October/November 2015 Archives - Outdoor Writers Association of America

Welcome to OWAA

OWAA Developer — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 02:33:58 +0000

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New Members

Bob Curley is the editor of Chimani, a publisher of mobile apps on the outdoors with a particular focus on the National Parks. Curley is a travel guidebook author with more than 20 years of experience writing for magazines, websites, newspapers and other media. A member of the Society of American Travel Writers, he is also the About.com Caribbean travel expert, so when he’s not biking, climbing or playing hockey you can find him sipping rum on any number of tropical islands.
Ashley Peters is a communications professional for the National Audubon Society in Louisiana. She manages webbased communications, graphic design, media coordination, publication and video production, and various other outreach efforts. Most recently, Peters supported communications for the Restore the Mississippi River Delta coalition which comprises Audubon, the National Wildlife Federation, the Environmental Defense Fund and several local nonprofits. Before moving to Louisiana, Peters worked as a program manager for a conservation nonprofit in Alaska. She also worked for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources on statewide communications projects for state parks, trails and water trails. She wrote for the Minnesota Conservation Volunteer and managed seasonal publications. She got her start in the conservation field by serving as an AmeriCorps member on trail crews in Alaska and Minnesota. Peters lives in Baton Rouge and writes about her outdoor pursuits in her spare time.
Fine arts photographer Tim Romano conspired to convince his wife and family that in order to produce more and better work he must essentially tackle his vices head-on in the field of play. This hard earned license to roam has led to assignments in Alaska, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, Russia, Bahamas, Mexico, British Columbia and extensively in the US. Romano is a frequent contributor to Field & Stream and co-writes the magazine’s fly-fishing blog, http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/flytalk. He is also the managing editor of Angling Trade Magazine (the business publication for the fly-fishing industry), a contributing editor for MidCurrent, as well a photo emeritus of the highly regarded publication The Fly Fish Journal. His artwork is part of the permanent collections at Lake Forest College, Photo Americas Portland, Instituto de Artes de Medellin, Colombia, and the University of Colorado, Boulder.
James A. Swan, is a co-executive producer of the “Wild Justice” TV series on the National Geographic Channel; CEO for Snow Goose Productions,LLC, which produces TV shows, documentaries, commercials and book trailers; and a regular contributor to The Outdoor Wire. He is the author of 10 non-fiction books and one novel. His latest book, “War In The Woods: Combating the Marijuana Cartels on Our Public Lands,” which he wrote with California game warden Lt. John Nores, has been optioned for a feature film that’s currently in development with Warner Bros. http://www.jamesswan.com/book-war_in_the_woods.html. His on-camera presence is helped by his work as an actor, appearing in 20 feature films, three dramatic series and more than 30 commercials, industrials and print ads. He’s judged the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival three times.

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Toyota: Yellowstone campus powered by reused Camry batteries

OWAA Developer — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 02:05:09 +0000

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About 100 years ago, President Teddy Roosevelt referred to Yellowstone as a “wonderland,” and said, “The creation and preservation of such a great natural playground, in the interest of our people as a whole, is a credit to the nation.”
Today, we can see that Roosevelt’s wonderland remains as pristine and protected. Toyota is helping preserve Yellowstone for generations to come. Toyota’s long-standing partnership with Yellowstone and the Yellowstone Park Foundation has provided its vehicles, technology and sustainability expertise toward that goal.
Toyota is extremely proud to provide sustainable power for one of the most remote, pristine areas in the United States.
At the Lamar Buffalo Ranch field campus in Yellowstone National Park, an innovative distributed energy system that combines solar power generation with re-used Camry Hybrid battery packs came online earlier this year. The result? Reliable, sustainable, zero emission power to the ranger station and education center for the first time since it was founded in 1907.
Solar panels generate the renewable electricity stored within the 208 nickel-metal hydride battery packs that once powered Toyota Camry hybrids. The used battery packs were recovered from Toyota dealers across the United States. On an annual basis, the solar system generates enough electricity to power six average U.S. households for a year, or plenty of power for the five buildings on the ranch campus. The hybrid batteries provide 85 kilowatt-hours of energy storage to ensure continuous power, as the system charges and discharges. Onsite microhydro turbine systems, capturing energy from a neighboring stream, are scheduled to join the power mix in 2016.
The Yellowstone system is the first of its kind to extend the useful life of hybrid vehicle batteries for commercial energy storage. Hybrid batteries typically reach the end of their usable life in automobile-grade applications with significant remaining power storage capacity. Engineers expect this type of use to double the overall lifespan of the hybrid batteries.
By working together with Yellowstone Park, Toyota hopes to continue providing a home where the buffalo roam, where the deer and the antelope play, and other wildlife have a place to call their own.
To learn more about Yellowstone National Park sustainability initiatives please visit www.nps.gov/yell/parkmgmt/sustainabilitycontents.htm.
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Smart phone map apps that get you there and back

