“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 mystical island, which – spoiler alert – turned out to be just one man’s purgatory, but the opening interrogatory hung on until we figured it out in the final episode.
This weekend, I realized what Charlie must have felt like on his first day on the island as I cruised down the dirt path in the state park, jumping over roots, boinging off rocks and rumbling my way with my wife, Angie, and my dog Gunnar, toward the wooden bridge and the gravel parking lot across the half-frozen river. Wrapping up a short Sunday trail run in record time, and in record high temperatures, which saw the external readout on our car briefly reach 60 degrees, we had to wonder exactly where we were – and what month it was.
I ice fished in a fleece pullover on Friday afternoon, bird hunted in a sweatshirt on Saturday morning, and ran two-and-a-half miles up and down the river valley in a t-shirt on Sunday; enjoying the intermittent warmth of the afternoon sun, and on the dips to the stream edge, the cool breeze that wafted off of the surface ice of the flow. The sensations and situations were odd to say the least, as strange weather patterns brought a breath of late autumn (or is that early spring?) over the landscape. Even more bizarre was the lack of snow. Last year at this time, there were over 20 inches on the ground, on our way to nearly 90 inches for the season. But now, only the still-frozen spring-fed trickles leading to the river below gave any hint that we were on the edge of the winter solstice. It’s always hard to make accurate winter weather predictions, but this year has been an even bigger surprise.
It’s been said that if you don’t like the weather in this part of the world, just wait 10 minutes and it will change…and then you’ll hate it. But there are those rare occasions where you actually might like what comes in on the southwestern breezes and this weekend was one of them. Except for the anglers on Lake of the Woods near Springsteel where the ice broke up in a popular fishing location on Sunday, this season’s mild weather has been a welcome gift which has extended hunting seasons, lawn care practices and winterizing opportunities for outboard motors. But just as we do with the worst of what winter throws at us, we make the best of the good times we’re given and get out there and do what we love to do – fish, hunt, run, hike, walk and more. And we probably do it better when it’s above freezing.
Sure, a white Christmas always looks nicer, except for maybe when you’re trying to drive through it in order to get home for the holidays, a beige one isn’t so bad. This is especially true when we can all get together safely for a hospitable hunt or some comfortable early ice fishing with friends and family over the holidays. Consider an extra two weeks, or a month, or however long this slow start to winter lasts, as an early Christmas gift to make up for the lumps of coal we got last year. So enjoy it. The ice will get thicker, the days will get colder, and somewhere down the line you’ll be remembering this stretch of time and wonder just exactly where you were too; hopefully it was somewhere enjoyable…in our outdoors.

Related Articles

• Why I Hunt & Fish (0)
• The Future of Hunting & Fishing in North Dakota (0)
• Recapping 2007 in North Dakota (0)
• North Dakota Map (0)
• ND Flooding (0)

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 ahead at what the coming year’s outdoors scene could look like.

And this time of year, I always make room for a “thankful” column. While this year’s floods across the Midwest created hardships and changed lives among friends, family and co-workers, there’s no reason not to take the glass and fill it up halfway.

Floods that included the Red , Missouri and almost every other river and creek in the state, plus a continually rising Devils Lake, destroyed homes and paths permanently washed out or roads, but we also saw first-hand the true sense of what it means to be neighbors, and not just in a physical address or the genetics of family. In short everyone pitched in and did what they could with the skills, ability and resources available.

We were long on help and short on excuses and no doubt if and when the time comes again, nary a soul will shrug their shoulders. And who can’t be thankful for that?

In terms of fishing, total license numbers aren’t available for some time, but with the Missouri River and lakes Sakakawea and Oahe under siege, there was more discussion on acre feet and cubic feet per second than on limits or whoppers. However, anglers still sought under-the-radar fishing holes, sloughs, rivers and streams for a sort of mental healing and outdoor refuge.

The common theme across the state, with expanding pike populations just about everywhere, has been to find new spots to cast. And in new sports or old, the State Game and Fish Department and communities and organizations worked tirelessly to provide access for anglers and boaters.

We all know that three difficult winters in a row, and a loss of Conservation Reserve Program acres, are factors in lower pheasant and deer populations, but I’m thankful for a nice dry fall that  provided many comfortable days in the field for hunters.

And even with the mild fall hunting season, I’ve had a lot of waterfowl hunters tell me about their great year.

