Of course the main event news is the beginning of our spring turkey hunting season on Sunday, and let’s not forget the opening of walleye, pike and pickerel fishing seasons on May7. Whether you hunt, fish, both or just enjoy the outdoors, it’s been a long winter since the holidays and an even worse month of April. People are truly primed for some outdoor recreation accompanied by some decent weather.

But rather than go into great detail on this year’s outlooks for our hunting and fishing, I felt it’s even more important to bring readers up to some recent issues that could have impacts on our outdoor activities.

North Country Assembly members to challenge Governor and Div. of Budget on possible misuse of Conservation Fund monies.

As reportedly preciously in this column, there’s been concern that the current administration and Div. of Budget may be planning to or already have dipped into the Conservation Fund for use in funding non-conservation projects to ease the state’s large budget deficit. Although budget cuts have heavily impacted our area, like the closing of Rogers Center, but it could hit the tourism businesses up north even harder, especially given the soaring cost of gas.