the outdoors

The great Minnesota fishing opener was May 15. I have participated in this annual event about 25 of the past 30 years. When I was younger, I would start at the midnight opening bell. I entered every fishing contest in the area for the competitive challenge. Today my fishing exploits have far more to do with who I am with and which lake I am on than how many fish I could catch in a day or even a…

What time is it? It is food plot time. Conservation work is kind of like the fashion industry; you are always working about two seasons ahead. You do fall work to prepare burn breaks for the spring burning season. You plant food plots now in order for wildlife to have a food source three seasons from now in the dead of winter. On average, food plots make a measurable difference in wildlife…

I just love it when it finally gets to be 70 degrees and the sun shines. My last wildlife ride included a ground hog, a new bald eagle nest, one mink, tons of Canada geese, raccoons, American kestrels, turkey vultures, turkeys, numerous white tail deer and a few mergansers and wood ducks utilizing my nesting boxes. My favorite, though, is the big and bad ringneck pheasant. Male ringnecks, called…

Spring is upon us and prescribed fire season will be here and gone in the blink of an eye. Fire scares the heck out of most people and it should. Utilizing fire to benefit wildlife habitat is not something you can pick up in a weekend or two.  I have been active in prescribed fire projects for almost 20 years. Still today, I have a very high respect for fire, and this is the primary reason that…

When you spend your free time in the conservation universe, there is normally very little down time between seasons. The ice fishing season closed at the end of February, and in a short window of about 30 days I am heading into the heart of fire season. When it comes to managing grassland habitats, there is nothing else that can have such a positive impact as fire. Before human settlement, the…

I have just finished up my northern pike spearing season here in Minnesota.  From an opportunity perspective I had a pretty good year.  I made it out to the spearing house about 15 sits. To me a sit is a spearing opportunity that lasts anywhere from about 3-5 hours. I spear-fished on four different bodies of water this winter. A few weekends were spent up in Crow Wing County near Brainerd and the…

How many of you have a license plate on your car or truck that has more than a few letters and numbers?  The answer is a lot of you do. The Habitat License plate has been around for a long time and every vehicle I have owned since their inception has one on it. The first one was a light brown plate with a few deer depicted on it.  They now come in many different varieties including moose, bees…

It seems outdoors types tend to be pretty non-engaged in most conservation issues in our state’s capital — until a regulation change hits close to home. I used to be one of those types, but not anymore. By the time most of these issues get enough press to make the average outdoor person aware — or outraged by them — they are all but a foregone conclusion. By then most of the public comment…

This is one of those times of the year when you are trapped between watching fishing shows on TV and wondering why the fish don’t bite nearly as well as they did back in December. I have an idea for a project for one of the next weekends when the temperatures are expected to hover around that 0-degree mark. It is a project that very few people ever do, and if they do, they don’t get thinking…

It was a little over six weeks ago that I shared with you the trials and tribulations of raising a high energy Labrador puppy.  My pint-sized powerhouse is not all that little anymore. He is 7 1/2 months old and has lost the cute puppy breath and replaced it with the “you should have seen what I found and ate in the back yard” breath. When I am picking a puppy from a litter, I always try to…

Winter finally looks like it has arrived. So far, the wildlife of Minnesota has had a pretty easy go of it due to unseasonably warm temperatures and not a lot of snow. Mild winters can benefit a whole host of different animals, but not all animals see those same benefits. What benefits some wildlife will negatively impact others. I have often wondered how different species survive deep snow and…

Last week I wrote about the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund created by constitutional amendment back in the late 1980s when the Minnesota State Lottery was begun. It has done many good things but still funds too much research and not enough on the ground habitat and water projects for my complete satisfaction. About 20 years ago there was another movement started to create a special…

When is the last time you bought a lottery ticket? For some it is at least a weekly occurrence and for others the answer might be never. I am not a big gambler by any means, but I do buy a Powerball ticket every once in a while. I have no doubt that I will never win any money, but the Minnesota lottery does do some very good things with the money I spend. When the lottery started in Minnesota,…

I am not a big Facebook follower, but I was checking out a post I made on our chapter’s local Nobles County Pheasants Forever Facebook site. As I was scrolling across the past few days on my regular feed, I saw a re-post from one of my longtime friends, Bob St Pierre, who is a Pheasants Forever national employee. He reposted a picture of a young gal who had taken up decoy carving. There are those…

About three years ago I purchased a used tractor to fill the need I had when implementing wildlife habitat projects. I chose poorly with little experience, but after several large repair bills the machine was up and running. As a result, I then needed a building to store it in, and a medium-sized pole barn shed was next on the list. I built it bigger than I thought I needed and again, I was…

So the opening weekend of the Minnesota pheasant season is here and gone and it took until 8 a.m. that following Monday morning for my phone to ring with questions regarding hunting etiquette on public lands. For sure there are different common-sense rules when it comes to interacting with other hunters who all want to hunt on the same parcel of public land at the same time. The recommendations…