We may see lower pheasant and deer harvests this year, and many hunters have had to work a bit harder than in past years to find success, but that’s hunting, and peaks and valleys in wildlife populations are long-term expectations. I’m thankful things are on the high side for waterfowl and fish to balance things out.

After three difficult winters, I’m thankful that at least through November we haven’t had any widespread major snow events. While most forecasters are predicting a winter trending more toward harsh than mild, the longer the snow holds off, the better it is for our resident wildlife.

I’m also thankful that with ice fishing coming along shortly, upland game, bow, and waterfowl seasons can also provide continuing opportunities through the end of the year. Even as the seasons change from fall hunting to winter, it’s a good time to live in North Dakota.

Related Articles

• “A Career Outdoors? Keep your options open” (1)
• Youth in the Outdoors (0)
• You Alone Make it a Successful Season (0)
• Wishing for Snow (0)
• Winter Weather Predictions (0)

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 of private land, all visibly marked by prominent triangular yellow signs.

All ND public hunting land is located in the PLOTS guide.

The Private Land Initiative, however, is more than just the PLOTS program. It has three main priorities:

• Conserve habitat for fish and wildlife populations.
• Provide landowners interested in wildlife conservation with cost-sharing assistance for developing and protecting wildlife habitat.
• Provide public opportunities to access fish and wildlife resources on private land.

Conservation PLOTS guide agreements are one of the ways Game and Fish biologists work toward these priorities. Within the PLOTS program, producers can choose from several types of agreements to find one or more that works for their operation:

The Habitat Plot Program is designed as a multi-year rental program of 3-6 years or 10-20 year agreements that help to create, enhance or protect wildlife habitat while providing public access.

The Food Plot Program is a short-term program that provides a wildlife food source and public access.

The Private Forest Conservation Program is a multi-year rental program that works to provide protection and enhancement in unique forested systems and also provides for public access.

The CRP Cost-Sharing Program provides assistance with establishment and management costs associated with Conservation Reserve Program contracts, in exchange for public access. The objective of this program is to improve hunting access in areas where it has traditionally been limited.

The Wetlands Reserve Program incentive is a partnership program between the Game and Fish Department and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. This option provides additional incentives to producers with land enrolled in WRP. The primary purpose of WRP incentive is to restore, protect or enhance wetlands and associated uplands, as well as provide for public access.

The Waterfowl Rest Area Access Program is designed to provide waterfowl hunting opportunities in grain fields and small sloughs around waterfowl staging areas.

The Tree Planting Cost-Sharing Program provides assistance with tree planting establishment costs. The goal is to enhance wildlife habitat and conservation on private land and provide public access.

The Working Lands Program is a short-term program based on wildlife value of lands actively farmed or ranched, while providing public access. Biologists evaluate current farming or ranching management practices, and place values on components such as conservation practices, good stewardship and quality of hunting habitat and public access.

The Game and Fish Department has many partners that help carry out wildlife habitat projects on some PLOTS, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Pheasants Forever, Ducks Unlimited, North Dakota Natural Resources Trust, Mule Deer Foundation, Pheasants for the Future and local wildlife clubs.

The PLI program is completely voluntary for landowners and interest remains high, solidifying its future as an important component of North Dakota’s outdoors.

The printed version of the 2011 PLOTS Guide, where hunters can find detailed maps showing locations of PLOTS and other lands open to public hunting, is now available at license vendors throughout the state. The Game and Fish website at www.gf.nd.gov also has an online version that includes any updates since the printed version rolled off the press in late August.

Leier is a biologist with the Game and Fish Department. He can be reached by email: dleier@nd.gov

Related Articles

• “A Career Outdoors? Keep your options open” (1)
• Youth in the Outdoors (0)
• You Alone Make it a Successful Season (0)
• Wishing for Snow (0)
• Winter Weather Predictions (0)

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 to pumping water and helping make repairs. Along the way, I’ve met new friends in sandbag lines and have enjoyed some of the conversations that materialize after my linemates find out I work for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department

While the task at hand is first and foremost to protect human property, many conversations evolve from concerns about wildlife — pheasants and deer in particular – and how they are doing in the face of snow, cold and subsequent flooding.

I get the sense that many people believe fishing and hunting have a role in the return to a sense of normalcy. Don’t believe me? Ask any deer hunter if they purposely passed on applying for a 2011 deer license this June due to flooding.

