The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

When a stranger reaches out for bird hunting help, it can be a tough sell for the community resident, but that didn't stop Dennis from giving it a shot. He and his wife recently moved to Walla Walla...

Shaking hands across the table, I immediately pegged Marvin Shutters as Pennsylvania Amishman. His thick gray beard and high cheekbones were a dead giveaway. It's risky diving into your potential...

The early golden hour bathed the landscape in a peachy hue as the setters and I stood by the truck. It was somewhere around day number 200 that I had set foot on the grasslands between Waitsburg and...

Outdoor photography goes far beyond birds and mammals, even for this hunter who loves nothing more than trying to capture that perfect pairing of upland birds and pointing dogs on the grasslands. We...

The old cliché "The only thing constant in life is change" was coined by Greek philosopher Heraclitus. This epiphany struck him around 500 B.C. I assume taxes were not a thing at the time,...

The dog days are close at hand, and with a record heatwave happening as we speak, what better way to beat the heat than to head down to your favorite swimming hole with "Rover" in tow. Few things are...

Our jet sled bobbed near the infamous "Buoy 10" in the mouth of the Columbia River. It was a stormy September afternoon with angry Pacific surf bullying its wave action far upriver. Coho were the targ...

Picture a portly, toe-headed boy standing along the muddy shoreline of a farm pond as the sinking summer sun casts a warm amber glow across the water. He wore pastel yellow jogging shorts and a Mr. T...

Honestly, I have no legitimate excuse for not having returned. The experience still calls like a siren song playing softly in the background. Snow-capped peaks and glaciers. Expansive vistas of low-co...

Glimpses of white flashed through the heavy sagebrush as Finn dashed across the scablands. Hungarian partridge and valley quail hunkered somewhere among the sage sea, and she was working her best to...

Now in the heart of winter in the Blue Mountains, the days are short and wet in the wheat country and snowy in the higher timber. Aside from the usual chores neglected over autumn and the holiday...

Recent declines in salmon and steelhead survival across the Pacific Basin have been documented since approximately 2013 and affecting all stocks in dammed and undammed systems. An ocean "dead zone,"...

With the holidays upon us, the sights and sounds of Christmas surround the Waitsburg community. From glittering street decorations to themed music taking over our favorite radio stations, the magic...

Turning down Lewis Gulch, I spied a beautiful draw curling into the wheat fields, free of human track. A sight for sore eyes on the eastern Washington pheasant opener. Whipping the Tundra to the...

In September, wildfires that tortured the Pacific Northwest did a number on the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's (WDFW) Swanson Lakes Wildlife Area (Swanson Lakes), located about 10 miles...

Blue Mountain Pheasants Forever (Pheasants Forever) recently teamed with Mike and Steve Erwin to relocate two wildlife watering guzzlers on their 1,000-acre lease with an expiring Conservation...

I don't know when Dad purchased the gun or from whom or where, but one of its few outings captured on film was in 1977. My brother was a toddler and dad had hunted a gray squirrel on his parent's farm...

Since discovering tenkara fly-fishing a few years ago, I don't travel much without a tenkara rod. Tenkara rods are telescopic, collapsing down to about eighteen inches and only require a fly line,...

Climbing the mountainside, the temperature began to drop with the elevation gain. A welcomed change from the 90-plus degree heat in the Walla Walla Valley. In the truck bed lay my frame pack, stuffed...

I must admit I am my mother's son, and apparently that of her mother as well. Both enjoy collecting beautiful things to display, as well as saving practical materials that may be of use at some...

Early morning strolls through the summer garden at our little McKay Alto homestead can only be described as an angelic wakeup call. The capacious songbird melody wafts on a gentle breeze as the...

Growing up a hunter, my mother and I agreed rarely in our views of humans interacting with our ecosystem, save for our thoughts on habitat conservation and a deep appreciation for nature's beauty and...

A hint of the long shadows of evening began to cast across the rolling wheat stubble and amber bunchgrass. A solid cloud of gray dust billowed from behind my old green Ford rolling down the...