Sports Columns

The thousands of people who earn their living in the shrimping, fishing and tourism industries along and off the shores of the western two-thirds of Louisiana’s Gulf Coast would like you to know that the oil hasn’t wiped out all the...... Full story

My fellow members of the Professional Outdoor Media Association  and I semi-officially consider hunting and fishing to be the only traditional outdoor sports, but I am not about to break my favorite fly rod over the head of someone who thinks...... Full story

Finding a good place to buy live bait was once harder than finding a good place to use it. Trying to make a living selling worms, crickets, crayfish, minnows, perch or any other wriggley critter to frugal fishermen would have been tough enough to...... Full story

My fishing buddies and I were barely teenagers when we decided that we had to become fly fishermen. How could we not? We read every issue of “Field and Stream” and “Outdoor Life” from cover to cover, and more than 90 percent...... Full story

While there’s no official “boating season” in the Midwest, there’s no denying the fact that the number of boats sharing most bodies of water skyrockets between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Since more boats equals more...... Full story

Twenty years ago, catfish anglers who plied the waters of the Osage basin from Bagnell Dam west to the Kansas state line acted as if the supply of trophy blue catfish was infinite. And why shouldn’t they have? Blue cats weighing more than 20...... Full story

Several readers have reminded me that I haven’t mentioned either weights or floats in this series of columns on fishing equipment suitable for newcomers to the sport.   One gentleman asserted that “sinkers and bobbers are almost as...... Full story

At the end of last week’s column my typical new angler had acquired a rod and reel and had filled the spool of reel with line. He or she did not have anything to tie to the business (terminal) end of that line. I’m about to rectify that...... Full story

Men and women with at least 50 years of outdoor experience have fond — if not necessarily accurate — memories of the good old days. We hail from an era when boats were made of wood, and fishing rods were made either of steel or one of...... Full story

After he had been foiled again by Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam lamented, “I hates rabbits!”   I know how he feels. A frustrating series of miscalculations during the first four days of this year’s spring turkey season has left me...... Full story

Most upland game and waterfowl hunters wax eloquent about how much they’d rather leave their shotguns at home than go afield without their dogs. They mean it, too. Or at least they do until their favorite hunting seasons close. Then their...... Full story

The Internet weather forecasting service I subscribe to uses a red background to indicate severe weather warnings. There’s been plenty of red in central Missouri so far this spring, primarily because of flooding. It’s more than enough...... Full story

When it’s at the top of its multipurpose pool (706.0 msl), Truman Lake covers 55,600 surface acres and has 958 miles of shoreline. In apparent recognition of that fact, the Corps of Engineers (COE) constructed 17 access sites equipped with...... Full story

Some people say they can look at a calendar and predict when spring will arrive. Others claim the most reliable harbinger of spring is when snowstorms become almost as wet as thunderstorms. Neither of those theories is completely without merit, but...... Full story

In last week’s column, I made spring turkey hunting sound like a simple sport, and given the hunter has plenty of time and patience, it usually is. But what if the season’s three weekends are all the time you can spare, and the...... Full story