The Field Sport Concept

Photo by John Fielding

Field Sports Concepts. A great conservation organization group. Click on the photo above to read what they said about The Contemporary Sportsman and follow their great blog.


Tuna: A Helicopter Pilot Speaks Out

Click the photo above to view the video

A helicopter pilot speaks out about his experiences onboard a number of purse seine tuna fishing vessels operating in the Pacific. His gruesome footage shows how the use of Fish Aggregation Devices is resulting in the bycatch of all sorts of marine life and contributes to the depletion of tuna stocks. Greenpeace is campaigning for more sustainable and less destructive tuna fisheries in the Pacific Ocean.

Don’t like this? Then do something about it! See the petition linked in the description? It’s only up_ to about 15,000 signatures, and they want to get it to 30,000. Go to the link, and click the ‘Take Action’ that’s next to the ‘About’ button (not the ‘Take Action’ button that’s on the top of the page.


Saving the California Delta and Striped Bass by Loren Elliott

Saving the California Delta and Striped Bass: Letters to DFG are Urgently Needed

Hello friends and fellow fly fishers, I am writing to you at a time of urgency in regard to California water and wildlife management. As you might already know, the CA Dept. of Fish and Game has recently made public a regulation change proposal that is essentially aimed at eradicating the striped bass from our waters. I am writing to ask each of you to write a letter to the DFG during this time of proposal review and public input to contest these regulation changes, and to also forward this email to all fellow fishers, naturalists, or anyone who cares about a healthy delta.

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The Conservation Landscape by Matt Wagner

Artwork Courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The duck stamp. Most of us have one. If you’re 16 years old and want to hunt waterfowl legally you’d better have one. Take a spill in your boat, lose your wallet, and you may actually need to buy another. I’m speaking from experience here.

Whether your blind rests in a Missouri River slough or is tucked back on a bank of the Chesapeake Bay or along Utah’s Bear Lake, your duck stamp is advancing one of the country’s largest landscape-level conservation efforts. But it’s an effort that needs more attention and more support, quickly.

The Dakota Grassland Conservation Area is a project designed to accelerate the conservation of 240,000 acres of wetlands and 1.7 million acres of grasslands across the eastern portions of North and South Dakota. Often referred to as the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), this is where mallards, pintails, shovelers, gadwalls, and blue-winged teal are made. This region supports nearly 30 percent of all breeding ducks in North America, as well as 200 different bird species.

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In Search of Another Good Bad Branch

Story by Tim Guilfoile       Photo by Jim Stenson

There is a stream in the Appalachian Mountains of southeastern Kentucky called Bad Branch. Its waters cascade down the south face of Pine Mountain until they reach a sandstone cliff where they tumble 60 feet to a pool below. The waters then carve a gorge surrounded by hemlock stands, pitch pine, rare flowers and dense thickets of rhododendron.   

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