POCATELLO — Pocatello has had its share of moose encounters over the past few weeks.

Earlier this month, a loose moose was captured and relocated after running around Memorial Park. Last Saturday, a moose wandered into the Samuel Street and Nora Avenue area near Constitution Park. This animal was also tranquilized and relocated. 

Then on Tuesday, two yearling moose were spotted at Rainey Park. Conservation officers with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game successfully tranquilized and relocated one of the moose, while the other one ran off back into the wild.

According to Jennifer Jackson, regional conservation educator with Idaho Fish and Game, around this time of year, cow moose have been giving birth to new calves, which means the yearlings are left to their own devices. Because of this, wildlife officials often see issues in May and June with young moose wandering into local cities. 

Normally, my crappie fishing in Idaho is over by the end of May, and after the first week of June, it’s over near Oregon. But for whatever reason, last year it kept getting better and better until I quit fishing in September to go bowhunting.

I wonder if that will be the case this year?

This year has been the best of my life, discounting the first three trips which were a wash-out. On the fourth trip I caught 176. My daughter and I caught 213, Ron and I caught 235, Cris and I… lost count.

Last weekend, I only got 55 but I got there late and only got to fish four hours. And, they have been getting progressively smaller the last three trips. The first couple of trips I was catching the largest crappie I ever have.

I’d like to go again, but I have to prepare for my seminars at The Great Northwest Outdoor Expo, so I guess I better hang around. Plus, there’s supposed to be a bit of wind so maybe I’ll go Monday.

The catching format is pretty much the same. Except that you won’t catch any with a bobber right by the bank, though in the late evening it seems like they’ve moved up closer. I’ll throw my jig up within a foot of the bank and then slowly retrieve it. The way that I’m catching most of them is to slowly lift the rod tip and then take a crank or two and repeat all the way back to the boat.

I’ll get a lot of hits after the jig gets 5 feet from the bank but I also get quite a few hits near the boat. You could say yes, but they’ve followed it to the boat and then they are hitting. I don’t think so. I think they’re out feeding, suspended up higher in the water column.

If it is super windy and you’re really blowing, you may think that you ought to use a heavier jig but I still recommend using a light jig. I’ve got four to five rods with me rigged up with different sized jigs and consistently do better on the light jigs.

Red/white tube jigs continue to produce the best for me. But then it’s like my brother always says.

Eddy: What’d you catch the fish on?

Me: Red/white jigs.

Eddy: What were you using?

Me: Only red/white jigs.

Eddy: Well no wonder you caught them on red/white jigs, that’s all you used.

But they continue to produce for me so I’m sure not changing!

I’ve been using Cabela’s jigs the last two trips but am having a lot of trouble removing them. Of course you use barbed hooks so you don’t lose fish but still, you want to be able to remove them without damaging the fish. Maybe I’ll hit them with some fine Emory cloth and see if that helps. The last few trips I’m throwing back over 100 fish so you sure don’t want to damage that many fish.

Now you may have to search around to find them but when you find them, you should be able to anchor and fish for an hour or two. To locate them, I troll semi-slow with a Rattlin’ Trap or a jig. Once I catch one, I anchor and fish. Crappie are schooling fish so if you catch one, there should be more.

The trouble is, I’m about ready to start backpacking into the backcountry to flyfish. What’s a guy to do? Idaho just offers us too many outdoor opportunities. Whichever route you go, have fun.

Authorities are still searching for a Utah teenager who went missing while swimming in the Teton River near Newdale, while multiple drownings have been reported in other areas of the state.

Search and rescue crews from multiple counties have been looking for 14-year-old Justin Keith Grass, of Sandy, Utah. Grass was swimming with two friends near the old Teton Dam on Sunday afternoon when he disappeared.

According to crews at the scene, the three boys were attempting to cross the river. Grass was reportedly caught in a strong current and couldn’t get to shore.

Search and rescue crews will continue the search on Wednesday.

There have been multiple drownings reported across the state over the past week.

A 13-year-old boy drowned Friday after he was pinned underneath an ATV in a canal near Burley.

Cassia County sheriff deputies were sent to 450 E. 250 S. at 5:30 p.m. in response to a 911 call saying the sister of the boy found him in the ditch underneath a 4-wheeler, according to a Cassia County sheriff’s report.

Cassia County Undersheriff George Warrell said the boy, Jared Stanley Zollinger, died after he lost control of the vehicle on a canal road and landed in a ditch that was half-full of water.

“He was eastbound on the canal bank and he lost control at a curve and overturned it in the ditch. He was pinned underneath it,” Warrell said.

The boy’s father, an emergency medical technician, was at the scene performing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation on him when officers arrived, according to the report.

The boy had left his residence about 4:20 p.m. When he did not return in about 15 to 20 minutes, family members started looking for him.

The boy’s sister had been out driving eastbound and found the crash.

Warrell said the boy had been wearing a helmet.

In a separate incident near Kuna, a 21-month-old boy died after he was found in a canal earlier this week.

