The Wildland Journal

Inshore fishing has been on the list of things to try my hand at going back several years now. Freshwater fishing has been my most persistent hobby for the past 10 years, but each time we visit the beach for family vacation, the urge to broaden my fishing out into saltwater has become a little bit stronger. But it's kind of an exclusive expertise. As I'd sit watching fisherman at the piers and in the surf, it wasn't lost on me that the fish they were pulling in weren't just unfamiliar, they were fish I'd literally never seen before in my life. So a couple years ago after a visit to the gulf coast, I decided to set in motion the plans for a saltwater fishing exploration trip, on a small scale and with people I wasn't worried about making a total fool of myself in front of. Move ahead to 2019, and we'd picked a place (Cedar Key, FL) and a time (first week of October) and a group (my dad and I). I can't recall how Cedar Key became the place. I think I ...

Carter’s Lake is an impoundment of the Coosawattee River in north Georgia, situated northeast of the town of Calhoun and southwest of the town of Ellijay. It’s a 3,200 acre lake and is the deepest lake in Georgia at 450’. I was up in Chatsworth for work a couple months back and decided to do some casual exploring of the western edge of the lake. The area surrounding Chatsworth is an absolutely beautiful part of north Georgia, and places nearby, like Fort Mountain and Cohutta Wilderness, are at the very top of the list of my favorite places to poke around. My first stop was the what they call the Reregulation Lake, which is seemingly just a smaller lake at the base of the lake proper. Aside from a pretty fascinating view of the giant earth dam holding back the lake, there wasn’t a whole lot to it, and I moved on from there to the gated dam and fishing area. Considering it was the middle of the day in the middle of the week, I was surprised to find quite a few folks fishing. It ...

With some extra time on my hands yesterday and some extra leather lying around, I worked up a new band for my Timex Weekender. Its a great watch, but the band was made of some impossibly thin fabric/canvas that never quite did it for me. And although a new band had been on the "try" list for some time, the idea of making a watchband has been an intimidating project. Something about the small dimensions and the needed uniformity, I think. This model has a 38mm case and a 19mm band. I have slowly and stealthily stolen many of my leatherwork tools from my wife's sewing supply bin. Most recently, I freed a rotary tool from her, and it cuts leather like a dream! I'd been using an xacto knife up to this point, but I can't promote the rotary tool for this task enough. I wish I'd discovered that option long ago! Normally glue isn't part of my leatherworking process, but it did prove to be helpful this time holding some of the small folds in place. It ...

Keown Falls is a spot near Calhoun that has been on my list for years, but because it isn't a very dramatic location and slightly distant from my usual haunts, I only visited for the first time this week.  Considering the time of year, there weren't many folks out in the park. Some shooting was happening at the nearby Chestnut Mountain range, but the trailheads were empty as well as the roads. The Keown Falls trail is a very mild looping hike through a beautiful stretch of woods, with the small creek that feeds the falls running alongside part of the way. The trail climbs up the side of one ridge, offering  distant views of the curious accompanying ridge that runs north-south through the John's Mountain Wilderness Area. If you look at this area on the map, and zoom out, there are some interesting formations of distinct ridges, valleys, and the bowl that Lake Marvin sits in. Reaching the top of this trail, the falls became audible, but I understand this creek is ...

This stout Fieldcraft knife has been sitting neglected on my workbench for about a year now. I had removed the handle and hardware on a whim about that time, made a serviceable but ultimately unsatisfying wood handle, and then at the same time lost the hardware needed to put the original micarta scales back on. Somewhere in the middle of all that, an  ESEE 3HM  found it's way here and that sorta de-prioritized this rebuild for a while. But over this Christmas break, I needed an inside project and this came back to mind. There's pretty much always 1/4" oak laying around the garage, and the black G10 pins were a cheap pickup off ebay. The G10 is an interesting alternative to the usual brass, nickle, or stainless options for pins, and with wood scales especially, the contrast of colors is eye catching. It's been a long while since I wrote about a knife build, but it's pretty much the same battery of tools - Harbor Freight 1"x30" belt sande...

For Christmas this year, I picked up a Henry Small Game Carbine in .22lr. It's a beautiful little gun and perfect as is, so I don't plan to really do anything to it. Over the course of a couple evenings this week, I did make up a leather buttstock cover to protect the wood and add make it a little more my own without doing anything permanent.