I’ve been hitting the mushrooms hard lately.

In fact, I’m headed out to a burn area to hit them again. In case you’ve never eaten them, you may not understand why I go so nuts about mushrooms. Or maybe you’ve gone and picked a few but don’t know what to do with them. So I thought I should write an article on how to cook them.

To begin, let’s get them prepared.

Rinse them off gently. Then lay them on a cutting table and slice them in half longwise. I then put them in a bowl and fill it with water and pour it off. Then fill the bowl again with water. Sprinkle with salt to kill the bugs.

Most people will tell you to let them soak overnight to kill all of the bugs, but if I’m hungry I eat them right away — and I haven’t died yet. They do have quite a few bugs sometimes, though. I then pour off all of the water and set them aside.

Next I beat two to three eggs and add a little milk and beat them all together. Pour some flour on a plate. Dip the mushrooms in the egg batter and then roll in the flour. At this time, I have a Lodge black iron skillet heated with a 1/2-inch of grease.

You want the grease hot enough so it bubbles steadily when you put in the mushrooms.

I place all the mushrooms in the skillet and then sprinkle with Tony Chachere’s seasoning. Fry to a golden brown and then I use a fork to flip them. Fry the other side to a golden brown and then dip them out and place on a plate lined with paper towels.

Serve piping hot. They are to die for. They are the second best fungi in the world, second only to the truffle in England. If you closed your eyes, you’d think that you were eating a chicken fried steak.

I’ve had them in omelets, in cream gravy and sautéed in butter, but the above recipe is my most favorite way to cook them.

If you haven’t been out yet this year, hurry out. They are still out. We went out tonight and picked 95 and they were all in great shape, albeit most were really small. The season won’t last much longer. Have fun and happy eating.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.

The best delicacy that the West has to offer is the morel mushroom.

If you’ve never eaten one, then you don’t know what you’re missing. One of my old bosses was from Iowa and he’s the one who taught me how to hunt for them. According to him, they have a lot over there. I don’t know how many states have them. I’ve seen them in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and Idaho.

You need to take an old-timer with you the first few times you go. You don’t want to make a mistake and eat the angel of death! There are quite a few species that are edible. But I only know a couple so I just stick with them. I took a class and the instructor told us that when we had finished we’d be comfortable picking at least 10 species. I must have flunked because I still haven’t expanded.

I hear back East they have some false morels that look like ours and you can’t eat them. So if you go pick elsewhere, know what you’re doing.

Where I hunt, the mushrooms come out the second week of May. That varies with temperature and moisture. I went up recently baiting for bears and then went mushroom hunting. Perfect timing. I found 252 in 2 to 3 hours. All were in prime shape other than the edges on two. It started snowing pretty hard and before noon many of them were frozen. I’ve never picked them in that type of weather.

I’ve heard for years all types of clues as to where you find them, but I don’t know any hard-fast rules. Everyone says look by old logs, by firs and on and on they go. I find them where they are. I’ve got one grassy hillside that has a good crop every year. Why would they be growing on a grassy hillside? Puzzling.

But if you find a good spot, go back every year. Where I went the other day I find them in the same spot every year. It was the best ever there. I found a lot of clumps, and they were bigger than ever this year.

I don’t think that you can walk slow enough. I found over 100 in one small area, probably 30×30 yards. After picking for a while, I sat down to eat. While eating, I spotted one 8 inches from my toe and then seven more within 10 feet.

But the absolute best place to find them is in the spring after last year’s forest fires. Katy and I have picked 5-gallon buckets full in fire areas. They’re magical. We’ve had two bucketfuls each and cannot carry anymore.

All the real mushroom pickers will tell you to use a mesh bag so the spores can fall out. They also carry a knife to cut them off the stem.

PREPARING THEM

Put them in a bowl and gently rinse off the bugs and dirt. Then slice them in half and place in a bowl of water and sprinkle on salt to kill the bugs. My old boss recommended leaving them in the fridge overnight, but I start eating them right away. You know, the old “bugs are full of protein” theory.

