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As promised, here's the second shot Ralph sent.

You've got to respect a guy who will share not only the good from his adventures afield, but also the ugly!

And, man, two Owner trebles buried deep in a guy's head looks ugly.

Ralph's son, Justin, was the unlucky receipient of the plug in the head -- something that can happen when three people are fishing out of a 15-foot boat.

The good news is Justin said the pain really wasn't bad. The bad news is he was so surprised by the blow that he dropped an expensive rod and reel combo into the lake. (Guess Ralph owes his boy a new outfit, huh?)

The trio headed off to hospital in Bedford where a doctor quickly removed the hooks, then had an early breakfast at McDonald's before heading home to download and laugh at the pictures from their interesting night on Smith Mountain Lake.

Ralph Barton sent in this great shot from a fishing trip he took with his daughter, Ashley Barton Weeks, and son Justin last night.

This trip was extra special, Ralph said, because 26-year-old Ashley was out of commission for a while battling -- and beating! -- some health issues and this was her first time back on the water.

Barton has been focusing on the night bite at Smith Mountain Lake and this trip was no different. Ashley's striper hit a slowly waked surface plug.

This wasn't the only "catch" of the night. Barton sent in another picture that I will post soon.

When I was a kid, one of our summertime traditions as soon as school was out was to pull out our old, musty, canvas Wenzel cabin tent and pitch it in the backyard.

For the next three months that tent would be our daytime fort and our nighttime bedroom. Most summers we slept outside far more often than inside.

The other day I spotted a couple of tents in a yard in Southwest Roanoke. That's something you don't see too often these days. It got me thinking I should do a story for The Roanoke Times on this once-popular summertime tradition. Timing seems appropriate as this Saturday is the National Wildlife Federation's Great American Backyard Campout. (The above image is from the Web site.)

So, I'm wondering how many readers of this blog have fond memories of those backyard campouts? And would you be willing to share those tales with me and readers of The Roanoke Times? Of course, if your kids are continuing the tradition, I'd love to hear about that, too.

If you'd wouldn't mind talking for the story, just drop me an e-mail at mark.taylor@roanoke.com or call me at 540-981-3395. Also, feel free to share any stories here by commenting.

Now, this is the kind of drift boat that will turn heads. In fact, owner Keith Andrew says he's had folks pull u-turns to follow him and ask about the boat.

Andrews, who lived in Blacksburg until moving to Owensboro, Ky. in 2004, built the boat with his son Trey. Andrews is a Hokie, and said he was hoping the design draw attention and give him an oppotunity to talk about Virginia Tech and the Blacksburg area. They launched the boat on April 16.

Andrews said he and Trey put more than 700 man hours into the effort and, even in this photo, the craftsmanship is obvious. Andrews said he hopes to haul the boat back here later this summer for some fishing on the New and James, and I hope to get a personal look at it then.

Sorry the blog has been pretty quiet the past week or so. I just returned from a trip to Grand Rapids, Mich. for the Outdoor Writers Association of America conference.

Attendance wasn't great, which wasn't unexpected given that we media types have really been hammered by this tough economy. But it was still a really productive, educational and fun conference.

The main mission of the conference is to help communicators, be they writers, photographers, video producers or radio hosts, do their jobs better. To that end the conference features a lot of workshops, panel discussions and seminars. Conference planners also bring in "newsmakers" -- important and relevant figures in the outdoors industry and community. It's a great place for writers to meet editors, and there are also folks from the industry there to show off their new products in the hopes we will give them some publicity.

One of the key draws for me has been getting the chance to just hang out with some of the legends of outdoors communication, many of whom I grew up reading.

When I was a teenager growing up in Oregon, I read everything Bill Monroe of the Portland Oregonian wrote. Two years ago, when the conference was in Roanoke, Bill was hanging out at my house for a cookout. He even brought a big piece of smoked salmon.

In Michigan I spent a lot of time talking about hunter recruitment and retention -- and OWAA recruitment and retention -- with Wade Bourne, a well known writer, TV and radio personality from Tennessee.