OWAA Developer — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 00:17:36 +0000

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BY PAUL QUENEAU

In my job I’m often deployed to remote places to photograph and write about parcels of land that have recently been protected or otherwise conserved.
I relish this chance to get to explore new country and try to capture its most appealing angles in photographs. Yet often time getting there becomes part of the adventure. Trying to navigate myself to the right spot can take me scrambling up dirt roads or single-track trails at zero dark-thirty hoping to catch good light at sunrise. My first line of defense has long been a collection of war-torn, coffee-stained Delorme state gazetteers. Then I switch to more detailed USGS maps. But lately those have started shacking up with my smart phone.
Chances are you’re already accustomed to a computer voice emanating from your phone telling you a take a right in 500 feet.
But what about when you leave the cell tower grid behind? The rule book goes out the window. Your GPS may still technically work, but mapping data doesn’t stream without a tower. This requires you to download and cache the maps for the area you plan to visit well before you leave the digital comforts of civilization.
Two summers ago at the OWAA conference, I was introduced to a superb app called GPS Topo USA by Gogal Publishing Company. For $7 it quickly delivers any USGS topographic quad in the United States to your iPhone at the same 7.5-minute detail that outdoorspeople of a certain age will know all too well. The app’s maps, though, are shaded to better show mountains and valleys, and it allows you to swap to a satellite image à la Google Earth, or to sandwich both map layers together.
But the killer feature for me is that fact that once you’ve viewed a map, it’s automatically saved in memory so you needn’t have any cell-tower coverage to pull it up again. Before I leave town I just run my route plans with my finger, and all my maps are stored and ready.
For fish-heads, Gogal also publishes a Colorado Wild Trout app that maps out the Centennial State’s steams by fish species, access points and other key data. Again, it is designed to work with or without phone service. The company is also hard at work on similar apps for the Northeast, Pacific Coast and other areas, and makes a mapping app for National Parks and Monuments as well.
Gaia GPS is a similar app for both iOS and Android with more bells and whistles. At $19.99, it’s almost three times the price, but includes world-wide topo maps, weather radar (if you’ve got cell coverage), and tools for printing maps, among other features.
If you need map layers for landowner names, property boundaries and hunting units, OnX’s HUNT app delivers. It requires an annual subscription of $29.99 per state, but if legal boundaries are a concern, it will be money well spent keeping you in the good graces of the law.
For photographers, another type of app worth considering is one that provides data on sunrise and moonrise times, angles and directions of light for any given date, and even what direction the sun or moon will appear behind a given mountain. The Photographer’s Ephemeris app ($8.99) provides all this and more, but suffers from an overloaded interface due to its smorgasbord of options. PhotoPills ($9.99) is another option with a better interface, and adds exposure recommendations for time-lapse, star trails and other photo-exposure techniques.
No matter what the app, though, it’s worth looking for the term “offline viewing” to assure you can store e-maps and other data away for the backcountry. Also remember that using the GPS can zap your battery, so leave with a full-charge.
Do you have an app that you’ve found especially useful in your outdoor storytelling work? Share it on OWAA’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/OWAAonline.
– Paul Queneau is an editor for Bugle magazine at the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation in Missoula, Montana. He is also a freelance writer and photographer with credits in Outdoor Life, Montana Quarterly and other publications.
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Photographing fish: Tips for behind the lens

OWAA Developer — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 22:50:00 +0000