To cook them, mix a few eggs and a little milk and dip them in it. Then roll in flour and throw in a Lodge cast iron skillet that has 1/2-inch of hot grease in it. Sprinkle with Tony Chachere’s seasoning and fry to a golden brown.

I cannot tell you how good they are. They’re the best food in the world. Tonight, I fried up some elk steaks and made milk gravy with morels sautéed in it and then fried some mushrooms. Cook twice as many as you think that you can eat.

PRESERVING EXTRA

If you’re lucky enough to find more than you can eat in a few days, there are a few ways to preserve them.

1. I’ve rinsed them clean and frozen them in baggies, but they’re kinda soggy.
2. The best way is to slice them in half (or not) and dry them on your fruit dryer.
3. A buddy of mine runs a needle and thread through them and hangs them up to dry; the commercial pickers lay them on racks to dry in the sun.

Happy picking!

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.

Should you carry pepper spray in the backcountry for bears or should you carry a pistol? Let’s discuss that topic today.

I received a variety of pepper spray from Sabre, which is a reputable pepper spray company. We went out and tested some pepper sprays last week. You may ask how or even why would we test PS? It surprises me how many people buy a can and throw it in their pocket or purse and never practice with it. You don’t do that with your pistol, do you? No, you practice frequently at different yardages and in different scenarios.

Do the same with your pepper spray. How far it will spray? What kind of pattern does it have? How strong of a wind can you shoot into? It’s well worth a couple of practice cans so you know what the spray is capable of.

I’ve always said pepper spray only works 50 percent of the time, but is that a true statement? I needed to justify that statement. Some of the bear sprays have a lot of power and can really send out a blast of pepper spray. Here’s what I found. The bear spray I tested was advertised to shoot 35 feet. On the day of testing, there was a mild wind, somewhere around 8 mph. We shot it directly into the wind and it only went out about 13-15 feet and turned back. You need to know that before your life is depending on it.

What about for in-town protection? Same thing as above if you’re outside. If you’re inside, it can clear out a room semi-fast, bad guys as well as the good ones.

So am I against carrying pepper spray? No, not at all. In fact, I carry it all the time. No one in their right mind wants to shoot anyone, even if it is a drugged-up criminal. I was driving by a park a while back. I noticed a young man roughing up a pregnant girl. By the time I got there, he headbutted her. It nauseated me. A whole park full of people and no one was stopping it.

He was drugged out his mind, screaming and cursing. I couldn’t tell if he was mad at her or the whole world. Even though he was an obvious idiot, I didn’t want to shoot him. Instances like this are a good application for pepper spray. That way you can stop the threat and let the cops sort it out, but you still need to have a pistol as backup.

Another time in a state faraway I was on an evening walk in the country. Two dogs came off the porch of a farmhouse that I was passing. The little dog kept nipping at me, and the bigger one kept coming closer and closer too, getting really aggressive. He kept diving in and finally it had gone too far. I sprayed him pretty good with minimal effect, but he did trot back to the porch.

I got 50 yards and here he came again. He was mad this time. I drilled him again, and he again went back to the porch. I got 150 yards and here he came again. His ears were locked back this time. I tried to hit him again but it was empty.

I tell you these stories just to let you know, pepper spray is just one more self-defense option, but I’d still recommend carrying a pistol. Cops don’t just carry pepper spray do they?

So what’s my take on pepper spray? Carry it, but pick a good brand like Sabre. Decide which model you’re going to carry and buy two to three cans so you can practice with it. Know what range it will shoot and what the pattern is. The little cans don’t shoot a mist — they shoot a stream, about like a water pistol.

I’m going to approach Sabre about producing test canisters with a benign ingredient so we can practice at a lower price.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.

I know I’ve said it 100 times lately, but what’s a guy to do? When spring has sprung in Idaho, it’s an all-out flurry of events going on. Spring bear and turkey hunting, mushroom hunting, crappie fishing, bear baiting and whistle pig hunting.

