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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Ghost in the Grove

By Nick Simonson As sundown approached one evening, I heard a loud series of crashes in the ten acres of old elms behind me. The repeated footsteps thrashing the leaves and twigs were far more aggressive than those of the doe and fawn that had crept out of the trees a half hour earlier to [...]

ND Trax for your PC

TRAX PC – The Adventure Continues! Kirsch’s Outdoor Products is announcing the immediate release of TRAX PC. This product takes the power of TRAX GPS maps and overlays the GPS sportsman map details on the satellite imagery of Google Earth. “The feedback of the TRAX maps has been amazing,” said Korey Kirschenmann, Owner of Kirsch’s [...]

First Test of Buck Fever

By Nick Simonson As a beginning bow hunter, I fall victim to what I’m sure are rookie mistakes. The sound of a squirrel on the ground, rustling through leaves for a bite of food is about all it takes to get my heart pumping and I find myself overamped at the noise. However, I am [...]

Treestand Safety

By Nick Simonson While in the throes of a hotly contested battle with the seat section of a new 15-foot ladder stand, I took a break from what is now becoming a late summer ritual to get a drink of water and my bearings while looking over the assembly manual. It wasn’t the antler fever-inducing [...]

Buck Knives Father’s Day Sale

BUCK KNIVES 40% OFF Father’s Day Sale! 40% OFF Any Knife!* www.buckknives.com 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 [...]

Protecting Your Garden from Deer

By Doug Leier I’ll never be mistaken for a master gardener, and it really doesn’t bother me. Beyond borrowing the neighbor’s tiller and breaking up the ground each spring, I lose interest in the garden even before the first spuds are planted. So it comes as no surprise that when a stray rabbit is clipping [...]

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 [...]

Deer Hunting Points

By Doug Leier More than 30 years ago, when the North Dakota Game and Fish Department began managing deer in smaller units and issuing a specific number of buck or doe licenses – for example, 38,000 total licenses in 1980 – some “want to be” potential deer hunters actually had to stay home. Fortunately, that [...]

Deer Management

My guess is that most deer hunters don’t tire of the “Turdy Point Buck” tune on the radio until the backside of deer season. For a change, though, I’d sure enjoy listening to a refrain about hunting doe in North Dakota. Then again, doe hunting doesn’t quite get the credit it deserves. In fact, when [...]

Taxidermy Tips

By Nick Simonson At a near run, you step over the crest of the small hill to the other side that leads down to the oak bottom and wonder where the deer bounded after it left your sight. With the scent of gunpowder fading, you follow the sign in the brown leaves and dry grass [...]

Sportsmen Against Hunger

By Doug Leier Good news for North Dakota deer hunters this year is that the Sportsmen Against Hunger venison donation program is back in full operation Last year, the program only accepted deer donated by bowhunters, because of concerns over the possibility of lead particles from bullets remaining in processed venison. In North Dakota, the [...]

Feeding Wildlife During Winter

By Doug Leier Nobody wants to see wildlife starve. It happens sometimes, but even in a winter such as this, not as much as most people think. Even in mild winters, Game and Fish is asked about feeding animals, and over time the response to such questions has changed. Historically, winter feeding of wildlife – [...]

Deer Baiting – The Never Ending Saga

By Chris Hustad   One of the most controversial topics to ever come up in the Nodak Outdoors forums is whether or not deer baiting is ethical. Keep in mind, anytime you want to argue ethics you’re arguing a very large gray area. Who decides what is ethical? That is in the eye of the [...]

Flinch-Free Firing – Rifle Shooting Technique

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson An old neighbor of mine who was just as good at busting sporting clays on the skeet range as he was at busting my chops regarding my tales of fishing and hunting misadventure, asked me what my problem was when he read I didn’t get a deer on opening weekend a [...]

Taking Care of Your Deer After Harvest

By Doug Leier North Dakota’s recent bounty of white-tailed deer means that more hunters in more places have had a chance to put a deer or two or three in the freezer. That’s quite a change from a few short decades ago when deer weren’t nearly as plentiful and many hunters made doe licenses their [...]

Deer Behavior and Auto Accidents

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson While driving back from a trip back home this week, I encountered a situation that many outdoorsmen run into when heading out to or coming back from the lake, the deer blind or any other activity which requires an early start or a late return. Despite seeing the mature doe some [...]

