Don is right about the outdoor articles in the Evansville Courier Paper. I don't know about the Indianapolis Star but would think that it would have more coverage than Evansville's paper since INDY has such a much larger population. After all INDY is closer to Brookville and Eagle Creek as well as Lake Monroe, Indiana's largest reservoir.

Phil Potter and Steve Ford are the two outdoor writers and Steve in not writing articles all the time. We get one or two outdoor articles each Sunday.

Once in a while the paper's writers interviews a bait shop owner who tries to tell us what's going on. But the owner is not fishing and only talking to fishermen who come in to by minnows and live bait. That's probably why he only tells Phil and Steve about the crappie, sauger and catfish results. Not many bass fishermen are in the bait shop buying live bait. Most reports are old. For example the local paper is writing articles about the hot crappie fishing based on what I told the DNR survey guy, Alan Jones, two years ago. Not sure anyone has talked to Dan Carnahan of the District 7 DNR office out of Sugar Ridge. He is the one that will know more about the fish populations in Southern IN as he is the only fishery biologist working this area. Well he does have some helpers that work with DNR. Or they could talk to the DNR property manager of Hovey or Sugar Ridge.

I don't turkey hunt ...yet. But if the turkey populations grow I may get a shotgun and join them in the pursuit of wild turkey.

The article that Steve Wrote about his daughter wanting to get a fishing rod and reel was interesting. I like to see the woman getting into the outdoors and especially like to see them out fishing.

Phil wrote a very good article about preserving the environment and protecting the fish that we all like to chase. He surprised me with that article. I ran into one of the old outdoor TV personalities at Dick's Sporting Goods Store last week and even he said he was surprised that Phil wrote that article. But when you really think about it, protecting the environment is a win win situation. Reducing the amount of mercury emissions helps protect the waters and the creatures that make those waters their homes. It also protects the children and wives of the fisherman that fish for supper. That to me is a good thing.

Protecting the wildlife's HABITAT should be a priority for all outdoors people.

I would really like to see more articles of this type in all the newspapers. Maybe someday the editors will wake up and realize that there is more to live than building another parking garage or trying to bring people to the downtown. Maybe someday they will finally realize that Downtown died back in the 1960's when the shopping malls were first built and the downtown will never recover.

Regards,

Moose1am