While some may have missed the deadline, Game and Fish received a record number of applications for the November season.

Recovery will be measured in months and years, and many lives and livelihoods have been altered forever. But those same hardy folks reclaiming their homes and businesses will still pencil in the 12 noon, November 4 deer gun season opener.

Historically speaking, floods aren’t a new phenomenon for fish and wildlife. While they don’t typically help wildlife (fish are a different story that I’ll cover in a later column), they aren’t usually devastating to a specific population, either.

In terms of long-term adaptations, floods have been around forever. Same goes for many wildlife populations, though individual animals in these populations may never have dealt with rising water before.

Still, as rivers or lakes rise, most deer and other wildlife seem to know what to do,. No need for them to dike or sandbag, they just move out of the way and relocate. A few may not exit before their escape paths are flooded, but most animals can swim pretty well, too.

In the short term, deer, turkeys and other game birds vacate the flood plain, and tend to refill the empty niche as waters recede.

Rapid flooding caused by spring and summer rains can literally wash away upland game chicks like pheasants, grouse and partridge. In addition, wet, cold conditions in late spring and early summer hurt game bird survival, as newly hatched chicks cannot regulate their own body temperature and many die of exposure.

If eggs are washed away before they hatch, however, grouse and pheasant hens will usually attempt to renest. This year, weather conditions weren’t all that great through mid-June, but birds attempting second nests at least had warmer temperatures, if not less rain.

The Game and Fish Department’s upland game brood surveys run through the end of August, so just how the varying summer weather influenced upland game reproduction is still in question.

The best way to find out is to hit the field in the next few weeks.

Leier is a biologist with the Game and Fish Department. He can be reached by email: dleier@nd.gov

Related Articles

• Winter Weather Predictions (0)
• Why I Hunt & Fish (0)
• The Future of Hunting & Fishing in North Dakota (0)
• Recapping 2007 in North Dakota (0)
• North Dakota Map (0)

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 my twelfth birthday, my dad retired from the field and my hunting experience in my formative years consisted primarily of Duck Hunt on the Nintendo.
It wasn’t until a fishing buddy suggested, upon my return from college, that I get into hunting as well.  That summer, at the tender age of 22, I sat amongst the fifth and sixth graders in the Science Building auditorium at Valley City State University for two weeks learning the basics of hunter’s safety.  My hand was in the air about as frequently as my classmates, and upon graduation I joined my friends in a dirt field east of my hometown and helped them empty their ammunition boxes.
The following autumn, I chased mourning doves across Grand Forks County after Contracts class at UND, shot my first rooster (on my twenty-second shot of opening day) one hundred yards from my grandma’s farm house near Watford City, ND and laughed as the gurgling grouse near Sibley, ND made me look silly.  From those early ventures into a non-traditional hunting journey, I’ve added the thundering flushes of ruffed grouse from alder thickets in the woods of Minnesota’s Arrowhead and stared down a curious buck in the southwest corner of the state and made numerous trips back and forth to the places where it all began.
Looking back, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.  I was able to join the hunt at an age where I could clearly articulate my mistakes, and often recorded them each week in this very column – providing a unique take on what is generally an initiation rite for pre-teens and teenagers.  You’ve been there with me through the lows, the highs and the in-betweens.  We’ve shared the excitement of first deer taken, and the first deer I’ve passed up.  We’ve felt the knee-knocking adrenaline from a flushing pheasant and we’ve ground out round-after-round of trap, rifle sighting sessions and target shooting together.
But now, it is time for you to share those experiences with someone else and make some new memories with them.  And that someone is a young person who wants to get in the field so bad this year, it’s all he or she thinks about – and he or she is not 22.  He or she is probably 12 or 13 and wants to know more about the outdoors; the rush, the shortfalls and the “A-HA!” moments that come with sweet success.
The fact is, underneath the iPods, Xboxes and non-stop texting, the youth in our area STILL have hunting in their veins – they’re born with it as part of their very being, even if they weren’t born with a gun in their hands.  In fact, it is so important to them, whether they know it or not, that the generations before them have made it LAW that they have their own hunting seasons.  And it’s up to you to get them out there and obey that law – not just the law that lets them get the first shot, but the one that drives us all to be hunters.
States throughout the Upper Midwest afford a number of opportunities for youth to pursue waterfowl, pheasant and deer on their own terms and in their own times.  North Dakota’s youth seasons for deer, waterfowl and pheasants open on September 16, September 17 and October 1 (tentatively – visit http://gf.nd.gov for more information on youth seasons) and Minnesota’s youth waterfowl and deer seasons begin on September 10 and October 20, respectively (again, tentatively – visit www.dnr.state.mn.us for details).
Head to your calendar.  Circle these dates.  Find a youngster – whether it’s your child, a niece, nephew, grandkid, or a neighbor and pass on what you’ve learned over the years – your tips, your stories, your screw-ups and successes.  Walk along side them, and whether something ends up in the game bag or not, encourage your companions to continue this great tradition.  Focus on the importance of being in the field and living in the moment.  By doing so, you’ll do more than just teach them the basics and test their safety skills learned this summer – you’ll help pass on the heritage of hunting to the next generation of participants, proponents and protectors…of our outdoors