Making Your Own Deer Hunting Rattlers

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson Do you hear that tick-tick-ticking? It’s either the second hand of the hall clock marking off the moments until deer seasons open up around the region or it’s the beginning of field combat between this year’s herd of whitetail bucks in an attempt to establish dominance. From Sunday morning hunting shows [...]

Concerns Over Big Game Hunting with Bait

By Doug Leier Over the course of the past year we’ve heard a lot about hunting big game over bait in North Dakota. Some hunters engage in this practice, some have never tried it but support it, and still others would like to see the practice prohibited statewide. The North Dakota Game and Fish Department, [...]

Elk Management

By Doug Leier Science and wildlife management are not stationary. Continuous research and fact gathering result in adjustments to management strategies and through this evolving process hunters directly see changes in hunting seasons. This year’s North Dakota elk season is a good example. Just since 2006, the State Game and Fish Department has nearly doubled [...]

Concerns for Big Game Disease

By Doug Leier A few weeks ago, top officials from North Dakota’s game and fish and agriculture departments attended a public meeting in Grygla, Minn., to get an up-close look at the fall-out from the increasing presence of bovine tuberculosis only 50 miles from North Dakota’s border. Area meetings took place because bovine TB has [...]

Land Mangement for Hunting

Jeremy Elbert While the recent weather has not given any indication of spring actually becoming a reality, we all know it’s just around the corner. As snow gives way to wonderful green growth and spring gives way to summer, it’s time to start thinking about how to improve our hunting properties. If your list is [...]

The Big 3 – Elk, Moose, and Bighorn Sheep Hunting

By Doug Leier March 19 is the deadline for the “big three,” or moose, elk and bighorn sheep license applications in North Dakota. I’d wager a guess that even some non-hunters have heard discussion on the odds of winning the big three lottery, and we’re not talking a financial lottery either. Hunters nod with understanding [...]

Managing Food Plots

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson I  can tell you the exact moment I became addicted to fishing; it happened while standing on the rocks my dad on the shore of the Sheyenne River just below the Baldhill Dam as we landed white bass hand over fist on a warm June Saturday nearly 10 years ago. Clearly, [...]

My First Buck

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson Part 1 of a 2-Part Story This year’s deer season was make-or-break for me. In past years, I had been unwilling or unable to put in the time to become proficient with a rifle. There was always something else to do like fishing for bass or hunting upland game throughout late [...]

My November Buck Pursuit

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson Part 2 of a 2-Part Story With a blink of my eyes, I was asleep after dinner and awake long before the rest of the house. I jumped into my hunting clothes and donned blaze orange for day two of the November chase. My host, free from the burdens of work, [...]

Common Questions on Deer Hunting Regulations

By Doug Leier Forget the remaining ducks and geese, step aside roosters and turkeys. It’s deer season. Officially the regular gun season runs Nov. 9 through Nov. 25, but make no mistake, deer season takes center stage until the tags are filled and garages are transformed into makeshift processing plants. Between the hash marks of the [...]

The Big Game Tradition

By Doug Leier I  beg any reader to honestly say they don’t know a deer hunter in North Dakota. While not every adult North Dakota citizen will hunt deer, it has more participants than any other form of hunting. Not a sports rivalry in our state claims nearly a hundred thousand participants. In fact, to [...]

Choosing a Scope

By Richard Burt The most important piece of equipment you will buy for big game hunting in the open plains of North Dakota is a scope for your rifle. I believe that the scope makes the gun, and if you have a budget and have to choose between an inexpensive Weatherby Vanguard with a nice [...]

FIVE STEP PROGRAM FOR QUALITY WHITETAILS

By Curt Wells Nothing strikes fear in the heart of a bowhunter like the sound of hoof steps behind him. It can paralyze you with terror – unless you’re ready for it. I heard that petrifying sound one November morning in North Dakota, just as the day filtered into the trees. It stunned me because [...]

Bucks of the Vortex

By Curt Wells If you’ve scouted and hunted whitetails long enough you’ve heard the sirens. They’re loud, but you’re the only one who can hear them. They go off just as you look around and find yourself standing in a place that has your hunting instincts in full alarm. This place you’ve discovered, either by [...]

