PHOENIX - Want to see horseback riders with six-guns blazing in a race to accurately pop balloons while weaving quickly through a series of pylons?

Or visit false-fronted mini-towns and riverboats where six-gun totin' and Winchester-blasting hombres or cowgirls knock down make-believe bad guy steel silhouettes - hopefully in record time without a miss?

Are you the fastest draw in town or would like to be?

OLYMPIA-An environmental review of proposed livestock grazing on Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) lands in the Wild Horse Coordinated Resource Management (CRM) area of Kittitas County will be expanded to include other WDFW holdings in the CRM.

Last April, WDFW began an environmental review of proposed grazing on 8,418 acres of the Whiskey Dick Wildlife Area. Since then, the department acquired an additional 9,432 acres within the CRM area last October and more work has been done on a coordinated approach to managing lands within the CRM area .

Record reports of a viral disease affecting white-tailed deer seemed to have minimal impact on the 2007 hunting seasons in Indiana, as hunters harvested 124,427 deer.

"The big thing for me was that number," said Chad Stewart, deer research biologist for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. "We were guessing the harvest was going to be down a lot more than it was this year."

Stewart provides details of the '07 season in an annual report that includes a county-by-county

GREEN BAY- Despite record breaking snowfalls in southern Wisconsin and cold temperatures statewide, hunters and residents should not be alarmed about this winter's impacts on wildlife, according to state wildlife officials.

Department of Natural Resources offices have been receiving many inquires about how deer, wild turkey, and other species are surviving the winter. This winter has actually been closer to normal for Wisconsin, they note, compared to the exceptionally mild winters in recent years, and deer and turkey populations have evolved to withstand these varying conditions.

Reserved youth turkey season hunts will be offered for both youth season days, April 19 and 20, at 27 DNR properties.

The hunts will be offered at Atterbury, Crosley, Glendale, Goose Pond, Hovey Lake, Jasper-Pulaski, Sugar Ridge, Kankakee, Kingsbury, LaSalle, Pigeon River, Tri-County, Minnehaha, Fairbanks Landing, Hillenbrand, Chinook, Winamac and Willow Slough FWAs, as well as Cagles Mill, Hardy, Monroe, Patoka, Salamonie, Brookville, Roush and Mississinewa lakes.

ATHENS, Texas - The long-awaited second Budweiser ShareLunker of the season is now in the Lunker Bunker at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center courtesy of James Manasco of Hemphill.

Manasco was catching a lot of small fish Sunday, Feb. 24, in four feet of water in the back of a cove when a 13.75-pound largemouth took his green six-inch ZOOM stick worm.

The big female appeared to have already spawned yet still measured 20.5 inches in girth and 27.5 inches in length. She became the fourth Budweiser ShareLunker to come from Toledo Bend Reservoir

Additional elk hunting opportunities highlight the proposed 2008 special big game seasons. The 2008 moose, elk and bighorn sheep proclamation was recently submitted to Gov. John Hoeven's office for review and approval.

A total of 561 elk licenses are recommended, an increase of 140 from last year. Randy Kreil, wildlife chief for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, said the increase primarily occurs in Units E3 and E4.

"Licenses in these two units are increased again this year in an attempt to reduce the number of elk outside the south unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park," Kreil said.

Thanks to a cooperative joint venture between the Manitoba, Canada based Delta Waterfowl Foundation, the Iowa DNR, and the Waterfowl Association of Iowa, breeding pairs of mallard ducks will find a noticeable increase in secure nesting sites as they return to Iowa wetlands later this month.

 According to DNR Waterfowl Technician, Al Hancock, the conservation partnership calls for the installation of 500 artificial mallard nesting structures during the next five years.  Known as Delta Hen Houses, the structures are an 18-inch diameter, three-foot-long wire cylinder covered in flax straw and

A legislative change effective Aug. 1, 2007 extended the expiration date of 2007 fishing licenses for resident and nonresident anglers through April 30, 2008, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Any stamps or tags to harvest particular species also are valid through April 30, 2008.

Angling licenses, stamps and tags for 2008, which will be effective from March 1 through April 30, 2009, went on sale Feb. 18.

DELTA - Those who have watched snow geese fly in and out of Gunnison Bend Reservoir call it one of the greatest spectacles of nature.

You can see that spectacle Feb. 29, and March 1 and 2, at the Eleventh Annual Snow Goose Festival. The festival will be held at and near the reservoir, just west of Delta. Admission is free.

As many as 10,000 snow geese have been at the reservoir during past festivals. Except for the black tips on their wings, snow geese are pure white.

A legislative change effective Aug. 1, 2007 extended the expiration date of 2007 fishing licenses for resident and nonresident anglers through April 30, 2008, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Any stamps or tags to harvest particular species also are valid through April 30, 2008.

Angling licenses, stamps and tags for 2008, which will be effective from March 1 through April 30, 2009, went on sale Feb. 18.

The competition was held during the NWTF's annual Convention and Sport Show, Feb. 21 to 24 in Atlanta. Young callers must master the intricacies of their instruments - the slate, diaphragm and box turkey calls - in order to perform well in the championships, and the pressure was intense.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne has announced the distribution of more than $700 million to 56 state and territorial fish and wildlife agencies to fund fish and wildlife conservation efforts, boat access, shooting ranges, and hunter education. Kempthorne made the announcement at the Bassmasters Classic professional fishing tournament in Greenville, S.C.

The funding is made available to states and territories through the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration and Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration programs, which are administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Funds are generated by federal excise taxes on purchases of firearms,

The Minnesota-Wisconsin Chapter of the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep will sell a North Dakota bighorn sheep license for a ninth consecutive year at its annual fundraiser and banquet March 15 at the Minneapolis Marriott Southwest in Minnetonka, Minn.

North Dakota has auctioned a bighorn sheep license each year since 1986 to fund sheep projects in the state, raising more than $700,000. Prior to 1999, when the North Dakota Game and Fish Department entered into an agreement with the Minnesota-Wisconsin conservation group, the license was sold at the national FNAWS convention.