Related Articles

• “A Career Outdoors? Keep your options open” (1)
• Youth in the Outdoors (0)
• You Alone Make it a Successful Season (0)
• Wishing for Snow (0)
• Winter Weather Predictions (0)

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 book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, in which a teenage boy, Brian, survives a single-engine plane crash in a remote part of Canada and is forced to live in the wild with a simple hatchet, a .22 rifle and what he can manage to find in the woods and waters around him. It’s a must read for any teenager, and especially for the young sportsman.
Even with all the gear I have today – rifles, shotguns, fishing rods, my bow, tackle, GPS, and survival equipment – I sometimes doubt that I would carry on nearly as effectively as Brian did. I picture myself clad in a mix of camo and blaze orange, shouldering three guns, lugging tackleboxes, bogged down with boxes of shells and bullets, and tripping over my own rod tip as I stumbled my way through the forest. Paring down to what I would need to hunt or fish and start a fire would be difficult, as I enjoy so many new pastimes in the outdoors. And oftentimes, I’m just glad I have a place to drive home to at the end of a hunting or fishing trip and a bed to sleep in, instead of a hollowed-out tree as Brian did in Hatchet.
Luckily for the modern (and non-survivalist) sportsman, the calendar is broken down into successive seasons that allow us to stash our gear from one and break out our equipment for the next without missing a beat, and without having to lug around a bunch of different items. My wallet unfortunately doesn’t reflect this seasonal selectivity. Between the hunting and fishing I do over two different states, my billfold becomes the burdened tote, hauling a number of licenses for the wide variety of seasons I participate in across the map.
Last year alone, I purchased a Minnesota Sportsman’s License which included my fishing and small game licenses and I tacked on a trout stamp (which always seemed to remind me of the big steelhead I lost at my feet last spring). I also bought a North Dakota fishing license, small game license and pheasant hunting license. For autumn back east of the Red River, I paid for a pheasant stamp along with a deer bow license, a deer firearm license, and a bonus permit. The latter tags I didn’t even fill, and when recently checked by a conservation officer while ice fishing, I had to sort through them before getting down to the license he wanted to see.
“Time to clean out my wallet,” I stated to the C.O. as I tried in vain to re-cram the wad of blue papers back into my wallet. He was halfway across the lake on his snowmobile before I could get them stashed away just right. Arriving home the following day, I pulled out the previous year’s tags and unwrapped them from my still-valid fishing license and hunter’s safety certificate and tucked them into my memory book and made copies for my records. I wondered if there’d ever come a time where we could just get all of our licenses and tags on one printout, but I seriously doubted it.
My attitude changed last Tuesday at a meeting hosted by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) agents and conservation officers detailing the proposed license fee increases needed to fund the agency and some new licensing options which would be available if the proposed changes were to become law. The presenters broke down the benefits for hard-core hunters and anglers like me of an item they called the Super Sport License which would provide nearly every tag and document a person would need to hunt and fish in Minnesota.
“I’m often in the field checking hunters, and when I ask for their pheasant stamp I have to make a judgment call when they go through their recently-issued licenses, come up empty and say ‘I didn’t know I needed one… when I asked the cashier to get me everything I needed to go hunting, this is all they gave me,’” the presenting Conservation Officer related.
The proposed Super Sport License would combine fishing and hunting licenses with a trout stamp, pheasant stamp, state duck hunting permit, and a firearms deer tag, which would cover the majority of hunting and angling activities most sportsmen pursue, all for 99 dollars. The only things required beyond the Super Sport License would be HIP registration and a federal duck stamp, and a deer archery tag, if a person pursues that niche. The Super Sport license would go a long way to help eliminate confusion in the field for both sportsmen and enforcement officers. It would also undoubtedly prevent George Costanza-like back strain from sitting on a wallet filled with way too many pieces of blue paper.
So, while I may never be as efficient of a survivalist as young Brian in the book, and my love of multiple fishing rods, various calibers of rifles and sizes of shotguns would prevent me from picking out just one of each to live off of for a year, there is hope. Should such a proposed license become available, I’ll be the first in line at the sporting goods store’s cash register to slap down a Benjamin Franklin in order to cover nearly all of my seasonal license needs in one fell swoop. And I will consider that a reasonable start to my paring down project and a super way to start lightening my load…in our outdoors.

