West Virginia Outdoors Audio Playlist

On this episode of West Virginia Outdoors, Chris talks with Ron Bierstine on the current state of fishing in Lake Ontario (or Lake America), and Colin Carpenter from the DNR Bear Project talks about the opening day of bear hunting season.

On this episode of West Virginia Outdoors, Chris talks with Steve Rauch from the WV DNR about the upcoming hunting seasons for doves and geese, and Larry Nibert with West Virginia Experience talks about the impact of excessive rain on commercial rafting and fishing.

Chris Lawrence continues the summer's remarkable pumpkinseed sunfish story, interviewing Robert Glover of Morgantown — the third angler to break the state record in less than a month — who caught a 9.76-inch, three-quarter-pound fish at Cheat Lake using a long-rod drift technique with a nightcrawler. Lawrence notes the record has now changed hands three times before it could even make the full news cycle. The show then shifts to deer season preparation with Chris Ashley of Mineral Wells, a dedicated whitetail hunter who was awarded Buck of the Year by the West Virginia Big Bucks Facebook page for a six-and-a-half-year-old deer harvested during last year's EHD outbreak. Ashley details his year-round approach to habitat management — including clover food plots on more than 500 acres across three properties, invasive removal, and protein supplement tubs that have helped deer populations rebound dramatically in EHD-hit areas of the Mid-Ohio Valley.

Chris Lawrence opens with a tribute to DNR Commissioner and West Virginia Trappers Association legend Janet Hamrick Hodge, who passed away overnight after a private battle with advanced cancer — read her resignation letter to the commission just days earlier. The show then tells the remarkable story of West Virginia's first-ever state record pumpkinseed sunfish, set by Ken Neher of Morgantown from a public pond in Preston County after a year and a half of targeted pursuit — a record that was broken within two weeks by Sierra Adamson of Beverly, who caught hers on a nightcrawler in the Tygart River in Elkins, and has since been broken a third time at Cheat Lake. DNR furbearer biologist Holly Morris closes the show explaining the science behind the Natural Resources Commission's decision to increase the otter trapping bag limit from one to two — stopping short of three due to population modeling showing the risk of regional extirpation — and addresses how the agency handles otter nuisance complaints and accidental catches above the limit.

On this episode of West Virginia Outdoors, Chris talks with Katie Zipfel from the WV DNR on the Ohio River carp populations. Plus, a previously enjoyed fishing trip off the coast of North Carolina.

On this episode of WV Outdoors, Chris talks with Sergeant Dennis Feazell from the Natural Resources Police about their swift water rescue operations in Lewis and Upshur counties, and Shon Butler from Longspur Tracking talks about using drones to assist in rescue and recovery efforts.

Chris Lawrence welcomes two guests covering major upcoming outdoor events in West Virginia. Captain Dwayne Duffield of the West Virginia Natural Resources Police Association previews the Northwoods Throwdown, a charity softball game pitting WV game wardens against their counterparts from Maine on August 1st at GoMart Ballpark in Charleston — with proceeds benefiting the association's R3 youth recruitment initiative, International Wildlife Crime Stoppers, and Maine Operation Game Thief. Youth in baseball uniforms get in free, and the event features vendor booths, raffle prizes including a $3,500 Maine bear hunt and engraved Glock pistols, and a pre-game field experience for 26 youth lottery participants. Wildlife Center manager Mark Biller then previews the 10th Annual Living History Encampment Rendezvous at French Creek on July 31st and August 1st, featuring historical actors demonstrating blacksmithing, gunsmithing, and knife making from pre-colonial through Civil War eras, and shares updates on the center's animals including three bears, two otters, three bison, and a recent search for a turkey exhibit.

On this episode of West Virginia Outdoors, Chris talks with Eddie Ferrari from Appalachian Camping Experience on camping preparation, and Ethan Barton, Wildlife Disease Specialist for the DNR, discusses recent cases of Rabies and Mange in West Virginia.

Chris Lawrence broadcasts an entire episode live from the deck of Ed Powell's bass boat on Lake Erie near Buffalo, New York, during a Memorial Day weekend pre-spawn smallmouth trip. After enduring miserable 48-degree, windy, rain-soaked conditions on day one, the pair land an extraordinary haul on day two, boating over 50 smallmouth with five fish topping four pounds, including a 4-pound, 11-ounce standout — what Lawrence calls the best day of fishing in his life. Powell, who is pre-fishing the stretch ahead of a Bassmaster Open in August, walks through his drop shot technique on vertical seawalls, braided line setup, and the role of forward-facing LiveScope sonar, discussing both its advantages and the ongoing debate over whether it makes competitive fishing too easy. The conversation also touches on Powell's season on the Bassmaster Opens circuit, including a top-10 finish at Lake Norman, and the Tour de Coal float trip on the Coal River back home in West Virginia.

On this episode of West Virginia Outdoors, Chris talks with Colonel Bobby Cales about his upcoming retirement and his career at DNR Law Enforcement, and Randy Kelly talks about the elk herd in Southern WV and their calves.

