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No, this isn't my dad. It's his fishing buddy Will Hope with a steelhead my dad caught yesterday on Oregon's North Umpqua river.

Notice the pontoon? They were fishing in my dad and brother's two-man pontoon boat -- basically just a beefy version of the belly boats Backlash has been trying to get us excited about. So, yeah, they work. My brother and Will fish big water in their single-man pontoon boats all the time.

Anyway, the fish was just a hair under 40 inches long. There's a rule of thumb that a 25-inch-long steelhead will weigh about 5 pounds and you can add a pound per inch after that. This is a stout fish so obviously it's over 20 pounds. That's the magic mark for a true trophy steelhead, and this is my dad's first 20-pounder in 43 years of fishing for them.

The fish was wild and had to be released. So after Will netted the fish dad snapped this one picture and that was it.

As for those kick boats, I highly recommend them over the old-fashioned belly boat. They get you off the water and the oars really help you get around. Of course, if you're backpacking or biking in to a place, you have to do the belly boat.

The DGIF has released preliminary number for last season's deer, turkey and bear kills.

The deer kill topped 240,423 -- the highest ever recorded. That's not necessarily good news. Big numbers mean the state's deer population is not as well in check as the DGIF wants it to be. The good news for biologists is that the doe kill also was a record, and most importantly was higher than the antlered buck kill for the first time ever. So that means the state's hunters are getting the message that they need to kill does.

The other good news, for hunters and biologists alike, is that it appears hemmorhagic disease didn't severely impact herds, as some feared.

Interestingly, in Bedford and Roanoke counties, which will have earn-a-buck regs next year, the doe kill didn't hit 45 percent -- the benchmark. So, clearly, the earn-a-buck reg is needed.

The turkey kill was 4,759, up 15 percent over last year's paltry kill of 4,143. That's still pretty low and I think is mostly a function of lack of hunter interest in the fall season.

The bear kill was 1,517, down a bit from last year's record but still the second best on record.

I'll have more on the numbers on Friday's Outdoors page in The Roanoke Times.

I'm back in Roanoke after spending the past few days at the Bassmaster Classic in Greenville, S.C. I'm beat, so I can't even imagine what the anglers feel like. I guess they're used to it.

OK, I have to admit that the second and third days weren't as rough for me as the first. The second day my coverage focused on the weigh-in. I went to the Expo but it was absolutely insane. There were no parking spots. But even if I had taken a shuttle bus I would have been out of luck as I learned that the fire marshall showed up and wouldn't let anybody else in the Carolina First Center. Seems the people of Greenville are just a bit hungry for outdoor gear.

If you saw my stories in the paper you know that amateur angler Jeff Freeman of Max Meadows just missed the cut on Saturday, coming in at 28th. I hated that for him because he was so close. It's really impressive that a guy who works 48 hours a week can do so well against guys who do this for a living.

On the other hand, he was so sick that he needed a break even though he didn't want one.

Sunday I went out to the lake in the morning (but not too early) to get on a media boat so I could get some pictures of John Crews. The ESPN/BASS folks track the anglers using GPS units, and that helped us know the general area where Crews was fishing. But that lake is 56,000 acres (well, it is when it's full, which it's not, by a long shot) and it turned out John took off as soon as we did. So it took us about 45 minutes to find him. The media boat driver had to be back about an hour later to pick up another photographer so we had all of about 30 minutes to watch Crews.

He was fishing almost in the shadow the football stadium at Clemson -- Death Valley -- so I got a couple shots of that. So I was OK. But I really wanted a fish. I said to the boat driver and the other photographer with me, "I really need him to catch a fish."

Next thing I know Crews had one on. When he got his hands on the 4-pounder he let out this incredible whoop. The only thing that wasn't perfect was I was shooting with second-rate, obsolete Nikon digital gear that I got when our photo staff switched to the good Canon pro gear. Despite that, I was pretty happy with the series of shots I got.

I thanked Crews for catching the bass and we took off. It was kind of funny.

He ended up having a really solid day with the 5th best bag. But the way it worked out he didn't move up a single spot, and finished 16th. Amazingly, the guy just ahead of him was Charlie Hartley, who started the day in second.

Crews has had some really solid tournaments, and some great days out there on the pro tour. His best finish is a third. I think it's only a matter of time before he puts it all together and gets his first win.

