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As I wrote about in my Tuesday column in The Roanoke Times, Pete Eshelman of the Roanoke Regional Partnership has put together a pretty cool event Sept. 30 at the Mill Mountain Theatre.

The evening starts with the Roanokeoutside.com Expo, starting at 5:30 p.m. The Expo -- a social mixer, really -- will feature representatives from about 20 of the area's outdoors clubs and organizations.

At 6:45 p.m. the Banff Mountain Film Festival's Radical Reels will be shown in the theater. The film fest is nine separate short films featuring epic action in gorgeous locations.

I've got three pairs of tickets to the event to give away. Just send me an e-mail by noon Thursday if you want a pair. If I get more than three replies I'll just draw for the winners.

Like probably most of the people who read this blog, when I'm driving my eyes are constantly scanning the woods around me looking for game. I like to joke that it's a habit picked up from years of road hunting.

This morning I was on my way to the James River for a canoe trip when I spotted something black in a patch of open woods. I slammed on my brakes.

This sow had two little cubs with her. To my amazement she just hung out about 60 yards away while I took some pictures. The guys who were with me, who are visiting Roanoke for the weekend, were congratulating me for having arranged for them to see my tame bear.

I wish the shots were better but I had some equipment limitations so I don't know that I could have done much better.

We also saw several deer (no bucks) as well as a pretty good gang of hens and juvenile turkeys.

It was also a beautiful morning on the river. Overall a great day.

The other day I was in the photo department discussing the Tucked-Away Treasures series with photographer Sam Dean. Another shooter piped up, "I want to go on next summer's series."

I was holding a print of this photo at the time. I showed it to the photographer and said, "Yeah, doesn't this look like fun?"

This rainy day at Hungry Mother Lake was stop two on a 30-hour trip that included five hours of driving and a "break" spent trying to sleep for a few hours in a leaky tent. Plus, the fishing sucked.

Who wouldn't want to do that, huh?

As anyone who spends a lot of time outdoors -- being it hiking, fishing, hunting, biking, paddling, or whatever -- knows, it can get kind of miserable out there.

I'm not complaining. I love the outdoors, and being out there in difficult conditions is part of the deal. I'd go as far as saying it's part of the fun. I'd be out there anyway, so it's a nice bonus when it's actually part of the job.

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.

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.

Have you ever seen a good bluefish blitz? The kind where a school of big chompers just attacks a school of prey? It's unreal.

I felt like I was in the middle of a blitz on Sunday when, after getting some project supplies at Home Depot, I swung into the soon-to-close Sportsman's Warehouse.

The place was an absolute zoo, with lines at that registers that stretched back toward the middle of the store.

Now, I could understand a buying blitz if everything in the store was 50 percent off. But most of what I saw was discounted 10 percent, although fishing terminal tackle was 20 percent off. The best I saw was 30 percent off hunting clothes, some of which already had previous discounts.

Now, 10 percent is better than nothing, 20 percent is getting somewhere and 30 percent is good. But the 10- and 20 percent discounts have been common at the store. All you had to do was get your hands on the discount cards SW handed out like candy at outdoors events and meetings.

The only thing I can figure is that everybody showed up looking for killer deals. When they saw the huge crowds they figured they better get in on the action, even without killer deals, for fear the items they were after would quickly sell out.

"I've had my eye on this tin of pellets for a while but I just couldn't do it when they were $3.99. But now that they're $3.60, I'm all over it! Yeah, man! I saved 40 cents! Now I excuse me while I go spend the next half hour in line."

Strange.

Late last night I got a tip that Sportsman's Warehouse in Roanoke would be closing. The news was just confirmed by the company's corporate headquarters.

The Roanoke store is one of 23 locations Sportsman's Warehouse plans to liquidate.

The store opened in the fall of 2007, and was welcomed by the region's sportmen, who had been clamoring for large outdoor retailer.

Timing was difficult, however. Not only did the store open at the front end of what has become a nasty economic downturn, but just a few months later a large Gander Mountain store opened just a few miles away.

Sportsman's Warehouse had plenty of fans in the region. Many sportsmen were grateful for the company's support of local outdoors conservation groups and efforts. For example, they were key supporters for this past fall's Hunters for the Hungry fundraising banquet.

Stay tuned to this blog and to The Roanoke Times Business section for more on this developing story. 

In the meantime, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the news.

This will be one of those winter afternoons when it would be nice to sneak out of work a bit (or a lot) early for some outdoors fun.

Forecasters are calling for temperatures around 60 degrees in Roanoke. After the weather we've been having, it's going to feel like Florida.

I'm always amazed on days like this by the number of people I find fishing at lakes and ponds. I'm generally an optimist. But as nice as the air temperature is, the water temperature is still frigid and one nice day is not going to send bass, sunfish and other such lake dwellers on a feeding frenzy. Maybe these anglers know this and just don't care. And, of course, there's nothing wrong with just getting out and fishing even if you're not going to catch much (or anything).

Now, I will say that when we get a real significant warm snap of several days in late January or February it can really turn on the crappie fishing. When the water warms a few degrees those fish will find the warm water and if you find them, the action can be good.

