October 13, 2009

Devils Lake, N.D. (AP) – The North Dakota Game and Fish Department says rising water in Devils Lake has helped produce the largest natural walleye hatch that fisheries crews have ever documented. Randy Hiltner, the northeastern district fisheries supervisor, says the annual fall reproduction survey produced a lakewide average catch of 107 walleyes per net. […]

Mapleton, Maine (AP) – A Maine hunter has been hit with bird shot while duck hunting, the third incident in which a hunter was struck since Oct. 1. The Maine Warden Service says a Mapleton man in his 20s was hit by bird shot while hunting with a friend on Saturday in Arroostook County. The

Dickinson, N.D. (AP) – Hunters and the businesses that cater to them in southwest North Dakota say pheasants can be found, but hunters are having to look a little harder this year. The North Dakota season began over the weekend. State wildlife officials estimate the pheasant population this fall is down about 50 percent from

Sioux Falls, S.D. (AP) – Many South Dakota hunters who took to the fields in search of pheasant over the weekend returned home empty-handed and frustrated. They say standing crops that farmers haven’t been able to harvest because of poor weather made it difficult to find birds. A hunting season for state residents only began

Valley City, N.D. (AP) – State wildlife officials say a Valley City man bagged the 200th bighorn sheep in the North Dakota badlands. Jerad Enger shot the ram on Saturday south of Medora. Game and Fish Department big game biologist Brett Wiedmann calls it a ‘significant” milestone. Bighorn sheep hunting has been allowed in the

Madison, Wis. (AP) – Artists from Ladysmith and Campbellsport have won Wisconsin hunting stamp contests with their paintings of wildlife. The Department of Natural Resources says Craig Fairbert’s depiction of a wood duck pair won the 2010 waterfowl stamp contest among 23 entries. He is from Ladysmith. William Millonig’s painting of a rooster pheasant taking

Billings, Mont. (AP) – Wildlife officials in Montana are weighing changes to the state’s inaugural wolf hunt after hunters killed nine of the predators in three weeks just outside Yellowstone National Park. More than 1,300 gray wolves were removed from the endangered species list in Idaho and Montana this spring following a decades-long recovery. Hunting