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BY STEVEN BRUTGER

On the previous page, Matt Copeland shared some hard learned advice for how to get better fish photos when handling fish in front of the lens. Well, it takes two to tango, and the one holding the camera also has a lot to do with how the final product turns out. Here’s a handful of behind the lens tips to help you capture fishing images that do the fish — and your experiences — the justice they deserve.
Don’t take pictures of fish. Fish are gorgeous and photos of them can be too. But alone they hardly scratch the surface when it comes to telling the story of fishing. In the last two months I shot fishing images on 14 occasions. I realized in reviewing the resulting thousands of images that I only photographed one fish- and it was not the only fish caught in my presence. All of the details, people, and activities that go into fishing provide great insight as to why we fish.
Consequently, some of the most memorable fishing shots don’t have a fish in them at all.
Capture a piece of the action. Many of your classic grip and grin shots are static. Capture instead the moments that show the action and excitement of fishing. Fighting, netting and releasing fish; high-fiveing a buddy; the look of dejection after losing a good one — all of these actions are full of emotion that will come through in your images and get at the heart of what makes fishing great. In addition to high action, look for some of the more reflective moments or subtle details, such as an angler reading the water in the early morning, or retying a rig.
Get good light. Good light is often the difference between a good image and a great image in pretty much all photos. Fish pictures are no exception. Early morning and evening light give the incredible colors and details of fish a chance to shine. Try backlighting a fin by framing the sun behind your catch, or capturing reflections off the water to add an extra dimension to your shot.
Focus on the eye. What qualifies as a good photo is subjective in many ways, and nearly every so called rule is made to be broken. But with that said, when there’s a fish eye in my frame, I always want it to be in focus. We are drawn naturally eyes. I often shoot with a shallow depth of field to highlight certain parts of the fish. Even then though, I want the eye to be tack sharp. In general, when the eye is out of focus, the image doesn’t makes the cut.
Go wide or tight. Folks commonly take hero shots at a medium distance, framing both the entire person and the fish. Consider abandoning that middle of the road approach next time, and go wide or tight instead. Wide shots, where the fish is often just a small element of the whole picture, can be great for conveying the beauty or feel of the environment where you are fishing. Fish, after all, rarely live in ugly places. Conversely, shoot up close or tight. The gill plates, eyes, fins and markings of fish are all worthy of dedicated attention, so go ahead and get up close and personal.
— Editor’s note: This story originally appeared on www.stalkingtheseam.com.
– A freelance photographer based out of Bozeman, Montana, Steven Brutger has a tendency to dive in with gusto. He goes full throttle when it comes to photography, but maintains enough energy for raising his two kids, fishing, training gun dogs, or chasing elk (although he recognizes children are ultimately a bigger commitment).
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Photographing fish: Tips for in front of the lens

OWAA Developer — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 22:26:44 +0000

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BY MATTHEW COPELAND
The blog I run with Steven Brutger, Stalking the Seam, has published 148 photographs of fish, some better than others. (Read some taken by Steven, others by me). For every shot that’s made the cut though, a half dozen or more pics were made unusable by simple mistakes. Their Achilles’ heels were sometimes technical, but as often as not, the fatal errors happened in front of the lens, where they’re easiest to avoid.
When it comes time to document your next catch, keep the following handful of ideas in mind. If hard-won experience is any guide, they should help you dodge some all-too-common pitfalls and end up with more brag-worthy images.
The grip .“Nice fish… at least I assume so from what I can see of it between your hairy knuckles.”
You know the shot I’m talking about, right? A fish head — eyes bulging and mouth gaping — followed by two fists and maybe a glimpse of tail fin. It may be the fish of your life, but such a hamhanded grip disqualifies it from the highlight reel every time- and it’s even worse for the fish.
Try this instead. Wet your hands in the river. (ALWAYS wet your hands before touching a fish.) Hold both hands so that your palms face away from you, your finger-tips point down, and your thumbs are to the outside. Use the thumb and index finger of one hand to encircle and secure the fish’s tail, just above the tail fin. It’ll look kind of like an upside-down “Okay” sign. Then form a shallow litter by gently curving your remaining fingers side-by-side under the fish. The fish’s belly should rest on the second and third segments of your fingers. The flank opposite the camera can rest against your palms, while only your finger tips peak through on the camera side.
It’ll feel a little awkward the first few times, but it’ll keep your hands out of the shot. More importantly, this technique also minimizes two of the big threats fish face from handling– desliming by skin to fish contact and squeezing pressure.
The grin. “Whoa, hey there fella! This ain’t that kind of photoshoot!”
Everybody knows how to mug for the camera. But between smiling with your eyes, being sexy on the inside and handling fish, the finer points of body language and positioning often fall by the wayside. Awkward bends, pained looking contortions and wrestling matches with streamside foliage are regular offenders. The classic goof though, the self-deployed photo-bomb that ruins more shots than any other, is the crotch shot. It’s perfectly understandable, of course. You want your butt low, head high and knees apart when crouching on slippery, uneven terrain. But that doesn’t make it ok. Nobody wants to see that. Trust me.
Luckily there are two easy fixes. Instead of squatting, you can stand in deeper water, or, if you’ve landed a fish in the shallows, kneel .
Pick your place. “Give me a place to stand, and I’ll move the Earth” — Archimedes.
Luckily you don’t need to go that far. You just have to move yourself, and a fish, to a manageable spot… which can be a tall enough order in its own right.
Things happen fast when the line goes tight. But a few quick, well considered decisions can go a long way. If you’re hoping for a picture, try to avoid ending the fight on that slippery mid-stream boulder, or straddling the mossy log. Getting the shot is exponentially harder when you’re unsure of your footing, high-stepping through poison ivy, or improvising riparian yoga just to reach the fish.
Keep ‘em wet. Used figuratively, “looks like a fish out of water” is rarely a compliment. That’s because an actual fish out of water is a sad sight indeed. In their natural element though, fish posses a breathtaking beauty. That’s what you want to capture. Minimize the amount of time fish spend above the surface and you’ll kill fewer fish and snap more killer photos.
If you decide to lift a fish for the shot, keep it close to the surface. Once the water has stopped streaming off of it (3-5 seconds) it’s time to put ‘em back in. Better yet, take an underwater or partially submerged shot.
Be quick about it. I kill and eat the occasional fish. I find it’s a helpful, perhaps even important means of remembering what the exercise is ultimately all about. Killing a fish for a picture though is unconscionable. And let’s be clear. When you hook a fish, the clock starts ticking. With each passing second, its chance of survival ebbs away.
When possible, have the camera ready, the plan made and everything in position before the fish is landed. Then get your shot and turn ‘em loose. When that’s not possible, do the right thing and forego the pictures. You can think of it as just one more that got away
Matthew Copeland served a six year corporate sentence in Major Metro USA before finding his way home to Wyoming. Today he writes for assorted magazines and helps clients tell their stories more effectively… when he’s not off playing in the mountains that is. Read his blog stalkingtheseam.com.
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Greybeards and green ribbons: A first-timer reflects on OWAA’s conference in Knoxville, Tennessee

