Man who left NFL to run a farm seems to be doing well

In 2012, NFL player Jason Brown left a thriving career to buy a farm. Brown admitted he knew very little about farming, and that he got most of his know-how from YouTube videos. So how are things working out for farmer Brown? Pretty well, according to CBS News, which caught up with him recently. The former offensive lineman now owns and runs a 1,000-acre farm in Louisburg, N.C., and donates part of every harvest to local food banks. Click the video for more:

More women are fishing the Upper Great Lakes

Kristy Taylor takes a steelhead fishing class from the Michigan
Department of Natural Resources. (NPR photo)

Fewer Americans are going fishing, but one place is bucking the trend, and in a surprising way. "In 2016, about 14 percent of Americans fished, and most of them were men. But a recent study on the Upper Great Lakes indicates female participation is on the rise," Morgan Springer reports for NPR. "It found that fishing-license sales increased among female anglers by about 4.5 percent between 2000 and 2015. That's an additional 43,000 female anglers."

Fly fishing is particularly popular among women, who now make up about 31 percent of the 6.5 million Americans who enjoy that sport.

Women's increased interest in fishing is good news for the Great Lakes, which have seen increasing algae blooms in recent years, possibly hurting recreation income. It's also good for conservation programs that depend on hunting and fishing license revenues for funding, Springer reports.

The population of new female anglers skews young: "Young women today are about two times more likely than women born in 1960 to buy a fishing license," said Richelle Winkler, the principal researcher in the Great Lakes fishing study and an associate professor at Michigan Technological University.

Winkler said she doesn't know why more women are fishing, but told Springer she has a hunch: "I think it's part of a broader cultural pattern of the world opening up a bit to women's participation in activities that have traditionally been seen as more masculine."

Tenn. town known for 1925 'Monkey Trial' finds economic boost in bass fishing tournaments

Fishing on Chickamauga Lake (CBS News image)

A small town whose tourism for nearly the past century has focused around being the site of the John Scopes "Monkey Trial" over evolution in 1925 has turned to bass fishing tournaments for a recent boost in tourism dollars. And it may have helped land a factory.

When anglers compete for the biggest bass in the Tennessee Valley Authority's Chickamauga Lake, Dayton, Tenn., is cashing in, Dennis Tumlin, head of the Rhea County Economic & Tourism Council, told CBS News' Dana Jacobson. "Our statistics show us that about $14 million came into town last year," Tumlin said. That's a big deal for the southeastern Tennessee town of 7,200.

The boost comes at a crucial time for Dayton, which CBS calls one of the more economically depressed areas of Tennessee, based on statistics that include poverty rate, household income and unemployment. "When Mayor [Gary] Louallen was elected four years ago, he had a plan to turn around Dayton's economy," Jacobson reports. Louallen said went to the council and said, "Guys, if you'll just trust me and run with me on this, fishing could really make it good for us."

Dayton, Tennessee (Yahoo map)

Louallen's idea paid off. Dayton sits on an arm of Chickamauga Lake, a Tennessee River impoundment that offers some of the best bass fishing in the South, Jacobson says: "According to Tumlin, the average angler spends $1,100 in a week. One recent tournament brought in 400 anglers, and "We've been averaging 30 events per year for the last three years." That means "the local service industry has been booming," Jacobson reports.

Mary Helen Sprecher, managing editor of Sports Destination Management, a sports-tourism magazine, says you don't need to host the Olympics to become a sports-tourism destination. "She points to events like the Fat Tire Bike Race in Cable, Wisconsin; the American Birkebeiner Ski Race in nearby Hayward, Wis.; and especially the Pickleball Tournament in Naples, Florida, as success stories," Jacobson writes. "One event could have a $1.5-million economic impact, Sprecher said."

But Tumlin says the fishing tournaments are just one step toward a larger goal. "We're chasing industry as hard as we're chasing tourism," he said. "If you're an industry CEO, you're looking for quality of life. So, when you come here, we want you to feel energy, and feel a great community. And we believe it will yield great results." Days after Jacobson visited, "Tumlin announced Dayton had reeled in a really big fish: A Finnish company, Nokia Tyres, announced a $360 million investment in a new plant in the town, along with the promise of 400 new jobs," Jaconson reports."For a small town, that is a great catch."

