CRP Signup Time

By Doug Leier
Whether we like it or not, it’s part of human nature to take for granted things that become part of our lives or benefit us over the long term. The only way we can truly appreciate the value of what we have, is to have less of it.
In the outdoor world, the U.S. [...]

Looking to Fall in ND

By Doug Leier
With the Vikings into training camp, regardless of who plays quarterback for the Purple this fall, most experts agree it should be a good season. The same goes for North Dakota’s primary gamebird species this fall.
That said, there’s no guarantee and we really won’t know until hunters or football players take the field. [...]

Hunting Sage Grouse

By Doug Leier

While it won’t become official until the annual small game hunting proclamation is finalized later this month, it’s a certainty that North Dakota will not have a sage grouse season again this fall. This will mark the third year in a row that the state has not had an open season [...]

Buck Knives Father’s Day Sale

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Get dad a new knife this Father’s Day at an unbeatable price. Buck has a knife for every occasion. Be sure to check out our Father’s Day Special! It’s a limited edition 110 Folding Hunter with Nickel Silver Bolsters, instead of the standard brass [...]

All in the Stats

By Doug Leier
I’ve always been intrigued by numbers and the dynamics of statistics. While the numbers themselves, if they are accurate, are more or less facts, the factors contributing to those final statistics are where the real fun comes in.
Consider, for instance, last fall’s deer and pheasant harvest numbers. When the North Dakota Game and [...]

Cold Weather Pheasants

By Nick Simonson
It’s a cold day with clear blue skies following the winter’s first blizzard, which left six inches of snow as an early Christmas present. A group of buntings flits from the shoulder to the field edge as I turn my hard-starting pickup off of the highway. We rumble down the gravel [...]

Late Season Pheasant Hunting

By Doug Leier
Growing up as a kid in the 1980s, across the prairie from Williston to LaMoure and Valley City, December was a time of transition in our house. After the close of regular deer rifle season, the collection of my Dad’s gear in the “ready” position shifted from primarily hunting, to a mix of [...]

Double Down on Pheasants

By Nick Simonson
This year’s pheasant opener was unique in a number of ways. It was the first time I had opened the season somewhere other than North Dakota, with kickoff usually held at my grandmother’s farm near Watford City, N.D. in the company of my dad, brother, uncle and cousins. The hunting report [...]

A Look Back at ND in 2006

By Doug Leier
 This week we’ll take a look back at the outdoor issues and topics that shaped North Dakota in 2006, through interviews with fisheries and wildlife division leaders for the State Game and Fish Department.
It’s been an interesting year, with many positive stories to report. At the same time there are concerns heading into [...]

How to Pheasant Hunt Late Season Roosters in SD

By PJ Maguire
I  have said it before, and I will say it again. When there is snow on the ground and the sloughs are frozen, that is the best time of the year to hunt pheasants. This year we have had snow and freezing temps across the Midwest during a good part of pheasant season. [...]

PLOTS

By Doug Leier
We’re building on a generation of hunters who grew up with the Conservation Reserve Program. Just about half of that generation has never known a North Dakota landscape that did not have at least a few fields marked with a triangular yellow Private Land Open to Sportsmen or PLOTS sign encouraging walk-in hunting [...]

The History of Hunting Dogs in North Dakota

By Doug Leier
Looking back over the history of hunting and conservation in North Dakota, there’s never a shortage of topics warranting a double-take. Even the contemporary populations of Canada geese, and realizing we’re allotting 100,000 more deer tags than in the 1970s fit that category.
Here’s another tidbit from the annals of North Dakota history, the [...]

Surviving the Winter

By Doug Leier
Humans cope with winter in a number of ways, and looking out at the wildlife world it’s interesting to compare our mechanisms with those of other creatures and critters.
Take for instance what we commonly call snow birds, or those folks who spend spring, summer and fall in our midst, but choose to winter [...]

CRP Loss Equals Less Wildlife

By Doug Leier
It’s no secret that Conservation Reserve Program acreage continues to decline in North Dakota. This is not a surprising development, as for many years agencies and conservation organizations have been pointing toward economic factors that could potentially influence landowner interest in CRP.
The reality of the situation in 2008 is that accelerated CRP loss will [...]

Late Season Roosters

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 across the [...]

Hunting Retriever Basics

By PJ Maguire
Dogs are companions, first and foremost. As hunters with retrievers, we should always keep that in mind when training, hunting or playing with our dogs. The vast majority of your retriever’s life will be spent going for walks and chasing butterflies, not hunting. However, it is easy for us to forget that when [...]

