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Outdoors in the Ozarks
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This year, walnuts are worth more than ever...
Need Money, Don’t Cut That Walnut Tree, Sell the Walnuts!
I always figure the yellow leaves on the walnut trees tell me a lot about the upcoming fall. This year that yellowing foliage on the walnuts here on Lightnin’ Ridge is really late. Could be … more
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The Duck With Baby Blue Wings
Sometime in mid September Midwest states have a special two week teal season. Blue-winged teal are unusual ducks. They come early; sometimes arriving in the Ozarks during the last week or so in … more
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Last year these doves nested on Lightnin’ Ridge, behind my office, in mid-August… this dove was incubating eggs on Aug.17.
Changes Needed
In early September, hundreds and hundreds of young doves in nests will die because of the September 1 opening of the dove season. I know that the majority of dove hunters don’t know that, and … more
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A photo from 30 years ago of Tinker and a lake trout.
Tinker's Place
About 20 years ago I flew out to a little lake in northwest Ontario with Canadian guide and bush pilot, Tinker Helseth. It was a place where Tinker’s father, Forrest Helseth, who had also been … more
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No one in the ozarks should lack protein.. there’s a million squirrels, full of acorns, hickories and protein.
Acorns Yellow Leaves and Free Deer
I don’t think I ever witnessed what the squirrels are doing here on Lightnin’ Ridge this summer. They are chewing up the white oak acorns in my back yard, and it started the first week of … more
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Shore Lunch
The lady told me on the phone that she and her husband wanted to have a shore lunch like they had experienced in Canada, so by golly a shore lunch she was going to have, once I figured out what it … more
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Big Fish and Bad Poetry
I caught a big bass this past week in one of my favorite places.  He was a hefty, hard-fighting largemouth, which I admired and released.  He seemed to be very appreciative as he swum away. … more
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Crawdads... bait and breakfast
The crawdad is an unusual creature, always looking back where he has been, and going where his isn’t looking. Quite often where he has been appears quite safe and there looms a bass or walleye … more
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Topwater time
Most reservoir bass fishermen fish deep in the summer, trying to lure a lunker by bouncing jigs over ledges and rocks. But if you want to fish a topwater lure, there are places and ways to do it even … more
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Extinction versus scarcity
A few years back there were predictions that the bobwhite quail would become extinct. They have not and likely will not because of the diversity in habitat and food that can keep them going in small … more
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The future of turkey hunting may depend on cutting down the harvest of spring gobblers, and that can’t be done without costing game and fish agencies money. Some way will have to be found to do that so that money remains in those agencies or it will never happen.
Where the quail went, wild turkeys go now
I was just a kid in the late 50’s and early 60’s when quail hunting all over the Midwest was something amazing. Even in the Ozarks, hunters often found 6 or 7 coveys a day. I was there, I … more
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Another big catfish.
Another big catfish
From my home and office on this high ridge, I look down upon a river valley and a stream I have gotten to know well over the years.  My middle daughter went down to a creek tributary to that … more
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The anniversary rock and two examples of nature's wood sculptures.
Driftwood, rocks and fishing lures
If I were a young man trying to find a decent job, I would buy an old pontoon boat with a good outboard motor and strip everything off of it to just leave a flat deck. I would acquire a couple of … more
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Photos like this, showing what loggers are doing to den trees on public areas, may not be legal anymore.
The outlawed camera
People have been contacting me asking if I had heard about the Missouri Department of Conservation declaring that people who take photographs inside public areas they manage must buy a permit to do … more
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Jar-fishing
I often listened to old timers who fished the river talk about various ways to tempt big bass, or to catch a limit of goggle-eye. The river was so much different then, so clear and clean. The big … more
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My nighttime walleye from Norfork Lake.
The woodpecker and the walleye
Rain crows came back to Lightning Ridge last week, and now the spring ensemble of birds is complete. There are a lot of species to see now, and an individual of one common species, acts way out of … more
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In a small creek
It isn’t much of a creek in the summer, but miles above where it flows into an Ozark lake, you can find it bank full in the spring. There are lots of those kinds of creeks in the Ozarks. They … more
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Larry Dablemont
An enticing skirt, a deadly blade
It was two o’clock in the afternoon before we got to the lake, and it was up a few feet, as I expected it to be. The water was a little murky, but there was still a foot or so of visibility in … more
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Enemy of songbirds... the brown-headed cowbird.
Brown-headed bad guys
I put my pellet rifle out on the back porch last week, so I could kill two or three birds coming to the back yard bird feeders. Bet that causes some eyebrows to rise! The birds I shoot are … more
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The way to make a woman happy is to take her fishing and never say, “Boy, that’s a nice fat one!"
A bass in the evening
Usually by the first of May all over the Ozarks, top-water fishing for bass becomes the best way to fish, at least for me. So I found me a nice little cove with water about the perfect color, and a … more
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