The problem is, the first warm day we think it all starts and really, the crappie fishing is a little later because the water has yet to warm up. To always be on time, you can’t wait until your outdoor activity has started or you’ll likely be too late. So, to be on time for the crappie fishing, you must start a week early so you’re there when it actually happens. Make sense?

The problem is, when you’re trying to do it all plus keep your job, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. I remember in 2005 we were bear hunting nearly every night until midnight or 1 a.m. and I had to get up for work at 4:30 or 5:00 a.m.

By the end of bear season, I was fried. And it’s semi the same crappie fishing if you catch a cooler full and have to clean them when you get home. It’s tough duty being an outdoorsman and trying to do your duty feeding your family organic meat.

So with the above said, I’ve gone out the last two weekends trying to catch the crappie, but the water is just a little too cool yet. Hopefully next weekend. But I have to help with the Scooter’s Youth Hunting Camp on May 6. But for those of y’all who can go, it should be getting hot any second.

The most favorite way to catch them is when they move up to spawn. There are a variety of ways to catch them, but here’s how I do it. Tie on a small jig head. I love the little plastics made by Lake Fork Trophy Lure Co. They have slots cut in the sides so with any water movement they display a lot of action.

I don’t know why it matters, but I like to use the little pencil popper bobbers. I catch a ton more fish on them than on a regular round red/white bobber. I put the bobber about 18 inches above the jig and flip it right up by the bank, within 1-2 feet. Just a slight movement of the bobber makes the LFTL tail wiggle, which prompts a bite.

If they are there, you should have a hit within minutes. If you don’t have a hit within a few minutes, move along until you find them. I like pulling up to some grass or brush but I catch a ton along barren looking rocky spots as well.

You may hook a worm on a bare hook or a jig and slap on a small split shot. I’ll throw this on the opposite side and pick up a lot of fish throughout the day. I also flip this out and bounce it slowly along the bottom and pick up a lot of perch and quite a few bass.

I caught a decent bass yesterday hooking a LFTL jig on a jig head and bouncing it along the bottom. Crappie are a schooling fish so if you catch one, anchor and see if you don’t get into a bunch. At the end of the spawn, if I’m having trouble getting into the fish I’ll troll along slowly with a Cotton Cordell Rattlin Spot and try to locate them.

If you’ve never eaten crappie, you may wonder why I’m so excited about them. Eat them once and you’ll see. They are a mild, flaky white fish. And in the fresh-water category, they are second only to walleye and maybe perch. I don’t doctor them up. I roll them in corn meal and fry after sprinkling with Tony Chachere’s seasoning. Cook twice as many as you think you’ll eat.

Well, they weren’t hitting yesterday so after a few hours I knocked off and circled by our feedlot and shot some pigeons with my new Benjamin Marauder PCP air rifle. After I’d whacked a few of them, I then went ground squirrel hunting with the Marauder and put the hurt on them.

It was a beautiful day and would have been great with just the fishing, as unproductive as it was, but throw on the pigeon hunt and the whistle pig hunt and it ended up being a great day. I got home that night and made some pigeon poppers, fried bass and blackened salmon. What a great dinner. Only possible in Idaho. Gee, I love living in Idaho.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.

I know I’ve said it 100 times lately, but what’s a guy to do? When spring has sprung in Idaho, it’s an all-out flurry of events going on. Spring bear and turkey hunting, mushroom hunting, crappie fishing, bear baiting and whistle pig hunting.

The problem is, the first warm day we think it all starts and really, the crappie fishing is a little later because the water has yet to warm up. To always be on time, you can’t wait until your outdoor activity has started or you’ll likely be too late. So, to be on time for the crappie fishing, you must start a week early so you’re there when it actually happens. Make sense?

The problem is, when you’re trying to do it all plus keep your job, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. I remember in 2005 we were bear hunting nearly every night until midnight or 1 a.m. and I had to get up for work at 4:30 or 5:00 a.m.

By the end of bear season, I was fried. And it’s semi the same crappie fishing if you catch a cooler full and have to clean them when you get home. It’s tough duty being an outdoorsman and trying to do your duty feeding your family organic meat.

