Channel catfish, including some sizeable ones, are being stocked in North Park Lake for a first-of-its-kind event.
Photo from Pixabay
A roundup of outdoor news and notes…
Cats for kids, you might call it.
This weekend, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission is unveiling a new initiative aimed at getting children and families involved in fishing. Channel catfish are the draw.
The agency is hosting a family fishing festival at North Park in Allegheny County from 4-6 p.m. on Saturday, July 29. Staff and volunteers will kick things off by giving attendees a lesson in catfishing. They’ll go over everything from catfish biology to fishing techniques to how to prepare catfish for cooking.
Then, from 6 to 11 p.m., youths with a voluntary license or permit and their adult mentors can fish. Things open back up at dawn Sunday and continue through 11 p.m. again.
The commission is stocking channel cats specifically for the event. They’ll range from 14 to 24 inches. Some will be stocked before the program, some during.
Kids will be able to keep two per day, though adults will have to release theirs.
Preregistration is required to participate. That can be done by clicking here.
Elk applications
Have you applied for a Pennsylvania elk hunting license yet? If not, you’d better do it soon.
The deadline to enter the drawing is July 31.
Applications can be submitted anywhere hunting licenses are sold or online at the Game Commission’s website, www.pgc.pa.gov.
Cost is $10.90. Winners will also have to buy an elk license — $25 for residents, $250 for nonresidents – if drawn.
The drawing is set for Aug. 19 in Benezette as part of the Pennsylvania Great Outdoors Elk Expo. The Game Commission will issue 118 elk licenses total, 25 for bulls, 93 for cows.
But that’s not all. Hunters can also buy a raffle ticket good for a bull elk license being offered by the Keystone Elk Country Alliance. The winner of that drawing gets extra time to hunt a bull during the rut.
That drawing is set for Aug. 20 at the expo. Details can be found at www.experienceelkcountry.com/elktag.
Top shooter
Cabot Guns, made in Butler County, are top-of-the-line, precision handguns.
And now they’ve got a shooter to match.
Jonathan Shue, sponsored by the company, recently took first place at the NRA National Pistol Championship. A former Marine now competing as a civilian, he beat out 468 competitors from around the world in the three-day tournament.
Typically, active-duty military shooters dominate there.
Team Cabot also finished first among “industry” teams, meaning those representing manufacturers.
Food plots
Do you plant food specifically for deer and other wildlife? If so, you’re not alone.
Of course, that’s hardly surprising.
Still, the growing popularity of creating food plots was at least somewhat quantified recently. According to new data from Southwick Associates, roughly three out of 10 surveyed hunters are involved in managing or attracting wildlife on land where they hunt.
Of those people, more than 80 percent of their efforts are spent on creating food plots.
The next most popular way of attracting wildlife was using mineral sites. That ranked just ahead of timber management. It was in turn followed by plant management, feeders and “other” practices, ranging from controlled burns to providing water sources.
Two records
Most anglers will go their entire lifetime without catching a state record fish.
This guy got two in one evening.
Bowfisherman Jimmy Ruple of Greenbrier, Ark., arrowed a highfin carpsucker and a river carpsucker on June 19 on the Arkansas River. That gave him the unrestricted tackle record for both species.
Ruple told state officials there that he’s only been bowfishing for two years, since his son got him started.
And his fish were not necessarily monsters. But they’ve been heretofore unloved, hence his records.
The highfin carpsucker weighed only 1 pound, 12 ounces. But no record had ever been submitted for the species before. The river carpsucker, weighing 3 pounds, 2 ounces, broke the previous record, for a fish caught just months earlier, in May.
Survey
Want to weigh in on the future of the shooting sports? Here’s your chance.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade group representing firearms and ammunition manufacturers, is doing a consumer survey. The goal is “to better understand sportsmen’s and sportswomen’s hunting and target shooting participation.”
Responses will remain confidential. Participants will not be contacted either.
The survey can be found here.
