Deer Hunting – North Dakota Winter Gathering

by Doug Leier As a biologist I deal with aspects of fish and wildlife behavior on a routine basis. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t get at least one phone call or email from someone who witnessed an odd, strange, or erratic animal behavior, or saw something in an unusual location. Especially when [...]

Ice Fishing Rigs – Big Bluegills

Ice Fishing Rigs – Big Bluegills By Nick Simonson For the past few weekends, I have been exploring a small impoundment about twenty minutes from home.  Rumor had it that big bluegills roamed the basin out from the public access, but all my efforts had produced over the past month was a plethora of puny [...]

Sage Grouse Hunting – Management

by Doug Leier Sage Grouse Hunting Because of a long-term population decline throughout their native range, in 2010 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considered listing sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. Since sage grouse inhabit the extreme southwestern part of North Dakota, this development was of particular interest within the State Game and [...]

Pheasant Feathers for Fly Fishing

By Nick Simonson This year, it seemed that every pheasant was a trophy.  Whether it was those early birds on opening weekend with half-colored feathers, or that lone rooster coming late in the season, each one provided a welcome warm meal and a new crop of pheasant feathers for fly fishing.  With one season behind [...]

Outdoor Activities Sharing Memories

by Doug Leier Over the holidays I bumped into an old high school friend, and true to form for a couple of guys who love the outdoors and also have young families, we began sharing memories of outdoor activities. Living in Montana, Jon has had the opportunity to hunt elk in the same manner we [...]

Ice Fishing Tip Ups

By Nick Simonson I often think back fondly to my times while ice fishing tip ups growing up in North Dakota.  For those anglers who love to chase a waiving flag across the ice, there’s no better place than the Peace Garden State, where on hardwater, fishermen are allotted four lines with no restrictions as to [...]

Hunting seasons – Banquets & Board Meetings

by Doug Leier While many hunters and anglers associate spring and summer with fishing season and fall with hunting season, truth be told, in North Dakota fishing is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days each year. And while hunting season is generally considered a fall season, with small game [...]

Winter Current Walleye Fishing

By Nick Simonson My prediction from last month – that winter would eventually get colder – was way off; so much for making the safe bet. The ice in most areas hasn’t grown much, and with unprecedented January temperatures crossing the 50- and 60-degree barriers across the upper Midwest in recent days, it has receded [...]

Fall Turkey Hunting – Small Game – Deer Questionnaires

by Doug Leier After a couple of cups of coffee and the usual bantering about weather at my favorite corner convenience store, a recent discussion turned to Game and Fish Department surveys. Not the kind for which biologists annually count deer or ducks, but the kind that just about every hunter or angler receives from [...]

Ice Fishing Shelters – Ice Anchors

By Nick Simonson The noise in the pines behind me grew until it sounded like a rushing spring waterfall on the North Shore.  I had been on the ice just long enough to set up my hub-style ice fishing shelter, drop my Vexilar transducer and land my first fish of the new year when the [...]

Ice Fishing – Abundant Opportunities in ND

by Doug Leier The older I get the faster time seems to pass. My neighbor and friend Mick explained a few years ago it’s a function of the percentage of life. Case in point is remembering the vivid details of my first trip to the old outdoor movie theatre in Valley City more than three [...]

Awaiting a new Deer Hunting Season in ND

by Doug Leier For a lot of North Dakotans, the end of 2011 can’t come fast enough. While none of us can predict exactly how the coming year will unfold, for the state as a whole, and most wildlife in particular, 2012 just has to bring improvement, doesn’t it? As a biologist, I’m always interested [...]

Winter Weather Predictions

By Nick Simonson “Guys, where are we,” this initial inquiry by Dominic Monaghan’s character, Charlie, summed up the question that I and ten million other viewers tried to figure out for six seasons on the TV show Lost. The J. J. Abrams sci-fi series focused on a group of plane crash survivors marooned on a [...]

Ice Fishing for Northern Pike – Darkhouse Spearing

by Doug Leier When it comes to trying something new, I’ll admit I usually need a good reason to change or replace anything in my routine. From breakfast to fishing, after nearly four decades on earth I still gravitate toward my preferred options – sausage and eggs for breakfast and worms and bluegills for fishing. [...]