Deer Disease

By Doug Leier In northwestern Minnesota near the town of Skime, sharpshooters recently completed a culling effort to reduce white-tailed deer numbers. Nearly 500 deer were killed over a two-month period. The campaign was a response to concerns over the potential spread of bovine tuberculosis, a chronic bacterial disease that primarily infects cattle, but an [...]

Leave Wildlife Alone

By Doug Leier The local game warden’s phone rings a lot this time of year. Game wardens are essentially tasked with enforcing outdoor recreation laws across the state. This includes everything from boat and water safety patrol during high traffic times on lakes and rivers, monitoring mid-winter predator hunters. What you don’t see or hear [...]

A decade ago: the winter of 1996-1997

By Doug Leier The winter of 1996-1997 was a winter for the ages. It started in early November with blizzard after blizzard, snowfall after snowfall, and spread its impact across the Midwest. While it was 10 years ago, the memories remain fresh in our minds, and not many people who experienced it would want to [...]

Deer Proof Landscaping

By Doug Leier One of the more frequent concerns I hear about, from nonhunters and hunters alike, is wildlife-human conflicts. Whether it’s Canada geese in crops, raccoons in gardens or deer in hay stacks, the list is endless. More often than not, those seeking a means of limiting the disturbance of wildlife on their priority [...]

Small-Bore Centerfire Performance on Big Game

By Burl Johnson I am, and have been for a very long time, an avid reader of hunting books and magazines. You know those things you wish you had the money from? Mine is to have invested that magazine money in energy stocks in the last three years. But many of the sporting magazines offer truly [...]

A View From Above

By PJ Maguire The Old Man would say that I have never deer hunted, simply because I have never harvested a deer. It didn’t matter how many hours I had walked slowly through the woods, or sat in a tree above the forest. Which to this point in of time in my life hasn’t been [...]

Trophy Buck – Nelson Buck

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson The traffic has been steady coming into Quality Alignment and Brake Center, but many visitors aren’t stopping in for tune ups. Brian Nelson, part owner of the Valley City business is the main draw these days after taking what many are calling the largest buck shot in Barnes County in several [...]

Late Season Bow Hunting

By Curt Wells If you’re from North Dakota you take a lot of grief about how cold the winters are. It’s just a fact of life. It’s also a fact that many of us like the cold weather, or more accurately, the change of seasons. But the cold weather does a couple of other things [...]

Questions on Deer Hunting Regulations

By Doug Leier When the 2006 deer gun season opens at noon Nov. 10, the North Dakota Game and Fish Department will have issued a near-record number of licenses. That means a lot of hunters in the field, and many questions from people who want to clarify rules prior to or during hunting season. Some [...]

Deer Management

By Doug Leier This time of year, I don’t need to look at the North Dakota Outdoors calendar on my wall to know that deer season is here. Any time during November, when I walk in the door at the local coffee shop, I quickly realize that while pheasant and waterfowl seasons draw thousands of [...]

Hi-Vis Decoying – Deer Decoy Strategies

By Curt Wells I  hate it when a buck doesn’t pay attention. My soft grunts turned into pig-like snarffles as the big eight-pointer just kept striding away, into the stiff breeze. He crossed a small open meadow, then dropped into a creekbottom and up the other side. When he reached level ground again he finally [...]

Deer Hunting Season is Upon Us

By Doug Leier Take a look at the calendar and you’ll realize that this year’s season begins on the latest possible date under the State Game and Fish Department’s roster of standardized opening dates. As Cliff Clavin, the know-it-all postal worker from the television series “Cheers” might have said: “It’s a little known fact that [...]

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 [...]

Managing Deer Through Archery Hunting

By Doug Leier About 20 years ago the city of Bismarck, working with the State Game and Fish Department, developed an urban archery hunt to help control a growing deer population within the city limits. Two decades later, the deer population is much lower, reports of human-deer conflicts are reduced, and very few problems have [...]

Offseason Deer Hunting Tips

By the Nodak Outdoors Community During the past month, I asked the Deer Hunting forum here at Nodak Outdoors to share some of their offseason deer hunting tips. While many you may already practice or be aware of, our community had some deer hunting tips to share. Deer Hunting Tips “Scout, Shed hunting, Scout, Repair or [...]

