The damage from the oil spill was done in the Gulf, so Congress should ensure that oil spill fines go to the Gulf, not to unrelated federal spending.
This Gulf state agreement paves the way for Congress to do what voters expect: hold the parties responsible for the Gulf oil disaster accountable for restoring the Gulf because our nation’s economy depends on a healthy Gulf.

As sportsman we need to speak up because the gulf is an important region for us as wintering grounds for many birds as well as the fish and seafood we get from the gulf. So take some time and send an email or make a phone call….its important.

Dad Served In Korea

The M1 was the rifle that many of our soldiers carried and a cache of them is soon to be returned to the United States from Korea.

a large number of Korean War surplus M1s may be on their way to the U.S. to be sold to Korean War veterans and their families as souvenirs this summer — in time for the 62nd anniversary of the Korean War.

F&S “The Gun Nut”

My Dad served in the Army over in Korea and I’m sure he used the M1 while he served. Dad wasn’t a hunter or owned any guns so growing up I never saw him with a gun. I was in college when I first took up hunting and years latter when I killed my first Maine Moose it was cool to have him there photographing us loading that critter into a truck.
I know a lot of people have guns that have been passed down from generation to generation but that is not the case in my family. I’m giving a serious thought to trying to get one of these guns as another connection to my Dad and the service he did when our country needed young men to serve.
I took photos of the Korean War Memorial in Washington DC shortly after it opened and brought them up to Maine to let him see it. I wish we’d had the opportunity to visit it together. Thanks to all who served especially our Korean War Veterans as we come up on the 62nd Anniversary.

Andrew & his roommate “diehardhunter” with a 317lb feral hog

North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is conducting public meetings next month to hear public comments about opening up year round night hunting on both hogs and coyotes.

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission is inviting the public to comment on proposed rules that will allow the hunting of feral swine and coyotes at night with a light.
The proposed seasons would be year-round, and would allow the hunting of feral swine and coyotes on Sundays on private lands with archery equipment. Night hunting is one means of controlling the population of coyotes and feral swine, both of which are non-native to North Carolina.
The public can comment online, email regulations@ncwildlife.org or attend one of the following five public hearings across the state, which will begin at 7 p.m.

March 20, Iredell County Agricultural Extension Center, 444 Bristol Dr. Statesville, N.C.
March 21, District Court #1, Buncombe County Courthouse, 60 Court Plaza Asheville, N.C.
March 26, Bladen County Courthouse, 106 W. Broad Street, Elizabethtown, N.C.
March 28, Room 153, Fulford Building, Pitt Community College, 4381 County Home Rd., Greenville, N.C.
March 29, Centennial Campus Center for Wildlife Education, 1751 Varsity Dr., Raleigh, N.C.

I’m glad to see that the proposal is to allow year round night hunting of these species cause we really don’t need them to get strongly established in this state and hunting at night is one of the most productive methods. So please weigh in and let Wildlife know this is a pretty good idea.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) maybe entering the sporting goods sector, Reuters quotes Credit Suisse (NYSE:CS) as saying.

The analysts reached the conclusion after looking at job ads by the company. Amazon’s new initiative would put in competition with sporting goods retailers, including Dick’s Sporting Goods (NYSE:DKS), Hibbett (NASDAQ:HIBB) and Cabela’s (NYSE:CAB).

Amazon will release their quarterly earnings on Tuesday.

FNN

It will be interesting to see what impact Amazon will have if any but I’m very loyal to Cabela’s and their many years of top notch customer service will not be forgotten when a book seller tries to enter the market,

Elk in GSMNP are still accesable despite the slide

As I reported earlier today a rock slide overnight has closed a section of I40 on the Tn/NC border inside of Tennessee. The slide deposited large boulders in the breakdown lane on the westbound side and there is still a potential more rocks will slide. Tennessee officials have brought in geologists to study the situation and develop a plan to stabilize the rocky face and remove the slide rocks and reopen the road. While a timeline has not been set speculation is this will be more a matter of weeks as opposed to the last time when it took 6 months to reopen the road. The east bound lane remains open.

“It doesn’t look anywhere near as extensive as the major rock slides years ago,” said Mark Nagi, a community relations officer for Tennessee DOT.

It is unclear what or how big an effect the rockslide will have on businesses in Haywood County.

“That is just something that we can’t answer at this point in time,” said CeCe Hipps, president of the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce. “Hopefully, this will not have a big effect on business in Haywood County.”

For now, county tourism leaders are spreading the word that Interstate 40 is still open near Waynesville, Maggie Valley, Canton and Clyde.

“We are just thinking how to keep the doors open,” Hipps said.

The Haywood County and Maggie chambers and the Tourism Development Authority have emailed businesses and posted information on their websites about the slide and encouraged visitors not to cancel their plans.

“We want to make sure that people are not deterred,” Hipps said.

Smoky Mountain News

With a much milder winter this year now is a good time to beat the crowds in the Cataloochee Valley and see the elk. This is one of my favorite places in North Carolina to go and relax if you’ve never been you need to go check this place out.

Asheville, N.C. — The North Carolina Department of Transportation closed westbound Interstate 40 in Haywood County on Tuesday morning following a rock slide in Tennessee.

