Faced with the unpleasant and depressing news on every front, there are 2 things that always brighten my day. The cover on the latest New Yorker and the arrival of the latest issue of Montana Outdoors. The more reliable, but less frequent, is Montana Outdoors which is published by a small cadre of dedicated Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks staff in Helena. If you don't subscribe, you should and here's where you can. The subscriptions are so cheap, it is comical not to subscribe.

I started subscribing shortly after moving to Montana in 1972 and the magazine always offers a terrific mix of stories about fish and fishing, wildlife and birds to be amazed about, landscapes, hunting and conservation stories.

But the reaction I had when the March-April 2021 issue of Montana Outdoors arrived last week was akin to opening a closet door and rediscovering a long-forgotten RL Winston flyrod with a Bogdan trout reel. It was the Golden Anniversary Issue and it was filled with stories, photos, and covers spanning half a century. Thumbing the pages I was struck by how much people's attitudes about things like native species, angling and hunting have changed. In some, but not all cases, for the better.

The issue also compiled some little known pearls about the predecessors to MO, like that found on page 10. In 1936-1937, the department published a monthly mimeographed booklet called "Montana Fish and Game Notes." The editor was Paul Maclean, younger brother of Norman Maclean. The short feature even quoted an editorial Paul Maclean wrote about poachers and has a photo of him. You'll have to buy a copy of Montana Outdoors to see it, or wait until the issue gets posted on line.

All of the back issues of the magazine have been scanned and uploaded to a site called archive.org. If you go to that site and type Montana Outdoors and the year in the Search box, you will be delighted to see all the issues published in that year, view the Table of Contents and read any story you fancy.

I did just that and was able to find an article that has haunted and motivated me since I read it many years ago - 1980, in fact. Here it is. Read it and let me know if you have the same reaction I had in 1980 and still do.