Idaho hikers and historians have teamed up in an effort to uncover a 120-year-old route used by miners during one of the last gold rushes in American history.
I will never forget the woman at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park who matter-of-factly explained to her children that the mule deer they were seeing on the lawn in front of the visitor center would grow up to be elk. Elk. Deer. Two different species. Deer will never morph into elk.
Pocatello resident Shelly Sayer recently shot what she believes to be the largest grizzly ever harvested by a woman.
Volunteer hunter, bowhunter and trapper education instructors from the eastern Idaho were recently honored by Idaho Fish and Game’s Upper Snake Region for their contributions.
MULLAN — Ski and snowboard season has officially begun in Idaho.
When Linda Jovanovich bought a 7-acre slice of land on the Palouse 25 years ago, it was nearly treeless, other than the obligatory row of pines and a few mountain ash planted to block the wind. A straight and deep no-name stream cut through the loamy topsoil, its only decoration a long-aband…
Everyone has their favorite animal, but in the fall elk must reign supreme. Hunters in droves chase them with everything from sharpened sticks to muzzleloading or ultra-modern rifles, they are the number one attraction in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and Harriman State Park off…
Henrys Lake has been good to anglers this year and catch rates underneath the ice are continuing that trend into the colder months. Sub-zero temperatures near the end of October prompted a few brazen ice anglers to venture out onto the newly frozen lake several days before Halloween. “Henrys…
Idaho Fish and Game has launched a new licensing system with a new contractor, and hunters, anglers and trappers will see new and more customer friendly services and options when buying licenses, tags and permits.
So this column is to make a case for getting cross-country ski gear and using it.
Driving through Yellowstone on the last day roads were open, I spotted what I thought was a bear in a muddy backwater of the Yellowstone River in Hayden Valley. We quickly pulled to the side, and I pulled out my binoculars. Nope, not a bear. It was a mound, clearly intentionally formed of re…
An ordinary hill along the east side of Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front has once again produced extraordinary fossils.
Most nonresident hunters, anglers and trappers will pay higher prices for licenses, tags and fees starting Dec. 1.
I was standing well off the side of the Going to The Sun Road in Glacier National Park working on a photographic composition several weeks ago. Suddenly, I smelled a strange odor and at the same time began to cough uncontrollably. I knew instantly what had happened. I turned and noticed a co…
The cold spell we had last week got my sweetheart and I talking about a trip to St. George, Utah, or perhaps Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area near Las Vegas.
Frances Cassirer has been working to recover bighorn sheep in Hells Canyon for more than two decades.
In 1993, the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station published a report stating that there were no great gray owls documented in Forest Service surveys in Island Park. This owl, classified as a night-active predator that may also hunt during the day, is at the ext…
When we pulled into the parking area about a half-mile off the main road at Teddy Bear Cove last week there were already three vehicles there. It was more than I’d ever seen there.
About 12,000 years ago, things on the North American continent came to a grinding halt. The ice age was coming to an end and the glaciers associated with the huge sheet of ice began to recede back uphill faster than they moved downslope. Glacial artistry, the changes made to the landscape, w…
A few years ago, when I was a new Boy Scout, about 12 years old on one of my first campouts, I remember watching a Scout leader setting up some shiny, thin metal panels with a rack in the middle next to a small campfire.
In a week or so, big digging machines will arrive in Swan Valley and tear into the banks of Rainey Creek to perform major reconstructive surgery as part of a multi-year effort to restore the stream to its former glory.
Hunters using a boat to get to their island blind, and hunters shooting from their duck boats are going not only on a hunting trip. They are also going on a boating trip.
“Mountaineering with a rifle” is how Taylor Glenn summed up his first few hours of pursuing mountain goats in Grand Teton National Park.
Last week’s outing reminded me that the Tetons really are all that and more.
While Covid-19 has hurt some businesses, others have thrived with unexpected bonuses. Reports indicate that sales and rentals of recreational vehicles such as camping trailers and motorhomes are up by 300 percent. That is incredible. A walk through a local sporting goods store yielded simila…
Deer hunters asked to submit samples for chronic wasting disease testing
My youngest son Sam is not one to complain. He’s usually Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky and always smiling.