As my good friend and Roanoke Times photographer Sam Dean and I once sat in the pouring rain at our primitive camping spot deep in Virginia's wilderness, we got to talking about epic outdoor experiences. The days (and nights) that really push you. They can be brutal, but they're part of the outdoor experience, and something of a badge of honor actually.

I earned another badge yesterday.

I spent the day with Jeff Freeman (above) of Max Meadows, who is competing for the first time in the Bassmaster Classic at Lake Hartwell in South Carolina.

Just getting on the boat required a 3:30 a.m., wake-up, not exactly pleasant for a non-morning person such as myself, but not all that unusual for me, either.

At launch time the temperatures were in the mid-30s and it was raining. And it kept raining. All morning.

My Gore-Tex gear, which isn't really intended for fishing, did only an OK job keeping me dry. My camo hunting parka eventually became saturated. My 10-year-old ski pants did better, but they ride down on my butt, so water got in at my waist while I was sitting in the wet boat seat. My old ski gloves sucked, frankly. I would have to pull out the fleece liners every 30 minutes and ring them out.

That said, it could have been much, much worse. My head was warm thanks to my trusty windproof fleece hat. (Props to Mountain Hardwear.) My other most important pieces of gear were a cheap neoprene face mask I bought during a frigid ski trip last year and a new set of cheap ski goggles I got before this trip. Without those two things, running at 65 m.p.h. would have been murder. But it was OK. Really, I didn't start shivering too bad until after we got back to the dock at 3:15.

In his Helly Hansen rain suit, Jeff stayed dry. But he doesn't like to fish with gloves so his hands froze. He kept blowing on his hands to warm them up. It got better eventually, he said, because his hands got too numb to be in pain.

He was also coughing bad because of a lingering cold. But even though he may have been miserable, he never let on.

Sitting on a bass boat watching a guy fish for 8 hours can test anyone's patience,even when the weather is nice. Really, yesterday went pretty fast. Jeff moved around quite a bit, which kept it interesting. And he managed to catch fish reasonably regularly. (He had seven keepers and is 17th place after Day One. Full story here.) Plus, he talked and let me talk. Not a lot -- which is understandable given how hard they have to concentrate -- but enough. Some of these guys will stand up there casting and not say a word all day.

Sometimes it takes some recovery time to look back on and appreciate an epic day. I don't need time, this time. It wasn't an easy day to be out there, but I'm glad I was.

I'm not on the boat today. I've got some writing to do this morning, then hope to hit the outdoors expo for a couple of hours before the weigh-in.

I just got to Greenville, S.C., where I'll spend the next three days covering the Bassmaster Classic.

I don't normally cover bass tournaments outside Western Virginia, but there are a couple of interesting local angles here.

One is that pro angler John Crews of Salem is fishing in the tournament. But I actually did some pretty significant coverage when he fished in his first Classic (in Pittsburgh in 2005) so I probably wouldn't have gotten the OK to come down just to cover him again.

My main focus out of the gate will be on Jeff Freeman, an amateur angler from Max Meadows. He's a full-time deputy who worked his way through a series of quailifying tournaments to earn a spot here. Basically, it's like a guy from your local country club earning a spot in the U.S. Open.

While Freeman is a longshot, it's not impossible for an amateur to win this thing. Bryan Kerchal did it in 1994.

I'll be on the boat with Freeman tomorrow. It promises to be an interesting day. The weather is supposed to be in the low 40s (at best) with rain. It's tough enough to fish in conditions like that. But I'll just be sitting there. I can only hope my Gore-Tex gear functions properly and that Freeman is really slaying 'em, which will make it more tolerable.

How Freeman and Crews do tomorrow will tailor my coverage on Saturday and Sunday. In addition to my stories that run daily in The Roanoke Times, I'll be posting additional info on the blog throughout the weekend.

I floated the New River the other day with my buddy Tom "Perch" Maynard, a river guide who wanted to do some scouting for walleyes before taking trips with clients of his New River Angler guide business. Also along was Tom's buddy Chuck Hagedorn, a professor at Virginia Tech who was hoping for some goose action on the final day of the season.

In one of the first runs I felt a tap on my jig and set the hook a freight train.