On a day like this I think trout are probably the most appropriate target because they are relatively active in cold water. On a stream with wild fish, you might actually see a hatch today. Something like little stoneflies. So it can be a chance to get away from the nymphs you've been fishing for the past couple of months.

Stocked trout waters can be great on a day like today. It's been a quiet week for stalking but a few area waters have gotten trout. In Franklin County, Runnett Bag Creek and the Pigg River were stocked on Tuesday. Mill Creek and the Maury River in Rockbridge County also got fish that day. Bedford County's Liberty Lake was stocked yesterday (Jan. 22). I don't know what's on the stocking schedule for today.

Someone told me that the Pigg River stocking was a little unusual this time. Apparently the river (which is really more like a creek) was pretty socked in with ice on Tuesday so all of the fish went into just a few spots that were open. So the fish were pretty concentrated. That ice should be gone by now but it probably wouldn't be hard to find the spots. Just look for the crowds. Of course, I'm guessing those crowds have hammered the fish pretty good by now.

I just got an interesting press release from Jim Shockey's people, who want to clear up confusion regarding a Barrack Obama radio ad featuring Ray Schoenke. (If you listen to ESPN radio in Roanoke or Lynchburg you've probably heard the ad.) The gist of the release? Ray Schoenke is not Jim Shockey.

Who are they?

Jim Shockey is an outdoor personality, video host and writer. If you watch hunting shows or read hunting magazines, you've seen Jim Shockey killing everything from whitetails to African game.

Ray Schoenke is a former Washington Redskins player who is now the vice president of the American Hunters and Shooters Association, which could be called a moderate gun control group or moderate gun rights group, depending on your perspective.

The pronunciation's of Schoenke's name (SHON-kee) does sound kind of like SHOCK-ee. But "Ray" doesn't sound much like "Jim." At least not to me. But I guess it does to others because Shockey, according to his people, has been the target of criticism from people who think he is supporting Obama.

Here's a quote from the release:

"The fact that people don't take the time to investigate the facts before they lash out has caused substantial confusion. Many of Jim's TV sponsors, licensees and business partners have received e-mails and phone calls from angry consumers saying that they will never again buy their products."

Really? Could that many people have heard "Ray SHON-kee" and thought "Jim Shockey"? I doubt it.

I suspect that a few people (or maybe one person) heard this wrong and started sending e-mails and posting to Internet message boards. It went viral, prompting those angry e-mails from a lot of people who never heard the ad. In short: just another episode showing the potential powers and dangers of the Internet.

But, as long as we're on the subject of mistaken identity... At Sportsman's Warehouse in Roanoke there's a mount of a great 10-point whitetail killed by Mark Taylor. I get a lot of compliments on the buck. But, while I wish I had killed it, I didn't. It was another Mark Taylor.

There are a few things in life that really drive me crazy. Things like whiny kids. Lying politicians. Sniveling celebrities. Obnoxious pro athletes. Paris Hilton. Cougar sightings in Virginia.

Some of you may find that offensive. Sorry. But I just can't stand Paris Hilton.

As for the cougars, people I know, like and trust swear they've seen them. I want to believe them. I really do. But based on the number of reported sightings, there would be some hard evidence. But there's not.

Maybe there's a former pet big cat or two running around out there. Maybe. Wild cougars? I'm not buying it.

I believe these folks are seeing something. But what? I'm guessing bobcats like the one above -- a monster caught on a trailcam in Franklin County -- account for a lot of "cougar" sightings. No. It doesn't have a long tail. Yes it has spots. But if you just catch a glimpse, are you really looking for the tail and spots?

Coyotes probably account for a lot of other sightings. And deer. And foxes. And house cats. And stumps.

It's not always easy to ID wild critters when your looking at them in pictures -- as evidenced by a current vaturkey.com message board discussion about two canines caught on a trail camera. They are clearly juvenile coyotes. Or maybe they're foxes. And is that a turkey in the background?

When you catch just a fleeting glimpse of anything in the wild It can be really tough to know exactly what you saw. I mean, on a deer hunt last year I saw a deer run by me so fast I couldn't even tell it was a deer. So, maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was a cougar. Or a sasquatch. Or a yeti.

The point is, until there is hard proof, there are no cougars.

You hear tales about hunters who have killed them, but didn't want to tell anyone for fear or getting in trouble. Yeah, right.

The one I really love is the story about bear hound hunters treeing cougars, but not shooting them or even reporting the sightings because they knew no one would believe them. Well, if you show up with a dead cougar, they're going to believe you. Heck, if you show up with a picture of an actual cougar in a tree they will believe you. And don't tell me these houndsmen don't have cameras. They do. They don't take pictures because they don't tree cougars.

Then there are the trailcams. Anyone want to guess how many trailcams are out there in Virginia? I wouldn't be surprised if it's 25,000 or more. And a lot of them sit over piles of bait that attract things like deer, squirrels, turkeys, raccoons and other cougar food. I've seen great trailcam shots of bobcats attacking deer. Eventually, a camera would get a picture of a deer getting nailed by a cougar over a bait pile. If there were cougars around. Which there aren't.

Cougars are verified in the Midwest. They can travel great distances. Eventually one or more will actually end up in Virginia. And when it happens, it won't take long for actual proof to appear.

For now, there is no proof. To me, that means no cougars.