Average deer numbers, above average elk numbers seen in eastern Idaho
On Friday a week ago, I was rappelling down a 500-foot rock wall in Cascade Canyon in Grand Teton National Park when I had a moment of panic.
The Pando aspen clone on the Fish Lake National Forest in Utah is considered to be the world’s largest known DNA-tested organism. It’s estimated weight is 13 million pounds and its roots cover 106 acres with over 47,000 individual stems. The seed that started Pando likely hit the ground at t…
Hunters traveling out of state need to be aware of Idaho's rules on importing carcasses back into the state so they can help prevent the spread of chronic wasting disease. Fish and Game has not detected chronic wasting disease in Idaho, and your help is essential to keeping the state CWD free.
Lying flat on my back beneath three giant aspen trees, I gazed upward. The autumn air was crisp as an apple and the yellowing leaves shimmered in the slight breeze, pairing perfectly with the strong, white trunks and a sky the color of a bluebird wing. I was mesmerized and thoughts fled as I…
Among the pro-level racers at the Logan to Jackson 200-mile race last week, four people made it a photo finish at 9 hours 2 minutes and 48 seconds. Cameron Hoffman of Smithfield, Utah beat out three other Utah guys for the win.
If you’ve wondered what 2020 was good for, the answer is fishing.
Interested in taking up hunting but don’t know where to begin? Or maybe it’s been a few years since you were out in search of wild game and you could use a little help in returning to the hunt.
A recent article in The Wildlife Society’s, The Wildlife Professional magazine caught my attention. The article describes research conducted to see if mowing lawns less often would yield benefits for wildlife, particularly native pollinators.
A week ago, I was showing a couple of talented college students how to rappel. Neither had ever done it despite being good climbers.
Grand Teton National Park has selected 70 teams of volunteer wildlife shooters and is ready to launch a mountain goat culling operation Monday.
In the valley, summer is still sizzling hot and full-on, but in the mountains, the signs of autumn are slowly revealing. Grasses have dried to a golden brown, and the leaves of some shrubs and trees are already draining of green chlorophyll, revealing the reds, yellows and oranges of autumn.
The recent chilly days are a reminder that summer is fading fast. There was even a car wreck on Teton Pass last week caused by snowy-icy roads.
David Wolfe has the ability to see the bright side of things and to stay calm despite trying circumstances.
We’ve been told all our lives by the old folk song that here in the West the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play, but the question of where exactly do the pronghorn migrate in Idaho each spring and fall is still a puzzle to biologists.
For over an hour, the large campfire covered me in smoke, chasing me no matter where I moved as I tended the flames. Finally, as the fire burned to glowing embers, the smoke was gone. I set my grill above the coals, and when the metal was hot, tossed on the hamburgers that would be our dinne…
Some summer activities are just fun challenges meant to keep us in shape. Others are just crazy shenanigans that friends rope you into.
Idaho Fish and Game is offering in-person trapper and wolf trapper education classes starting in September for people interested in obtaining a trapper license.
The outlook is positive for eastern Idaho elk and deer hunters this fall.
Backpacking in Utah’s stunningly beautiful Uinta Mountains last week found us filtering water from the lake we were camped at. This should have been a pretty simple chore, but like dominoes falling, all three water filters we had brought failed in quick succession. With eight kids and three …
I sat in the doctor’s examination room more than a week ago waiting for the news.
Tyler Willis’ red puffy jacket had soaked through, and as he felt the glacial cold set in, he realized he was in real trouble.
Two Idaho fishing records were recently broken by anglers fishing central and eastern Idaho waters.
It wasn’t a long hike to the lookout tower in Island Park, but it was exciting just the same to be going to someplace new. At the tower, there were no interpretive signs (although we later learned that it was built in 1936), and the first 20 or so wooden steps and accompanying metal handrail…
Idaho Fish and Game has launched a new website, gohuntidaho.org, to help new hunters learn an Idaho tradition that helps people provide their own food, as well as family recreation.
Idaho Fish and Game has crunched the numbers and has some positive news for kokanee anglers at Ririe Reservoir.
We’ve entered that time of summer when as John Muir would put it: “The mountains are calling and I must go.”
The National Park Service is taking applications for “qualified” volunteers to help cull mountain goats from Grand Teton National Park starting in September.
