Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Sorted by date Results 276 - 300 of 328
If the recent pandemic and its social distancing requirements have taught us anything, it's the importance of having a place to go outside. Whether it's to blow off steam with a trail run, wet a line on a local river, or hike the hills with a good hunting dog, public places provide an opportunity unique to America and the country's long-standing traditions of hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation. Growing in recent years to more than 40,000 grassroots members, the group Backcountry Hunters &...
The path to a successful hunt involves a lot of planning. Whether it's hours of country cruising and scouting the local deer herd and their movements in August and September for November's glorious capstone to autumn or checking laces and boot leather and getting hundreds of rounds put in at the trap range to be set for that first flushing rooster in October, preparation for whatever game you pursue makes the season more successful. One thing many hunters overlook, however, is the physical...
There's a compromise reached in every relationship. My wife loves to cruise on the open water and I love to fish, so much so that the idea of being on a boat without a rod in hand is what I imagine hell must be like. So while I manned the helm of the party boat as we moved up and down the river under the warmth of the newly-minted summer sun over the holiday weekend, my eyes shifted from the bouncing rod tip that telegraphed the motion of the firetiger crankbait clicking along the bottom to the...
While it's the hope of every angler to catch a fish worthy of the wall, whether via a replica or skin mount, the opportunity may not come along very often. When it does, however, anglers should be prepared with a few easy steps and a couple of simple tools to make sure their trophy (or its actual dimensions and features) makes it to the taxidermist in the best possible shape. Jason Brunell of Jason's Taxidermy in Mapleton, N.D. has been working on fish and game mounts since he started under his...
Spring brings with it the first trips out into a greening countryside. Whether sneaking off to a favorite shore fishing spot or hanging up some trail cameras to catch the first glimpses of a buck caught on a memory card, spring adventures often set anglers and hunters up against flora and fauna that can be challenging. While we're not exactly talking murder hornets in this neck of the woods (yet), a sampling of pesky plant and insect species should be examined and avoided, or at least warded...
In the era of catch-and-release a number of tools have come to the forefront in ensuring the successful turn back of big fish to be caught again: rubberized nets, mesh cradles, and elongated needle nose pliers help make short work of landing, caring for and releasing fish while limiting damage to the slime coat, gills and gullets of many species. One of the smallest but most effective ways of aiding a fast release with minimal injury, particularly when engaged in bait fishing, is through the use...
Criminal charges are expected to be filed against six Barnes County men for their involvement in the illegal taking of big game and other wildlife-related violations in recent months throughout the county, which allegedly includes the poaching of a number of whitetail deer. Combined, the complaints against the individuals are anticipated to allege 41 criminal charges in North Dakota’s Southeast Judicial District Court. At the center of the group of six alleged poachers and abettors is Jakob A...
This week marks an important point of return. I don't know if that's a real term, but it's far less ominous than "the point of no return," which has had its share of dramas, dark songs and thriller type novels written about it. The point of return, however, is that point in time where we're now closer to the start of a hunting season than we are to the end of the previous one, and it should be celebrated. With New Year's Eve typically the last day of bow hunting in most northern tier states, tho...
Pheasants Forever (PF) and pet food producer Purina have partnered on an ambitious three-year, 30,000-acre incentive program directed at landowners in the prairie pothole region of southwestern Minnesota, north-central Iowa, and those parts of North Dakota and South Dakota located east of the Missouri River. With the ultimate goal of adding more than 7,200 acres of wildlife habitat in the region known for rearing a large portion of the nation's waterfowl populations, the program will analyze the...
The winter of 2019-20 was a split personality to say the least. East of the Missouri River, the state was plagued with heavy snow, colder temperatures and a prolonged season. West of the flow, it was a virtual banana belt with light snow events and minimal ground cover from December to March. As a result, North Dakota Game and Fish Department (NDG&F) Upland Game Biologist RJ Gross and members of the agency know where the areas of concern lie for the state's population of ringneck pheasants and w...
I've been on both sides of the wind in many of my outdoor adventures but none more notable than last week, when the well-worn mooring rope on the cleat of my boat broke and my boys and I had the stunning experience of heading down from the parking lot to the launch dock to see the old Lund about 40 yards out in the bay, with a portion of the red tether dangling off the side and the other part still attached to the dock. (Yet one more thing to throw in my hole in the water, as discussed at...
Few deals can top a two-for-one special and the same can be said for lakes that provide a two-tiered fishing option. Whether it's perch and walleyes, bass and bluegills or pike and perch, these common predator-panfish scenarios can be found throughout the region offering up two popular angling targets in the same water. As it turns out, the way many smaller lakes throughout the upper Midwest are managed, that two-tiered approach is as much for the benefit of the angler as it is for the...
