OK, nothing of a significantly educational nature in today’s post. Rather, I want to talk about the weather.

Those of you living in the mid-Atlantic/Midwest bridge zone can probably relate to my feelings on the weather. They’re not the best, most of the year, because the weather isn’t exactly picturesque around these parts. If it’s not icy and bitter under a lead blanket of clouds, it’s a hazy, suffocating soup of humidity, mold, pollen and bugs. We get, what, a week or two of relief between seasons most years? It’s no wonder this part of the country is a hotbed for the model railroading hobby (nothing against that wonderful pastime, for the record; it’s a unique American art form); it’s either too hot or too cold to enjoy the outdoors for much of the year.

Sure, we make it work. I spend an arm and a leg each year on gear to keep warm (but not stuffy and clammy) or cool (with plenty of hydration) depending on the season. This year, for example, I took the plunge on hgh-performance electrolyte drinks, for the sake of saving my legs from cramps during hikes and rides in the oppressive heat.

But still, it’s not like Florida, the Carolinas, California, Hawaii…you pick the destination where mild winters and a sea breeze keep the temps manageable and the air quality above moderate-to-unhealthy (got to love the Ohio Valley).

But a few weeks a year, we get our fair share.

Today, I’m watching the sun filter down through a stand of trees that’s home to at least one active squirrel nest. The breeze is just right – takes the extra warmth out of the mid-70s temps, leaving the outdoors the perfect combination of dry, clear and sunny. It’s like perfectly-tuned climate control, but with better air.

I know the crap weather will be back soon enough, so I’m making the most of the situation. Later today, I’ll be cycling Kentucky back roads in the sunset, and I hope to spend another day in the woods tomorrow. It’s invigorating, it’s recharging, and it’s a reminder that the summer’s sticky heat is only temporary.

Winter might stink this year. If it’s anything like last year, my particulate-blasted lungs are liable to put up a painful fuss from late January until April. But I’m not thinking that far ahead. Today I’m living in the moment, making the most of one of Ohio’s most rare – and precious – gifts: a lovely late summer’s day.

Now get off the computer and go outside yourself.

So this is kind of nifty. Not so much an incredibly useful tool or piece of advice, but certainly something that could be entertaining – and a little educational for you.

The Minnesota State Fair is underway. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has a fairly large display there, including a sizeable fish pond stocked with the state’s popular game species.

Now the kicker: the MDNR has a live webcam in the pond. Go here to check it out.

Beyond being an interesting way to kill a few minutes at the office computer, this webcam can serve a somewhat useful purpose. What are the various fish species up to at different times of day? Are there patterns to their activity that you can see by checking the web cam periodically from day to day? And does that tell you anything about fish behavior that could translate into more effective fish-finding the next time you go fishing?

Check it out, and who knows what you might learn.

Something in this week’s ODNR fishing report caught my eye:

From the report for the Little Miami River in SW Ohio:

“Water levels are down now and provide great opportunities for anglers to wade the river and find holes and structured areas that you can come back to later when the river is up.”

It makes total sense; much like the pre-season hunting scouting I’ve been talking about in the last few posts, there are opportunities to scout for future angling success.

The idea of scouting fish hot-spots may not come readily to some; it didn’t to me. After all, why head downt ot he water without a pole in hand? This report from the ODNR just goes to show that even when there’s litle likelihood of a decent fish being anywhere in the vicinity, you can do great things to ensure success down the road.

So while it’s still pleasantly warm, get out and do some wading when the rivers and lakes are low. You might stumble across the hole or snag that’ll produce next season’s trophy catch.

Experienced hunters, this one may be a little too basic for you.

But for the rest of us, I stumbled across a pretty concise, useful web site while researching how to pick likely hunting hot spots via topo map.

Here it is.

You’ll have to excuse its typos; the info’s solid. In a nutshell, you can sum up much of his point with this quote:

“Just look for the easiest route to get from one point to another on the map.”

Visit it, and learn a little bit before you start tromping around the woods.

I’ve been kicking around the idea of getting a solar lantern for a while now. The technology makes sense – if you’re going to be outdoors for a stretch, why not save the trouble of batteries by using that big energy source that beats down on you most of the day?

I received some info recently from PiSAT about their K-Light “Light for Africa” project, and it may be the motivator I needed to buy a solar light.

You can read about the program here; in a nutshell, for every light we buy, PiSAT will donate one to a microbusiness development program in Africa.

Take a look, and if you think it’s a worthwhile cause, pick up a K-light.

Be sure to visit the ODNR’s web site and flip through the 2010-11 hunting and trapping regulations. I haven’t had a chance to dig through them, but there are changes you should be aware of (and some of you will be happy about). For example, the counties in the different Deer zones have changed: this could mean more opportunities for you, so check to see if your home area is affected.

Likewise, rules have changed regarding purchase of antlerless deer tags. As someone who’s concerned about the waste of unchecked urban deer populations, I’m happy to see this being implemented.

Go through the regs, and make sure you understand them before this fall. The point of the rules, after all, is to keep game populations healthy and hunters safe.

