MINNEAPOLIS — Saturday morning, most Minnesotans slept in rather than set their alarm clocks to ring hours before sunup.

That’s what Pat Smith of Mankato and I did, also John Weyrauch of Stillwater. That way we could be in the woods early enough to hear turkeys gobble and see ducks skitter onto quiet ponds while celebrating the opening day ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — After years of contemplating a reduction in Minnesota’s longtime, six-walleye daily bag limit, the Department of Natural Resources is moving to lower it to four.

State Fisheries Chief Brad Parsons told the Minnesota Star Tribune last Thursday that the shift will take place in 2026 unless agency leaders change their minds ...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. — Nearly 600,000 trout grown by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission died at a McDowell County hatchery during the rains brought by Hurricane Helene, the state agency has reported.

Landslides and flooding around the Armstrong State Fish Hatchery north of Marion compromised the water quality to the facility’s raceways, or ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Drew Swartz has been in school a long time. First in Missouri for his undergraduate degree, then in Minnesota for a master’s. Now he’ll finish his doctorate this summer at the University of Minnesota, studying veterinary population medicine.

Obviously a smart guy, Drew, 25, humored me the other day when I gave him a pop quiz...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota opened its beaver trapping season on Saturday, five months after state lawmakers made it illegal — under certain circumstances — for people to eat the furry rodents.

Jokes, complaints and unanswered questions rose from the Senate floor when the proposed law came up for discussion in May. But even now, as trappers ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Through a DNA analysis of a hair sample, Superior National Forest wildlife researchers have identified an animal carcass found last spring as one of the oldest Canada lynx among those they track in northern Minnesota.

The lynx was known to Forest Service staff as GLNR-S-571, aka the Trappers Lake Female, born 11 years ago in the...Read more

PITTSBURGH —Three men who pleaded guilty last month to poaching charges for killing 21 white-tailed deer in Washington County last year received jail sentences, had their hunting licenses permanently revoked and were ordered to pay $6,300 in fines and restitution, the Pennsylvania Game Commission announced this week.

The three men — Ezra ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Sarah Strommen has been commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources since January 2019, the first woman to hold the post. Before that she was an assistant DNR commissioner and also worked for various conservation nonprofits. She holds an undergraduate degree in biology from Grinnell College in Iowa and a master�...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Some people seek self-fulfillment outdoors by running marathons, climbing mountains or paddling canoes from Minnesota to the Arctic Ocean.

Misty Blue did it by answering a shout-out on Facebook.

Blue is a Native American woman living in the Twin Cities and a single mom to a 15-year-old daughter. “I’m Ojibwe and Dakota,’�...Read more

PITTSBURGH — More than a dozen biologists and volunteers waded into the Kiski and Clarion rivers recently to do what has never been done before — stock native freshwater mussels.

The recolonization of the mollusks will improve water quality and fish habitat, and help restore the waterways.

In the last several weeks, about 2,000 mussels ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Members of the Mille Lacs Lake citizens’ advisory panel are urging state fisheries managers to set the walleye bag limit at two fish for the upcoming ice fishing season so as to motivate more anglers to make the trip.

At a regularly scheduled meeting last Tuesday evening in Isle, most committee members who voiced an opinion ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Lamenting summer’s end and apprehensive about the coming winter, the poet Charles Baudelaire wrote centuries ago in “Song of Autumn,” that “already I hear the dismal sound of firewood/falling with a clatter on the courtyard pavements.”

In Minnesota, just now, in mid-October, firewood still often falls with a clatter, ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — From small Munsterlanders to English setters and Labrador retrievers, a veritable kennel’s worth of dogs scampered across southern Minnesota Saturday, the opening day of the state’s pheasant season.

Proud and always hopeful that a bird or two might be put to wing by the canines, the animals’ human partners followed in tow....Read more

HOVLAND, Minn. — They slipped the boat into Lake Superior just before first light. The lake lapped in quiet rhythm on the shore. The sky was clear and the air finally had a bit of a chill. It looked like a promising morning for Eric Brisson and Tyler Smith.

Two of Minnesota’s last commercial fishermen, Brisson and Smith are in their mid-30s...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Deer hunters in western Big Stone County know they’ll be restricted this fall to harvesting a single buck. To bag a second deer, they’d have to win a lottery that offers 38% fewer antlerless tags than a year ago.

So, avid hunters like Ed Vollmer and Bruce Nelson, of Ortonville, were incensed when they learned a number of gut...Read more