Outdoors

A New Book From an Old Naturalist

Last week or the week before I asked if anyone could guess what bright red bird is commonly seen in the Ozarks during the summer besides the cardinal. The answer is the summer tanager. And if you occasionally see a bright blue bird that is smaller than a bluebird, with almost a metallic blue sheen,

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Fishing Report for July 27

Taberville Report by Linda McCallister Dains Fish Farm We still have a few people trying to fish. We have some people who will go crappie fishing over on Truman tomorrow (Wednesday). I had a guy in earlier who was rod an reel fishing. He had some bites but no luck. He was going to go

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Snakebites on a rise in Missouri

by Kevin Patrick Allen It’s being called a byproduct of heavy rains in Missouri earlier this year – snake bites are on the rise. The state is home to five types of venomous snakes: copperhead, water moccasin, timber rattler, pygmy rattler and massasauga rattler. The most common is the copperhead. Julie Weber, director of the

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Greentop angler catches state-record green sunfish

The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) reports Bowen Dockery of Greentop became the most recent record-breaking angler in Missouri when he caught a green sunfish on a private pond in Schuyler County. The new “alternative method” record fish caught by Dockery on July 5 weighed 1 pound, 3 ounces. Dockery’s recent catch broke the previous

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Fishing report for July 20

Taberville Report by Linda McCallister Dains Fish Farm We have had reports of people trotlining in the South Lake over at Schell using goldfish. Both of them have been catching channel cats and white cats. Not much size. Five to 10 lbs. has been biggest anybody has reported. I just sold some minnows but I

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A Purpose For Little Fish

A grandfather who has lots of grandkids can put them to a great advantage if he loves to fish for catfish. That’s because you need lots of bait for trotlines and limb-lines, and small sunfish are just about the best bait you can get. And kids love to catch ‘em. My grandfather only had one

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MDC presents State Champion Tree award for Osage orange

The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) recently awarded State Champion Tree honors to farm owners in rural Howard County for harboring the state’s largest Osage orange tree. Osage orange (Maclura pomifera), also known as hedge apple, has a long and interesting history of use by both Native Americans and early pioneers. Its wood was once

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Fishing report

Taberville Report by Linda McCallister Dains Fish Farm The big stories this week have been the heat and flatheads. They’ve caught them on trotlines, limblines and rod and reel. We’ve had couple trotlining in Montrose Lake.  They’ve caught a 30 and a 35 lb. flathead and one hook was broken and one straightened out. So

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Advice for a Lunker Seeker

In this very column I am fixin’ to tell all you fishermen how to catch a five-pound smallmouth and three or four seven-pound largemouth on the same fishing trip, so if that interests you, keep reading. This is prompted by a phone call I got last spring. A fellow from a group calling itself “the

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Ozark angler hooks state-record quillback

MDC congratulates Timothy Keene on breaking the pole-and-line state record by catching a 5-pound, 13-ounce quillback on Bull Shoals Lake. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) reports that Timothy Keene of Ozark became the most recent record-breaking angler in Missouri when he hooked a quillback on Bull Shoals Lake in Taney County using a rod

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