With Monday’s closing of this year’s spring turkey hunting season, many sportsmen and women’s lives can return to a semblance of normalcy or at least about as close as any avid outdoors person’s life can be described as normal when viewed by others of the primary coach potato sect.

After a month of beating the sunrise to their favorite turkey hunting locations, the luxury of sleeping in on non-working days must feel pretty darn good. At least with fishing, camping, hiking or canoeing/kayaking or whatever, the participant can pretty much choose what time they begin their days afield or on the water, and this month is normally a fine month weather-wise to enjoy being outdoors.

While some anglers may view May as THE fishing month, June is often even better for many species of game and pan fish species. Plus, bass season will open on June 19 (although they could be caught and released prior to that) and with the abundance of smallmouth bass in our area rivers, and largemouth bass in many of our lakes and ponds, anglers shouldn’t have difficulty catching them. Another benefit will be that walleye, pike and assorted panfish are often caught incidental to fishing for our river smallmouths.