Outdoors

The Beaver Trappers

At the University of Missouri, the science classes had the best of instructors. My college advisor was a mammology instructor by the name of Dr Campbell. The man came to despise me because of several things. Mostly it is because at the age of 18 I was too obnoxious. Instead of keeping my mouth shut,

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Doggone Barn Bear

I got a call this morning from a dairy farmer who says there is a bear hanging around his barn that sends his dairy cows into a panic, and they won’t even go into the barn to be milked. He says he believes it is a female with a cub because he has seen the

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Shepherd of the Hills Conservation Center to begin construction on new facility

Combining popular conservation programs with Branson’s tourist boom has turned the Missouri Department of Conservation’s (MDC) Shepherd of the Hills Conservation Center into a facility that has become overwhelmed by popularity. In order to better accommodate its large annual visitation numbers, the Missouri Department of Conservation’s (MDC) Shepherd of the Hills Conservation Center will close

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Road Skunks

I learned something about skunks recently. I drove from my home to Bull Shoals Lake in North Arkansas last week, then up to Texas County and eventually back home to Lightnin’ Ridge here about 40 miles to the north of Springfield. In doing so, I learned that we have more skunks in the two states

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Time to buy MDC 2023 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 2022 permits for small game, fishing, trout fishing, and combination hunting and fishing. Buy Missouri hunting and fishing permits from one of many vendors around the state, online at mdc.mo.gov/buypermits, or through MDC’s

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Otter toilets reveal so much

This should make you laugh… a letter I got from Butch Stone, a grizzled old veteran outdoorsman from the Ozarks who makes his own bows and arrows and hunts successfully with them. He says… “I came across a bunch of young people, seining below a low water crossing. Four big Mo, conservation trucks. Of course

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My first memory was painful

“The Life and Times of the Pool Hall Kid” by Larry Dablemont I can’t remember much about my first couple of years, but I remember a couple of things when I was three…one was the horror of getting a fish bone in my throat. That happening, I think, causes me to remember the old shack

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A Man Who Made Predictions

A real life naturalist is a man who has lived his life in the woods knows and sees and feels things that he knows the modern world will not understand Men who call themselves ‘Master Naturalists’ in this day and time are to be laughed at. There are lots of those. But real naturalists from

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