Ice Fishing Tips – Early Ice

By Nick Simonson While taking those first nervous steps onto the ice this weekend, I stared down into the weedy shallows with their vegetation frozen in place, the last respiration of openwater photosynthesis trapped in the tiny bubbles just inches from the surface of the frozen water. I traced my way along a small crack [...]

G+H Weather Vane Decoys Deal

Buy 3 six packs get free shipping!! These words are music to all waterfowlers’ ears. G+H Canada Goose Weather Vane Decoys are the ticket for realism in the field. Simple to set up, light for travel, and they move with the slightest wind always realigning themselves. No more days of getting up and moving the [...]

Recreational Fishing – Fish Transportation

by Doug Leier In the early 1990s I was attending junior college in Bottineau, and enjoyed many trips to other parts of the state to visit friends and relatives. It was a great time to explore different corners of the state around Bismarck, Fargo and Napoleon, but a couple of observations during that time are [...]

Tebowing – Late Season Pheasant Hunting

By Nick Simonson It’s December, it’s cold, it’s tough going in the field. But somehow, as the season wears on, I find myself out there, still grinding away, searching for a last chance bird or deer with a never-give-up attitude I hoped I’d have at this time of year, way back in October as I [...]

Bow Hunting with Trail Cameras

By Nick Simonson I feel like Sauron from the Lord of the Rings trilogy; with my all-seeing eye looking out over the land – well at least 100 square feet of it. With my new trail camera set up overlooking the entrance to a watering area about 50 yards from my favorite bow hunting stand, [...]

Ice Fishing Techniques – Cameras

By Jason Mitchell The education we get from ice fishing techniques such as underwater cameras is invaluable. Having the mental picture of how the presentation or lure looks in the water, how the fish approach the lure and what actions caused particular reactions from the fish sets some anglers apart. Anglers who have this education [...]

Mild Fall Hunting

by Doug Leier Each year without even having to review, I can count on a few standard column topics finding their way onto my screen, like spring fishing, deer season questions and answers, and the pheasant outlook. At the end of the year I take a look back at the previous seasons and often look [...]

Deer Hunting – CWD Q & A

by Doug Leier Chronic Wasting Disease Questions and Answers In the last two years, two North Dakota deer have tested positive for chronic wasting disease. These are the first two positive cases discovered in the state among thousands of deer tested over the last decade or so. Here’s a closer look at CWD with some [...]

Deer Hunting Tips

By Nick Simonson “Wait…what…how did she, where did she come from?!?  Aw crap…no wait, maybe she doesn’t see me, she’s looking…does she? “WHHHHHT!  WHHHHT!” “Guhhh…” My heart never sinks so low as when I know the jig is up; when all the scent killer in the world isn’t enough to cover up a stupid mistake [...]

Deer Hunting in Windy Conditions

By Nick Simonson Rarely does a strong wind factor into a good day outdoors.  Sure, there are those times where the right wind whips across a reef or a point, roiling the waters and bringing schools of walleyes in to feed on discombobulated baitfish.  And maybe a breeze catches  a rooster’s scent and wafts it [...]

Deer Hunting Tips – Meat Preparation

by Doug Leier Each year it seems I somehow wind up as part of a large number of hunters who receive a recycled email joke about making beef taste like venison. Most who read it find themselves nodding their head and chuckling, as the masses who’ve hunted deer can relate to the uneasy truthfulness of [...]

NDTRAX 2011 Gets Even Better

NDTRAX 2011. It keeps getting better! Kirsch’s Outdoor Products is announcing the immediate release of additional options to the TRAX family of products. TRAX maps continue to evolve making it the most complete line of GPS solutions available empowering sportsmen and women with their outdoor activities including fishing, hunting, hiking, horseback riding, camping, and traveling. [...]

Ice Fishing Essentials for Crappies

By Paul A. Nelson The best time to search for winter crappie spots is in the fall, when anglers can capitalize on the mobility of a boat and onboard sonar to cruise around marking spots mentally, preferably with GPS, too. Once the lakes freeze, though, assuming you didn’t conduct autumn reconnaissance, your tools are a [...]

Ice Fishing Tactics for First Ice

By Jason Mitchell We do much of our filming on late ice. We take a lot of our photos at late ice as well. The reason is simple, long relatively nice days on the ice where you can expect sweatshirt weather. When the sun begins to rot the ice, you can expect to get some [...]