I knew it was too strong to be a walleye or even a big smallmouth bass. So I was thinking it was a big flathead catfish. When I finally got the thing close I could see it was a big carp -- and it was snagged right behind the dorsal.

Had we been in a hurry I would have ended it but I figured I'd try to get the thing in. Eventually I did, and it weighed 18.1 pounds. That's my career best by rod and reel, but I know it doesn't really count because it was snagged.

The carp was just one highlight of the trip, which I also wrote about in my Sunday column in The Roanoke Times. I also managed to catch the first walleye of my life, and hooked a big smallmouth that broke my heart when the hook pulled.

The other guys did their share. Tom had a couple walleyes and just missed a big smallmouth. And Chuck was the dominator on geese.

How cool is it when you can catch carp, smallmouth and wallleyes and bust a bunch of geese in a single trip?

Karen Thomas of Daleville caught this big bass Tuesday morning while fishing on the St. Johns River in Palatka, Fla., during a retreat with fellow Norfolk Souther employees. The fish, which weighed 8.43 pounds and was the largest caught in two days, hit a live shiner. Karen awas fishing with guide Tom Pierce.

While the fishing may be good in Florida, we've got a ways to go before the bass bite picks up around here. But things usually get going pretty well by mid-March with the pre-spawn so start getting that tackle readey.

Usually, to catch a monster trout like this gorgeous 22-inch long brown on a fly rod, you have to pull out the big guns -- a big streamer.

But Stephen Hiner tricked this big female with a size 18 blue-winged olive (BWO) dry fly, while fishing on the South Holston tailwater in Tennessee earlier this month.

For those of you not too familiar with fly fishing, a size 18 BWO is only slightly bigger than a piece of lint. Or this "X". He was also using 6X tippet, which was probably around 3-pound-test.

Hiner said the only way he was able to get his hands on the fish was because Bruce Wankel of the Virginia Creeper Fly Shop helped him net the thing.

If you want to fish for some of the biggest (and toughest) trout in the country, do yourself a favor and head to the South Holston tailwater.

Yesterday the board of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries appointed Bob Duncan as its new director.

This was a big departure from recent hires.

Duncan's predecessor was Carlton Courter, a guy with an agriculture background who had been the head of the state's ag department for a number of years. The guy before that was Bill Woodfin, who had previously been the director of the state's Department of Waste Management .

Duncan, on the other hand, is a career wildlife professional. He's been with the DGIF since 1978, and the chief of the DGIF's Wildlife Division for 18 years.

We all know what happened with Woodfin. Courter, the guy they hoped could lead the agency out from under the scandal shadow, lasted just 13 months.

The question is, is Duncan the right guy to get things rolling at the agency? I think it's a pretty good move.

Anyone care to agree? Or disagree?

And what do you see as his top priorities?

My good buddy Freddy McGuire sent me a note Friday asking if I wanted to tag along the next morning on a goose hunt with him and Dale Harless (pictured above) on the New River. When I said "yes," his next note included this line:

"We saw a ton of geese last time and really should kill them pretty good."

He had the sense to add this note after that sentence: "(Warning: kiss of death.)"

And that wasn't the only one.

It's a pretty well-known fact that if you want to ruin a hunt or fishing trip, you just have to invite an outdoor writer.

Making matters worse, both Freddy and I were bringing video cameras.

So, Dale noted, we had the triple kiss of death working against us.

We were on the river before 6 a.m. (which required a 3:15 a.m. wake-up for me, which is about as bad as it gets).

Things started getting worrisome early. The previous weekend Freddy and Dale had bumped a bunch of geese while floating down to their hunting area. Saturday, we bumped two.

About 7:30 a pair of geese came in to our spread. They were crossing overhead and maybe we should have let them go in hopes of getting them to come back in. But they offered me a decent shot so I took it. And missed. Twice.

We had pairs -- possibly the same geese -- come back a couple more times, but couldn't get shots.

That was it.

It could have been worse. The weather was actually pretty decent (which certainly didn't help the hunting). And at least when you're sitting in a blind (or blinded boat) you can talk, drink hot coffee or cocoa and eat.

We saw a few geese on the river on the drive home so they haven't all headed south. But I'm guessing it will be pretty slow for the final days of the season, which ends Feb. 15.