According to the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office, Spencer Arnold, of Woods Cross, Utah, was reported missing early Monday morning and a search commenced to find him

The child was soon found in the Mora Canal near the house. Investigators say the toddler was playing in a fenced yard with other children but somehow got out of the yard and fell into the canal.

Emergency responders pulled him out of the water and took him to a Nampa hospital by ambulance. The child was later pronounced dead.

The sheriff’s office is investigating the incident as a drowning.

Lisa Dayley Smith with the Rexburg Standard Journal and Laurie Welch with the Times-News contributed to this article.

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — Wyoming’s planned grizzly bear hunt this fall is structured in a way that allows the possibility of disruption by those opposed to the hunt.

And wildlife activist Lisa Robertson says that is what she plans to do by applying for one of the limited number of tags although she has no intention of hunting a bear.

The Jackson Hole News & Guide reports that the maneuver amounts to a form of legal protest against the state’s planned grizzly bear hunt this fall.

The 22 tags up for sale cost $600 for residents and $6,000 for nonresidents.

State game managers say there’s nothing illegal about applying with no intention of hunting.

Idaho has approved hunting one grizzly this fall, while Montana has decided for now not to allow grizzly hunting.

Baking Soda has an unlimited shelf life, which makes it a perfect item for use in the outdoors. It also has hundreds of uses beyond cooking. It can be used for personal hygiene, sanitation, cleaning, medical and scent control.

Cleaning

• Adding two tablespoons to the dishwater will help remove caked-on food. There are some easy dishwashing soaps that can fit in a bug-out bag with no leaking.

• When using stoves that are not electrical, it is very common to see baked-on blackness from firewood and smoke. Sprinkle some baking soda on and spray some water on the soda to make a paste. Let sit overnight and scrub in the morning, rinse and it is good as new.

• Use 1/2 cup baking soda in warm water with natural soap, let soak overnight. Wash as normal. It is gentle on a baby’s skin and will keep them comfortable.

• Oil and grease stains are inevitable if you have been servicing smaller engines and hunting. Sprinkle baking soda on the spot and scrub with a wet brush.

Medical

• 1-2 teaspoons in a full glass of water.

• This actually works incredibly well. Place 1/2 a teaspoon dissolved in a 4-ounce glass of water. Sip slowly to reduce the possibility of gas or diarrhea.

• Yet another hazard of bugging out. Splinters will be common. Place 1 tablespoon in a small glass of water, soak affected area twice a day and it will come out easily.

• A mixture of baking soda and water applied to a cool compress can be applied directly to the burn. Or use 1/2 cup in a lukewarm bath and air-dry.

• Make a paste with water and baking soda. Apply to affected area and let sit.

Personal Hygiene

• Wet your toothbrush, dip into the soda and brush. It’s a simple way to clean your teeth, neutralize odors and freshen your mouth.

• After a long day of hiking, washing one’s face can help relieve some tension. Using three parts baking soda to one part water will help scrub away the dirt and sweat that will accumulate. Rinse clean.

• Adding some baking soda to your shampoo or soap will help clean residue left behind.

• Applying some baking soda to your underarms will help deodorize your arm pits.

Even these simple uses far outweigh any other item in your bug-out bag. Stock up today for about $0.37 a box and experiment with a few of these uses.

Emily Thornton is currently working on her masters in communication at Idaho State University. She enjoys writing, racing after her son and playing games with her husband.

My wife and I just returned from two weeks in Reedsport, Oregon, visiting my daughter and her family. I always like to visit Reedsport and the surrounding area along the Oregon coast. I just always dread the 13-hour drive from Pocatello to Reedsport.

Just west of Reedsport is Winchester Bay, dubbed by the merchant association as the “Crab Capital of the World,” where one can see a lot of fishing boats at the docks when they aren’t out fishing or crabbing along the coast.

Winchester Bay is also a resort area where dune buggies can be rented and driven on the nearby sand dunes, as well as visiting the Umpqua River Lighthouse, which is the oldest working lighthouse on the Oregon coast. There are daily tours of the lighthouse starting at 9 a.m.

The dock area also has several great seafood restaurants and live crabs can be purchased from a couple of the boat captains and cooked at home.

The largest yearly activity in Winchester Bay is the annual Dune Fest, a five-day event that will be held this year from July 24 to 29.

Winchester Bay and Reedsport are bordered on three sides by mountains with thick forests that are home to white-tailed deer and Roosevelt elk.

We were disappointed that our two weeks were up before the annual Father’s Day weekend Chainsaw Sculpting contest was held in Reedsport, but we plan to be there next year. It seems you just can’t do everything in one trip.

The area’s past logging industry is still evident and a large port for shipping lumber overseas is still in operation in Coos Bay, about 30 miles farther west from Winchester Bay.

The whole coastal area from Winchester Bay north to Waldport is filled with sand dunes, beaches and lighthouses, as well as the sea lion caves just north of Florence.

The Festival of Sail comes to Coos Bay every three years with smaller events each year surrounding the area’s importance to the construction of sailing ships during the 1800s and early 1900s in the United States.

If you like beaches, seafood, sand dunes, dune buggies, sea lions, chainsaw sculpting, crabbing, hunting for sea shells, lighthouses, elk, deer, mountains, forests and tall ships, you will love the coast of Oregon.

Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He was a member of the faculty of Texas A&M University for 25 years. There he taught orienteering, marksmanship, self-defense, fencing, scuba diving and boxing. He was among the first DPS-certified Texas Concealed Handgun Instructors. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.

Fremont County commissioners are set to consider whether to add an advisory question to the November ballot on the construction of wildlife overpasses near Island Park.

Those overpasses are being considered by the Idaho Transportation Department as part of a set of safety improvements to U.S. Highway 20 near Targhee Pass. Such overpasses are intended both to reduce the frequency of accidents involving wildlife and to improve the connection between animal populations on both sides of the road, which may be deterred from crossing it by traffic.

A number of proposals are under consideration by ITD, two of which involve some amount of fencing and wildlife overpasses, along with a number of other road improvements. The cost estimates for those projects range from about $20 million to $30 million, though ITD also expects roadway improvements will reduce ongoing maintenance expenses significantly. The state would pay about 7 percent of the cost, with the federal government picking up the rest of the cost.

The commissioners first examined the prospect of an advisory question on June 11, but they didn’t take any action at that point.

According to minutes of the meeting, proponents argued ITD hadn’t taken local concerns into account when planning the overpasses.

Supporters of the overpasses argued against such a question, saying the vote would occur when a large number of Fremont County’s seasonal residents were out of town for the winter, and that it was misleading to ask voters only if they supported or opposed the overpasses without giving them the option of saying they were unsure.

The issue is scheduled to be discussed and possibly acted upon Monday, according to the commission’s agenda.

If the commissioners agree to add the question, it will be the second such advisory question in recent years.

Fremont County voters in 2014 took a vote opposing the creation of a national monument near Mesa Falls, which passed overwhelmingly, despite the fact that there was no evidence to indicate that the federal government had given serious consideration to the possibility since the Bush Administration.

The proposed language for the advisory vote on overpasses was submitted by Leanne Yancey of the Island Park Preservation Coalition, a group that includes many who fought an national monument designation. Reached by Facebook she referred the Post Register to Ken Watts. Watts did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The language of proposed question is asymmetric, with descriptions of the opinions of both proponents and opponents having been crafted by opponents of the overpasses. The description of the opposing view is approximately twice as long as the description of the supporting view. And while all of the language describing proponents’ views is couched in some version of “they argue,” the advisory question states as fact that: “overpasses, underpasses and fencing will require perpetual maintenance and be a permanent financial burden.”

Dina Sallak-Windes, a civil deputy with the Fremont County Prosecutor’s Office, said all that’s necessary to add an advisory question to the ballot is a vote of the commissioners.

A local boy caught a massive carp over the weekend at his family’s vacation house in Rupert.

Parker Wood, 12, of Inkom, was fishing in the Snake River in the backyard of his family’s vacation house in Rupert on Friday afternoon when he said his friend started yelling. 

“My friend yelled at me and said, ‘there’s a sturgeon, there’s a sturgeon!’” Wood said. “I thought, no way. So I ran over there, and I looked down, and there was a massive carp just sitting there.”

Wood ran back inside the house to retrieve his bow, then shot the carp.

“Right as I shot him, I jumped in the water and grabbed him,” he said.

Wood said he wrapped the fish up in his shirt to keep it from slipping out of his hands, then jumped out of the water with it. The carp, which Wood said is about 3 and a half feet in length and 26 pounds, was released back into the river after Wood and his father, Richard, weighed it.

“He wasn’t going to let (that fish) get away,” Richard said. “That’s for sure.”

Though large, Parker’s carp was not anywhere close to record breaking. The current record for the largest common carp caught in Idaho is 67.65 pounds and 47 inches. It was pulled in at C.J. Strike Reservoir in 2011 by Scott Frazier II.

“But for a little kid, it’s a good one,” Richard said.

Parker and his father are both avid fishermen, and Parker has been fishing since he was about 4 or 5 years old. Though this was the heaviest and overall biggest fish he has caught, Richard said Parker has previously caught pike that were longer.

“(He) fishes constantly,” Richard said of Parker. “When we’re (at the vacation house) it’s a day and night thing. It keeps him out of trouble.”

Though Parker has caught many carp before, they are usually much, much smaller.

Richard said what was most unusual was the location in which Parker caught the fish.

“The neighbors actually live there year-round, and they have for a long time,” Richard said. “And they’ve never caught one that big this far below the dam. Usually you catch those up in Minnedoka or American Falls Dam if they get that big, but not that far down the river.”

Parker said that while he has bowfished in the past, he doesn’t typically use a bow anymore. But he didn’t see any other option due to the size of the carp.

“We usually never use bows,” he said. “I used to when I was young, but that was the first carp I’ve probably shot in at least two years with my bow.”

Parker is also no stranger to catching unusual fish. Last year, he caught a catfish that had been tagged by Fish and Game. Richard said they were able to look up the fish’s number and see exactly when it had been put into the lake, and other information that had been gathered about it.

Carp is a highly invasive species, and there’s no limit on the number of carp one can catch in Idaho.