Retrieving Upland Game

By Nick Simonson While finishing up a walk for ruffed grouse along the Saint Louis River in northeastern Minnesota this weekend, I decided to skirt the edge of a stand of young aspen trees which came right up to a stretch of sixty-year-old red pines. I weaved in and out of the last row of [...]

Where I Hunt

By Doug Leier I live in a great neighborhood. While most people think their neighborhood is the best, I know mine is. I’m not trying to pick a fight, but it’s the best I could ask for, with a mixture of ages and backgrounds probably not much different than many neighborhoods in the state. When [...]

Fall in ND

By Doug Leier Most kids grow up looking forward to the Christmas season. Even before Thanksgiving turkey is served they are counting the days before they can open their share of the wrapped boxes beneath the tree. Many hunters feel that way about October. While September offers its archery and dove and grouse and crane [...]

PLOTS Guide

Doug Leier Over the past two decades the North Dakota Game and Fish Department has emphasized wildlife habitat enhancement and hunting access on private land through its Private Land Initiative. Most North Dakota hunters are familiar with the Private Land Open to Sportsmen program, which provides walking hunting access to more than a million acres [...]

Ruffed Grouse Opener

Our Outdoors By Nick Simonson Opening day in the northwoods of Minnesota generally isn’t the ideal time to chase after the booming wingbeats of a ruffed grouse.  The weather is hit-or-miss, with some mid-September weekend temperatures climbing into the 80s, limiting the time afield for my lab, Gunnar.  There’s still a great deal of foliage [...]

Projects with Antlers

Our Outdoors: DIY Rattling Antlers – Projects with Antlers By Nick Simonson Do you hear that tick-tick-ticking? It’s either the second hand of the hall clock marking off the moments until I’m up in the stand on bow opener or it’s the beginning of field combat between this year’s herd of whitetail bucks in an [...]

Fishing in the Fall

by Bob Jensen Labor Day 2011 has come and gone.  For some folks, that marks the end of summer, and to some people that means it’s time to put the boat and their rods and reels in storage.  If they want to pull the plug on fishing in early September, that’s certainly their decision, but, [...]

ND Flooding

By Doug Leier You don’t have to live in Minot, Bismarck, Jamestown, Valley City or Devils Lake to have battled through drifts of snow and waves of floods through the past several months. Like many North Dakotans I’ve spent my share of time working in and through these floods since last spring, everything from sandbagging [...]

Trolling Crankbaits

Our Outdoors By Nick Simonson In cooler waters of May and June the shallows can seem almost bare.  Nothing but the occasional waterboatman or roaming bluegill disturbs the water bordering shore.  Then as summer peaks, it seems the shallows are suddenly alive and teeming with small fish, as if the table was set for a [...]

Minnesota Youth Hunting

Our Outdoors - By Nick Simonson Odds are your introduction to hunting wasn’t like mine.  Sure, I collected the tail feathers and wings from the pheasants and ducks my dad brought home from his hunts when I was too young to go into the field with him.  But with the death of the family dog on [...]

ND Fishing Questions

By Doug Leier Questions tend to flow with the seasons and while hunting is starting to gain ground, fishing continues to lead my list of phone, email and random inquiries. Here’s a sample of some the North Dakota Game and Fish Department typically receives, with answers from the Game and Fish website at gf.nd.gov. Why [...]

Right Under My Nose

By Nick Simonson When you stand the world on its head, or do your best to stand on yours, the perspective of how and what things are gets turned upside down and undoubtedly provides a new view of what were once familiar surroundings.  Last week, as I made the move from the house my wife [...]

Bass Fishing Technique

by Bob Jensen Largemouth bass can, at times, be pretty receptive to whatever bass fishing technique you might put in the water.  On some days they’ll eat pretty much anything you throw that’s appropriate for where they’re hanging out.  If you throw a bait that’s made to work in shallow water, and if the bass [...]

Legendary hunting awaits you in North Dakota

North Dakota has all the ingredients for legendary hunting: thousands of potholes produce the most ducks in the nation, millions of geese fly along the most intensely traveled migratory paths, upland game birds and big game thrive in abundant habitat, and seemingly endless expanses of public and private land offer plenty of land to hunt. [...]

