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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 2023

- COMPETITION -
Winning back-to-back titles at the National Archery in the Schools Program Nebraska state tournament were Harrison Harvey of Lincoln Southwest in the high school division, Ayla Salistean of Milford in the middle school division and Paul Ng of Omaha Mater Dei Academy in the elementary division.
Lapua is supporting the 2023 United States F-Class team as they compete this week at the World Championships in South Africa.
Congratulations to Vihtavuori team member Doug Koenig on winning the 2023 Accuracy International Long Range Classic.
Leupold & Stevens, Inc. announced that Leupold Pro Shooter Doug Koenig won the Accuracy International Long Range Classic hosted by Altus Shooting Solutions, March 11-12, 2023 in Baker, Florida.
- CONSERVATION -
Valuable wildlife habitat and important cultural lands will be permanently conserved following the Biden administration’s designation Tuesday of Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in southern Nevada and Castner Range National Monument in west Texas.

The NWTF is accepting applications for its Wild Turkey Research Request for Proposals, a program that facilitates and makes investments in support of priority wild turkey research projects across the country.
- EVENTS -
Primary Weapons Systems will showcase the BDE (Bravo Delta Echo) line of modular suppressors with caliber-specific options for 22 LR, 9mm Luger, 5.56x45mm and 7.62x51mm at the range in Clinton, South Carolina during Palmetto State Armory's event, The Gathering.
Lone Wolf will join multiple firearms and accessories companies and other shooting industry members at Palmetto State Armory’s The Gathering, March 24-25.
Nilodor offers their Bio-enzymatic Turf and Kennel Wash at this year’s Global Pet Expo in Orlando, Florida. Nilodor’s Bio-enzymatic Kennel and Turf Wash Cleaner Concentrate with Odor Eliminator is a product for any scenario to completely rid your home or facility from stains and odors.

Texas Trophy Hunters Association announced the upcoming dates of the 47th Annual Hunters Extravaganzas in August 2023 making stops in Houston, Fort Worth, and San Antonio.
- FIREARMS -
The CZ 75 is renowned for its comfortable grip, smooth factory trigger system, and distinctive slide-in-frame design. The current compact versions of these pistols include the 75 Compact, 75 PCR, and 75 P-01.
- FISHING TOURNAMENTS -
The U.S. Army’s Outdoor Team will be spotlighted to thousands of avid fishing fans from around the country as part of the iconic Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Toyota March 24-26.
- GRANTS -
Whitetails Unlimited has already raised more than $58,000 for the Catch-A-Dream Foundation and is only halfway through the Dream Sheds V Program. Since the inception of Dream Sheds in 2012, Whitetails Unlimited has provided grants totaling more than $644,000 to the Catch-A-Dream Foundation through the program.

Indiana DNR Director Dan Bortner announced that organizations in 23 Indiana counties across the state will receive $864,610 in grants to fund 34 lake and stream projects through the Lake and River Enhancement (LARE) program.
- HUNTING -
Iowa’s spring turkey hunting begins April 7 with a youth only season, followed by four shorter individual gun/bow seasons and one long archery-only season beginning April 10.
- INDUSTRY -
SLG2, Inc. announced GLOCK is the first recipient of the Safe LivinG Excellence in Safety Award. Through community outreach, commitment to public safety and its partnership with Safe LivinG, GLOCK demonstrates exemplary performance in advocating for safety in shooting sports and personal protection.
Dangersoup announced that they will be working with QuietKat to help them with their public and media relations efforts. QuietKat is an industry leader in the electric bike space, and they are dedicated to providing customers the most capable all-terrain electric bikes.

Hunting Wire Editor Jay Pinsky was presented with The Outdoor Stewards of Conservation Foundation inaugural ‘Outdoor Industry Communicator of the Year Award.'
- INSTRUCTION -
Range Ready, in association with Gun Talk Media, expands class offerings to the public. Southern Louisiana’s premier training facility opens enrollment for numerous classes, including their Semi-Auto Pistol Operator 1 (SAP01) course that is set to begin April 20th – 21st.
- LITIGATION -
NSSF praised the U.S. District Court, Central District of California, Southern Division’s order granting a preliminary injunction for the plaintiffs blocking enforcement of California’s "Unsafe Handgun" Act. The case, Boland v. Bonta, was filed shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen decision.
- MEDIA -
B&T USA is excited to announce that its APC223 and RBS556 suppressor has been selected by On Target Magazine for its cover and cover feature article within the publication's popular Personal Defense issue hitting newsstands next week.

- NEW PRODUCTS -
Legacy Sports International announced the addition of the Pointer Side–By–Side Shotgun lineup for 2023. The line features Turkish Walnut stocks, chrome-lined barrels with 3" chambers and more.
Taylor’s & Company announced the launch of their new 1875 Outlaw 9mm Revolver to the Lifestyle Series for 2023. Taylor’s & Company partnered with Uberti to create this exclusive iconic reproduction.
- ONLINE -
HeadHunters NW announces two new HeadHunters NW Podcast episodes. Hosted by Shaylene Keiner, President of HeadHunters NW, the show explores the joys and challenges of organizations and careers in the sought-after shooting, hunting, and outdoor industry.
- ORGANIZATIONS -
Tuesday, as Congress prepares for the 2023 Farm Bill, the American Sportfishing Association, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation and Trout Unlimited announced the Fisheries in the Farm Bill Coalition’s priorities for the bill.

