Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
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The recruitment, retainment and reactivation (R3) efforts underway across the hunting and fishing world are notable, monumental and ultimately important to the future of the outdoors and conservation. States across the map have created special youth hunting weekends ahead of the general openers and agencies sponsor dedicated programs for facilitating time in the field for young and inexperienced hunters in conjunction with non-profits like Pheasants Forever, the Ruffed Grouse Society and local...
Where once Canada geese were a rarity in North Dakota, populations now continue to climb, leading to liberalized bag limits and more opportunities for hunters to start after these popular waterfowl. With the August Management Take/Early September Season kicking off on Sat. Aug. 15, hunters will have an even greater chance to harvest their share of Canada geese this year, as numbers in the state have increased over 2019, thanks to an abundance of water and habitat and good recruitment this...
The North Dakota Game & Fish Department's (NDG&F) Private Land Open to Sportsmen (PLOTS) program has regained an important benchmark in its efforts to open access to high-quality habitat for hunters each fall, as this year, according to Keving Kading, NDG&F Private Lands Section Leader, the program has topped 800,000 acres for the first time in many seasons. Kading also stresses that the quality of those acres enrolled in PLOTS is also up, and many of the additions in 2020 sport brand new...
This stretch from late July into late August is known as the dog days of summer, so named in ancient times for the rising of Sirius, or the dog star, during this time of the year. Though it faithfully follows the constellation of Orion around the night sky, Sirius was often recognized for the negatives that came with it in the form of hot temperatures and generally bad luck. While luck has something to do with every hunting trip, preparation usually pans out with better success, which is why w...
The passage of the Great American Outdoors Act – a bill which would provide permanent funding to the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) through royalties generated by offshore drilling in federal waters around the United States – represents a bright, optimistic light in a time of challenge and a future full of opportunities. In a moment in history when nearly everything seems to be dividing American society, from continued racial injustice issues overflowing into the streets, to online fla...
The North Dakota Game and Fish Department (NDG&F) announced last week that 1,790 tags would be available for the pronghorn hunting lottery in 2020. While this number was up significantly from the 1,330 licenses made available in 2019, it's the expansion of the units open to hunters that better evidences the improving size of the pronghorn herds found in the state's western half. Most notable was the reopening of Unit 13-A, located in northwestern North Dakota, bounded by the Canadian and...
August brings with it high anticipation for the hunting seasons that follow. Oftentimes, the month is hallmarked by dog training, target shooting and physical preparation for what's to come in the autumn. But in the heat of summer's sweet spot, many sportsmen of a different stripe know that action is picking up for a unique fishing opportunity in North Dakota along the face of Garrison Dam and the southern stretches of Lake Sakakawea. The search for chinook salmon fills the gap between the end o...
There are few hunters that I envy. Content with the options I have close to home for the limited species I pursue each fall with the time I can muster, I enjoy the success and adventures of my friends and relish hearing their stories from far off places or lucky tag draws when we meet up for a reunion around a summer campfire or when hunched over a set of ice holes in the winter following the season. Even complete strangers who email me out of the blue with their tales light up my screen with te...
The trail camera season is upon us. Sweaty afternoons of hopping from camera to camera now in the heat of midsummer can pay off with dozens, if not hundreds, of pictures of velvet antlered bucks that will get the heart pumping when autumn rolls around and their summer covering has been shed. Utilizing attractants, such as mineral licks, where legal and prudent, are a great way of getting deer to pause for a time in front of the lens and help provide better photos for judging rack size and...
While better reserved for a time closer to Halloween, with recent reports of successful cross-breeding between paddlefish and sturgeon meant to sustain a European caviar industry in decline due to the overharvest of the source sturgeon species, the "sturddlefish" as it's known, is just one aquatic oddball in a list of man-made mixes of two fish species. What follows are the tales – perhaps cautionary ones – of recent history's strange hybrids and genetic tweaks made by man, some of which hav...
These days I drink bad coffee. Not bad, per se, but only half caffeinated, which according to the old me is bad, as in my younger years I spent much of the morning riding the lightning of a black oily brew so thick I could cut with a knife. That dosage was often followed by a battery of Diet Cokes in the afternoon to keep things rolling. As I wait for the limited amount of the stimulant to enter my system while sipping on the third glass of the morning writing this column, hoping it will...
For hunters in North Dakota drawing one of the "Big Three" tags for a once-in-a-lifetime chance at an elk, bighorn sheep or moose, particularly a bull of any of those species, is hard enough. For some it takes decades to receive a permit and some go without the opportunity their entire lives. As luck would have it, Kelly Dyke of Hebron received her shot at a bull moose in unit M10 in the fall of 2019, but the challenge of getting a tag wasn't enough for the hard-charging barrel racer; she...
My weekly column, Our Outdoors, has chronicled the recent history of hunting, angling and my experiences, as well as myriad misadventures and sometimes-successful outings in the wild for the past two decades. It's my hope that it continues to entertain and educate for the next two decades, and maybe a few more after that if I'm lucky enough to still be able to share my take on what to do – and sometimes more importantly, what not to do – to get more from the increasingly precious and lim...
