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Join Chris Lawrence as he takes aim at Hunting and Fishing issues in the Wild and Wonderful state of West Virginia.
Episodes & Posts
Episodes
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Transcribed
13 JUN 2026 · On this episode of West Virginia Outdoors, Chris Lawrence talks with Jeremy Simon from the West Virginia Taxidermy Association about a show they are hosting this weekend, Frank Williams talks about Free Fishing Weekend, and Bill Curry talks about the upcoming Tour de Coal.
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6 JUN 2026 · Chris Lawrence opens with news that Natural Resources Commissioner Lauren Winans has resigned her seat to join the Morrissey administration, leaving District 3 open for a gubernatorial appointment. Tournament director Sean Douglas then joins from the water to preview the 43rd annual West Virginia Bass Festival at St. Mary's — the state's most prestigious bass tournament with a $20,000 top payout — covering registration deadlines, weigh-in times, and the public's standing invitation to watch at Riverfront Park. Retired DNR biologist and longtime snake researcher Frank Jernasic closes the show with a deep conversation on timber rattlesnakes at Cooper's Rock, where he has documented over 1,600 encounters in 10 years, covering rattlesnake diet, travel range, live birth, growth rate, and common myths including cottonmouths in West Virginia. Listener questions cover black snake varieties, tree-climbing behavior, and how to tell a water snake from a venomous species.
Transcribed
30 MAY 2026 · Chris Lawrence previews an upcoming episode documenting the best fishing day of his life — a two-day Lake Erie smallmouth trip with Ed Powell that produced 75 to 100 fish, including multiple bass over four pounds — before settling into two guests with West Virginia river news. Pete Runyon of Friends of the Tug Fork River joins to update listeners on the group's annual Tug of War tire cleanup, which has now removed more than 19,000 tires from the river since 2019, along with new access improvements, a trash interceptor at Laurel Lake, and an upcoming youth paddle camp on June 6th. DNR Assistant Chief of Fisheries Dave Wellman then covers the Ohio River's current upswing in bass fishing, explaining how stable spring flows and mild winters over the past several years have improved recruitment and fish size, the challenge of silting backwater embayments that limit largemouth habitat, and the tools — stocking, habitat improvement, and regulation — the agency is currently evaluating to sustain and improve the fishery.
Transcribed
23 MAY 2026 · On this episode of West Virginia Outdoors, Chris opens the Memorial Day weekend with several stories of record-breaking fish catches, and a discussion of boating etiquette just in time for the summer boating season.
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16 MAY 2026 · Chris Lawrence covers three stories from West Virginia's fishing world. Preston County angler Matt Bourne recounts landing a new state record chain pickerel — 27.95 inches from a private flood control pond — breaking the record he set himself in 2019, this time from a kayak using a homemade hybrid spinner lure with no net and a five-attempt battle to land the fish. DNR Eastern Panhandle fisheries biologist Brandon Keplinger then joins to discuss his ongoing project reintroducing genetically native brook trout to lower elevation streams in the region where the species was once extirpated, including the challenges of riparian habitat, acid precipitation, and drought years like 2024 and 2025. The conversation closes with the surprising rebound of smallmouth bass fishing on the South Branch of the Potomac — a species that was itself a historical introduction — and the biology behind why the fishery collapsed in the early 2000s and eventually recovered.
Transcribed
9 MAY 2026 · Chris Lawrence opens the show fresh from emceeing the West Virginia Trout Festival in Franklin before welcoming two guests with major fishing and wildlife news. Wood County angler Ed Powell breaks down his seventh-place finish in the Bassmaster Open at Lake Norman — a 43-pound, three-day performance built on a precisely dialed-in dock skipping pattern targeting floating docks at creek mouths, combined with a late-tournament adjustment to a new bait he's keeping close to the vest.
DNR wildlife disease specialist Ethan Barton then delivers a comprehensive update on chronic wasting disease in West Virginia, covering the ongoing high prevalence in Hampshire County — where more deer are now dying from CWD than from hunters — and the first-ever CWD detection west of the Alleghenies following a positive finding in a captive deer operation in Marion County. Lawrence also covers new DNR regulations lifting horsepower restrictions on five state lake impoundments and the approved expansion of youth deer hunting to include bucks on designated youth hunting days.
Transcribed
2 MAY 2026 · On this special episode of West Virginia Outdoors, Chris broadcasts from the West Virginia Trout Festival in Franklin. Chris talks with presenters and organizers about everything related to trout fishing.
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25 APR 2026 · Chris Lawrence opens spring gobbler season with two guests covering very different sides of outdoor life in West Virginia. Kelly McCurdy, district biologist for the National Wild Turkey Federation, details a new $820,000 multi-year agreement with the West Virginia DNR to improve public land access and habitat — beginning with road improvements on Sleepy Creek WMA — and covers the NWTF's plans for prescribed burning, native warm season grass conversion, and brood range restoration on WMAs across the state. McCurdy also addresses the recent end of the NWTF's private lands program through the NRCS and new legislation allowing prescribed fire on private land. Ed Daniels of Shady Grove Botanicals in Mill Creek then joins for a full conversation on morel mushroom hunting — covering how to find, identify, harvest, and preserve them — along with a broader look at medicinal mushrooms, wild ginseng season, and other edible and therapeutic species found in West Virginia's woods this time of year.
Transcribed
18 APR 2026 · On this episode of West Virginia Outdoors, Chris talks with John Terry who set a new state length record for Tiger Trout, Mike Peters from the DNR talks about the upcoming Youth Spring Gobbler season, and Newman Brown from Run and Gun Game Calls showcases some of their turkey calls.
Transcribed
11 APR 2026 · Chris Lawrence marks the show's 32nd anniversary and welcomes Brent Null of Null Custom Calls from Red House in Putnam County for a full hour focused on spring gobbler season. Null shares how a late-in-life passion for turkey hunting — rekindled by taking his grandson out — led him to start crafting his own calls just over a year ago, beginning with a wingbone call made from a bird he harvested. Lawrence and Null work through an array of pot calls in the studio, covering materials including frosted glass, ceramic, slate, copper, titanium, and stoned aluminum, discussing how each affects pitch, rasp, and performance in wet conditions. Null also explains his unconventional use of AI to analyze his calls against real turkey vocalizations, and demonstrates a bamboo tube call and bamboo trumpet he built himself. The two close with turkey hunting strategy, scouting tips for Putnam County, and Null's goal of getting his 13-year-old grandson his first gobbler behind one of his handmade calls.
Join Chris Lawrence as he takes aim at Hunting and Fishing issues in the Wild and Wonderful state of West Virginia.
Information
| Author | MetroNews |
| Organization | MetroNews |
| Categories | Society & Culture , News , Sports |
| Website | www.spreaker.com |
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