the outdoors

When out on my wildlife rides, I routinely stop at bridges to check water clarity and to see if northern pike can be seen getting ready to spawn. Pike are about the first fish in our area to spawn and will often stage in the shallows under the ice when there is open water near shore. This happens even when the lake is still ice-covered. This time of year, most of the water I see is usually pretty…

The number of outdoor issues in the Minnesota news these days is mind-boggling. They won’t often show up where you might be reading, but there are game- and fish-related bills all over the place this legislative session. Some of these are going to be hitting a little closer to home than normal for the average outdoor person. The one I think will get the biggest fight is whether the state should…

It happens every year around this time. We finally have enough snow to cover the ground and folks start to think automatically that wildlife is on the verge of starving to death. The calls start coming in as to where they can find some corn to feed this destitute wildlife. It is true in years with heavy snow cover and below zero temperatures for extended periods that wildlife will start to show…

Some fishing and hunting outings end with full game bags or fish stringers, and others end up with nothing but the receipts of the money you spent. Empty fish stringers don’t always mean that the trip was not a fun or successful one, though.  It depends on what criteria you use to define success. I recently traveled to St. Cloud to attend the Minnesota Pheasants Forever state meeting. This event…

I spent the weekend trying to keep an old family tradition alive. My parents, now both in the upper 80s, used to make old-fashioned ring bologna. I asked them over and over how it was done, and a few years back my family and I made a batch together. It was comprised of beef and pork and a whole lot of garlic and other seasonings. It is not wild game by any means, but when it comes to outdoor life…

Last week I gave you all the rundown about how the 2021 pheasant season went. Record-keeping for some outdoor people is totally off the charts. One guy I know records every flush and every harvested bird on every spot he has ever hunted over the past 20 years before he goes to bed. I would fall asleep trying to do that. I don’t have a lot of my outdoor facts and figures written down. Mostly they…

The 2021 pheasant hunting season has come to a close, and overall it was a year I would consider only fair. I keep track of the number of birds I harvest each year. In fact, I have one tail feather from each rooster dating back to 1996 when I got my first trained hunting dog. This year my harvest total was down about 40 percent. There are several reasons for this, but the lack of roosters in…

I was sitting in my garage over the New Year’s weekend having a few adult beverages with my neighbor when an all too familiar topic was raised. He expressed his angst about the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources — that they are just too powerful. I then prodded for some additional details. I asked him to give me an example of what he thought was too powerful. He came up with a very vague…

I have a great job as a self-employed, independent investment adviser, helping people try to get to a comfortable retirement. Saving money for your later years is not something that everybody is good at. I would like to think I have made a measurable difference in that regard for my clients over the past 33 years, but they still needed to participate in order to achieve success, and that takes…

This has been a fabulous fall for conservation work, and I spent the last six to eight weeks with a variety of needed preparations for the coming spring. These include mowing fire breaks and seeding grasses. If you intend to do a prescribed fire in the spring, you need to do all of the preparations before the snow flies. I mowed about five miles of burn breaks so that when the temperatures warm…

Last year about 65,000 pheasant stamps were sold in Minnesota. This is a stamp hunters must purchase that supports pheasant habitat work in the state. It is also a valuable way to accurately count the number of hunters that chase pheasants every year. I have been of the opinion that this count is important because it gauges hunting activity and helps managers understand hunter number trends. Of…

We are still chasing roosters when time allows, but I got committed to a large seeding project that has taken up most of my free time for the past few weeks, and it looks to last a few weeks more, doing it after my day job is finished. Seeding conservation lands this time of year is challenging, but doing so after the ground temperatures are cold enough that none of the seed will germinate until…

I am all about ethical hunting. I have never had a game violation and I never plan to get one. There are a few areas where normally good sportsmen can get themselves into a little trouble. I am not talking about a three-state poaching ring; rather, I’m talking about the most common situations in which some folks might be tempted into crossing the line. The most common one is shooting just a bit…

A dog is a dog is a dog, unless the dog is one of my dogs. All dog owners have different levels of attachment to their dogs. Some keep a dog around only as a family pet. Others hunt with them on special occasions. Most of these dogs with little time afield or with limited training do as much or as little as the owner expects of them. Others will train their dogs extensively or even have a…

The day I have been waiting for has finally arrived! Pheasant hunting season in Minnesota opened Oct. 16, and there are a few things your hunting dogs need before you get out in the field. Many dog owners will let these items slip until something bad happens, and then they have to deal with them in the aftermath.   Trim toenails The first task is to trim your dog’s toenails. Most dogs live in the…

My household includes four Labrador retrievers, which some people think is a lot of dogs. It wasn’t always this way for me. I was volunteering at the Little Sioux Retriever Club Hunt test back in the mid-90s and I was sitting around five different dog trainers. I asked them as a group, “Why would anyone need more than one dog?” They all started laughing. I figured you can only hunt one dog at a…