Fresh Live Bait

by Bob Jensen Fish in the summertime can be a finicky bunch. Some days they want a crankbait moved quickly halfway between the surface and the bottom, other days they want a jig tipped with soft bait bounced aggressively right on the bottom. And then there are the days when they want something worked very [...]

Free Buck Knives Up For Grabs

“LIKE” BUCK KNIVES ON FACEBOOK FOR A CHANCE TO WIN A FREE BUCK141 PAKLITE FIELDMASTER! Pack Light, Cut Easy Three Knives for the Weight of One! Developed by hunters to provide hunters with the essential field dressing tools they need, the PakLite FieldMaster kit is the newest, lightweight addition to the Buck Knives broad line [...]

Leadcore Walleye Fishing

With Jason Mitchell Over the past ten years, trolling with lead core line has gained in popularity amongst the walleye crowd. Lead core enables anglers to put any crank bait in the tackle box in front of fish regardless of how deep. This in itself is a huge advantage but you can also accomplish the [...]

Fishing Mudlines

By Jason Mitchell Wind and chop on the water often makes or breaks walleye fishing success. As wind directions and velocities change through the course of a day, adapting to the opportunities created by wind requires some flexibility. Mid summer often finds extended periods of stable weather with varying wind. One of the top patterns [...]

Snap Shot Ruler Review

Now you can prove the big one didn’t get away! The new SNAP SHOT RULER easily attaches to any fishing line, grip, or scale and measures fish length vertically so there is less handling of your prized catch. Accurate and photo friendly, this innovative ruler is great for anything from catch and release measurements to [...]

How to Make Muskie Spinnerbaits

Our Outdoors – by Nick Simonson Late last summer while scrounging for replacement lure-making parts, I came across a badly worn muskie spinnerbait which had been reduced to a bare lure head, trailer hook and just one of two blades. Recalling some spare black and red flashabou tucked into my desk drawer back home, I [...]

Littering Problems

By Doug Leier Most of us who spend time outdoors occasionally wind up in a spot that makes us think we are the only human to have ever stood or floated in that exact location. Realistically, at least in this part of the world, that’s probably not true. If the natural setting is not altered, [...]

Drayton Catfishing Tourney

_____________________________________________ September 17th, 2011 Rod & Reel Rally Catfishing Tournament Hastings Landing Recreation Area Downtown Drayton, North Dakota 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm Cash prizes and a special $30,000 bonus for breaking the ND channel catfish record The Red River of the North’s only WHOPPER catfishing tournament Call 701-454-6184 or 701-454-FISH Go to www.draytonnd.com Email [...]

Female’s Tree Stand Experience

By Debra Nelson Last year I joined my husband at the archery range with my new Mathews Mission compound bow.  I hadn’t really planned on hunting until I used a judo point on a gopher!  Now, there is disagreement on whether I actually hit it or not but that gopher did not show up anymore [...]

Northern Pike Slime

Our Outdoors: Slime Time By Nick Simonson While unhooking my second pike of the morning, the two-pound fish slipped quickly out of my wet hand and back into the water with a splash. All that was left as evidence that I had even caught it was a chewed up plastic tail and a small coating [...]

Shallow Bass Fishing

by Bob Jensen The month of June provides some of the best fishing of the year in many areas of the Midwest. One style of fishing that is popular and productive is chasing largemouth bass in shallow water. When the bass are done spawning, they’ll hang around the shallows for awhile. The females take a [...]

Time to Go Fishing

by Bob Jensen It used to be that anglers planned their fishing trips way in advance, and many still do. However, in conversations with resort owners and tourism people, more and more, anglers are becoming very spur-of-the-moment planners. They decide on Tuesday they want to go on a fishing trip for the upcoming weekend, maybe [...]

Boating Safety

By Doug Leier Many anglers and recreational boaters enjoy reading through information and testimonials on the latest electronics and power options for a boat or personal watercraft. It’s a good thing to invest time into finding out ways to more efficiently use every last second of fun outdoors. While honestly no one would expect the [...]

Walleye Master

Our Outdoors – by Nick Simonson I heard the audible click of a bail opening at the front of the boat and the whisper of line being played out and I chuckled. I turned and watched the same scene that I had observed multiple times last Sunday night. There in the spotlight was the star [...]

