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Anglin with Anglen — 1974

| August 27, 2020 1:00 AM

Sept. 26, 1974

Man, what a beautiful fall we are having. We haven’t had a frost at our place yet and our garden is all harvested but a few tomatoes. I pulled the last of the cucumber vines this morning. We still have a few peachers on the tree, the garden is mostly spaded up for next year, so I’m as ready for winter as I’ll ever be.

I have been doing more hunting than fishing this past week, but I should have spent my time fishing for all the good hunting has done. I took a limit of blue grouse off of Harvey Mountain one day last week and that is all the grouse I’ve seen all week.

I’ve walked miles and miles in my favorite coverts and no ruffed grouse at all. I know they tend to run in cycles and have seen them down this low before, so I’m not worried about their future. They have always built up after every slump in their population.

Two of us were on Dawson Lake early one morning last week and came out with a nice mess of crappies. We fished for bass some but only landed one small one. There is much to do here this time of the year. The fishing is at its very best in the lakes and rivers. You may not catch as many fish as we did in the spring but what you get are larger.

The Kootenai is still producing some good trout and a few big whitefish. I expect the whitefishing would be better as a person concentrated on them.

Some big rainbow are coming out of the Moyie and the Clark Fork River should be producing some good fish soon. There are a few bear being taken now and there are some limits of blue grouse.

This will be my last article for awhile because we are going down to Garden Valley to visit our son. I’m going to take the rifle, shotgun and fishing tackle and I should get something if everything works out right. If not I’ll see some country I never saw before.

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Editor’s note: For 27 years, beginning Feb. 8, 1973, Ralph Anglen of Bonners Ferry wrote an outdoor column for the local paper that was widely read and used as a source of fishing and hunting information. It was called “Anglin’ with Anglen,” and was the real deal, the genuine item, written by someone whose socks were wet, whose toes were cold and who pulled no punches. We will continue as space allows to reprint Anglen’s column solely for its pleasure and historical significance. Any typos, we leave as is. Readers are reminded that this column was written almost 50 years ago and conditions, including state fish and game regulations, have changed.