The Next Generation

By Doug Leier
A few weeks back a reader sent the following comment to me.
Youth hunting is one of my best memories growing up … certainly not the hunting part of it, just being out there with my dad, learning how to hunt.

I remember the first deer I “shot” at. I was walking up a tree [...]

South Dakota Pheasant Hunting

By PJ Maguire
My dad said that last weekend was probably the coldest weather he had ever experienced in the field. Even with all the advancements in cold weather clothing, the Midwest winter chill can get you.. These days my dad owns warmer clothing and knows how to dress for the elements. The Friday was the [...]

Hunting Pheasants – Fried Pheasant Recipe

By Doug Leier
When I look back over pictures of may dad and I hunting pheasants in the 1980s, it’s not hard to see from the old prints how special these birds were. In this age of taking thousands of digital photos, even 25 years ago a couple of snap shots were usually reserved only for [...]

Sense of the Pheasant Season

Our Outdoors
Nick Simonson
The day is finally here – pheasant opener. Many sportsmen have been counting down since about mid-July. And with good reason, it is a time in the field unlike any other. It is a circus of the senses and the experience is remembered not only by birds put in the bag, but through [...]

Prairie Habitat

By Doug Leier
It’s July but I’m thinking of fall. And with good reason.
Last year’s pheasant harvest was likely higher than in any year since the mid-1940s. The past winter was relatively mild which should have meant fairly good carryover of birds. While abundant rains over much of the state could inhibit nest success and brood [...]

Fall Hunting Predictions

By Doug Leier
Football previews with prognostications and predictions for the upcoming season are starting in earnest. Based on drafts and off-season transactions, “experts” are predicting which teams will flourish or fail.
While most hunting seasons are at least six weeks away, biologists and wildlife managers can also make calculated estimations as to how well a fall [...]

Hunting Accidents are No Joke

By PJ Maguire

 
Honestly I have wanted to write this column since the Cheney quail-hunting incident. Several things have made me delay it. One, I needed to collect my thoughts about exactly what I wanted to say. Two, I wanted the media coverage of the event to blow over.
Accidents happen. I do not care who you [...]

Classic Pheasant Recipes

By Nick Simonson
If pheasant opener left you with anything, it was most likely, birds in the freezer. The question is how one goes about eating them. No longer are hunters bound by the code of Cream of Mushroom soup and a crock pot. There are many exciting ways to prepare pheasant recipes and what follows [...]

Youth Pheasant Hunting

Our Outdoors
Nick Simonson

 
“I love it when a plan comes together,” is a cult classic phrase said countless times by actor George Peppard in his role as John “Hannibal” Smith on the 1980s action-adventure series, The A-Team.
And who doesn’t? When the pieces fall into place for that perfect hunting or fishing trip, the experience makes countless [...]

Praise for the PLOTS Program

Our Outdoors
Nick Simonson

 
900,000; that’s a big number. In terms of acreage its 5,625 quarter sections of land or about 1,406 full sections of land. 900,000 is also the total number of acres enrolled in the North Dakota Game and Fish Department’s (NDG&F) Private Land Open to Sportsmen Program (PLOTS).
For the past several years, the yellow [...]

Pheasant Facts to Fight the Fever

Our Outdoors
Nick Simonson
The countdown on my computer’s screen saver says it all: Nine Days, 18 Hours, 32 Minutes, 14 Seconds.
To help time lapse for you, that’s about sunrise on October 14, 2006 – The opening moment of pheasant season. I expect to find myself walking the five-row shelterbelt west of the Simonson farmstead near Watford [...]

The Value of a Safe Hunt

By Doug Leier
Pheasants are plentiful this fall across the prairie. Deer numbers, too, provide plenty of incentive to get out and enjoy what we may someday refer to as “the good old days.”
I’m not going to apologize for appreciating the hunting opportunities that should be available this fall of 2006.
While game populations largely depend on [...]

Kicking Off the Partridge & Grouse Hunting Season

Our Outdoors
Nick Simonson
“I can’t wait for pheasant season,” my buddy commented as he boated his twelfth 10-inch walleye of the evening. “I can,” I replied as I swept the hook into another of the lake’s small denizens. “What I used to consider the preseason is now the regular season,” I stated as I slipped my [...]

Pheasant Numbers Looking Up

By Doug Leier
August brings with it an array of predictions and prognostications for the upcoming hunting seasons. It’s not much different than gauging the outlook for your local high school or college football team, or trying to guess how well the Vikings will play.
It’s a process of reviewing last year’s results, mixing in changes over [...]

