Blog

Boats of all sizes have been using the wind for thousands of years. Kites with canoes and kayaks act much like a downwind spinnaker on a sailboat. With a tailwind,...

What Does ‘Pounds of Buoyancy’ Mean? A buoyant apparatus is anything that can float and hold up weight. For instance, if you had a Type III PFD that is required...

Hi, my name is Elizabeth and I work at Great Outdoor Provision Co! I am beginning my thru hike this March (2006), and I finally finished planning it all. Starting...

Water filtration is super important when camping or in the backcountry. You may have heard stories about backpackers who drink water from clear mountain streams and who miraculously never get...

The best way to keep fresh food from spoiling on a backpacking trip is to wrap the perishables in plain brown paper bags or kraft paper. This allows air to...

After living in the Falls Lake area for several years, I recently started exploring the extensive trail system for day hiking. For years I have used Falls Lake as a...

When fitting boots, we look for about a finger width between your longest toe and the front of the boot. This small space allows you to walk downhill without banging...

Any canoe is a displacement watercraft. They displace a volume of water that is equal in weight to the sum of the canoe/kayak and its load. All displacement boats have...

by David Silverthorn (Wilmington Staff) “An undisclosed spot in Western North Carolina.” That’s how I refer to this gorgeous, out of the way trout stream I visited recently. Oh sure,...

What you pay for when you spend more than $300.00 for a fly rod (and potentially up to more than $3,000!) is not readily apparent to everyone. Is it just...

Conventional wisdom on “small stream flyrods” dictates a very short rod, usually 7’ or under, fast action concentrated in the tip, and light line so that the small trout in...

By Alex WebbReprinted with permission of the News & Observer. RALEIGH — The parking lot at Lake Wheeler was nearly full as Collins Chalmers pulled in Saturday. She was running...

When I first saw people paddling with Greenland style paddles I laughed at them and called them names. I wondered why these folks were not progressive, why they did not...

When loading a sea kayak not only does one need to pay attention to weight distribution, trim, listing, etc., but also one should make sure that the items are packed...

Most folks think that loading a sea kayak is all about getting everything in, but a mariner understands that “there is a place for everything and everything in its place.”...

It’s a cool fall morning, 58°, and the carpool line is moving well. While dropping my kids at elementary school my thoughts turn to a trail run in Umstead State...

That was a mini albacore, I said to David. I thought he fought too hard to be a Spanish, he replied. A moment earlier, we watched the foot long false...

He’s on it! I hissed. Keep it moving steady… strip, strip, strip. As usual, I was attempting to coach one of my fishing buddies from the poling platform, as if...