Live Bait Rigs for Walleyes

With Jason Mitchell Live bait rigging is all about angles.  The amount of weight on the sinker combined with the amount of line out determines the angle that the line takes from the rod tip to the water.  The direction that you hover or move either across structure or up and down through structure determines [...]

Fishing Walleyes on Flats

By Jason Mitchell If there is one spot, one pattern that is capable of producing a lot of walleyes for us each season early in the summer, my vote would go to large shallow flats that protrude to deep water.  Shallow is relative along with deep but what we are looking for are flats that [...]

Maverick 5501 Meat Grinder Review

The Maverick 5501 Meat Grinder is a very nice unit that I picked up recently.  I’m relatively new to meat grinding with only limited experience in the past with hand grinders, but I picked it up rather quickly.  Here is some pro’s from this meat grinder review: It is fast.  I was able to grind [...]

Fishing Paddlefish

By Doug Leier Given North Dakota’s geographic location, sort of on the fault line between east and west, and north and south, it’s easy to understand the state’s diversity of fish and wildlife species. Few states can claim such a variety of critters in terms of roosters, bucks, ducks and pike. In fact after a [...]

Catch More Fish This Year

By Bob Jensen Although the lakes across the northern section of the Midwest are still covered with ice, anglers are fishing almost everywhere else. There’s a feeling in the air that anglers are anxious to get fishing. They want to be on the water chasing whatever it is that they like to chase, and nothing [...]

Aquatic Nuisance Species

By Doug Leier It feels like just yesterday, when in fact it’s been over a year and a half, since the first official discovery of zebra mussels in the Red River watershed. First, these aquatic nuisance species were found established in a Minnesota lake upstream of the Red River. Then, to no one’s surprise, they [...]

Canadian Night Crawlers

With fishing season coming to light, it’s a great time to start looking into cheap bait.   You can now buy premium Canadian night crawlers for a lot cheaper then your local bait shop.  Canadian night crawlers are considered the highest quality, largest crawlers available.   One of our newest sponsors now has a special [...]

Mahi Mahi Fishing

By Nick Simonson It finally sank in when I was about an hour from the lake cabin where my buddy had been watching my dog while I was on vacation. As I looked around the midway point gas station at the beige grasses, gray skies, and leafless trees, I could hardly believe that just sixteen [...]

Early Season Fishing Success

By Bob Jensen More and more, anglers are getting on and in the water. Some folks are fishing from boats, some are wading, and some are fishing from docks or shore. Some anglers are catching fish, some aren’t catching too much. If you want to catch more fish early in the fishing season, following are [...]

Blade Baits

By Eric Olson Water clarity can be such an important variable that affects our success regardless the time of year.  Walleye and sauger both can be affected by poor visibility.  On rivers in particular when heavy rains or sudden run off can dirty the water and create poor visibility, anglers have to make the adjustments [...]

Good North Dakota Fishing

By Doug Leier The late Dean Hildebrand was North Dakota Game and Fish Department director from 1996 through 2005 and he had a well-developed vocabulary of catch phrases and sayings. One description I heard repeatedly for years was his exclamation that, “We’re living in the good old days when it comes to hunting and fishing.” [...]

Long Lines for Spring Walleye

By Jason Mitchell Over the years, an incredibly effective tactic for us is to long line a light jig or split shot rig through shallow water.  In states where we could use two rods in particular, we often used the long line rig on the extra rod in the rod holder.  There are probably several [...]

Super Sport License

Our Outdoors By Nick Simonson Many times I think back fondly to reading class in sixth grade at Jefferson Elementary School. My teacher, Mr. Horner, read us a number of exciting books, many with a coming-of-age story behind them, preparing us for our adventure into Junior High the following year. Among the titles was the [...]

Early River Walleyes

By Bob Jensen Across the Midwest, March and April mean one thing to most walleye anglers: Rivers! In some states, walleye season doesn’t open until early to mid-May. If you want to go fishing for walleyes, you need to go to a border river where walleye season is continuous. In other regions, the lakes are [...]

Fishing Trivia

By Doug Leier If you asked my wife about my ability to recall seemingly useless fishing trivia data, she would likely say that it is times annoying. I’m not bragging about it, not a chance, but I’ve never understood how I can easily forget the whereabouts of my keys, cell phone, the remote control and [...]