Get Fit for Upland Hunting

Our Outdoors
Nick Simonson

 
Safety in the field goes beyond hunter’s education, being aware of your surroundings and knowing your target and what lies beyond it. Personal physical well-being in the field is usually an afterthought, and when it is addressed, it is usually too late.
The early upland seasons are a walking hunter’s re-introduction to the stress [...]

Wiley Winter Roosters

By Nick Simonson
I’ve never seen such wild roosters in my life. Between the games of family poker, the opening of stockings, and Christmas dinner there was holiday hunting, although it was more like a track meet with shotguns.
Closing the door on the pickup truck caused the end of the tree row, nearly one hundred yards [...]

The Future of Hunting & Fishing in North Dakota

By Doug Leier
We will guarantee you a more successful pheasant hunt, and at the same time, help improve your fishing. All you have to do is read this column.
I’d venture to say that introduction would generate more interest than if I simply described how to maintain healthy grasslands and protect clean water.
However, one leads to [...]

The Truth Behind Feeding Wildlife

By Doug Leier
Wildlife management is pretty good science, but it is not always an exact science. We do the best we can with the knowledge and research we have, but sometimes, we don’t have all the answers. And sometimes, the answers change based on new research and knowledge.
Such is the case with the historical practice [...]

Silver Dollar Slough Pheasants

By PJ Maguire
With the majority of the waterfowl south of North Dakota, all signs pointed towards a late season pheasant hunt in early winter. The corn was harvested and the sloughs were frozen, providing ideal conditions for late season birds. My good friends Lars and Jason Dyrdahl, had invited me to south eastern North Dakota [...]

Pheasant Hunting Thourgh CRP

By Doug Leier
By now I hope most hunters understand the connection between North Dakota’s continued strong pheasant population and the state’s 3.4 million acres of Conservation Reserve Program lands.
But if not, here’s a short refresher on what can happen when you take marginal cropland out of production and plant it to grass.
In each of the [...]

Late Season Pheasant Hunting

By Doug Leier
Hunting season doesn’t end with the close of deer gun season. In fact, for some hunters the fun is just beginning.
While traditional pheasant hunting images resonate strongly with a warm October sun and a crisp morning walk with dew-soaked boots, don’t think for a minute that December pheasant hunting is reserved exclusively for [...]

FLUSH!!! – A Pheasant Hunting Story

By Chris Hustad
“Chrissss…it’s time to wake up” were my mother’s calm words that awoke me from my casual slumber. After a couple long stretches and a few scratches on my head, I was rolling out of bed and onto my feet. It was around 5 in the morning on an early October morning, but not [...]

Early Season Lesson Learned

By Mike Taddy
Every dog owner’s worst nightmare is losing his or her canine friend, especially when you could have prevented an untimely death. As my 2 ½ year-old male black lab, Harley, lay at my side panting deeply and whimpering, I questioned my judgment to take him a field on this warm second day of [...]

Fast & Easy Pheasant Cleaning Tips

By Gary Simonson

This is a pheasant cleaning tip for anyone out there looking to get the most out of the birds they harvest. Give it a try and post up the results in the recipe forum!
Completely skin the bird leaving on the head. Do not gut. Please note these photos were taken at home, if [...]

Tina’s Refuge – Tension Between Hunters and Land Owners

By Perry Thorvig
Ike and Tina Marsh took a rare break to sit in their rural North Dakota farmyard on a warm August evening. The sky was blue, but turning to a dust filtered orange as the sun dropped toward the wide western horizon beyond the Missouri River. There was just a whisper of wind. For [...]

Snow Birds

By Perry Thorvig
What a difference – early season pheasant hunting versus late season!
We know that late season pheasants are smart compared to the early season birds. We have experienced the change in pheasant behavior between the early and late season in past years. But, we got our butts kicked by those gaudy flyers after Thanksgiving [...]

Public Land Roosters

By PJ McQuire
“I could have shot that one.” said UND student Nick Anderson, as a Mallard flew over us at the break of dawn, the skyline pink in the East.
At that moment there were nine of us sitting on a gravel road just south of Bismarck moments away from the 2004 pheasant season. Ahead of [...]

The Prairie Dancers

By Doug Leier
I  like the emergence of spring on the prairie to an annual visit to Yellowstone National Park – spread over the span of a month.
It starts with the arrival of giant Canada geese, already paired off and ready to start nesting when ice and snow are nearly gone. Canada geese are a sure [...]

The Importance of the North Dakota PLOTS Land

By Doug Leier
North Dakota does not have much public land, compared to our neighbors to the east and west. While Minnesota is about 30 percent public ownership and Montana about 40 percent public, more than 90 percent of North Dakota is privately owned.
So it makes sense that much of our resident wildlife, such as pheasants, [...]

