NWPA Outdoors

We had an exciting last day chasing boss tom. He 2 and 3x gobbled coming in and out of near-range. I got eaten by bugs and am still scratching.

We spent 2-3 hours playing with him...even heard a friendly, soft-calling jake now and then.

And, sure enough, only a day later - Saturday night - we heard boss tom thundering in the woods after a responsive hen. Such is life!

This weekend as I tossed a woolly bugger into Oil Creek's brown, high waters, I was startled by a hen yelping across the water. After 3 chubs I decided to concentrate on an ice cold Miller Lite and a cigar for a few minutes. The water was high, fast and brown - not a great day for trout fishing. The temp was in the low 70's ... just at the too high mark.

As I sat contemplating how great it was to be alone on the stream, fishing or not, a huge hen flew overhead to the opposite bank and scrambled up the hill.

I've just proofread the newest issue due out next month. This issue covers everything from bass fishing to antler restrictions.

I'm a sailor and last night my nephew (and others) and I were sailing around the Erie bay when he asked me to turn on the depth finder. I did and he starts yelling about all the fish the finder was displaying - he kept yelling "Get out the fishing rod! Look at all the fish!" Last night wasn't a night for fishing - it was for Coronas and floating. So, I told him to wait til we get in the lake over a weekend.

My depth finder incidentally, is also a fish finder. It does a great job finding both!

You might think fishing from a sailboat is crazy but I rigged up a bait casting rod one summer while rounding seagull point -- tied on a dipsy to get down about 25' and stuck on a flashy lure. I have a rail-mounted rod holder on my 24' Hunter sailboat. We were tooling along 2 knots or less. Within 10 minutes in about 20' of water a nice-sized walleye slammed the lure. We boated him (not without loads of cranking because I couldn't drop the sails!) and released him.

So, you never know.

There are tons of articles and lots of good advertising to help you enjoy the great outdoors in northwest PA.