Smallmouth Bass Jigs

Our Outdoors: Smallmouth Bass Jigs By Nick Simonson Learning how to fish on the Sheyenne River in southeastern North Dakota during my late teens and early twenties allowed me the luxury to go after smallmouth bass from the first warm-up in early April until the fish really got going in May. Throughout the years, my [...]

Open Water Fishing Is Here

by Bob Jensen I drove on the bridge over the Mississippi River at Prairie du Chien Wisconsin this past weekend. The ice was gone and there were boats on the water. Reports were that fishing for walleyes and sauger was good. The open water fishing season for 2011 has started. When you get the chance [...]

Wildlife Biology Career

By Doug Leier Sooner or later – most likely later – what feels like spring will arrive. Just looking at the calendar makes that a pretty safe prediction, but I also know that spring is getting closer because of a bump in the volume of calls I get from students and parents looking for guidance [...]

Sharing Fishing Success

Our Outdoors  - By Nick Simonson I had promised to take a coworker, Dane, on a number of fishing trips this past year, but it seemed as if fate was aligned against the idea of getting him exposed to the different niches of angling he wanted to learn about. Our muskie adventure in August was cancelled [...]

Downstream Mentality

Our Outdoors: Downstream Mentality By Nick Simonson Each spring, the banks of area lakes and rivers are littered with pop bottles, chip bags, Styrofoam cups, plastic containers, beer cans, and my personal pet peeve, spent fishing line. The snow that lines the gutters of city streets and highway ditches slowly gives way to reveal plastic, [...]

March in ND

By Doug Leier We’re each afforded our own perspective on the beginning of spring. Sports fans point toward baseball’s spring training, turkey hunters anxiously await the April 9 gobbler season opener, and you could fill up pages with other events or notable milestones that people consider as an unofficial arrival of spring The calendar, of [...]

ND Non-Game Species

By Doug Leier Biologists categorize more than 80 percent of North Dakota’s wildlife species as nongame, or those that don’t answer to the name of rooster, buck or sprig. And yet, the few species for which hunting or fishing is allowed attract the lion’s share of concerns from people who enjoy the outdoors. This winter [...]

New Fishing Gear for 2011

by Bob Jensen While there’s still lots of ice-fishing to do, open water fishing is getting closer every day. I’ve enjoyed the ice-fishing season, but am also looking forward to putting a boat in the water. When the time arrives that we’re casting a lure instead of dropping it through a hole in the ice, [...]

The Plight of the Partridge

By Doug Leier When it comes to winter and wildlife, we give much time and attention to pheasants and deer. While I won’t begrudge the attention for arguably the two most popular hunted species in North Dakota, there’s a host of other critters working their way through winter with us as well. Some, like the [...]

The Ugly Fish

Our Outdoors – By Nick Simonson I’ll admit it. I enjoy The Soup on E! Network. Joel McHale watches all the crap TV shows, makes fun of each in a thirty-second clip and moves on so I get all the best, worst and weirdest parts of what happened from what I’d never watch on TV [...]

Shallow Water Fishing

By Jason Mitchell The fact that shallow water fishing is productive during the early part of the open water season is no secret.  This general pattern is fairly universal with both warm water and cool water fish that spawn in the spring.  Whether the targeted species is bass, walleyes, northern pike or even pan fish, [...]

North Dakota Bald Eagles

The recovery of the bald eagle is one of the most visible conservation recovery success stories for our nation. While the plight of whooping cranes and California condors is well documented and well known, these birds have struggled to gain ground and are still rooted on the endangered species list. The bald eagle, on the [...]

Open Water Fishing

LOOKING FORWARD TO OPEN WATER FISHING by Bob Jensen Winter arrived in the Midwest early this year and has hung on pretty aggressively. Everything has looked clean and white for a good number of weeks, but now it’s time to move on. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still lots of ice-fishing to do. In fact, [...]

180 Ice Holes

Our Outdoors: 180 Ice Holes By Nick Simonson 180 ice holes make an area about the size of a football field look like a giant slice of Swiss cheese. 180 ice holes feel like a P90X doubles workout day followed by a lactic acid soak for the shoulders, back and triceps, even with a lightweight [...]

