Sportsmen Against Hunger programme helps communities

by Doug Leier   In 2013, North Dakota has fewer deer licenses than in any year since 1983, and anyone who was lucky enough to receive a license can only have one for the deer gun season. That’s a big change from even five years ago when the state allocated more than twice as many […]

Safety First this Deer Hunting Season

by Doug Leier   It’s a safe assumption that few hunters ever leave home thinking, “I just might end up in a hunting accident today.” That’s no different than a farmer doing field work or a family just going for a Sunday drive. We seldom assume the worst, but we also buckle up our seat […]

Outdoor Activities Sharing Memories

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

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]