Category: Hunting & Fishing

A Hunting Heritage Story ********** September 27, 2026 Opening morning of New York State’s northern zone bow hunting season. It all began with a father/son email: “Hey, Opening morning of bow season here. This guy showed up for the 1st time on lower main field at 3:30 am. I think he’s...

New York State’s New 2026 “Earn a 2nd Buck” System An Advanced Placement Math Test ********** Now I know why I was forced to struggle with all of those math word problem test questions when I was in school. Remember those? “An eastbound train leaves the station in Seattle...

A Limerick Collection There once lived a lumberjack named Lefty Leroux Whose proper first name wasn’t Lefty but Lou One night Lou drained his flask Had a fight with his axe Rendering his right handed digits too few ********** One of the many exercises I’ve enjoyed throughout my career...

Adventures Await As we bid farewell to 2025 and welcome 2026, I wanted to share an exciting Monroe Wildlife Area announcement. For those who haven’t yet heard the news… Through the National Wildlife Federation, The Monroe Wildlife Area is now officially CERTIFIED ! This has been an undertaking I...

Far More Than Wrinkled Brown Lines on a Map As I put pen to paper it pains me to know that in today’s cell phone technology driven GPS “land navigation” environment, many folks are reading the title & thinking to themselves: “Contour lines? What’s this guy yammering about now?...

Author’s Note: I penned the first drafts of this story as a poem in the summer of 1983, while working out of Lake Colden’s Interior Headquarters as a trail hand on the NYSDEC trail crew, during one the two summers I served as assistant to Lake Colden’s caretaker. I...

A Whitetail Deer Hunter’s Tale It was finally here. The day I’d been waiting for. Opening day of 2025’s Southern zone rifle season. When I was a boy growing up in Saranac Lake, the Southern Tier was shotgun only. They had no rifle hunting season. As a result, two...

Climate Change, Chainsaws & a Camping Chronology This piece begins with a question: How many folks out there have spent ten days or more at a single stretch with family in a remotely pitched ADK camp? I’m not talking about “going into camp”, sitting in hunting camp playing cards...

Living the Wildlife ********** The prologue to this story is actually the epilogue to another. It was fall 2024, mid-October. I had just returned home from my annual Southern Tier crossbow deer hunting trip with my son. I’d expended all of my time, money & energy through 2024’s spring...

Why do some people think defacing our beloved Adirondack lean-tos is acceptable? For many folks out there; hunters, hikers, campers, explorers, outdoorsmen and other Adirondack souls of like ilk, these lean-tos are more than just cedar log structures providing a convenient stopping point on our trek through life’s wood....