Spring Advisory Board Meetings Recap

By Doug Leier The spring tour of advisory board meetings brought Game and Fish decision-makers to eight towns across North Dakota over the past several weeks. These public meetings, held in spring and fall each year, facilitate interaction between hunters, anglers, trappers and staff tasked with managing the state’s varied natural resources. Discussion at advisory [...]

Venison Recipes Come in All Forms

By Doug Leier When it comes to fish and wild game cooking, Uncle Lynn is the beginning and the end, though you may have to take this with a grain … err, dash of salt and pinch of pepper. His wild game cooking philosophy permeates from the mantra of “don’t hide the flavor, work with [...]

North Dakota Elk Hunting

By Jason DuBord When a person thinks about elk, the states that often first come to mind are Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, or Arizona. What a lot of people do not know is that North Dakota has “world class” elk right out its back door in the beautiful badlands. The 2nd biggest elk killed in the [...]

Why Party Hunting is Illegal for Deer Hunting

By Doug Leier Party hunting is not legal in North Dakota. And I’m glad. Legally, each individual hunter must take only his or her own daily limit, or fill his or her own deer tag. The same concept also applies to fishing. There is no legal distinction between shooting someone else’s deer, and catching an [...]

What Defines Success in the Field?

By Doug Leier Quality and success are two of the more difficult terms with which big game wildlife managers struggle. In fact, most every fish and wildlife manager would probably nod in agreement that defining quality and success is a fleeting task at best. That’s because hunters and anglers each have their own version of [...]

Pronghorn Antelope Migrations

By Doug Leier When the topic is migration, most of us think about birds. Seldom do we associate migration with big game animals, such as moose or elk. In western North Dakota, however, an ongoing study is shedding some interesting light on a big game species that does migrate. Pronghorns, also commonly called antelope, even [...]

Time to Move Your Tree Stand

By Bill Lytle  Well as we all know some parts of the state have had their first frost and with this first frost comes many things. We start to lose some of those mosquitoes that have been a pain in our butts the first few weeks of the season but also we need to try [...]

The Problem with Buck Fever

By Doug Leier As October fades into November, for many people thoughts of ducks are replaced by visions of bucks. As we head into another season my mind is full of thoughts of buck fever. In essence, the fever is an adrenaline rush, triggered by a deer, that sometimes causes hunters to do something that [...]

Memories From Opening Day

By Doug Leier Opening day of deer season 2004 is in the books. Traditions have been kept alive, memories added to the family tree, and possibly the birth of a local legend or two. I’ve never been much of an opening day deer hunter, but from 1996 to 2000 I was a state game warden, [...]

Early Season Deer Hunting Tips

By Andrew Gegelman With the bow hunting season quickly approaching, there’s a few tips to early season preparation that I feel are crucial to success. Most importantly is to not overlook the importance of scouting late in the summer, and preparing your stands well in advance to drawing your bow. As the month of August [...]

Spot And Stalk Hunting – The Lost Art

By Andrew Gegelman In recent days, the art of spot and stalk hunting has been overshadowed by the use of tree stands and ground blinds. With everyone’s busy schedules it is hard to find the time to spend either learning how to spot and stalk, or refining your already learned techniques. The techniques of the [...]

Still Hunting Strategies

By Andrew Gegelman  The most successful hunters have learned to still hunt when stand hunting is not producing, or when the weather makes sneaking through the woods the best strategy to bag a deer. The best days for still hunting are rainy and windy days; both types of weather are normally below average for game [...]

Pre-Rut Calling Strategies

By Andrew Gegelman Finally…the air gets cooler, the leaves change colors, and that wonderful smell of fall is in the air. You watch as geese effortlessly soar through the air on their yearly trip southward. It is an awesome time of year to be in the outdoors. It also means that “prime time” is approaching. [...]

Bow Tuning 101

By Andrew Gegelman For most bow hunters, tuning their bow means being able to hit what they are aiming at. And for others they just hope their bow will become tuned by itself. But they are wrong. Tuning your bow now might mean the difference between trophy and tragedy. First things first, you should not [...]

Venison Sausage Recipe

By Ken Weinzierl Venison makes great sausage. Many kinds can be made. The obvious question is “What do you need to get started.” First of all, no one can take care of your venison better than you can. When you get your deer home, skin it immediately. This will cool off the carcass. I usually [...]