OWAA Developer — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 22:20:01 +0000

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BY DON KNAUS
With Knoxville, Tennessee, in my rearview mirror, my first OWAA Conference was done. Our car aimed north on I-81. As my bride and guide dozed, the Tennessee map on her lap, I had time for reflection. I’d been a member of OWAA for several years, but never attended a conference until this year. Why, I wondered, did it take so long for me to attend my first OWAA Conference? After all, I’m into my 70s — so old that I felt embarrassed to have that first-timer green ribbon on my name badge.
But I was glad I attended. Old friends like Bill Brassard with the National Shooting Sports Foundation and Terry Brady with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources spoke at the “Becoming an Outdoors Communicator” workshop. That first workshop alone was worth the price of admission. At other sessions outdoor communicators discussed ethics in the field and climate change, drones and launching your own book tour. Jonathan Jarvis, director of the National Park Service, gave an inspiring keynote address on the upcoming 100th birthday of his agency.
At Breakout Day, I shot an AR-15, a Crossman air rifle and a 50 caliber pistol. (My elbow is still sore from the recoil.) I learned about places where I could find story ideas and websites that could offer me professional help. I rode in a Porta-A-Boat and was amazed at the stability. Most importantly, I met some very fine folks, including some editors who were receptive to my story ideas.
Before I left for Knoxville, OWAA staff paired me with a conference mentor, Pat Wray. Wray reached out to me via email beforehand to introduce himself.
“Don’t expect a young stud. I am quite aged for a first-timer,” I responded. “Just look for the white hair.”
For whatever reason I didn’t get involved in professional outdoor writing groups until I retired from education. I’d dabbled in outdoor writing, publishing a few stories. I joined my state organization, the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association less than 12 years ago, but I jumped in. I hosted a 5-day conference and served on the Board of Directors. The organization elected me president at the last conference.
I suppose I am the poster boy for other outdoor communicators who discover their passion later in life. But if someone had approached me about becoming involved in the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association, or OWAA years earlier, I would have been become a much more prolific writer. Who knows? I coulda been famous like Pat Wray, someone I saw win Excellence in Craft Contests, receive the Circle of Chiefs award and I now count as a friend.
That’s my message. Contact young writers and photographers and invite them to join hands with long-time pros. Many of our outdoor sports like hunting, fishing, hiking and canoeing are tilted toward a timeworn fellowship of guys approaching geezer status. A number of states, including Pennsylvania, started mentored youth hunting and fishing programs in the hope that younger hunters and anglers, once introduced to the outdoors, will restock the sporting community. We can learn from those state early hunter/angler programs. OWAA — as well as state and regional outdoor communicators organizations — needs to reach out to young folks before they hit old age.
The description for the Becoming an Outdoors Communicator workshop in Knoxville said it all, “Invite young communicators; attend yourself; break into new fields.”
If you see someone from your state who might qualify for membership, talk to them about it. Invite them to a conference. Ask other organization members to meet the young writer, blogger or photographer. We all should be actively recruiting our replacements and then some. We, as a professional association, have something good to sell. And, as would have been the case with me some 30 years ago, it might be an easy sale
– Retired teacher, principal, coach and life-long sportsman, Don Knaus is an award-winning outdoor writer and author of several books that deal with hunting, fishing and the outdoors. He is a life-long outdoorsman and he has written about hunting and fishing for years. His book, “Of Woods and Wild Things” is a volume of short stories dealing with hunting, fishing and the outdoors.”
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As print goes digital, journalists adapt: a newspaperman embraces video and lists

