You want to release the fish you just caught unharmed, but do you know where to hold it without damaging any of its vital organs so that you can remove the hook safely?

Lost in the woods! It can happen to anyone. I have a good friend who was suddenly stunned when he realized he would have to spend his first night in the woods alone. Darkness caught up with him while tracking a buck, and he lost his way in the dark. It can happen when you’re concentrating on tracks on the ground and not keeping your eyes on your surroundings. Fortunately, my friend didn’t panic, and his rain gear saved him from a wet, cold night in the woods.

My good friend Ron Spomer recently read a letter on his website from a knowledgeable Army veteran explaining why the MI .30 carbine was one of the best rifles in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. I agree, and with good reason. I served in the U.S. Army for two years in Germany. I was trained as a Combat Engineer, and, most of the time, I carried my 10-pound M1 Garand. Some days in the field, that M1 Garand felt like 25 pounds! I never saw combat, but I would have carried that Garand in the field. The M1 Garand was and still is a great rifle. That .30/06 with its 8-round clip was the rifle that won World War II. But it just weighed too much.

Mr. Bruun doesn’t pull any punches about the current lack of outdoor stories of yesteryear. “I was and still am thinking about all that wonderful writing that used to come tumbling out of the Madison Avenue produced pure outdoor magazines.” I agree. I was part of that era of classic outdoor literature no longer published by outdoor magazines. Why has this happened?

I think I have an incurable knife fetish. I’m not happy unless I have a knife in my pocket. I feel incomplete unless I have a sharp fillet knife in my tackle box when fishing. I always carry a folding knife on my belt and a fixed blade knife in my pack if I’m hunting. Keeping my knives sharp is a year-round job.

“Find me a good flapping scalp story,” I’d say to the Outdoor Life editors at many of our staff meetings. I meant, of course, a good bear tale where a grizzly or Alaska brown bear got the upper hand and chewed off the hunter’s scalp. During my tenure at Outdoor Life, I learned very quickly that our readers had a true love affair with bears, especially rogue grizzlies.

Baffin Island in the Northwest Territories can be downright mean to hunters. It’s cold, windy, and wet. Campfires are a luxury on Baffin. There are no trees, and the only vegetation is lichen and moss. The shoreline is a maze of ankle-twisting rocks. But the caribou hunting more than made up for the aches and pains in my body when I hunted there years ago.

Unfortunately, the recent black bear attack in northern New Jersey and the first fatal bear attack in about 150 years is an example of what happens when people panic and run scared. Perhaps this deadly attack might not have happened if the young hiker had been more knowledgeable about the dangers of encountering a wild animal.

It’s been a long cold winter, but it’s almost over, and it’s time to start thinking about trout fishing. I love trout fishing with flies, but if history repeats itself and you want to take home a limit of trout, you might have to change your tactics. In all probability, your favorite stream will be high, fast, and muddy.

I’ve always been a firm believer that a big 10- to 12–inch shiner is one of the most effective ways to catch big bass. Unfortunately, your first problem may be finding such big shiners in your local bait shop. You may have to catch them yourself. You can chum for shiners with oatmeal and bread crumbs and catch them with doughballs on a No. 12 or 14 hook. The best way to fish live shiners is to cast them along shorelines or floating vegetation.