Chris Lawrence broadcasts an entire episode live from the deck of Ed Powell's bass boat on Lake Erie near Buffalo, New York, during a Memorial Day weekend pre-spawn smallmouth trip. After enduring miserable 48-degree, windy, rain-soaked conditions on day one, the pair land an extraordinary haul on day two, boating over 50 smallmouth with five fish topping four pounds, including a 4-pound, 11-ounce standout — what Lawrence calls the best day of fishing in his life. Powell, who is pre-fishing the stretch ahead of a Bassmaster Open in August, walks through his drop shot technique on vertical seawalls, braided line setup, and the role of forward-facing LiveScope sonar, discussing both its advantages and the ongoing debate over whether it makes competitive fishing too easy. The conversation also touches on Powell's season on the Bassmaster Opens circuit, including a top-10 finish at Lake Norman, and a season recap including the Tour de Coal float trip on the Coal River back home in West Virginia.

On this episode of West Virginia Outdoors, Chris Lawrence talks with Jeremy Simon from the West Virginia Taxidermy Association about a show they are hosting this weekend, Frank Williams talks about Free Fishing Weekend, and Bill Curry talks about the upcoming Tour de Coal.

Chris Lawrence opens with news that Natural Resources Commissioner Lauren Winans has resigned her seat to join the Morrissey administration, leaving District 3 open for a gubernatorial appointment. Tournament director Sean Douglas then joins from the water to preview the 43rd annual West Virginia Bass Festival at St. Mary's — the state's most prestigious bass tournament with a $20,000 top payout — covering registration deadlines, weigh-in times, and the public's standing invitation to watch at Riverfront Park. Retired DNR biologist and longtime snake researcher Frank Jernasic closes the show with a deep conversation on timber rattlesnakes at Cooper's Rock, where he has documented over 1,600 encounters in 10 years, covering rattlesnake diet, travel range, live birth, growth rate, and common myths including cottonmouths in West Virginia. Listener questions cover black snake varieties, tree-climbing behavior, and how to tell a water snake from a venomous species.

Chris Lawrence previews an upcoming episode documenting the best fishing day of his life — a two-day Lake Erie smallmouth trip with Ed Powell that produced 75 to 100 fish, including multiple bass over four pounds — before settling into two guests with West Virginia river news. Pete Runyon of Friends of the Tug Fork River joins to update listeners on the group's annual Tug of War tire cleanup, which has now removed more than 19,000 tires from the river since 2019, along with new access improvements, a trash interceptor at Laurel Lake, and an upcoming youth paddle camp on June 6th. DNR Assistant Chief of Fisheries Dave Wellman then covers the Ohio River's current upswing in bass fishing, explaining how stable spring flows and mild winters over the past several years have improved recruitment and fish size, the challenge of silting backwater embayments that limit largemouth habitat, and the tools — stocking, habitat improvement, and regulation — the agency is currently evaluating to sustain and improve the fishery.

On this episode of West Virginia Outdoors, Chris opens the Memorial Day weekend with several stories of record-breaking fish catches, and a discussion of boating etiquette just in time for the summer boating season.

Chris Lawrence covers three stories from West Virginia's fishing world. Preston County angler Matt Bourne recounts landing a new state record chain pickerel — 27.95 inches from a private flood control pond — breaking the record he set himself in 2019, this time from a kayak using a homemade hybrid spinner lure with no net and a five-attempt battle to land the fish. DNR Eastern Panhandle fisheries biologist Brandon Keplinger then joins to discuss his ongoing project reintroducing genetically native brook trout to lower elevation streams in the region where the species was once extirpated, including the challenges of riparian habitat, acid precipitation, and drought years like 2024 and 2025. The conversation closes with the surprising rebound of smallmouth bass fishing on the South Branch of the Potomac — a species that was itself a historical introduction — and the biology behind why the fishery collapsed in the early 2000s and eventually recovered.

Chris Lawrence opens the show fresh from emceeing the West Virginia Trout Festival in Franklin before welcoming two guests with major fishing and wildlife news. Wood County angler Ed Powell breaks down his seventh-place finish in the Bassmaster Open at Lake Norman — a 43-pound, three-day performance built on a precisely dialed-in dock skipping pattern targeting floating docks at creek mouths, combined with a late-tournament adjustment to a new bait he's keeping close to the vest.DNR wildlife disease specialist Ethan Barton then delivers a comprehensive update on chronic wasting disease in West Virginia, covering the ongoing high prevalence in Hampshire County — where more deer are now dying from CWD than from hunters — and the first-ever CWD detection west of the Alleghenies following a positive finding in a captive deer operation in Marion County. Lawrence also covers new DNR regulations lifting horsepower restrictions on five state lake impoundments and the approved expansion of youth deer hunting to include bucks on designated youth hunting days.

On this special episode of West Virginia Outdoors, Chris broadcasts from the West Virginia Trout Festival in Franklin. Chris talks with presenters and organizers about everything related to trout fishing.