OWAA Developer — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 22:16:02 +0000

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BY BRENT FRAZEE
First, I have to apologize for starting off with a cliché, but I think I can justify it.
“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Well, I am an old dog (64 years old). And I’m learning new tricks.
I’ve been in the newspaper business for 41 years, most of them with The Kansas City Star. When I first came to Kansas City 35 years ago, I worked for two papers, The Times and The Star, both owned by the same company.
Business was booming. Everywhere you went in the city, you’d see a face buried in a newspaper.
But times have changed.
Now everywhere you go you see people’s eyes glued to their cell phone.
We’re a society on the go, and we want our news quickly and immediately. By the time people read their morning newspaper, many have already read the news hours earlier on the Internet.
That means newspaper veterans like me have to adjust.
Newspapers are putting far more emphasis on their websites today than ever before. As newspaper circulations go down, the number of views on websites are going up.
A survey showed that more than 60 percent of The Star’s readership now access us by mobile devices – namely, cell phones. That signals unique opportunities for outdoor writers. It allows us to get creative in ways like never before.
Instead fighting for space in an ever-shrinking print product, we can report on the outdoors and present it in an attractive manner on a website that is continually looking for new material.
Here are some of the ways we are reporting the outdoors in the digital age:

Videos: Last year at this time, Facebook had 1 billion views of videos per day. This year, that number is up to 4 billion per day. It’s no wonder newspapers encourage reporters to include short videos to accompanying many of their stories. This provides a special opportunity for outdoor writers. We make our living painting a picture with our words. Now we can add video of some of the beautiful places we write about.

Surveys show short videos are better for grabbing viewers. We tend to run videos accompany stories that are two minutes or shorter. Our video department doesn’t want us to return with merely a “talking head.” They want us to shoot an intro and different segments of B roll – like footage of our subject fighting a fish, scenery, a close-up of the lure or bait being used and maybe some wildlife such as a blue heron fishing in the shallows.
The idea is to give the viewer a sense of what the experience is like. I am especially careful to make sure the video provides additional information to support the story and doesn’t just repeat the same content in a different format. I shoot these short videos with my cell phone and edit them there through the Videolicious program.

Soft news: Sometimes, web readers want to be entertained,
not informed. We have a regular segment called “You can’t make
this stuff up,” in which we take a look at the wild and zany side of the outdoors. We’ve featured a guy who invented the Goosinator, a drone that scares geese off golf courses; an eBay listing that was selling the location of the new world record bass; and a pro fisherman who won a big tournament by using a lure that was supposed to look like a redwing blackbird, among others.
Lists: Readers love lists. The top 10 spots to camp in the region, the best bass lakes in the area, the top float-fishing rivers in the Ozarks; the best public-hunting areas, etc.— they’re all easy to compile and provide readers with a lot of information in an easy-to-read format.
Regular features: We include a “Lure of the Week” feature spotlighting new lures that are creating news. We also have an “Adventure of the Week,” highlighting something like a hiking trail in the Ozarks or a whitewater stream ideal for kayaking or canoeing. The downside for the extra content? It takes additional time. So ask your editor for a raise. Wait, don’t do that. I was just kidding. Your compensation for the extra work will be a greater following of your outdoors coverage.

Take it from an old dog who is actually enjoying learning new tricks.
Brent Frazee has been the outdoors editor at The Kansas City Star for 35 years. During that time, he has won multiple national, regional and state awards for his writing and photography. He lives in Parkville, Missouri, with his wife Jana and two Labs, Zoey and June.
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OWAA money matters

OWAA Developer — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 22:02:00 +0000

