Patient I am not, so I drifted into a big deep eddy where the current swirled and stilled.

Froggers get scarcer every year. The men who once caught bullfrogs by hand as they traveled along Ozark rivers either wading or boating were real capable outdoorsmen.

The old men at the pool hall let nothing go to waste, claiming a clover-eatin’ groundhog was better eatin’ than a beaver.

The best thing about S of O was Lake Taneycomo, full of trout and ducks. The School sat on a bluff right above it.

At Schell Osage the blinds were spaced well and the pools were full of smartweed. Ducks of all species loved it.

In Ozark streams, green sunfish can get very hefty, and so can bluegills in our farm ponds and large Ozark reservoirs.

It is beyond understanding, even when you have seen as much and learned as much as I have in my life of studying and experiencing the outdoors.

Some of those casting reels I use for bigger bass on reservoirs, and fish with jigs or plastic baits and for those, I use heavier line and stronger rods.

Also this spring, we have been feeding grape jelly to several orioles, which nested here for the first time.

Friends who fish on Truman say the game warden does that often when the address on the jug makes it unlikely that the fisherman will come back to fight the phony charge in court.

I learned a great deal about hunting when I was a kid, chasing squirrels in the summer.

Charlie and I went on a float trip last spring and landed a dozen or so goggle-eye and half that many bass.

Actually, I would need a big place for today’s dreams. I want to have a place with a pool table, and card tables, domino table and a little kitchen where we could have biscuits and gravy and coffee ...

He was always someone quick to laugh, to enjoy the humor of situations involving hunting and fishing.

From those eight thousand applicants, four hundred were selected to buy a bear tag. Seven thousand and six hundred applicants lost their ten-dollar applicant fee and got nothing for it. 

An hour later the sun was shining and the three of us were dipping rainwater from the boat, warmed up and enthused again. We paddled up the river against a rising current to our camp a half hour away. 

The Morton brothers and I seldom got to skip church on Sunday unless it was for fishing. Proclaiming sickness didn’t always work.

I like to go to a local Ozark lake and set a couple of trotlines, then take youngsters and move along the rocky, shallow banks with my trolling motor...

Biologists from that long-ago time also did a study of growth rates, which showed that rock bass on the Black and Jacks Fork Rivers were three years old when they reach six inches in length.

This fish that had grabbed my little eighth-ounce jig just stayed down and pulled with determination which led me to hope he just might...