Related Articles

• Some Things Don’t Change (0)
• Exposing Hunting & Fishing Myths and Urban Legends (0)
• 20 Years Outdoors (0)
• “A Career Outdoors? Keep your options open” (1)
• Youth in the Outdoors (0)

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 provides a perfect example. While many of us wonder how the pheasants and deer are doing, how often do we give the same consideration to river otters or porcupines?

Pheasants capture our attention because tens of thousands of us hunt them in the fall. We spend money on licenses that goes directly toward maintaining the pheasant population and providing places to hunt.

Many people do spend money on songbirds like chickadees and nuthatches – and other species that are not hunted, fished or trapped – but it’s not license money that goes back into helping maintain chickadee populations. It’s money to buy feeders and seeds to attract these birds to their yards.

Nongame wildlife do not generate any dedicated money that directly benefits their future, and yet they are an important part of our outdoor world. All these nongame species, as well as game animals, are part or a biological term called symbiosis; that is, living things depend on each other to function in natural harmony.

Which is why we all should be concerned with the status of all critters. When was the last time you went pheasant hunting and didn’t see any song birds, or other animals using the same habitat? Voles, pocket gophers, songbirds, frogs, snakes, pheasants, deer – they all might use the same habitat at one time or another. If the habitat is destroyed, it’s not just the marquee species that suffer.

In North Dakota, the State Game and Fish Department is the responsible caretaker for most animals. Game animals and game fish get most of the attention because almost all of the revenue to run the Game and Fish Department comes from hunter and angler license dollars and manufacturers excise taxes on firearms, ammunition, fishing tackle and other related equipment.

This is a good deal. Hunting and fishing are maintained by the people who participate, and a lot of the good things agencies do for game animals, like habitat creation or conservation, and protection against poachers, help many other species as well. But little money is available at the state level for funding management activities specifically designed to benefit nongame species.

That’s where the state Watchable Wildlife Program, and corresponding Watchable Wildlife income tax checkoff come in.

The Watchable Wildlife Program – formerly called the Nongame Wildlife Program – has been in operation since 1987. Through donations that come primarily from the tax checkoff, the Watchable Wildlife Program provides small grants to organizations and produces educational materials that help citizens better understand the role that all animals have in our great outdoors.

Tax checkoff dollars are also directly responsible for perhaps a few thousand bluebird nesting boxes built and placed by interested individuals over the past couple of decades.

The Watchable Wildlife Fund does not generate a great deal of revenue, but it helps pay for projects that might not otherwise get funded through regular Game and Fish income that comes from hunters and anglers.

Fortunately, for most wildlife it works both ways. Many nongame species benefit from habitat improvements and management actions designed for game species. The neat thing about nature is that all these animals are in it together.

Leier is a biologist for the Game and Fish Dept. He can be reached via

email: dleier@nd.gov

Related Articles

• “A Career Outdoors? Keep your options open” (1)
• Youth in the Outdoors (0)
• You Alone Make it a Successful Season (0)
• Wishing for Snow (0)
• Winter Weather Predictions (0)

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 other hand, has recovered to the point where an observation no longer results in a phone call to Game and Fish to report a sighting.

North Dakota Bald Eagle

Bald eagles were not even protected until Congress passed the Bald Eagle Protection Act in 1940. Still, the continental population continued to spiral downward and in 1978 the bald eagle was listed as an endangered species. At that time North Dakota did not have a single documented bald eagle nest.

