Field Notes

Manchester, New Hampshire, city Republican party chairman Jerry Thibodeau has made national news by planning a GOP fundraiser where donors will test their marksmanship with a machine gun. Perhaps not surprisingly, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann had a field day with it, but even local and state Republican reactions are mixed. From the Union Leader:

Fergus Cullen, chairman of the state Republican party, said he knew the event was in the works before it was publicized and hopes he will be able to attend.

"With rising crime rates, we shouldn't be the party that's out there shooting machine guns," Levasseur said.

What do you think? Is a machine-gun fundraiser a good idea?

When a nearby sea lion stole 24-year-old Hai Nguyen’s bait as he fished along California’s Newport Beach, the enraged angler allegedly stabbed the animal with a steak knife, injuring it so badly it had to be put down. Nguyen has been arrested and could face a $25,000 fine and year in prison. Read the report here.

What critter has the best nose in the woods? According to former neurosurgeon Dr. George Stevenson, it’s the grizzly bear, bar none. A good hound dog’s nose is about 300 times more sensitive than a human’s, he told The Missoulian, and grizzly bear’s is at least seven times better than the hound’s.

Preliminary data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife Associated Recreation has put numbers to a trend most of us were already well aware of: hunting and fishing participation is down. Recently some 300 representatives from 23 states and four Canadian provinces met in Flagstaff, AZ, to discuss the issue at the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

From The Republic:

Some of the reasons discussed at the meeting were complex rules and regulations, reduced hunting opportunities, age restrictions, a lack of encouragement or help for older hunters, increasing urbanization of the population, rising license and permit costs, difficult access to recreational lands and a perception that hunting and fishing is cruel and inhumane.

"And hunters are passive as to why they hunt. We are terrible at selling the product we have. We need to sell the sizzle of hunting and conservation."

Do you agree with Keck? How should we go about selling the sizzle?

Hell has frozen over. The apocalypse is here. A mule has foaled.

From The Denver Post:

When it reportedly happened in Morocco five years ago, locals feared it signaled the end of the world. In Albania in 1994, it was thought to have unleashed the spawn of the devil on a small village.

But on a Grand Mesa ranch, the once-in-a-million, genetically "impossible" occurrence of a mule giving birth has only drawn keen interest from the scientific world.

Hunting in a muzzleloader-only unit in Idaho in 2004, Gary A. Lehnherr of McFarland, Wisconsin, shot a mule deer buck sporting a rack as big as any ever taken with a smokepole. Problem is, he shot it with a centerfire rifle—and has now pled guilty to that. Check out the full story and picture of the enormous rack here.

On Tuesday, we posted a video clip of the CNN/You Tube Democratic debate in which 30-year-old Michigan man Jared Townsend holds up an AR-15, calls it his baby, and asks the candidates how they would protect it.

Senator Joe Biden basically called the man a lunatic. Here’s Townsend’s response, from The Los Angeles Times:

Townsend called the Biden response "kind of off-kilter," adding: "I think he hurt himself. A lot of people who are out there said, 'We are all gun owners. He lost my vote.'"

For now, Townsend said he had e-mailed and phoned the Biden campaign, inviting the senator to come to Clio to discuss gun issues. "It would surprise me if I got a response."

Would it surprise you? Would the meeting do Biden any good?

The news has been loaded with stories about illegal marijuana farms on public land. Now there’s one less farm and two fewer farmers, as Illinois and federal officials have arrested a pair of Mexican immigrants and burned up to 30,000 plants the men were growing in a Cook County forest preserve. Check out the story and video here.

Northwestern Montana’s Rogers Lake has been the brood waters for most of the state’s arctic grayling since about the middle of the 20th century. But now, with thousands of dead fish littering the surface, killed by 80-degree water temperatures, officials may need to find a colder, deeper brood-stock lake. Read the report here.

By Kimberly Hiss

Whether he’s onstage at the Grand Ole Opry, or on the water in a bass boat, Porter Wagoner loves what he’s doing. Time off from his Grammy-award studded career often finds the Country Music Hall of Famer with a line in the water and enough crappie in the cooler for dinner.

Field & Stream spoke with Mr. Wagoner last year while he was working on an album called All Gone Fishin’, a collaboration that brought the likes of Bobby Barr, Merle Haggard, and Arlo Guthrie, together to sing about life on the water. Considering the June release of Mr. Wagoner’s latest record, Wagonmaster, and his current round of public appearances—including a July 24 concert at Madison Square Garden and a July 25 visit to The Late Show with David Letterman—it seemed like a good time to run part of that interview. Here’s what Mr. Wagoner had to say about worm rigs, 14-pound bass, and songwriting on the water.

PW: So what do you want me to tell you about fishing?

F&S: Well, what do you like to fish for?
PW: Bass most all the time. Bass and crappie. In fact in a couple of weeks I’m going up to Kentucky Lake for crappie. It’s one of the best places in the country.