So with the above said, I’ve gone out the last two weekends trying to catch the crappie, but the water is just a little too cool yet. Hopefully next weekend. But I have to help with the Scooter’s Youth Hunting Camp on May 6. But for those of y’all who can go, it should be getting hot any second.

The most favorite way to catch them is when they move up to spawn. There are a variety of ways to catch them, but here’s how I do it. Tie on a small jig head. I love the little plastics made by Lake Fork Trophy Lure Co. They have slots cut in the sides so with any water movement they display a lot of action.

I don’t know why it matters, but I like to use the little pencil popper bobbers. I catch a ton more fish on them than on a regular round red/white bobber. I put the bobber about 18 inches above the jig and flip it right up by the bank, within 1-2 feet. Just a slight movement of the bobber makes the LFTL tail wiggle, which prompts a bite.

If they are there, you should have a hit within minutes. If you don’t have a hit within a few minutes, move along until you find them. I like pulling up to some grass or brush but I catch a ton along barren looking rocky spots as well.

You may hook a worm on a bare hook or a jig and slap on a small split shot. I’ll throw this on the opposite side and pick up a lot of fish throughout the day. I also flip this out and bounce it slowly along the bottom and pick up a lot of perch and quite a few bass.

I caught a decent bass yesterday hooking a LFTL jig on a jig head and bouncing it along the bottom. Crappie are a schooling fish so if you catch one, anchor and see if you don’t get into a bunch. At the end of the spawn, if I’m having trouble getting into the fish I’ll troll along slowly with a Cotton Cordell Rattlin Spot and try to locate them.

If you’ve never eaten crappie, you may wonder why I’m so excited about them. Eat them once and you’ll see. They are a mild, flaky white fish. And in the fresh-water category, they are second only to walleye and maybe perch. I don’t doctor them up. I roll them in corn meal and fry after sprinkling with Tony Chachere’s seasoning. Cook twice as many as you think you’ll eat.

Well, they weren’t hitting yesterday so after a few hours I knocked off and circled by our feedlot and shot some pigeons with my new Benjamin Marauder PCP air rifle. After I’d whacked a few of them, I then went ground squirrel hunting with the Marauder and put the hurt on them.

It was a beautiful day and would have been great with just the fishing, as unproductive as it was, but throw on the pigeon hunt and the whistle pig hunt and it ended up being a great day. I got home that night and made some pigeon poppers, fried bass and blackened salmon. What a great dinner. Only possible in Idaho. Gee, I love living in Idaho.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.

If you’re going turkey hunting for the first time, you may gasp when you see the prices you have to pay for a good turkey load.

Or, maybe you’ve turkey hunted before but can’t bring yourself to pay $5 per shell when you have a box of 4s laying around. If you’re thinking along these lines of thought, you might just want to read this article.

A few years ago, I tested most of the popular turkey loads at various yardages with different guns and chokes. Before that, I had always used 2s for turkeys. It seemed crazy to pay $20 to $25 for a box of five shells. Boy, did I have my eyes opened up. All turkey shells are not created equal.

I was reminded of that fact today when I went out shooting some Hevi-Shot turkey loads. In past tests, I’ve always shot shells from four to five different manufacturers. Anymore, I’m too embarrassed for them. The first comparison I did years ago, Brand X had 17 BB’s in the zone and Hevi-Shot had 119.

Here are the parameter’s I used in today’s shooting.

• I did my shooting at 40 yards.
• Used a Mossberg Pro Series Waterfowler Model 930 with a Trulock PHWIN12660 choke.
• Birchwood Casey targets.
• 3-inch Hevi-Shot Magnum Blend (5, 6, 7).

For whatever reason, before I conducted the test today, I shot two shots with my Mossberg Modified Choke. The HS triple blend (5, 6, 7) landed 194 BB’s in the upper body. Unbelievable! Their Triple Beard blend put 123. When my non-hunting daughter saw the target, she said, “Daddy, you don’t want to blow them up that bad do you?”

Hands down, Hevi-Shot owns the market on turkey loads. You can see why I don’t do comparisons against other manufacturers anymore — it’d just embarrass them.