It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that the number of eagles nesting in North Dakota started to increase noticeably. To date, North Dakota Game and Fish Department biologists have now logged 103 individual nest sites, some of which are no longer in use because the trees have fallen or the eagles abandoned the sites.

Today, bald eagles are nesting in just about every region in the state except for the badlands, and nests exist in 29 of 53 North Dakota counties.

In the past few years Game and Fish biologists have seen some nests around the state that make you think, “Why there?”

Several nests are situated in a single tree or shelterbelt surrounded by cropland.

Believe it or not, one eagle pair even built a nest in a small, undisturbed draw smack in the middle of an active coal mine in western North Dakota, only to abandon it. A great horned owl pair soon took claim of it. The eagles returned the following year and successfully raised three young.

Bald eagles are opportunistic feeders. They like fish, and are known near and far as fish thieves. If they find a dead one or can steal it from another bald eagle, mammal or bird that rightfully caught, it they’ll gladly seize the opportunity.

During breeding season bald eagles are more likely to catch live prey, such as muskrats, amphibians, coots and other water birds like ducks, herons and gulls. Outside the breeding season, they’re often satisfied with carrion, such as road kill deer and pheasants.

Bald eagles mate for life, but a replacement will be sought if a mate dies. Sometime during February they’ll stake claim to a new territory, or defend last year’s site. They defend their roughly 250-500-acre territory by perching conspicuously, vocalizing and chasing intruders away if necessary. They will either build a new nest, or add a few fresh sticks and bedding material to one used a previous year.

It’s not uncommon to find eagle mates building two nests and picking their favorite for the nesting attempt that year. During March females lay 1-3 eggs intermittently over several days, but incubation begins immediately after arrival of the first egg. By about 35 days the first chick hatched will have a head start on growth.

This first-hatched wants and gets everything – most of the food and attention from adults, and prime seating in the nest. Because of this, at times the younger sibling, especially if there are three, may starve or even be killed by older siblings.

A young eagle grows quickly and is full grown when it takes its first wobbly flight from the nest 10-12 weeks after hatching, typically in July.

The sight of an eagle gives most of us a reason to pause, and a nest draws considerable attention. Too much attention, however, can cause these big beautiful national symbols to abandon their nest. So if you’re in the neighborhood, viewing from a distance with spotting scope is a good idea.

Leier is a biologist with the Game & Fish Department. He can be reached by email:dleier@nd.gov

Related Articles

• “A Career Outdoors? Keep your options open” (1)
• Youth in the Outdoors (0)
• You Alone Make it a Successful Season (0)
• Wishing for Snow (0)
• Winter Weather Predictions (0)

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 put the last ingredients into my pheasant casserole and preheated the oven before settling in for the first of the day’s football games.

The youngest team on the slate – the New York Jets – was founded in 1960; the other three went back nearly a century. As I thought about that era, where football was a leather helmet (if any) and fishing wasn’t much more than a hunk of garden worm on a hook with some split shot above it, I wondered what someone of that time would think of our modern world.
A TV with a screen as long as a person is tall, a vacuuming robot that cleans floors without any assistance and an entire dialogue between two people that can be condensed into a handful of 140-character entries on the internet – or a phone for that matter – might seem commonplace to the man or woman of today, but to the person of yesterday, it would be truly mind boggling. Now, imagine if that person was an angler or a hunter, what would they think of GPS, laser rangefinders and satellite-guided motors? They probably couldn’t wait to get out there and try all these neat gadgets which have made hunting and fishing so much simpler, albeit somewhat more expensive. Then again, they might find out that people really don’t even need to get out there to catch or shoot the big one.

Because technology has changed so much of what we do outdoors today, we even begin to second-guess the accomplishment of those in the field and on the water. Did you see the eight-point deer with the 32-inch inside spread in your email inbox this fall? (I can’t help but hear Jerry Seinfeld: “Email – what’s email!?) How about the picture of the elk hunter being stalked by the mountain lion (www.snopes.com might help with this one)? What about a recent would-be world record pike from Norway (or was it Holland or Sweden)? With the internet, Photoshop, and the ease of image manipulation, it might be that those folks from the past need only take back with them a stretched-out photo of a 16-inch walleye to convince their friends that the future truly is as wonderful as could be imagined and big fish abound for all. All that and they could blur the background out of the photo, so their buddies at the bait shop won’t have a clue where to go to catch the same fish in fifty years.