The last night of the conference Jim Zumbo was one of the guys sitting at our table in the hotel's sports bar. Yes, Zumbo ticked a lot of people off a couple years ago (and has since been working hard to recover from backlash), but there's no disputing his stature as one of the most visible, influential, appreciated outdoors writers of the past 30 years.

Then there are all the guys (and a few gals) in my generation, some of whom are on their way to becoming icons. We talk a lot, and not about our outdoors adventures. We talk about writing, photography, video, blogs, business strategies and the like. We talk shop because we're all so into this.

My one regret is that I didn't build in an extra day before or after the conference to go fishing. The smallmouth fishing up there is unreal. One of my buddies, Brent Frazee of the Kansas City Star, went to a lake about two hours north of Grand Rapids and just crushed the smallmouths. I think he said they had at least a dozen fish over 4 pounds. And that's just an average day on those lakes up there.

If the water drops a little more in some of our rivers I may try to get out this weekend for a little smallmouth action around here.

Cindy Turlington won the big fish category at this past weekend's Smith Mountain Striper Club tournament with this nice 13.1-pound striper. She was fishing with Frank Skillman and Danita Stokes, and they finished second with a two-fish total of 20.04 pounds.

Butch and Jeff Shaffer teamed up to win with a total of21.02 pounds.

The tournament drew 21 teams and a total of 49 anglers. The teams weighed in 17 fish weighing a total of 129.44 pounds.

Eighteen-year-old Jacob Creasy of Troutville killed this nice gobbler on May 5 near Buchanan. He was hunting with his dad, who did the calling. This was one of those quick hunts -- 20 minutes worth -- with the pair back at the truck by 6:50 a.m.

The gobbler weighed 21 pounds, had a 9.75-inch beard and 1 1/8-inch spurs.

For those who might not have caught my Tuesday column in The Roanoke Times, I reported that electronic checking numbers for spring gobblers were up 18 percent over the 2008 season. That doesn't mean the kill was up because the DGIF still has to count all the birds that were tallied at check stations. That process usually takes a couple of months so we won't have solid figures for a while.

Regular poster Static Lines, aka Terry Barber, has gotten in on the fun distraction muskies are providing for many New River smallmouth bass anglers.

Well, I guess it's not fun for everybody as I've actually heard that some anglers who are focused on smallmouths have found these toothy critters bothersome because they're tearing up or tearing loose some pricy lures.

Barber's fish, which was 30 inches long, hit a Diawa jerkbait (which it ruined, according to Barber).

Despite the heavy rain we've gotten, the Saturday Roanoke River float planned by the Float Fishermen of Virginia is still on. Ken Ingram, the float's organizer, sent below note earlier today. I'm just posting it now because I've been out on an assignment (getting soaked) all day. The event starts at 9:30 a.m. at Rotary Park in Salem, just downstream from the intersection of Apperson and Electric Road.

The article today was great. I've gotten quite a few calls today so the word is getting out.If you have time to get something in the paper, please remind people to bring safety gear."

The board of directors of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has unanimously voted to reject a proposal to pull the bear tag from the state's big game license and establish a separate bear license.

The issue was among dozens of proposed changes considered by the board.

The idea had been brought forward in February by members of the Virginia Bear Hunters Association, a group of hunters who hunt bears with hounds. Some have said they feel bears deserve to be more than just bonus animals for deer hunters who luck into one of the animals. They also said they believed a separate bear tag could raise $300,000 to $400,000 annually for the game department.

Many deer hunters were critical of the bear license proposal, and plenty said they would expect the fee for the deer and turkey tags to be reduced if the bear tag was pulled from the big game license.

The VBHA seemed to expect the outcome. While they have flooded some DGIF board meetings when bear-related issues were on the agenda, only seven spoke during today's public comment period. And while several mentioned their support for the license, the bear hunters actually were more focused on criticizing expanded bow, rifle and muzzleloader seasons for bears (all of which were approved, by the way), and on what they believe is abuse of special permits issued for nuisance bears.

I'm getting ready to hit the road for the drive back to Roanoke. I'll have a more detailed report on the meeting, including on other proposals, in tomorrow's Roanoke Times.