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BY LISA BALLARD
As President of OWAA, I feel our organization’s financial matters are among the most important things for me to monitor. While OWAA is not yet clear of its financial challenges, I’m pleased to write we’re no longer dangling over a precipice by a slim thread. We’ve now got at least a sturdy climbing rope.
There are a number of reasons why I’m breathing a little easier:
OWAA balanced its budget last year. It’s a tight one, but it’s not in the red, thanks to Executive Director Tom Sadler’s adroit management of our cash flow. I’m confident we’ll do the same again in 2015.
Membership is growing. At the first board meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee, Sadler reported membership numbers had dropped, but then rose back to the same level as 2014. By the time you read this, I’m optimistic that our membership numbers will finally be higher compared to the previous year for the first time in the last decade.
We’ll repay our loan. Sadler also recently informed me that we would repay the portion of our loan to operations from the Restricted Endowment Fund that’s due at the end of 2015 on schedule.
Our endowment is growing. PastPresident Rich Patterson, who has agreed to chair the Development Committee for a second year, has laid the groundwork for long term giving to OWAA’s Restricted Endowment with the goal of growing it from $230,000 to several million dollars. It’s going to take time, but Patterson’s vision is to accumulate enough money in the Restricted Endowment to allocate a small portion of the interest earned each year to support a large portion of OWAA’s operations. Imagine what OWAA could do across all aspects of our mission with such a strong financial backbone.
All members of the Board of Directors and most life members, including past-presidents, have already donated to this effort.
I hope you will join me in giving annually, even if it’s only $5 per year. Every little bit helps, and those fivers add up over time.
We received a $5,000 challenge gift. We have the chance to add a much-needed $10,000 to our operating budget thanks to a challenge gift by a generous former board member. For every dollar that you give, he will match it, up to $5,000, so it is an opportunity to raise $10,000 total, but there’s a catch: The donations must be received by OWAA by the end of 2015.
I asked you to consider giving your time to OWAA in my last column. Now I ask you to give money, too. If this sounds like a lot of giving, it doesn’t need to be. How about volunteering to mentor a green-ribbon attendee at the Billings, Montana conference in July? It might be an editor with whom you’ve been dying to work. If you order a regular coffee instead of a latte and skip the cranberry-orange scone next time you’re in Starbucks, you would free up that $5 for a donation.
Whether you give only your time, your cash, or both, I guarantee you’ll be pleased with your return on investment.
My husband Jack Ballard, who has been involved in a number of fundraising efforts in his past roles as an OWAA board member and treasurer, reminds me that OWAA is different from say a museum, hospital or conservation group which attracts members because they believe in a cause or community philanthropy. OWAA is a professional organization. Most of us join to bolster our careers as outdoor communicators through networking and professional development opportunities, to get story ideas and earn recognition for our work. A stronger OWAA will offer more professional development opportunities for you, more Marketplace listings, better prizes for the Excellence in Craft Contests, more chances to showcase your work, better conferences, more supporters… the list goes on and on.
When you receive your membership renewal form, please put an amount, any amount, on at least one of the donation lines. Or do it on OWAA’s website, www.owaa.org. The healthier OWAA is financially, the more it can do for you.
Thank you for your generosity. Your contribution will make both you and OWAA a more successful “Voice of the Outdoors.”
— OWAA President Lisa Ballard, densmore1@aol.com
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Bookshelf

OWAA Developer — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 21:52:38 +0000

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The Adventures of Bubba Jones: Time Traveling Through the Great Smoky Mountains

By Jeff Alt, illustrated by Hannah Tuohy
Beaufort Books; http://www.bubbajones.com/; paperback; 177 pp.; 18 illustrations and maps; $9.99.
“The Adventures of Bubba Jones” is a new series taking youth on an educational, time-traveling adventure through America’s beloved National Parks. The first book explores the Great Smoky Mountains. The stories are designed to engage kids with wild animals, history, science and the environment. Bubba Jones and Hug-a-Bug travel back in time and meet the park’s founders, its earliest settlers, native Cherokee Indians, wild animals, extinct creatures and learn what the park was like millions of years ago.

The Wild Inside

By Christine Carbo
Atria books; paperback and e-book; 404 pp.; $16 or $11.99 for e-book
“The Wild Inside,” a hunting crime novel set in Glacier National Park, is about a man who finds himself at odds with the dark heart of the wild and the even darker heart of human nature. It was a clear night when a grizzly bear attacked and killed 14-year-old Ted’s father. Twenty years later as an agent for the Department of the Interior, Ted is called back to investigate a crime that mirrors the horror of that night, except this time the victim was tied to a tree before the mauling.

Trout in the Desert: On Fly Fishing, Human Habits, and the Cold Waters of the Arid Southwest

By Matthew Dickerson
Linocut Illustrations by Barbara Whitehead; Wing Press, www.wingspress.com, milligan@wingspress.com; hardback and e-book; 96 pp.; $16.95.
“Trout in the Desert” begins with a childhood memory of a nameless, pristine trout stream, “small enough to straddle,” in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of New Mexico. Thirty years later, he leads us on a tour of the desert Southwest, fishing the San Juan River, the Colorado River (at the head of the Grand Canyon), the Gila River, and finally, the Frio and Guadalupe Rivers in the hill country of Texas. But more than just telling stories of discovering cold-water trout in unlikely (and often blisteringly hot) places, Dickerson examines the history of trout in these waters and the health of their delicate ecosystems.