It’s that time of year, hunters. If you haven’t started yet, you need to get into the woods and do your preseason scouting.

Yeah, I know it’s early. Yes, I know it’s going to be far hotter, leafier and buggier than it’ll be in the fall. But starting your scouting now will pay dividends when the leaves are turning and the air’s crisp and cool.

I’ll write more on scouting as the month progresses, but the first step is an obvious one: figure out where you’ll be hunting, and get familiar with the land. That does not mean drive around the perimeter of the field and look for deer (although it’s always smart to keep an eye out for heavily-trafficked fields along country roads). I’m talking about getting maps, and identifying the likely spots to find your game of choice this fall. 

If you’re hunting public land, basic maps are as close as the ODNR web site. Even though the information on these maps is limited (especially for power company land), they provide important data as you start your scouting research. Where can you park? What parts of the area are more accessible (possibly more crowded)?

While online, spend some time over your chosen area with Google Maps. While these maps – and their wonderful aerial views – aren’t updated with extreme frequency, they’ll give you a general idea of where farmland borders the area, and where the forest appears to be thicker or more sparse.

After this initial research, you should have a good idea of where in your chosen chunk of land you can go. Now, go find a decent topographic map (I intend to try this resource this year, although I can’t vouch for them yet). Study the contours of the land. Are there funnels? Likely pinch points that will force game past your stand? Although you can only tell so much from the contour lines, this exercise will give you a fairly precise idea of where to look for sign. We’ll talk about that in a future post. Until then, get out, get your eyes open, and have fun in the woods.

I figure it’s no coincidence that summer fishing season happens at the same time as the height of grillin’ season. After all, some of my best food memories as a kid involve Dad’s old charcoal grill and pink, juicy salmon grilled over mesquite chips.

Hopefully you’ve got both a freezer full of summer’s catch and a bunch of friends to invite over for a grill-out. If so, here are a few tips that may come in handy for cooking the kinds of fish you may catch around here.

- Don’t over-flip it: Your catch did enough flipping at the end of the line. Now that it’s a filet or steak, aim to flip the thing once. Doing more than that will likely break it apart as it cooks.

- For lighter fish like panfish, get a grill basket. It’ll make life much easier-trust me on that one.

- Marinades are excellent, and can make good sauce if you handle them right. I like to cut the used marinade with a little wine (white for the lighter fish, red for the heavy saltwater critters), then boil it about five minutes to cook down and kill any bacteria. Pour on the meat and go at it.

- If you’ve got the taste for them, crayfish/mudbugs/crawdads are made for the grill. Finish them off with a sharp knife through the head, then skewer them like you would shrimp.

Good luck on the water, and good eatin’ on the grill – sounds like a recipe for a great summer.

And I suspect I don’t have to explain which spill I’m referring to.

I suppose I’m not the only one out here who breathed a big – but tentative -  sigh of relief when BP announced last week it appears to have stemmed the flow of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. No more images of brown crud pumping into what used to be blue, game-rich waters.

Man, what a mess.

There are so many places I could go on this one: the collective addiction to cheap oil that has us going for the stuff in too-sensitive places, the bureaucratic mess that will likely let this company get off the hook with a lot less penalty than it deserves, the livelihoods – and lives – changed forever by something totally out of their control.

Big enough subjects for adults, but what if you’re explaining them to a kid? That can get tricky.

The ODNR recently linked to a helpful site on this very subject. It’s located here, and I suggest you take a look if you’ve got a young one in your life who wants to understand what happened. Handle this situation right, because the stakes are high: the kids watching this unfold today will be the ones who chart our future course: toward or away from another such disaster, the path they take could well hinge on how we present the facts of this case.

I’m not sure how I feel about this one.

Frabill VP of marketing Jeff “Kolo” Kolodzinski will attempt July 30 to beat his own Guinness World Record for the most fish caught in a 24-hour period. According to a press release on the event, that means he’ll have to hook and release more than 1,680 fish.

The attempt is being held in conjunction with a fun-raising event for Fishing for Life, an organization focused on promoting outdoor activities – especially fishing – as lifelong passions among kids.

It’s a good group to back, but part of me cringes at the idea of the massive hooking-fest that I suspect the record attempt will be.

I don’t want to dismiss Kolodzinski’s ability as an angler; that’s a lot of consistency to keep the fish biting for that long. But as someone who approaches hunting and fishing with an eye to their roots – methods for clawless, toothless humans to prey on food species – I don’t feel good about hooking, fighting and landing that many fish. Odds are a few will swim away injured, possibly seriously.

Catch-and-release fishing has its role in the sport, I firmly believe. It would horribly wasteful to kill every too-small or wrong-species catch, and when done right, the practice can produce bigger lunkers in a given body of water.

But where’s the sport in hooking that many fish at once? Where’s the connection to the core – the soul if you will – of what fishing is supposed to be about? 

Catch a big fish. Go to some out-of-the-way place and hook a species you’ve never seen, caught or tasted before. Prepare the catch with respect, and dine with joy. But don’t turn this food-harvesting activity into a numbers game, or a publicity stunt.

That’s a little soulless, it seems to me.