Smallmouth bass in Chesapeake Bay are sick

A smallmouth bass with cancer caught in the Susquehanna
River. (Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission)

Sport fishing for smallmouth bass, which has been a multimillion-dollar industry in the Chesapeake Bay, is under crisis, as many of the fish are becoming sick and are in condition too poor to keep as trophies. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation released a report Thursday saying the fish have "been struck by a perfect storm of pollution, parasites, disease and endocrine disruptors that are changing the sex of males," reports Darryl Fears for The Washington Post. 

The Chesapeake Bay is about 200 miles, with hundreds of rivers and thousands of streams and creeks flowing throughout the watershed, which stretches more than 64,000 miles through six states. For more background, see the Chesapeake Bay Program.

One feeder stream hit particularly hard is the 444-mile Susquehanna River, which flows from New York through Pennsylvania. Citing a study by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, the report found that between 2001 and 2005, catch rates for adult bass fell 80 percent in some areas of the Susquehanna, reports Fears. Commission Director John Arway said "he caught and released 200 bass on a summer night before 2005 and can now catch only three or four, and that anglers who come up empty-handed are shying away from the smallmouth bass, a business valued at nearly $650 million in 2011, according to the American Sportfishing Association," reports Fears. (Read more)

Rural landowners can take steps to limit poaching

Poaching is usually considered an act of trespassing with the intent to take an animal and can be more than just a nuisance for rural landowners. "Poaching is a nationwide epidemic," Jonathan Goode writes for LandThink. "Missouri reported 2,000 arrests for deer poaching in 2009 alone." Poachers can present a safety hazard to landowners in addition to simply hunting animals where they are not invited. Rural owners aren't helpless, though, as they can take a number of steps to prevent poaching on their land, Goode writes.

Poachers often look for unused land, often owned by out-of-towners. Goode advises giving the local game warden or other law enforcement officer permission to hunt your land if you are an out-of-town owner, so poachers know law enforcement personnel may be around. Landowners should not assume game wardens will catch poachers as their jurisdiction usually includes vast tracts of land. While landowners are more likely to encounter poachers than wardens, they should do everything possible to avoid confrontation, Goode writes, noting "generally poachers are armed, and they are already breaking the law, so they may resort to violence to avoid capture." (Read more)

Striped bass population changes with weather

Salt water striped bass supposedly rebounded from overfishing in the 1980s but anglers report catches are down again. New research suggests weather might be the cause behind both drops. Wildlife managers "laid down severe catch limits" for the fish in the 1980s, and "the population recovered and fishing resumed in what is considered one of conservation's great success stories," Christopher Joyce of National Public Radio reports. Bob Wood, a biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, theorizes the drops in striped bass populations were actually the result of shifting Atlantic weather. (Photo by Jay Fleming)

Wood's research points to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, "a mashup of wind and ocean currents, a flip-flop that happens every 35 years or so in the North Atlantic," as the culprit in the population drop. "Circulation changes in a way that warms the entire basin," Wood told Joyce. "And you can imagine if you warm the entire North Atlantic basin, you're changing the weather because the air and circulation patterns above the ocean are affected." That warming in turn affects river flow or salinity, sending ripples up the food chain.

When the AMO is "in a warm phase, springtime along the East Coast actually tends to be wet and cool — more rain, more water, more food," Joyce writes. "In the years following that phase, striper numbers tend to go up. Then the AMO flips — drier springs, less rain, less food. After a lag, it looks like striper numbers start to decline." Wood says understanding the weather shift could help set catch limits. "If we know that there is this [down] cycle coming up," he told Joyce, "we can keep that in our heads as we set limits." (Read more)

Obama administration wants to remove bears and wolves from endangered species list

The Obama administration plans to lift Endangered Species Act protection from two of the West's iconic animals: the grizzly bear and gray wolf. "The administration's intentions emerged in an interview on Wednesday with two top-ranking officials from the Interior Department, whose agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, oversees federal safeguards for the bulk of imperiled species," Laura Zuckerman reports for The Washington Post. Previous attempts to remove the animals from the list have been met with staunch opposition in court from wildlife conservation groups.

"Environmentalists have raised concerns that although both species have made a comeback under protection as endangered species, their recovery could falter if they were de-listed, a move that is likely to open the animals to public hunting," Zuckerman writes. "Sportsmen and ranchers, who make up a powerful constituency in Western states, have strongly advocated de-listing wolves and grizzlies, saying the predators are diminishing herds of big-game animals such as elk and are preying on livestock."