But before we go farther, don’t delude yourself. You can’t just buy a popular load and call it good. You need to shoot a target and learn where your gun is hitting and make necessary adjustments.

If you shoot a target and your gun is shooting low and you only placed 20 BBs in the kill zone, that doesn’t mean the load is bad. It only means your gun is off sight. The goal of testing a load is to determine which shell has the best pattern. Where your gun is hitting and the amount of BBs in the kill zone are two different topics all together. Make sense?

Next important topic is your choke. I use a Trulock PHWIN12660 choke. You want a tight choke, which means you’ll have to aim at a body part almost like when hunting with a rifle. Even though you’d like to aim at the head, I recommend aiming about 6 to 8 inches below the head.

Here’s why. If you aim at the head, that’s the center of your pattern so half the pellets shoot over the top of his head. If you aim 6 to 8 inches below his head, the main pattern will be congregated from his head to his heart.

Then it gets a little deeper. Notice the target in the pic. I aimed a little lower and had 116 BB’s in the upper bird. On the right, I aimed up at the head. Of course Because of the head/neck being smaller, I only landed 60 BBs, but more were in the neck and head. So decide what you favor.

Next, should you mount a scope or a good set of sights on your turkey gun to really get it pinpointed? Most people can’t afford a good turkey gun and a good waterfowl gun, so it ends up that most of us use our favorite shotgun for all hunts.

So as you can see, figuring out which shell to shoot your turkey with is only one piece of the puzzle. Sighting in your shotgun is the other part.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.

If you’re going turkey hunting for the first time, you may gasp when you see the prices you have to pay for a good turkey load.

Or, maybe you’ve turkey hunted before but can’t bring yourself to pay $5 per shell when you have a box of 4s laying around. If you’re thinking along these lines of thought, you might just want to read this article.

A few years ago, I tested most of the popular turkey loads at various yardages with different guns and chokes. Before that, I had always used 2s for turkeys. It seemed crazy to pay $20 to $25 for a box of five shells. Boy, did I have my eyes opened up. All turkey shells are not created equal.

I was reminded of that fact today when I went out shooting some Hevi-Shot turkey loads. In past tests, I’ve always shot shells from four to five different manufacturers. Anymore, I’m too embarrassed for them. The first comparison I did years ago, Brand X had 17 BB’s in the zone and Hevi-Shot had 119.

Here are the parameter’s I used in today’s shooting.

• I did my shooting at 40 yards.
• Used a Mossberg Pro Series Waterfowler Model 930 with a Trulock PHWIN12660 choke.
• Birchwood Casey targets.
• 3-inch Hevi-Shot Magnum Blend (5, 6, 7).

For whatever reason, before I conducted the test today, I shot two shots with my Mossberg Modified Choke. The HS triple blend (5, 6, 7) landed 194 BB’s in the upper body. Unbelievable! Their Triple Beard blend put 123. When my non-hunting daughter saw the target, she said, “Daddy, you don’t want to blow them up that bad do you?”

Hands down, Hevi-Shot owns the market on turkey loads. You can see why I don’t do comparisons against other manufacturers anymore — it’d just embarrass them.

But before we go farther, don’t delude yourself. You can’t just buy a popular load and call it good. You need to shoot a target and learn where your gun is hitting and make necessary adjustments.

If you shoot a target and your gun is shooting low and you only placed 20 BBs in the kill zone, that doesn’t mean the load is bad. It only means your gun is off sight. The goal of testing a load is to determine which shell has the best pattern. Where your gun is hitting and the amount of BBs in the kill zone are two different topics all together. Make sense?

Next important topic is your choke. I use a Trulock PHWIN12660 choke. You want a tight choke, which means you’ll have to aim at a body part almost like when hunting with a rifle. Even though you’d like to aim at the head, I recommend aiming about 6 to 8 inches below the head.

Here’s why. If you aim at the head, that’s the center of your pattern so half the pellets shoot over the top of his head. If you aim 6 to 8 inches below his head, the main pattern will be congregated from his head to his heart.