Imagine having to choose just one food to live off for half of your life. While I'm certain fried walleye would be a good option, or pizza would work, or even wild rice brats fresh off the grill could sustain about anyone, the hedging exhibited just in this sentence alone shows how difficult it would be. Now imagine you're a monarch butterfly, and you don't have a choice. From birth through its caterpillar phase, the iconic butterfly depends on one food source for all its needs to reach its...
While midsummer brings its share of weeds to front lawns and gardens requiring some time on the hands and knees cleaning things up, or at least a quick buzz of the tiller in a skillful weaving around those tomato plants, there's other weed work that can be much more enjoyable. This time of the season also brings well-established weedlines into play for fish that utilize them for protection from the stronger and longer-lasting rays of the sun and find the bountiful food web that is developing...
Growing up in the upper Midwest taught me to relish the warmth of summer. Sometimes those stretches of 90-degree days spanned just a week or two in August. Other summers, the warmth seemed to highlight the entire 12 weeks we were out of school. In between backyard kickball games, neighborhood-wide all-day water gun fights and kick the can contests at dark, canoe treks up the river and fishing for bullheads from its banks. As angling became more of the focus in my life, we'd seek out the shade...
For many, the Independence Day holiday weekend represents a great time to get on the water. Whether it's cruising in the warmth of the afternoon or anchoring up and watching the fireworks display reflecting off the surface of a favorite lake in the evening, the water goes hand-in-hand with the mid- summer holiday. With a three-day weekend on tap for many, fishing is also something to add to that list, but the added challenge of a busy water can hinder successful angling. However, with the right...
Gaudy. Ugly. Fish-Catching. These terms for one of the foremost smallmouth flies may seem divergent, but they all hit the spot for the Tequeely, a combination of kindergarten art project and scrapped experimental woolly bugger borne from a night of drunk tying along with a little bit of rubber thrown in for good measure. Regardless of its appearance, the Tequeely dominates smallmouth in spring and summer. Who really knows what it looks like under the water to these protective predators this...
When it comes to fishing, I'm a fan of second fiddles, the underappreciated, those that don't take the top spot when it relates to what many people target on the water. I revel in the solid smack delivered by a rock bass as it steals a jig meant for a smallmouth, or when a white bass snatches a spoon cast out for a pike. Many times, the action these secondary species provide is enough for me to switch up my offering, and even downsize my rod, to continue pursuing them when they're abundant and...
With the heat of summer descending upon the region, those cold water loving trout which were stocked in area lakes and reservoirs are seeking out the depths, and aside from some chill hours in the morning and evening, are a bit tougher to target on the fly rod. Luckily, around the upper Midwest, there are plenty of other fish to take their place on the long rod and many ways to catch them. What follows are a handful of warm water species to take on with a fly box in tow, hone those fly fishing...
I'm a firm believer that a quick trip to the water is better than no trip at all. One jaunt in the uplands, even in the middle of the afternoon well ahead of the witching hour, can still produce plenty of excitement. Even a short sit on stand in the fall to watch the sunrise and the first few deer filter in and out of the draw produces memories. A full life, and memorable outdoor activity, requires making the most of what you've got with the time allotted. It was a lesson hammered home again thi...
This has been perhaps the windiest spring I can recall since I became a dedicated angler several decades ago. The scattered calm days seem to come at a rate of one in ten or so, but the balance of the spring has been dominated by gusty conditions and stretches where even when the wind shifts, it comes out of a new direction at an equally fevered pace, wasting little time in transition. Going through the motions of correcting a slow troll with the bow mount motor on the water, or bracing the...
At a meeting of the South Dakota Game Fish & Parks Commission (GFP) on June 4, the agency declared it would be discontinuing its summer pheasant brood surveys, suggesting that the numbers – which have trended significantly lower in recent years due to decreasing habitat on the landscape of the Rushmore State – were not as important as maintaining and marketing the state's title of "The World's Pheasant Capital" and its new "Hunt the Greatest" tagline. In an era where the value of science has...
A good number of movies about diseases – Outbreak, Contagion, Pandemic, even Dawn of the Dead - have made it into the top ten on Netflix in recent weeks as fear and curiosity, along with free time have spurred a desire to understand how diseases spread. And, like with Hollywood's tales, in real life, outbreaks often start with just a spark of infection in a single patient. It is just as possible that the spark smolders and dies out, taking with it only its host before it can be spread to any o...
It was one of those spring days we've had an abundance of: warm but not quite hot and just windy enough to make it feel cool. As a result, the river was quiet. The fact that it was midday left only me following a long morning run that ate up most of the front half of my day, and a couple of boats scattered up the two-mile stretch I patrolled under clear blue post-frontal skies, propelled one way by the rising gusts and slowed as I turned back against them. All the while the click-and-wiggle of...