In April 2009, the federal government removed the wolf from the endangered species list in Montana and Idaho but kept protection in Wyoming. "A federal judge this year ordered full listing restored, saying the wolves' entire range in the Rockies must be treated as a whole and that protections cannot be left intact in Wyoming while they are lifted in other states," Zuckerman writes. Tom Strickland, assistant interior secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, told the newspaper the administration plans to propose lifting protection in all three states and will seek congressional action if necessary. (Read more)

Ky. Fish and Wildlife boss accused of retaliating against radio host for reporting on agency

A Louisville talk-radio host and outdoors journalist has filed a lawsuit against the head of Kentucky’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, alleging retribuition for reporting on the agency.

Jim Strader, a former columnist for The Courier-Journal and a host on WHAS, claims Commissioner Jonathan Gassett refused to allow Fish and Wildlife personnel on his radio program or allow department staff "to set up a booth at Strader’s fish and wildlife expo, meaning hunting licenses couldn’t be sold there," Beth Musgrave of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. The agency is funded by license sales.

Strader reported on his radio show about a host of problems at the department, including "that Gassett, before he was appointed commissioner, had issued elk hunting permits even though then-Gov. Paul Patton had prohibited them, that a commission board member had pleaded guilty to hunting elk out of season, and that the department’s self-reporting system for deer harvesting was used to circumvent game limits," Musgrave writes. Strader sued Gassett as both a public official and private person, and a legislative committee recently voted not to pay Gassett's personal legal bills.

The legislature's Government Contract Review Subcommittee "voted unanimously to send the lawsuit to Attorney General Jack Conway’s office for further investigation," Musgrave reports. State Rep. Brent Yonts, a member of the committee, told Musgrave, "In reviewing the allegations, it looks like personal bad behavior. It looks like an agency out of control." Gassett, who has headed the agency since 2005, has denied all of Strader’s allegations and asked that the lawsuit be dismissed. (Read more)

Readers, boss react to sports editor's column questioning deer hunting as sport

The sports editor for the Covington News, in Newton County, Ga., (pop. 94,947), not far from Atlanta, created quite a reaction with his column, "What if the hunter was the hunted?" Josh Briggs had received a photo of a deer hunter and the dead deer and felt moved to comment. Briggs started this way: "If I'm going to run deer hunting pictures in my section, I can at least give my take on it, right?" He goes on to explain, "When you are at war, it's you or your enemy. You look for the upper hand. You find an elevated position, sit for hours or even days on end and wait. That's fine. At least your enemy knows you're out there. ... But a deer has no clue. When you sit in a tree stand and wait for a deer to come through your baited area, it's just a matter of time. ... Where's the sport in sitting your lazy butt in a tree stand and waiting for a deer to pass by?" (For larger view of map)

The reaction was swift and vocal, with 750 letters from around the world and network news coverage. One wildlife biologist explained deer hunting as "the scientifically proven BEST method of controlling these populations without letting starvation and disease do it for us." He added, "I will be boycotting the entire newspaper because of this article and will be persuading my friends and family to do so as well." Nearby Augusta Chronicle writer Ron Pavey also felt the need to comment: "Being from California, where they do things differently, [Briggs] proceeded to attack deer hunters as lazy, insinuated that wildlife management through controlled hunting was a myth and made the erroneous assumption that people who hunt from a treestand are doing so over bait." He then invited readers to submit their deer hunting photos to the Augusta Chronicle (see photo).

Pat Cavanaugh, the general manager of The Covington News, responded in a column published three days later. "It still catches me off guard and amazes me what type of story will really get readers’ attention. ... the shock of what [Briggs] wrote caused me to spill my coffee on myself and almost choke on my muffin. I knew our publisher, Charles Hill Morris, himself part of a family that has a hunting tradition that goes way back, would be shocked and mortified." Ultimately, the general manager supported his editor. "For those of you who have told us that you and your friends are taking up a collection to send our sports editor packing, that is not going to happen. We encourage the people who work at our paper to have and express their own opinions, as we encourage you. ... As for the many calls we have received, we appreciate them ... not only on this issue but any issue that appears in The Covington News. We look at your thoughts, either ones we like or we don’t like, as proof that the First Amendment ... is still alive and well and protecting all of us from tyranny."

