deer-hunting season ended Jan. 15 with the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) reporting a preliminary total deer harvest for the season of 301,954. Of the deer harvested, 145,222 were antlered bucks, 25,129 were button bucks, and 131,603 were does. Top harvest counties for the overall deer season were Franklin with 6,770, Howell with