Hunting & Fishing America

Hunting - Fishing - Wildlife - Conservation
American outdoor history, current stories & the traditions worth passing on.

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

Invited on an 1858 Adirondack camping trip, Longfellow asked: was Ralph Waldo Emerson taking a gun?

Yes. "Then I shall not go. Somebody will be shot."

Emerson went, with Agassiz and Lowell: the Philosophers' Camp.

#hunting #fishing #outdoors #adirondacks #americanhistory

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

The first year the dam stood, salmon piled up below it and were caught in great numbers. By about 1810, nearly all were gone.

One 16-foot dam, finished in 1798, had cut off the Connecticut River's salmon run.

#fishing #outdoors #conservation #atlanticsalmon #connecticutriver

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

The man beside Francis Scott Key as the British shelled Fort McHenry launched America's first sporting magazine.

John S. Skinner's American Turf Register debuted in 1829, promising "Shooting, Hunting, Fishing."

#hunting #fishing #outdoors #huntinghistory #americanhistory

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

1,400 buffalo tongues, traded for a few gallons of whiskey.

Painter George Catlin heard of that 1832 haul at Fort Pierre and called for "a nation's Park." Yellowstone came 40 years later.

#hunting #outdoors #conservation #bison #nationalparks

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

A single 16-foot dam, finished in 1798, cut Connecticut River salmon off from their spawning grounds.

Year one, they piled up below it and were caught in great numbers. By about 1810, nearly all were gone.

#fishing #outdoors #conservation #atlanticsalmon #connecticutriver

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

@beaver_patriot Habitat first. Every duck, deer and trout we love depends on wetlands, forests and rivers that stay the way God made them.

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

Since 1937, Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson excise taxes have sent more than $31 billion to state wildlife agencies.

Hunters and anglers helped pay for the outdoors we inherited. Now it's our turn to pass it on.

#hunting #fishing #outdoors #conservation #huntingheritage

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

To join Berdan's Sharpshooters in 1861, 10 shots in a row at 200 yards had to average within 5 inches of center.

Winslow Homer once peered through a sharpshooter's scope: "as near murder as anything I ever could think of."

#hunting #shooting #outdoors #civilwar #sharpshooter

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

Before Audubon painted a bird, he usually shot it.

He wired fresh kills into lifelike poses for The Birds of America: 435 life-size plates, 1827–1838. Only about 78 of the copper plates are known today.

#hunting #outdoors #conservation #audubon #americanhistory

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

Audubon's original Birds of America copper plates were sold off as scrap.

He shot his birds, wired them into poses and painted them life-size. Of 435 plates, about 78 survive. This hawk-and-quail plate is one.

#hunting #outdoors #conservation #audubon #quailhunting

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

In 1848, a hunting writer warned America's woods would be "depopulated and silent" by the 1900s.

"Frank Forester" blamed railroads that let pot-hunters ship game to market. He wanted laws protecting nesting birds.

#hunting #outdoors #uplandhunting #woodcock #conservation

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

Nantucket's early whaling crews were mostly Wampanoag men.

They rowed after right whales: slow, close to shore, and afloat once killed. Then brick furnaces went onto the ships, and trips of days became voyages of years.

#hunting #fishing #outdoors #whaling #nantucket

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

In 1748 alone, South Carolina shipped out about 160,000 deerskins.

Creek and Cherokee hunters traded them for guns, cloth and kettles. Most of the hides went to England to become clothing. The deer paid the price.

#hunting #outdoors #deerhunting #whitetail #colonialamerica

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

Before electricity, America's finest candles came out of a whale's head.

Spermaceti, a wax inside the sperm whale's head, made the top grade of candles. In the early 1700s, Nantucket whalers began chasing it into deep water.

#hunting #fishing #outdoors #whaling #nantucket

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

England's first American colony couldn't build its own fish traps.

Roanoke, 1586: the colonists ate from weirs Algonquian men built for them. When the weirs were broken, famine set in.

#hunting #fishing #outdoors #nativeamericanhistory #roanoke

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

Lewis & Clark's hunters killed at least 43 grizzly bears on the way to the Pacific and back.

Plus 1,001 deer, 375 elk and 227 bison.

One day's meat for the Corps: 4 deer, an elk and a deer, or one buffalo.

#hunting #fishing #outdoors #lewisandclark #americanhistory

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

Lewis & Clark's hunters killed at least 1,001 deer, 375 elk and 227 bison during the expedition.

One day's meat for the Corps: 4 deer, an elk and a deer, or one buffalo.

Hunt or starve.

#hunting #fishing #outdoors #lewisandclark #cutthroattrout

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

In 1955, America's anglers drove nearly 18 billion miles by car to go fishing.

The family fishing trip had hit the road. National forest visits had more than doubled since 1946.

#fishing #familyfishing #fishingwithkids

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

In 1903, America's first wildlife refuge got one warden. His pay: $1 a month.

Paul Kroegel sailed out to put himself between the shooters and the birds.

Today there are more than 570 refuges.

[Hunting & Fishing America @HuntFishAmerica]

In 1949, Truman vetoed a bill sending the federal tax on fishing tackle to state fish agencies.

Its backers tried again. He signed a new version in 1950. States have since received more than $12 billion.

#fishing #troutfishing #conservation #outdoors #SportFishRestoration