With compound bows accurate over a football field, muzzleloader models about as primitive as a laser pointer and slug guns with a mere two-inch drop out to 200 yards, the accounting for user error is almost unnecessary. To the hunter from fifty years ago, it would seem like the deer practically hang themselves up on the gambrels outside of the modern shack – which by the way has running water, electricity, a silver-gray satellite dish and 140 channels, including four showing deer hunting programs right now on the five-foot screen hanging next to the wood stove. But it might still be more comfortable for visitors to the modern day deer camp to sleep in the four-wheel-drive leather-coated palace parked on the dirt drive leading up to the shack. Show them how to plug in a DVD of soothing rainforest sounds, or kick back and drift off knowing the auto-start will turn on every 30 minutes to keep them toasty warm, and they might just opt to sleep outside.

The timeless teams matching up on the big screen reminded me that some things never change. Excellence isn’t necessarily achieved by the best technology. Happiness isn’t found by doing things on the quick and easy. Rather, heart, perseverance and some old fashioned luck are what account for a lot of the great stories we experience in the outdoors, and likely made up a good number of those tales from our forefathers in the field.

It was fitting then, as I pushed the pause button on the DVR remote in the waning seconds of the day’s last game to check my Facebook account on my smartphone, that the two oldest and most storied teams left in the hunt from each conference were set to face each other, having won by playing good old fashioned smashmouth football. I smiled and thought of the time-traveling outdoorsman and figured he would probably do the same today, and emerge with a bird in hand or a stringer of fish for the frying pan regardless of the technology available to him. Just like he did five decades ago…in our outdoors.

Related Articles

• Super Sport License (2)
• Exposing Hunting & Fishing Myths and Urban Legends (0)
• 20 Years Outdoors (0)
• “A Career Outdoors? Keep your options open” (1)
• Youth in the Outdoors (0)

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 – can make a big difference in the final outcome.

While I can’t yet guarantee that 2011 will be better or worse than last year, I can predict that North Dakota will again produce a limit of mostly good hunting and fishing memories, given rather favorable expectations for most of our popular game species.

For starters, even in a cautious assessment we can look for good things from waterfowl, considering wetland conditions from last fall and prospects for good snow runoff this spring.

Snow geese, Canada geese and ducks are at or near historic population highs. Especially with resident Canada geese and snow geese, wildlife managers are trying new options to reduce or just slow expansion of these populations.

While deer numbers are down some from a couple of years ago, compared to 20 or 30 years ago today’s population stacks up pretty well and still offers opportunity for just about everyone who wants to hunt deer.

Actually, the State Game and Fish Department intended to reduce deer numbers over the last few years. While that occurred, today’s statewide population is about where Game and Fish would like to maintain it, though some areas have fewer deer than desirable and some have more than enough.

Looking ahead, here’s hoping for winter to ease up and exit sooner rather than later so the deer population is not overly stressed.

The state’s fisheries also have a positive outlook, as they have benefitted greatly from plentiful moisture the last two years. According to Greg Power, Game and Fish fisheries chief, the Department currently manages 340 lakes for fishing, which is a record number. As a comparison, the number was 208 in 2000, 180 in 1990, 139 in 1980, and 137 in 1970.

Lake Sakakawea and the Missouri River system have seen an influx of water and should continue to recover, though it takes several years for fish to grow to “eater” size but the water certainly helps. Meanwhile, to the chagrin of many Devils Lake has not shrunk, but the water and fishery continue to expand with strong walleye, pike and white bass providing excellent prospects for the coming year.

While the early snow means additional water for our lakes this spring, it also generates concern because snow can block out sunlight and trigger oxygen depletion in lakes, increasing the potential for winter kill. Once again, an early spring is welcome.

Moderation for the rest of winter would also help pronghorn and prairie chickens, both of which had closed seasons in 2010 and could use a break from snow and spring moisture. Deer and pheasants would also welcome a break from the snow and even average winter temperatures.

Realistically, we’re months away from determining how the winter affected the state’s wildlife. Weather is always an important variable in determining whether fall populations from one year will go up or down the next year.

Leier is a bioloigst with the Game & Fish Department. He can be reached by email: deier@nd.gov

Related Articles

• Winter Weather Predictions (0)
• Why I Hunt & Fish (0)
• The Future of Hunting & Fishing in North Dakota (0)
• Recapping 2007 in North Dakota (0)
• North Dakota Map (0)