Absolutely Positively Gundog Training

By Robert Milner

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; softcover and e-book; 135 pp.; $12.
Robert Milner has taken the latest scientific research on how dogs learn and combined it with his own vast experience and common sense training methods. The result is an approach that is as effective as it is easy. For the hunter who wants a calm, steady and obedient retriever, there’s no better training method. Whether you want your dog to be a gundog, a water dog, a shed dog, an upland dog, a deer tracker or a fishing companion, this book charts the course. You can also get a companion video on amazon.com for $4.

Fishing Northern Canada for Lake Trout, Grayling and Arctic Char

By Ross H. Shickler and Duane S. Radford
North Country Press; soft cover and e-book; 233 pp.; $22
Featuring engaging — and sometimes play-by-play thrilling — articles from leading American and Canadian authors that highlight their firsthand experiences, “Fishing Northern Canada for Lake Trout, Grayling and Arctic Char” belongs in the library of every angler. A veritable treasure trove of tips and information, the book not only explores the title fish, but also northern pike, brook trout and Atlantic salmon. With stories about many top streams and fishing lodges in northern Canada, as well as some do-it-yourself adventures in the North Country, it is a must-read for any keen fisherman.

Bears in the Backyard: Big animals, sprawling suburbs and the new urban jungle

By Edward R. Ricciuti
The Countryman Press; paperback; 248 pp., $14.95.
Coyotes in New York City. Bears in suburban New Jersey. Cougars in metropolitan Chicago. Mountain lions in Los Angeles and panthers in Miami. Where are all these wild animals coming from, and what can we do about it? Science journalist Edward Ricciuti has spent years studying wildlife encounters and in “Bears in the Backyard,” he provides a complete guide to this increasingly common phenomenon including why large animals are more commonly found in our suburbs and cities in recent years; how these animals can impact us, for better and for worse; and what local governments and communities can do about it.
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Spencer E. Turner: Iron man in chest waders

OWAA Developer — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 21:28:39 +0000