For the 2023 waterfowl nesting season, Delta will expand Predator Management to 31 sites: 25 in North Dakota, and three each in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR) members participated in Tuesday’s White House Conservation in Action Summit held at the U.S. Department of the Interior to highlight the importance of conservation to recreation by bringing together a panel of industry leaders as part of the day’s events.
- STATES -
The Natural Resources Commission (NRC) approved the dedication of Limberlost Swamp Nature Preserve, which is located across Adams and Jay counties during its regularly scheduled bi-monthly meeting at Fort Harrison State Park today.
If you would like to learn how to effectively hunt wild turkey gobblers in the upcoming spring hunting season, consider attending the turkey hunting seminars being offered by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department and volunteer instructors on April 1 and April 19.
Three archers repeated as state champions at the National Archery in the Schools Program state tournament March 17-18 in Lincoln. Winning back-to-back titles were Harrison Harvey of Lincoln Southwest in the high school division, Ayla Salistean of Milford in the middle school division and Paul Ng of Omaha Mater Dei Academy in the elementary division.
- TELEVISION -
Experience the best of competitive fishing during the Saturday block of programming on World Fishing Network’s Reel Rivals Saturday beginning at 6 p.m. ET.
Shooting USA provides coverage as the Bianchi Cup competition is back to full strength with new faces claiming the titles in the most prestigious handgun tournament of the year.
After 4.3 million viewers enjoyed live coverage of the Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Toyota on FOX, FS1 and the FOX Sports platforms in 2022, enthusiastic fans will have even more opportunities to catch Classic action this year.
- WORKSHOPS -
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ Becoming an Outdoors-Woman Program is offering a Beyond BOW Turkey hunt workshop for women and girls.
 

It used to be that we went looking for sargassum.

Find a weedline of this gold-brown floating stuff and you find mahi, sailfish, wahoo and maybe even marlin. The gamefish hung on the weeds, which formed in the current breaks, because it was full of baitfish.

Now, sargassum is coming looking for us.

A massive blob of sargassum thousands of miles long is headed to Florida, the Caribbean and eventually the Gulf of Mexico, scientists say.

While a little sargassum is great for fish and fishermen, a whole bunch of it is bad for not only anglers but for the massive tourist trade generated by beaches from the Caribbean to Florida and Alabama.

For the last decade, anytime the wind direction has been right, rafts of sargassum have stacked up on Florida’s east coast beaches as well as those in the Panhandle counties and westward to the mouth of Mobile Bay. They’ve also ruined tourism for weeks at a time in the Virgin Islands and on some of Mexico’s east-coast resort beaches

We’re not talking a few scraps of seaweed on the beach. It sometimes gets a couple feet deep and 50 feet wide, and when that stuff bakes in the sun for a few hours as it dries out—rotten eggs smell great by comparison. It can cover many miles of beach when the winds are right—from the east, on the Atlantic Coast, or from the south, on the northern Gulf.

As you can imagine, this is not the image the Sunshine State wants for its multi-billion-dollar tourism business. It’s not quite as bad as red tide, where the rotting seaweed is replaced by rotting fish, but it’s definitely not good.

Sargassum is brought to our shores by westward flowing currents that push it from the mid-Atlantic towards South and Central America. There a lot of it gets picked up by the beginnings of the Florida Current which goes up Florida’s east shore, and the Gulf Loop Current, which flows up the middle of the Gulf of Mexico to form great whorls off Louisiana before bending back southward. This arm of the current slides down the edge of the continental shelf 100 miles off Florida’s west coast and exits the Gulf around the Keys to flow up Florida’s east coast and become part of the Gulf Stream.

There has apparently always been many hundreds of square miles of sargassum in the eponymously-named Sargasso Sea located in the mid-Atlantic, but in the last several decades the stuff has been growing in large quantities south of that relatively dead zone, in areas with high current that transport it across the ocean to our shores, per oceanographers with NOAA.

Sargassum is technically not a weed but an alga, but whatever it is, it stinks when it decomposes. It grows best in warm water and where there are plenty of nutrients.

And, for the last several decades at least, the Central Atlantic has had warmer water and more nutrients.

It’s not only bad for anglers and tourists when it gets super-thick, but can actually kill corals and sea grasses when it forms large mats for extended periods, per USF.

Beach communities are spending millions to clean it up, scooping it up every morning with front loaders to present beach goers with a few hours of clean beaches before the next high tide brings in tons more. But the stuff gets so thick in the surf that it still makes for an unpleasant experience on many occasions. It also makes surf fishing all but impossible since nearly every cast hooks weeds before a Spanish mackerel or a pompano can grab your jig.

The only cure at present is to visit the beaches when the winds are blowing offshore, that is from the west on the Atlantic Coast, and from the north on the Panhandle beaches—websites like this one can give you month-to-month averages: https://www.surf-forecast.com/breaks/Panama-City-Beach/wind-stats.

Sargassum is less of a problem for offshore anglers who can move around until they find clean water, and there’s speculation that the massive rafts of habitat might increase the forage base for bluewater gamefish over time. But otherwise, sargassum is wearing out its welcome across the southeastern seaboard.

 
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