As we say farewell to the fly-tying season – not saying we won't sneak a new pattern in here and there as the openwater bite dictates this spring and summer – there's one last super streamer to add to that catch-all fly box for bass, panfish and anything that snacks on minnows. The Thunder Creek streamer is an incredible baitfish imitator that pulses and glides with a combination of bucktail and flash to catch any fish that eats smaller fish on the regular. Tied up in natural hues or bri...
Wedged into the narrow corner under the removable jumpseat in the big boat which had just come out of storage this weekend, I struggled to aim my headlamp and balance the beam from my phone light at the connectors on top of the battery terminals, the snap of electric sulfur and scent of gear grease heavy in the transom compartment. Unable to figure out why the hydraulic pump for the trim on the motor would not work when just the day before it had, it took me several attempts, before out of the...
Springtime is primetime for smallies, and the best way to turn things up for brown bass is knowing where they will be this time of year. As waters warm, smallmouth bass make a surge into the shallows and the prime substrate they relate to is an area with gravel and varied sizes of rock. From a natural boulder field to a man-made stretch of rip-rap, these areas become havens for spring smallies set to spawn in skinny water. What draws them there is a combination of the things that rocks provide...
Spring is the time of the year that many die-hard anglers have in the back of their mind as the opportunity to catch the biggest fish of the season and possibly their lives. Regardless of whether they're on the tail end of the pike bite through the ice or the first run of slimers up a shallow creek, patrolling the vernal breaklines for huge walleyes along a feeder stream, or scanning the shallow bars for prime smallie spawning sites and the big shadowy females moving in, anglers of all stripes k...
Seeing a fish come in behind a lure is one of the most exciting moments in angling. When the water is clear and the shadow of a pike or muskie becomes a distinctive, magnified image of what I’d imagine Leviathan looked like in legend, few things in the outdoors get the heart racing as fast. When the wake forms on a largemouth zeroing in on the plop-plop-plop of a surface popper, it’s hard to tune out the adrenaline rush. Even on a recent outing for crappies, angling over a shallow rocky are...
The continuous fishing season in North Dakota and South Dakota coupled with warming weather and rumors of a hot bite in any given location can bring anglers out in droves, particularly in those combat fishing areas along spawning creeks and channels from Devils Lake to the Missouri River basin to smaller waters in between. With these high-density congregations inevitably come the reports of over-limits, fish snaggers, and the one percent trouble-making portion of the population putting a black...
A colleague of mine, reacting to the recent and sudden halt to everything economic, expressed concern about business and the state of the world in general. The advertising dollars dried up almost instantaneously in the front half of the month. Doors were closed and shops were dark as if it was some sort of black holiday on main street. People's priorities had suddenly shifted from spend-spend-spend to survival. While I'm no economist and can't predict which letter of the alphabet comes next in...
While crappies aren't known for adrenaline-inducing strikes or heart-pounding battles, they're often some of the earliest angling excitement in spring as they stage to spawn and hang on the edge of shallow northern bays and other areas where they'll beget the next generation of slabs. While an EKG might not register the spike in pulse when one of these popular panfish is hooked, thinking of that heart monitor readout is a good way to remember a reliable tactic for catching them this time of...
Spring walleyes - especially those river fish that offer up some of the season's first opportunities as ice takes its time peeling off area lakes - are a predictable lot insofar as the locations they use when staging for the spawn. In those holes and riffles below obstructions, shallows or mating areas are where they can be found getting ready for water temperature, day length and related seasonal factors to combine in an ideal scenario and trigger the species' regular spring rituals. Targeting...
In the last two weeks I have become a fulltime teacher, cook, gym instructor and referee in addition to my normal professions, which admittedly were wide and varied to begin with.Having been something of a jack-of-all-trades and an angler of all species thus far in life has helped prepare me for these duties brought on by our recent societal changes. My favorite responsibilities in this time of transition, however, remain boat captain, hook baiter, fish remover and photographer to capture those...
Water is freedom, no more so than in spring. Casting off the icy bonds of winter, breaking them into pieces and then absorbing them is the completion of a flow's self-fulfilling and seasonal prophecy. So too for the angler, flowing water represents the possibilities to not only move with life's direction, but to challenge it and go back in time in a sense and find those places the riffles speak of upstream where trout, or bass or walleyes hide beneath the calm surface. It's been said that we nev...
With the impact of the coronavirus obvious across many layers of society, the North Dakota Game & Fish Department (NDG&F) has not been immune to changes in day-to-day life. Under guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and orders from the Governor, all NDG&F offices and facilities have been closed to the public. Despite that fact, the state's staff of wardens and other officials tasked with monitoring the use of North Dakota's game, fish and natural resources are carrying on,...
Growing up a wrestling fan, there was no better time to be watching WWF (now WWE) than when Triple H and Degeneration X were the featured heels. Challenging Vince McMahon and the establishment each week, after a win the various members would slap their crotch and yell out their trademark “Suck It!” Boorish, sure, but the battle cry became the focal point for the chairman’s ire each week. So too in the wild waters of our world does an annoying nest raider raise the ire of protective speci...