Briggs responded in his column on Tuesday by apologizing. "I apologize to you for being so extreme with such a sensitive issue. I apologize to our advertisers for the negative attention and to the hunters in the community who go about the sport the right way."

No-kill deer hunt hopes to build sportsmanship

A Western Kentucky deer hunt went off just as planned last month, which is to say no deer were killed. The event, hosted by the American Whitetail Authority, "was the first in the Whitetail Pro Series, the only hunting competition in which deer are stalked but not killed," James Card reports for The New York Times. Each hunter in the event is armed with a 20-gauge shotgun mounted with digital scopes and five blank shells per day. Hunters are graded based on the video from the memory card in the scope.

"The main goal of the series, according to Greg Koch, the founder of the group, is to reward hunters who consistently take clean shots on mature deer," Card writes. He explained, "In most states, you can kill one deer per season, and that hampers your ability to prove your skill." The Whitetail Pro Series, which will culminate with the AWA World Championship this month in Mississippi, is modeled after the Bassmaster series, a catch-and-release fishing tournament. Koch said digital scopes can "enable hunters to track their prey out of season and help children build a solid foundation in ethical hunting, a component of which is to kill an animal as quickly and painlessly as possible," Card writes. (NYT photo by Lori Moffett)

Judges reviewed the video clips "frame by frame until the second before the gunfire," Card writes. "They noted the position of the crosshairs. If they were slightly behind the deer’s front shoulder, a bullet would have passed through the lungs, ensuring a quick death. Bonus points were awarded for the cleanest shots." Competitors at the event, held at the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, were filmed for a show scheduled to air on the Outdoor Chanel in early 2011. "We knew it was a revolutionary concept," Jeff Murray, a managing producer at Winnercomm, which is part of the Outdoor Channel, told Card. "It is designed to be very educational. The viewers are very thirsty for information." (Read more)

Administration debunks online rumor of fishing ban

If your newspaper is planning to run a column or letter claiming that the Obama administration is planning to ban or severely limit recreational sport fishing, or even that there is a rumor to that effect, think again.

"Both commercial and recreational fishing are vitally important to this nation," National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco told a House panel yesterday "We are not proposing any blanket ban on recreational fishing. I would strongly oppose that, and it is not in the works." The rumors evidently started from a column from ESPN outdoors writer Robert Montgomery, "which said the administration's new oceans policy could prohibit fishing in oceans, Great Lakes and inland waters," Allison Winter of Greenwire reports for The New York Times.

Eric Schwaab, the National Marine Fisheries Service chief, also released a statement saying NOAA "is committed to adopting policies that will ensure that current and future generations have the opportunity to enjoy the great tradition of recreational fishing." The initial column was reposted on the news blog Drudge Report and picked up by right-wing bloggers and television pundits. Reps. Paul Broun, R-Ga., and Kathy Dahlkemper, D-Pa., both expressed concerns about the rumor at Wednesday's House Science Committee hearing.

"The inter-agency ocean task force has released draft plans that would set ocean conservation as a top national priority and lay the groundwork for marine planning," Winter writes, adding "the plan could eventually lead to efforts to map the sea for different uses, but draft reports from the group made no suggestions to ban fishing." (Read more)

In search of the elusive and fearsome alligator gar: part fishing, part tracking, part target shooting

John Paul Morris needed help from three other men to get this 8-foot-3-inch long alligator gar out of the Trinity River in Texas. "Fishermen despise the gar because they believe the fish devour prized bass and crappie," Tom Benning reports for The Wall Street Journal. "But in recent times, alligator gar have experienced a kind of trash-to-trophy renaissance as sportsmen discovered the thrill of hunting the beasts. . . . In the rural South, the prospect of bagging a trophy gator gar inspires a special brand of enthusiasm." (Bass Pro Shops photo; Morris is son of CEO Johnny Morris)

A gar expedition is "part fishing, part tracking and part target shooting," since the preferred method of bagging the fish is with crossbow and "stainless-steel, prong-tipped arrows that can pierce the gar's thick scales," Benning writes. The pursuit has become so popular, Texas has imposed the first limit on the fish, one per day. "The limit has infuriated commercial fishermen, who catch gar by the hundreds to export to Mexico, where they are a popular menu item," Benning reports. "After September, every Southern state with gar populations except Louisiana will have some kind of alligator gar fishing limits." (Read more)