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BY JIM LOW

When each of us writes -30- at the end of our career, we will have left tracks in the sand. Not all of us blaze trails, however, and fewer still will be able to look back and see, as Spencer E. Turner can, that they opened new frontiers.
Spence, as his friends know him, took a while to find his calling. Before, during and after serving in the U.S. Air Force, he attended various universities, starting out as a business major. But while stationed in Alaska he studied at the University of Alaska and decided he needed to be outdoors, not behind a desk. Accordingly, he changed his major to fisheries science, eventually earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin at Stephens Point and then a master’s degree in the field from Colorado State University. His thesis topic was Microhabitat of Hatchery Rainbow Trout. On the strength of this work, he landed a job in 1969 with the Missouri Department of Conservation, where he would spend his entire career.
BLAZING TRAILS
Turner belongs to a cohort of resource scientists who entered wide-open fields of inquiry in the mid-20th century. Little was known about the biology, behavior, food habits or habitat needs of fish and wildlife at that time. They plunged into these uncharted fields, exploring the terra incognita of fish and wildlife management.
Turner’s research debunked the widely accepted notion that brown trout could not be overharvested, because they were too difficult to catch. His field work demonstrated that under Missouri’s then existing regulations, most brown trout were harvested before they reached trophy size. He also demonstrated that use of natural and soft baits resulted in unacceptable mortality of under-sized trout, a fact that led to implementation of regulations prohibiting such baits in trophy trout areas. These were just part of a long list of ground-breaking studies Turner conducted.
The work of Turner and his cohort created an unprecedented body of knowledge that served as the basis for managing the fish and wildlife they studied. In Turner’s case, this meant melding his knowledge of trout and smallmouth bass with stocking and recruitment rates, length and creel limits, fishing method restrictions and other factors to ensure sustainable yields of fish for anglers, then developing management strategies to produce wild and trophy trout and smallmouth bass fisheries.
Several eastern and southern states modeled their own fisheries management programs after ones Turner devised.
ROCKING THE BOAT
It wasn’t enough to just come up with policy. Turner wanted the public on board. In 1977, he sent a memo to the chief of Missouri Department of Conservation’s Fisheries Division, advocating a formal communication plan to ensure continued public support for Missouri’s burgeoning conservation program.
“I believe this is a symptom of a much larger problem,” Turner wrote to his supervisor’s boss. “Individuals in our work generally are introverts … we know more about the effects of our programs on the animals than the effects on the people using the resource. We are also reluctant to inform the public about out programs unless specifically asked … we have to become more involved at the grass-roots level and more aggressive politically … The lines of communication from the public to the Conservation Department must be opened.”
Turner suggested ways of keeping citizens informed and engaged and advocated offering seminars to build conservation employees’ communications skills. He also suggested that public outreach be included in employees’ annual performance evaluations.
Turner organized public meetings, public service announcements, radio interviews, newspaper stories and cooperative promotions with the University of Missouri, the University Extension Service and the Missouri Farm Bureau. He created an annual Day with Wildlife event to raise the agency’s public profile and inform and involve the public in budding conservation efforts.
He became a fixture at meetings of groups such as the Ozark Fly Fishers, he helped organize Trout Unlimited chapters in Kansas City, Bennett Spring, St. Louis, and Columbia, and met with the Missouri Trout Fisherman’s Association and Conservation Federation of Missouri. These citizen conservationists were eager for knowledge about and involvement in trout management.
When his best efforts were stalled by institutional inertia or politics, Turner occasionally was canny and bold enough to feed inside information and tactical advice to citizen conservationists. Agency leadership might not always have been thrilled to follow Turner’s activist lead, but he sometimes left them little choice.
Turner possessed more than scientific acumen and missionary zeal. He had a gift for framing a convincing argument.
Finishing his term on Missouri’s Conservation Commission, G. Andy Runge wrote a letter praising Turner’s seminal Life History of Wild Rainbow Trout in Missouri. He said he found it fascinating.“I’m not sure these reports are supposed to be fascinating,” wrote Runge, “but I certainly enjoyed it. It was well done, your recommendations are well taken, and I hope will be adopted.”
During his 28-year career as a scientist, Turner earned Professional Conservationist of the Year awards from both Trout Unlimited and the Federation of Fly Fishers and was nominated by Trout Unlimited for the prestigious Chevron Conservation Award. He also found time to serve as secretary-treasurer of the Missouri Chapter of the Ruffed Grouse Society, treasurer of Mid-Missouri TU Chapter and conservation chairman of Missouri TU Council.
THE NEXT FRONTIER
Turner started working at the Missouri Department of Conservation in 1969 — the same year Joel Vance started at the agency.
In orientation they discovered Turner grew up miles from Vance’s mother’s birth place near Rice Lake, Wisconsin. They fished some of the same streams growing up. This early connection provided the basis for a lifelong friendship that took them from Oregon to Arkansas and quite a few places between. It gave them both a treasure trove of hunting memories and supplied Vance with humorous hunting stories he turned into marketable copy.
On one outing, Turner left his boat to help free a shocking boat run aground on a gravel bar. But he hopped off on the wrong side and promptly disappeared into 10-feet of icy water.
Once, while on a grouse hunting trip in northeastern Iowa, Turner and Vance stopped for food at a local dinner theater. It was the waitress who noticed the commotion in the backseat of Vance’s shabby-chic Mercedes they’d parked outside the front window.
Turner took his dog Samantha to the vet before leaving for the hunting trip for a shot to forestall an inconvenient heat cycle. Apparently the shot hadn’t worked and a scene of unbridled canine passion unfolded for all to see. While the theater-goers gaped out the window, Turner went on with his meal, acting as if he didn’t know the dogs outside.
Thanks to Vance’s recounting of similar misadventures, Turner’s reputation preceded him into far-flung parts of North America. When meeting new people, they sometimes said, “Oh, you’re THAT Spence Turner!”
It was Turner’s friendship with Vance that led him to OWAA. Vance was judging entries in OWAA’s Excellence in Craft Contests while sharing a room with Turner at a meeting and he was so disgusted with one shoddy entry, he blurted out that even a scientist like Turner could do a better job. Turner took that to heart, and with Vance as his sponsor, joined OWAA in 1983.
He wrote for Outdoor Life, Field and Stream, Gun Dog, Game & Fish Publications, Outdoor Guide, Fur-Fish-Game and other magazines, as well as producing a regular column for his home-town newspaper, the Columbia Daily Tribune.
Turner went on to serve two terms on OWAA’s Board of Director and received the Outstanding Board Member award in 1995. He served as president from 2005 to 2006. In 2014, he won the J. Hammond Brown Memorial Award for his lifetime service to OWAA.
IRON MAN SPENCE
To his upland bird hunting buddies, Turner was known as “The Iron Man,” due to his ability to chase dogs all day without flagging. When hunters fell by the wayside, Turner was still raring to go.
I’m inclined to believe that his indefatigability was less a function of physical stamina than mental toughness. Though I never endured an all-day hunt with Turner, I had the privilege of watching and then serving with him through some of OWAA most trying times. If he ever broke a sweat, no one knew it. Grace and rationality under fire are in his DNA.
Besides all this, Turner is a shrewd and careful thinker whose presence at the table during board meetings often spread oil on troubled waters. Few of us will equal his professional and personal attainments, but he gives us all something to cast for.
— Editors’s note. A full-legnth version of this story can be found online at http://owaa./?p=4744
-Jim Low is indebted to Joel Vance and to Missouri Department of Conservation archivist Joe G. Dillard for much of the information in this article.
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