The interstate is expected to be closed for at least two weeks as crews clear the debris from the roadway and stabilize other rocks to prevent similar slides.

Westbound drivers need to take the following detour: Exit at westbound Interstate 240 (Exit 53B) in Asheville and head to Interstate 26 West (Exit 4A). Then, follow I-26 to Interstate 81 South (Exit 8A) in Tennessee and back to I-40.

Eastbound traffic isn’t affected by the rock slide.

A rock slide west of Asheville in late 2009 closed I-40 for about six months.

WRAL News

This mountainous section of the state is pron to rock slides and hopefully they can clear it quickly. This is important travel route for commerce as well as outdoor types looking to access Great Smokey Mountain National Park and other high interest locations. We’ll continue to follow this story as it develops

The case for hunting and the standard of fair chase

Restoring these animals to their native lands….hunting and hunters help fund these efforts.

The full 60 Min Story (note this is a lengthy clip and on some pc’s may take a while to load)

Animals die everyday whether of old age, disease, hunting by humans, hunting by another animal, and countless other ways. Life is sustained only through the death of another living thing be it a pod of peas being eating in a stir fry at an unscaled restaurant or a wolf munching on a moose calf in the Alaskan tundra. The Circle of Life. The wackos can oppose this all they want but they can’t stop it.

The annual winners of the Wildlife In NC Photo Competition have been announced and once again there are some really great photos. As one who loves photography, especially nature photography, I always look forward to seeing the winning photos. They inspire me and give me some great ideas on how to get some stunning shots my self when I’m out there with my camera.

I encountered my first wolf in the wild in Alaska

The Grey opened this weekend with a better then expected opening;

topped the weekend box office with $20 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, continuing the actor’s success as an action star in the winter months.

The Alaskan survivalist thriller opened above expectations with a performance on par with previous Neeson thrillers “Taken” and “Unknown.” Those films, both January-February releases, opened with $24.7 million and $21.9 million, respectively.

But the R-rated “The Grey,” which has received good reviews, drove home the strong appeal of Neeson, action star.

Houston Chronicle

Animal Rights Wackos are up and arms about this movie believing it will turn the average person’s view against the wolf. While the movie is made with computer generated wolves it seems the film crew and cast dined on wolf provided by a trapper to experience what that was like. Of course these Animal Right Wackos are up in arms about that but I’m sure it matters not to them if the crew dinned on wolf or fried chicken.

Director Joe Carnage—oh, excuse me … Carnahan—ordered wolf carcasses flown in for the cast to eat so that the actors would “have a sense of the movie we were making.” He bought the meat from a trapper, meaning that the wolves likely suffered horribly in traps before being killed.

Not surprisingly, Liam Neeson, no friend to animals, was game for eating wildlife.
The Big, Bad Wolf

A film that has the potential to scare more people than “Little Red Riding Hood,” The Grey portrays these intelligent, family-oriented animals the same way in which Jaws portrays sharks. The writers paint a pack of wolves living in the Alaskan wilderness as bloodthirsty monsters, intent on killing every survivor of a plane crash by tearing each person limb from limb. Yet wolves aren’t aggressive animals, and as Maggie Howell, the managing director of America’s Wolf Conservation Center, says, “Wolves don’t hunt humans—they actually shy away from them.”

Don’t just shy away—run away from The Grey.

PETA Files
While I don’t believe I’d eat wolf I have no problem if others want to.
These critters are not cuddly and friendly as some would present but are they frightful as they have been presented in some movies? Probably not but they are a dangerous animal that have and will kill humans. I plan to go see this movie much like I did when I saw Jaws when it came out. I’ll admit that summer swimming was a bit unnerving thinking a Great White might get me …..I wonder if I’ll be looking over my shoulder after seeing this movie every time I enter the woods? Probably not cause I’m usually armed.

Hunter shows off the only rabbit we took

Small game season is in full swing here in North Carolina and I jumped at the chance to join some friends as they chased bunnies yesterday near the Cape Fear River. While for many the lack of winter weather around here is a blessing for hunters it has been a curse. Yesterday was the last day of duck season and a pretty dismal season with the unseasonable warm winter we have been having. So I past on the duck hunting and headed out with some rabbit hunters and soon found out the warm weather was having a negative effect on them as well.

The hunting land was some overgrown cut overs that had some of the nicest crop of briars, blackberry bushes and holly I’ve ever seen. My face and arms today show the scars of me trying to push through that stuff to keep up with the dogs. The beagles ran some rabbits but if you weren’t right up on them it was so thick you’d hear the rabbit but never see him. We had a few nice chases and bagged one lone bunny before we called it quits around lunch time. The temperatures by then were close to 60′ and the dogs and us hunters were feeling the terrain and the warm weather.

I got back to the truck and checked my pedometer and saw that I’d covered a little over 6 miles that morning the dogs easily did 3 to 4 times that I’m sure. As I said before hunting success is not only measured in what you bag but the experience you shared.

I’d never hunted with these guys before but I really had a blast. They are a pretty dedicated group of rabbit hunters and hopefully before the season goes out maybe I’ll get out with them again. It would be nice if the weather would turn more seasonable and help things out.

beagles are a great dog to hunt rabbits with

North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission Game Page