Don’t let the catalog pages full of specialty gear fool you, you don’t have to spend a lot of money when it comes to ice fishing. But you will need to invest in an ice auger. Make sure to dress warmly when you grab your rod and reel.
In The Outdoors
Freelance writer Doug Nielsen is a conservation educator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. His “In the Outdoors” column, published Thursday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NDOW. Any opinions he states in his column are his own.
intheoutdoorslv@gmail.com
Call me sentimental, nostalgic or maybe even a little on the mature side, but it is New Year’s Day. So I will begin this column by wishing all of you a Happy New Year. Perhaps this is the old school thing to do, but I do miss the days when everyone wished each other a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. That was before the holiday season was completely driven by retail interests and political correctness.
Most of the public land in Nevada is owned and managed by federal agencies. Take part in the process if you want to keep access to those lands for camping, hiking, hunting, fishing and other activities.
Don Dorsey, a real estate consultant from Las Vegas, got an early gift in June when he received the 2014 Silver State Tag for desert bighorn sheep, one of the West’s most unique hunting opportunities.
Unseasonably warm temperatures and mild weather conditions have birds holding in areas of open water further to the north, water that should be frozen over about now or close to it. Dedicated duck hunters are hoping for a little bad weather to get birds moving this way.
Outdoor experiences are tough to wrap and put under the Christmas tree. They can last much longer than the latest gadget. Plus you can carry the memories with you wherever you go, and with today’s cellphones, the photos as well.
Each time a hunter or fisherman goes afield, they are expected they to follow the honor system and abide by the regulations, even when a game warden is not visibly present. Unfortunately, some hunters and fishermen violate the rules without calling their own foul. When they do, it gives each of us a black eye.
As I looked again at the dent in my now worthless riflescope, a wave of depression came over me. With that unexpected development, and all the other things that had reduced my hunt time to just three days, the deck seemed stacked against my deer hunt from the start.
When the sun came up on the fourth day of my 2014 deer hunt I was sitting in front of a computer at our dining room table instead of glassing a remote hillside in central Nevada. Not because I wanted it that way, but because unforeseen circumstances had whittled away at what was supposed to be a 10-day hunting trip. Now it would last no more than three, and the jury was still out as to whether I would make it into the field at all.
The dropping water on Lake Mead is particularly sobering if you haven’t visited the Overton Arm or Echo Bay Marina in a while. The once thriving resort destination is a sad sight, although that doesn’t mean there aren’t fish to be caught.
Timing derails plans for fly-fishing on the Provo River. But grandkids end up on an adventure to the outdoors store.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. toured the Willow Beach National Fish Hatchery and urged engineers to come up with an affordable plan to save the trout-rearing operations. Evidently that little bit of encouragement worked.
Look for the birds’ habitat. The quit “flock shooting” and start focusing on a single bird.
With the arrival of fall, some outdoor types stow their fishing rods and replace them with shotguns and hunting rifles. But don’t be too quick to turn in your fishing gear.
If you already have a destination in mind for opening day of quail season, you might want to make a scouting trip between now and then so you can get a good look at road conditions beforehand. The storm waters that damage roads often create safety concerns on the Lake Mead and Lake Mohave.
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