Then it gets a little deeper. Notice the target in the pic. I aimed a little lower and had 116 BB’s in the upper bird. On the right, I aimed up at the head. Of course Because of the head/neck being smaller, I only landed 60 BBs, but more were in the neck and head. So decide what you favor.

Next, should you mount a scope or a good set of sights on your turkey gun to really get it pinpointed? Most people can’t afford a good turkey gun and a good waterfowl gun, so it ends up that most of us use our favorite shotgun for all hunts.

So as you can see, figuring out which shell to shoot your turkey with is only one piece of the puzzle. Sighting in your shotgun is the other part.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.

I’ve been thinking about grabbing a vacuum sealer for a long time and finally had the opportunity a few months ago. I got one made by Caso, which is an outfit out of Germany, and as you know, products made in Germany are not the cheap junk that comes out of China. If you’re going to buy one, I’d suggest buying a well-made Caso. I got the Vacuum Sealer System VC300. 

I’ve been wanting to go fishing and I have a mess of crappie to process and test out my new sealer, but with snow Armageddon going on this winter, it has prolonged our spring. In fact, I had planned on going fishing last week so I could do an article on my sealer, but it snowed Friday. I was in the fishing mood so I went anyway.

Note to self — if there is a good snow on Friday and frost on the grass Saturday morning, it ain’t spring yet. I caught one little bass, so after a few unproductive hours, I loaded up and headed home. We have a feedlot on the route home, so I thought I’d shoot some Eurasian doves and pigeons and try vacuum sealing them. They make great jalapeño poppers.

I stopped by the feedlot and snuck up on a barn where I normally can ambush a few. Then they fly out and set on the silos. I shot a few and then the feedlot supervisor Shawna saw me and circled by to say hi.

She saw what was going on and wanted to test out my new Benjamin Steel Eagle, so we took off hunting. Wow, she was dropping them like flies. She’d let all her cowboys off early for Easter and while we were hunting, a truck pulled in with a load of cattle, so we had to knock off for a second and unload it and then we were off again. She hit a couple off the top of a silo that I bet was pushing a 100 yards away. I didn’t tell her that it’s my gun and I can’t even shoot it that good.

Well, it soon came time to head home, so I pulled over out in the sagebrush to clean them and shot a few ground squirrels to boot. So it was a pretty fun day after all.

I got home and opened the sealer box and read the instructions. Hmm, looked pretty simple. It is an efficient compact sealer. It has a box that clips on back of the sealer that holds the bags. The roll runs into the sealer and of course you seal the end and then run out however long of a bag you need. Then it has an internal cutter to slice the bag off at the proper length.

Then you put your meat in the bag and seal it. The vacuum has a simple keyboard on top so it is super easy to operate. For instance, one button says “Seal” for sealing the bottom of the bag and then the button to do the second seal says “Vacuum & Seal.” It’s all really pretty self-explanatory.

They have some nice bags. They’re a pretty thick, stout bag, so they should be semi-puncture resistant. You can even heat your product up to 158 degrees in their bags. I probably won’t ever do that, but it’s good to know.

It has a dual button to select either dry items or moist product. I imagine that I will probably always be sealing meat unless this spring I pick a lot of morel mushrooms. It should be a banner year this spring because of all of last year’s forest fires.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.

My wife, Katy, suggested that we ought to run over and see Shoshone Falls after church. It’s only a two-hour drive, so I thought it’d be a fun little road trip. Plans were made and I got up before church and packed water and snacks. We hit the early service and then took off.

My daughter, Kolby, and her boyfriend were going to accompany us, too, so it was going to be a fun day. We took off and then pulled over for lunch to break up the trip. For some reason, when I hit 80 mph, my Escape about rattled us out of the seats.

We finally figured out the problem. I’d been out shooting the other day and had gone through some bad mud. It’d been some gumbo type of mud caked on the back wheels. That made it like a bad mechanic had put 2-pound weights in all the wrong spots while balancing the wheels.

I got a screwdriver and chipped it off and am now ready to roll.

But back to the falls. Everyone has been talking lately about how cool the falls are because of the high run-off, so the place was packed. Wow, really packed.