Dominating the Rut

By Andrew Gegelman Finally it is here, the Rut!! It is a time of craziness, bucks moving all hours of the day in pursuit of hot does, seeing deer that you have only imagined. One minute the woods can be silent the next there can be deer all around you. The trophy you have always [...]

Love & Hate Relationships with the Whitetail Deer

By Doug Leier “I don’t mind a couple deer hanging around the farmstead, but when you get a whole herd, that’s just too much.” Stop by any local coffee shop or gas station and when the topic turns to deer in the winter, it can be as contentious as rolling dice to see who pays [...]

Reevaluating Your Season

By Andrew Gegelman With hunting season now over, I like to look back on the previous season and remember my achievements, and failures. It seems like an eternity until next fall when we can get back into the woods in search of our personal trophies. Everyone likes to take up different activities to get us [...]

Preparing the North Dakota Deer Hunting Season

By Doug Leier It’s April and I’m thinking about deer. It’s not that I’m ready to bypass spring and summer and shoot right to autumn, but in the realm of wildlife management, fall is not the only time we think about deer. Even now, many conversations at work and play revolve around white-tailed deer. Deer [...]

Fletching Arrows

By Andrew Gegelman It might be spring, even though it does not feel like it. I mean come on, snow in the middle of May? Not a lot of hunting to do right now, but soon we will be back in the field in search of what ever game we choose. While there might not [...]

Take Your Time with Nature

By Doug Leier This time of year my phone just about rings off the hook. People call with all kinds of questions, but the most common is not the most obvious. Where to buy a fishing license? Nope, that’s your local license vendor or online at www.discovernd.com/gnf. How to get a boat licensed? Close, but [...]

Whitetail Deer Hunting and Waterfowling in November

By Andrew Gegelman Here one day gone the next, this seems to be the perfect slogan when you are pursuing mature whitetail bucks. In my opinion, there is a lot of confusion as to why one day deer will move heavily and the next you have a tough time finding any. It has changed within [...]

Bow Hunting New Ground

By Andrew Gegelman  For most of us, sometime in our lives we will have to move to another town or another state. When this happens, like it recently did to me, you also move from your favorite hunting grounds, leaving behind those primo stands that months and years of work and fine tuning got you. [...]

It’s Venison Time!

By Doug Leier As a hunter and angler, as well as a friend of many hunters and anglers, I’ve dined on an array of wild game preparations, from delicacies like lemon-pepper broiled walleye, to more obscure offerings such as sandhill crane stir-fry, pickled beaver tail, and deep fried bullhead caviar. Okay, I admit, I haven’t [...]

What’s New in December

By Doug Leier It’s late December. Hunters are cleaning guns and anglers have turned their attention from open water to ice fishing. For many, the holiday season signals a slow down in outdoor activities. I think it’s natural. Doesn’t everything move a little slower when the mercury falls? While this may be the case for [...]

Deadline Nears – North Dakota Elk, Sheep & Moose

By Doug Leier It’s March and time to think about moose, elk and bighorn sheep hunting. While the fall seasons are still half a year away, the license application process begins and ends in March. If you want to have even a small chance of hunting one of North Dakota’s special big game species, the [...]

Gardening Tips – Keep Deer Off Your Buffet

By Doug Leier With the warmer spring sun greening the earth, that little bit of farmer residing in almost all of us starts to come out. The real farmers are already preparing fields or putting seeds in the ground. Those of us who delight in budding cherry tomatoes at summer’s end are planning arrangements for [...]

Think Before Harassing Wildlife

By Doug Leier Chasing wildlife with a motorized vehicle is unacceptable. In the outdoor world, sometimes a gray area forms the boundary between what is and isn’t ethical. But in the case of people using motorized vehicles to chase wildlife, the boundary is a thick, black, double-wide line because it’s not just unethical, it’s illegal. [...]

North Dakota Deer Populations

Ask a hunter about the deer population in southeastern North Dakota and he might tell you his group never worked so hard to find a whitetail doe as last fall. A body shop owner in the central part of the state might relate that the number of vehicles brought in for fixing following a collision [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Looking Ahead to Hunting in 2006

By Doug Leier Last week I spent some time looking at fisheries issues and possible changes for 2006 and beyond. Now it’s time to look at recent hunting seasons and what might lie ahead in the next year. Mountain Lions North Dakota’s first ever mountain lion season runs through March 12 or until five mountain [...]