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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all the outdoors-folk in our beautiful little piece of America! Jesus is the reason for the season, and there are blessings abound in our neck of the woods. Lord knows I love the thrill of fishing and hunting, and the beauty of the great outdoors, but without friends and family to share this awesome passion with, I doubt many of us would be near as adamant about it. So take a kid fishing or hunting, and thank the Lord for time spent in the serenity of God’s creation with the ones we love, because you never know what tomorrow will bring. Hopefully a lot of kids (and dads and grandpas) are receiving a ton

CARUTHERSVILLE, MO - You could call him the Steve Jobs of Crappie Fishing. Big Lou Mansfield started the Grizzly Jig Company in his garage and in 1991 opened in a sheltered workshop in Haiti Heights. In less than a year, the company outgrew their space and moved into downtown Caruthersville. By 1994, the store needed more space and began buying up the block of buildings at the corner of Ward and 3rd Streets. Grizzly sells everything from rods and reels, trolling motors and depth finders, boat seats and accessories, and an enormous selection of jig heads, plastics, and jigs. Many of their products are exclusive to Grizzly, like their hand tied jigs, custom crappie poles, and locally poured heads and

When I first began studying the American Civil War, I—like a lot of armchair scholars—focused on events in the East. Oh, I had read about Pea Ridge, Shiloh, Corinth, and Chickamauga. But the East was where I thought the most important action had taken place. That would change on a trip from Missouri to Savannah, Georgia. My ex-wife and I were on I-75 when I saw a road sign for the Allatoona Battlefield. I had seen it before, but something pushed me to stop this time. We took the exit and soon found ourselves at the head of the trail to the earthworks. There, just off the parking lot, I saw a very large monument carved into the shape of

If you have kids ages 11 through 19, you probably have a problem come Christmas time. Your kids WANT to give a great present but they haven't saved up enough money to do anything but buy a $10 knick-knack. And on Christmas morning...well, the materialism of gifts somehow blows the "it's the thought that counts" up the chimney. Let's face it, even at age 10, your kids want to give you the same quality give you give them. That's not materialist, it's just human. My family started a tradition of doing Secret Santa among our immediate family. We go to the mall and everyone knows our preset dollar limit (for example $75). During the first few hours, everyone goes around the mall taking photos of

The top story in the outdoors this past week has been well-documented and dramatically over-reported on, so staying true to journalistic form, I’d be remiss if I didn’t beat it into the ground a bit more! Here’s the headline: “The majestic White Stag from Narnia was bludgeoned to death by a heartless murderer in the name of fame, fortune, and evil, and now the good townsfolk are arming themselves with pitchforks and torches and aiming to lynch the accused.” That might had well been the headline anyway, but at the end of the day, the only thing that happened was a deer hunter killed a deer, and a pretty nice one at that. Jerry Kinnaman from Cape Girardeau, MO took