When we turned off on 3300 E. Road, cars were backed up bumper-to-bumper and crawling like a snail. About 1/4 of the way down, I pulled off onto the shoulder and we hiked in the last mile or so.

It was a nice hike down and I needed some exercise. Wow, the falls were better than I figured they’d be.

From what I read, the falls are at 18,000 cubic-feet-per-second as compared to 250 cfs this time last year, so this is the year to go.

They say Shoshone is 45 feet higher than Niagara Falls. My neighbor is from the Canadian side of Niagara and claims that Niagara Falls is better, but I think she may just be a hater and a little prejudiced!

As you can imagine, this was as far as salmon could migrate in the old days and a lot of Indians gathered there to spear them. That would have been cool to have seen, wouldn’t it?

So if you want to take a road trip, you ought to check out Shoshone Falls. If you do decide to go, circle by Malad Gorge as well.

Directions

1. At Twin Falls take exit 73 and head south.2. After a few miles turn left on Falls Avenue. Go a few miles.3. Turn left on 3300 E. Road and head north until you reach the dead end at the falls.

Necessary Gear

• I always pack enough water for all of us.
• Fruit, such as bananas, tangerines, etc.
• Candy bars for energy.
• Flashlight if you’re staying late.
• Raincoat or poncho.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.

If you’ve read many of my articles, you know that I love knives and test a ton of them every year.

Earlier this year, I was conducting some seminars at the Safari Club International Convention in Las Vegas. In-between seminars, I visited as many exhibitor booths I had time for. There are guides from all over the world set up there, as well as many of the top-end gun and knife makers.

On Saturday afternoon, right before the show closed, I met Rob and Richard Charleston at their Damascus USA booth. What drew me in was that they had on display some of their fine Damascus steel knives. Wow, they were beautiful. Rob and his sons Richard and Joshua own Damascus USA, and their products can be found at www.damascususa.com.

I was going to just stop for a second and look at a knife or two, but I ended up staying for a good while. One thing led to another and I was soon lined out to test one of their knives.

It turns out that they have won numerous awards and accolades with their knives, way too many to list. Look at their website to see the list. They claim to make the best quality Damascus knives in the country. In looking at and handling their knives, it’s hard to argue.

Not only do they make great knives, but I would have to say they are almost a work of art. Some people have it, some don’t. I have no artistic ability at all. Zero. I can’t sing, I can’t draw. Heck, according to Katy, I can’t even pick out a shirt that matches my pants. My company made us wear slacks to work at one time.

One morning I was headed to work and Katy asked, “Where are you going?” I replied, “To work.” She said, “That’s a cool cap, Tom. That’s a cool shirt. That’s a cool pair of pants, but not one of them go together!”

As we were having our discussion, my 6-year-old daughter walked by. To prove that I was a fashion star, I snidely said “Kolby, these clothes match fine, don’t they?” She looks me up and down and turns up her nose and said, “No way, daddy.” Maybe I do have issues.

I got home that night and Katy had my clothes laid out on the bed. She showed me how some shirts had an A on the inside of the collar, some had a B and some had an AB. She informed me that A shirts could go with A pants. Then she said, “Here’s where it gets tricky. An A Shirt can go with either A pants or AB pants.”

I say all of this to point out that certain people have artistic abilities that many of us don’t have and that is the talent that helps them excel in their field of study. So with that said, I’d have to say that the Charlestons are artists who make knives.

While on the topic of a beautiful knife, why carry a cheap ugly one? Unless you lose it, you’re going to be stuck carrying the piece of junk knife for years to come. Why not carry a cool one? Sitting around the campfire in elk camp, sometime in the course of the week everyone ends up comparing knives, don’t they? Even if you’re a dork and don’t kill a thing, you’ll be elevated to a certain status of cool if you’re carrying a sweet knife.

I understand using a cheap-o knife for cutting stings on hay bales and opening cardboard boxes, but why carry a cheap knife for your hunting hobby? As I get older, I like to have a few finer things and a good knife is one of them.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.