Fishing has been hot on the Missouri River, but it may be because smelt, a main food source for fish, are gone after last year's flood.
With the weather this year, camping season is off to an earlier start than normal.
Talking about it in the newsroom the other day, we discussed what is the most handy camping/hiking gear one could carry along in the event of emergencies.
Cellphones are great but coverage can be spotty and batteries do run down. A good compass is always handy as well.
Maybe the best things you can pack or carry along are a good knife and and a length of rope.
Apparently, you can add a good cast iron skillet to your list of things to pack along — at least for one Arizona man.
A story online from the Daily Courier in Prescott caught my attention. A
24-year-old man was camping with his girlfriend and a group of other friends.
Brandon Arnold, the lead man in the story, was making breakfast early in the morning when something busted out of the brush and attacked his
90-pound black Lab-pit bull mix.
At first Arnold said he though it was another dog that had wandered in from another campsite.
Turns out it was a mountain lion. The mountain lion pounced on the dog’s back and thinking it was another dog, Arnold grabbed both animals in an attempt to separate them. The cat was covered with grass and smelled like skunk, he told a
reporter.
He did get the animals separated and it was then he realized it wasn’t another dog.
The mountain lion ran back into the brush with the dog in hot pursuit. Arnold said he began looking around for the nearest weapon and the best he could come up with was
a 14-inch cast iron skillet that was on the camp
stove.
He followed his dog into the brush and with the first clear shot he had at the mountain lion, he swung for the fence.
The skillet hit the cat right on the head and Arnold said it was like something out of a cartoon. He said the lion stopped dead in its tracks so he clobbered it again. Then, the cat got stiff and tipped over, he said. He hit it a few more times and another guy shot it a couple of times just to make sure the lion was dead.
Tests confirmed the mountain lion was rabid.
Besides the dog that was current on his rabies vaccine, no one else in the party got even a scratch from the incident.
According to the story, Arnold was very low-key about the ordeal, saying he was just protecting his dog and did what any dog owner would do in a similar situation.
That may be, but he does have one whale of a tale to tell — and he has
the witnesses to back his story.
It’s that time of the year when people may come across what they think might be injured, orphaned or abandoned wildlife.
Deer gun hunters will have a few decisions to make come the June 6 deadline to apply for the upcoming season.
Adding the greater sage grouse to her life list of birds.
The team of Matt Glanville, Eric Paul and Casey Ell won last Saturday’s Big Muddy Walleye Tournament.
Saturday: Mother’s Day hike, Fort Lincoln State Park, 1 p.m.
Wherever you are and whenever you have time is the best time for fishing.
The Missouri River these days is kind of a smorgasbord for fishin.
Rainbow trout: Paul Clarys, Dickinson, 5-12.