Feeding Wildlife in the Winter

By Doug Leier I haven’t checked my archives, but even if I wrote last year about the human desire to feed wildlife during a difficult winter, it’s a topic that bears another look. Years ago in specific scenarios, feeding of wildlife didn’t send up red flags to biologists. Nowadays, however, the best information available tells [...]

Fishing Memories

Our Outdoors By Nick Simonson Paging through the pile of tackle catalogs that all seemed to arrive in my mailbox on the same day (a sure sign that spring is still coming) made me amazed, once again, at the number of lure colors available.  From plastics, to crankbaits, and even standard jigs, there are literally thousands [...]

Spring Walleyes

By Jason Mitchell So often when targeting big walleyes early in the season, less is more.  The most productive techniques are often simple and subtle.  On natural lakes in particular, we often find fish shallow, relating to the shoreline.  Good locations might include protected shallow bays or shallow gravel and sand flats that warm up [...]

Ice Fishing Tip Ups for Pike

By Ted Pilgrim with Tony Roach There’s something satisfying about setting a well-planed network of tip-ups across the icy expanse of a frozen lake. Strategically placed “fish-traps,” each rigged with a robust, frisky live minnow or intentionally motionless stinker like a herring to snare freshwater predators. Get a bunch of dudes together, throw a pile [...]

Snowmobiles Deer Hunting

By Doug Leier Every about this time, at least in those years when North Dakota’s landscape is covered with snow, the State Game and Fish Department and other agencies work to remind outdoor recreationists to keep an eye out for wildlife. We could almost get by without even mentioning it. Most people who cross-country ski [...]

Some Things Don’t Change

By Nick Simonson I lifted my right foot as the slight humming noise approached from behind me. A few moments later, I lifted my left foot and hopped a step over to keep my balance. The whir, beep and buzz of the floor-cleaning robot my wife received as a Christmas present continued on as I [...]

Looking Ahead

By Doug Leier Looking ahead to 2011 in the outdoors world is kind of like assessing the preseason prospects of your favorite sports team. We kind of have an idea of what to expect, but unpredictable variables like major storms, timely rains or extended dry periods – or injuries in the case of sports – [...]

Vertical Ice Fishing

By Nick Simonson There’s an old Irish proverb that wishes good luck to the traveler by stating “may the road rise to meet you.” For anglers, especially those on the ice, it should be more like “may the fish rise to meet you.” Presentation is one of the key factors for consistently catching fish and [...]

Crossbow Hunting

Doug Leier For most of us, crossbows are not a real common topic in hunting discussions. You’ve probably seen them on an outdoors television program or maybe in person at a trade show or other event, but overall use of a crossbow is not that common around the country, most likely because they are not [...]

Lure Making Tips

By Nick Simonson In the past few weeks, I’ve touched upon different jig patterns and fly patterns on tap for the new year in my articles and that, along with what looks to be a winter that will cause a cabin fever epidemic of historic proportions, has elicited some emails and Facebook messages asking me [...]

Ice Auger Drilling

By Jason Mitchell When you look at some of the best ice anglers, there often is some strategy in how and where they drill holes.  Ice anglers might not be able to drift or troll but they can drill holes in a pattern and discipline themselves to fish the holes in a set time to [...]

Downsize Your Ice Fishing

By Nick Simonson As the seasons pass and I have become more adept at ice fishing and technology has bolstered my ability on the ice, I have drifted away from those species I once pursued primarily in winter. Walleyes and northern pike, though tops on the food chain, take a back seat these days to [...]

Late Season Compromise

By Nick Simonson When temperatures drop below freezing, my thoughts generally turn to ice fishing. My wife’s thoughts on the other hand, turn to ways to keep me from testing the newly-formed surface of local waters. And as we usually do in our marriage, we have reached a nice compromise on this issue. In the [...]

Late Season Pheasant Hunting

By Doug Leier For those of us who like to spend as much time as possible on the outside of the window, October is a sort of early Christmas present. Hunting seasons for just about everything are open, and fall fishing can be just as hot as summer, but without humidity and mosquitoes. While crunching [...]

Waterfowl Industry Gets a Black Eye

After years of rumors and speculation, a federal grand jury returned 23-count felony indictment today charging Jeff Foiles of Foiles Migrators.  This is a huge black eye in the waterfowl industry.  Jeff Foiles, a well known representative of the waterfowl industry, is looked up upon by many and is affiliated with many products and companies.   Whether [...]