Pheasant Recipes

Here’s some favorite pheasant recipes of ours.
Baked Pheasant Recipe :

1 can (10.75-oz) cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup Apple cider
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
3/4 tsp. Salt
1/3 cup Chopped onion
1 Clove (small) garlic, minced
1 can (4-oz) sliced mushrooms, drained
2 Pheasants
Paprika

Blend all ingredients except pheasants and paprika. Pour over pheasants and sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 350, covered, for [...]

The Importance of the CRP Program

By Robert A. Langager
 

 I grew up in Fargo, ND and Marshall, in southwestern MN. I have spent many autumns chasing waterfowl in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of MN, ND, and SD. I currently reside in Durham, NC and attend North Carolina State University and am pursuing degrees in Watershed Hydrology and Wetlands Assessment. I [...]

Wildlife and Winterkill

By Doug Leier
For many people this seems like clash of two different worlds, of poor little critters struggling to find food and stay warm during long stretches of frigid temperatures and blanket on top of blanket of snow.
It just so happens that those blankets of snow might actually help some native prairie wildlife withstand freezing [...]

Pheasant Hunting Tips – Pheasant Hunting in a Hurricane?

By Perry Thorvig
If you know me, you probably think this article is going to be about hunting around Hurricane Lake in Pierce County. Or, it has something to do with chasing Hurricanes in Florida, Well, it’s not about either of those topics. But, it is about a hurricane. Do you believe in hurricanes in North [...]

Late Season Pheasant Hunting

By Jason Phillips
Although the days of tight holding roosters may be behind us, there are still some opportunities for avid upland game hunters. The young of the year birds are now well educated on how to elude hunters and the wily “old” roosters continue to demonstrate how they became old. To this point it has [...]

One Too Many

By Perry Thorvig
Man, I was bushed!! I slid onto a bar stool at Bismarck’s Comfort Inn north of I-94 and ordered a tall brew. The frothy suds went down smoothly and began to quench a mighty thirst. I was well into my second brew when a rather odd looking old character hopped on the stool [...]

Old Farm Creek

By Jason Phillips
As the heat of summer is in our midst, crisp fall mornings seem only a distant memory. Now is a great time to reflect on great autumn outdoor memories of years past and look forward to the upcoming season. My mind often drifts to my first hunt. It was a crisp autumn morning [...]

The Importance of CRP

By Doug Leier
In 2002, for the first time since the 1950s, North Dakota hunters bagged more than 500,000 pheasants. While 2003 statistics are not yet complete, based on anecdotal reports, it is possible the pheasant harvest for last fall will again top a half-million birds.
If that happens, it will be the only time since 1945-46 [...]

The Grouse Grand Slam

By Doug Leier
Recent talk of a possible prairie chicken hunting season in eastern North Dakota has, not surprisingly, given rise to the concept of a “grouse grand slam,” or the opportunity to hunt four different grouse species this fall. The last time this was possible was more than 60 years ago, at the tail-end of [...]

Pheasants Forever

St. Paul, Minn. – March 15, 2005 – Today, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MN DNR) announced a long range plan for Minnesota’s ring-necked pheasant population. The plan, which Pheasants Forever (PF) wildlife biologists helped develop, focuses on the addition of 1.56 million acres of habitat. Those additional habitat acres are projected to translate [...]

Watch What You’re Shooting At

By Perry Thorvig
It sure was nice of the State of North Dakota to close PLOTS lands to non-resident hunters on the opening of the North Dakota pheasant season last year. It kept a lot of NRs out of the state. We, however, had private land to hunt thanks to North Dakotan Chuck Gosen and his [...]

What is Hunting?

By Doug Leier
State Century Code has defined hunting in North Dakota. Albeit for legal purposes, the definition is rather cumbersome, but NDCC20.1-01 and section 21 defines hunting as: “shooting, shooting at, pursuing, taking, attempting to take, or killing any game animals and game birds; searching for or attempting to locate or flush any game animals [...]

Late Season Hunting Is Upon Us

By Doug Leier
For many hunters November is a peak and valley, the best of times and the worst of times. As North Dakota’s popular deer gun hunting season opens and closes, thousands of hunters begin and end their hunting activities within the 16 ½ days the regular season takes place.
While most of the good duck, [...]

PLOTS Map – Opening Access

By Doug Leier
The State Game and Fish Department has had programs that cooperatively involve private landowners since the 1950s. But it’s been less than 10 years since the first inverted yellow triangular sign went up on tracts called Private Land Open to Sportsmen.
The PLOTS has its roots in legislation passed in 1997. The new law [...]