Advanced search

Outdoors in the Ozarks
Sort by: Featured Most recent
28 results total, viewing 1 - 20
Under a bright light
I am going to write about wild turkey problems during the summer as I had promised, but an outdoor writer can’t skip over the fishing that gets so good this time of year… I went fishing … more
Wild gobblers, now, yesterday and tomorrow
 There is only one answer to bringing wild turkeys back to the numbers seen many years ago! Hunters will have to do it! The Missouri Department of Conservation is too inept now to do much of … more
|
A higher vantage point
I don’t get to a modern church very often today. That was something I did since I was young and had no choice in the matter. But I love to spend Sunday mornings out in the woods somewhere or … more
|
Compared to a largemouth of the same weight, a Kentucky is shorter, wider and thicker. They usually have a red eye, but not always. They have rows of spots low on the belly and they have a rough patch like a file on their tongue. On largemouth and true smallmouth the tongue is smooth. True Kentucky bass are great eating, and if you catch one in an Ozark stream, do not release it… take it home and eat it. Release the smallmouth. Kentucky bass increase everywhere, smallmouth bass do not.
Hunting a good place to fish
Sometimes, to be a successful fisherman you have to become a diligent hunter. A friend and I did just that a few days ago, going up a swollen and muddy Sac River, looking for some tributaries where … more
|
How low can they go?
You have no idea how it hurts an old time outdoorsman like me to roam the Ozarks and witness what is happening to the wild turkey. What hurts most is to know it is likely to be this way for years and … more
|
Some gobblers I shot recently… with my camera.
Watching Them Disappear
I never thought I would see wild turkey flocks in the Ozarks drop to the level I have witnessed this past winter. It is a serious situation and state conservation departments from Oklahoma to Alabama … more
|
Born too late
Bought some fishing line at Walmart the other day and took it up to that place where they have computers which you are suppose to operate on your own so they can hire fewer people. I ask a lady if … more
|
An Owl Before Dawn
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 … more
|
With no kiln drying, this cedar came from logs that have been dead for more than 70 years. The center plaque is a sample of the ones Walnut Hollow Farms got from us in the 70’s. They sold a huge number of these.
A Place to Be, Someday! Culmination of a Dream
I know that folks in Houston Missouri have doubts about the Big Piney-Old Time Ozarks museum I am going to build. But it is going to happen, in time, and here is why. Logs, lumber and fireplace … more
|
The Little Niagara River’s trout
Many, many years ago I bought a 12-year collection of old Forest & Stream outdoor magazines, from 1910 through 1922. Occasionally I read through some of them, always finding something new. In the … more
|
The weird story of two walleyes
I will swear with both hands on two bibles that this is the truth, but heck, I wouldn’t blame you for not believing it. It was the first week of March maybe a half dozen years ago when three of … more
|
Fishing in February for whatever we can catch.
No Danged Luck
When I am fishing in February and March, I like water just a little bit above normal, with not so much mud in it, or floating debris.  I like it green colored and gently flowing, enough so that … more
|
In 1972, guide Dickie Bailey holds a 20-pound-plus walleye from Greer’s Ferry’s Little Red River tributary.
The Glass-Eyed Battler of Early Spring
I never caught a walleye when I was young because the Big Piney, where I grew up, didn’t have any. That seems strange to me now because so many Ozark streams have plenty of those glass-eyed … more
|
A Master Sculptor
Last week I wrote about my dream to create a museum along Highway 63 between Houston and Licking, dedicated to the early history of the old-time Ozarks and the Big Piney River where I grew up. I was … more
|
Duck Season Gone
It is a sad time for us hunters. The last of the duck season ended Monday. But there is still some of the Canada goose hunting season remaining as you can still hunt them until Feb. 6 in Missouri, … more
|
These two Big Piney Beavers are likely the biggest ever taken in the U.S. — 90 pounders. Taken in 1952, the story behind them belongs, with photos, in a museum.
A Special Place to Remember a Better Time
What I would like to leave behind me when I am gone and forgotten, originated in a dream from 30 years ago.  That is when I began to think about a special museum somewhere between Cabool, … more
|
Lad’s first retrieve
Bolt and his grandson Lightnin’ Lad
It is hard to describe the feelings and emotions you have watching an old companion you have raised from a puppy make his last retrieve. Unable to see now, Bolt, my 12-year-old chocolate Labrador, … more
|
Bolt in better times.
Pond Ducks, New Memories
What happened to the ducks this fall? Well we had far too little water here in the lower Midwest, but the big problem was the lack of water in northern breeding grounds of Canada and the Dakotas. Way … more
|
Leafing out and blooming — flowering quince bush and dandelion — I have never seen either like this in January.
January Flowers
I wonder sometimes if common sense in our nation is a thing of the past.  At a meeting of outdoor writers some greatly admired turkey hunter who worked for the Forest Products Institute told … more
|
When I write about the old men we called the front bench regulars in the pool hall, some people think I am making them up. I am not. I am trying to scrape up pictures of as many as I can. This photo was taken of ol’ Bill Stalder in the early 1950s. he was my grandfather’s trapping partner, a WWI veteran born in the 1890s a big influence in my boyhood. He and my grandfathers and men like them made me what I am today.
New Years Eve — 1963
We had several New-Years Eve celebrations at the pool hall in the sixties. If you want to call it that! Nobody was all excited about seeing the year behind them gone for good, and the worst of winter … more
|
1 | 2 Next »
Currently viewing stories posted within the past year.
For all older stories, please use our advanced search.

© Copyright 2023 Maries County Advocate |
Powered by Creative Circle Media Solutions