Crappies are an interesting fish. In mid and late summer they can seemingly disappear from a body of water that was infested with them just a few weeks earlier. They have a unique appearance: It’s hard to mistake a crappie for a different type of fish. Walleyes look much like sauger, ...

Medicine has come a long way since I was a kid and they used hypodermic needles over and over. If you were the poor soul who got a shot with a blunt needle it felt like the doctor or nurse was driving a 40-penny nail into your arm (or other even more tender portion of the anatomy.) Back in the ...

It started way back at least fifty years ago. That’s when I developed an interest in fishing. In that era, fishing was a summer thing. Not many people fished through the ice in the winter, and we went to school in the spring and fall, so all of the fishing that we did was in the summer. ...

While I was never a “mama’s boy” I had a good relationship with my mother and miss her daily. Mom passed away in November 2018 at the age of 91. Some of my favorite memories of Mom are the words and phrases she used and in my mind I still hear them often. Mom grew up one of 12 ...

In my over fifty years of fishing, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to fish from a variety of boats and boat styles. Some were outstanding fishing rigs, others not so much. Fishing partners and I have shared space in flat-bottom jonboats, high end bass boats, deep-vee multi-specie boats, ...

As we plan for the start of what is sure to be an unusual beginning to the school year in theWebster City Community Schools, we are hard at work preparing for a variety of scenarios. Specifically, there are four main options for how teaching and learning might look starting Aug. 24. The ...

When a person decides to go fishing, a primary goal is to catch some fish. And, while we certainly enjoy the time spent with our boat partner or just being on the water, catching a few or a bunch of fish is the main reason that we go fishing. We know that we’re not always going to catch ...

When I was a youngster in the early 1950s many families did not yet have a television set in their homes. For some families ̶ including my own ̶ it was an economic issue as TV sets were still quite expensive. For some families ̶ including my own ̶ it was a religious issue. There ...

The summer of 2020 is here. For most anglers, spring fishing success has ranged from “pretty darn good” to “outstanding” to quote many. Summer fishing is different than spring fishing. Some people who fish refer to fishing in July and August as the “Dog Days”, and they’re not ...

I met this group of old guys in Akron, Iowa. They have coffee every morning between 6 am and 9 am. The mayor thought I would like their story. The coffee wasn't bad either. They call themselves the Old Geezers Club. Several of the fellows brought their woodworking tools to outfit a shared ...

A new fishing season is under way. Now is a good time to remember what fishing techniques have worked in the past, but we should also remind ourselves to revise those techniques when the fish aren’t responding to them. Here’s what I mean. Trolling with crankbaits has become a popular ...

The United States Postal Service and I go back a longways. My first memories of U.S. Mail are from 1951. I was three-years-old and we lived on a farm on the south side of the gravel road that was the Iowa-Minnesota state line. Though we lived in Iowa our mailing address was Frost, Minnesota, ...

Several years ago a list of jokes about “dumb men” made the rounds via e-mail. This was before Facebook became a joke-sharing medium. As I recall, most men laughed at the “dumb men” jokes, just as many blondes did when the “dumb blond” jokes made the rounds. Having worked with ...

You may call me frugal, if you wish. You may even call me thrifty. Just don’t call me a cheapskate. Growing up in a large low-income can teach money management skills difficult to learn under other circumstances. My childhood circumstances led me to a life of frugality. My mother could ...

Resiliency has been a buzz word over the last few years in relation to trauma. How to build resiliency in ourselves and in our children, however, is not discussed as much as the effects of what happens to people who are not as resilient as others. It is inevitable that a person will have to ...

The early part of the fishing season is a great time to be on the water: It just feels good, and the fishing can be good also. Knowing a little bit about how fish go about their reproductive ritual can help us catch even more fish. Most of the fish that live in Midwest waters spawn in the ...

Editor’s Note: Carrie Olson Tagg is a graduate of Webster City High School and a former Daily Freeman-Journal reporter. Today, she lives with her husband and daughter in Pennsylvania. When the quarantine started, it was recommended by a couple people that I write a blog post on my ...

During these uncertain times, many people are experiencing higher levels of mental health challenges. It is important to do what we can to help not only ourselves, but also others around us. One of the most important things one can do at this time is to take care of ourselves and encourage ...

Several weeks into the Great Quarantine of 2020 one of the topics I am seeing discussed on Facebook is hugs and how much people miss them. People are missing the physical contact denied by social distancing. For the most part, I grew up in a non-hugging family. We are of northern European ...

I think my ice-fishing season is over for now. I didn’t get to go ice-fishing as much as I would have liked, but that’s the way it is most years. Today I started sorting through my open water fishing tackle boxes to see what I needed to start the open water season. One thought kept going ...