Minnesota Mixed Bag: State Fair continues through Labor Day

Falcon Heights, Minn. — The 2024 Minnesota State Fair continues through Labor Day, Sept. 2, at the State Fairgrounds in Falcon Heights, with excellent fair weather in the forecast.

All set up for the 2024 Minnesota State Fair that runs today through Sept. 2. Don’t forget to visit the Outdoor News booth – located next door behind the DNR stage at the corner of Judson and Nelson – to renew your subscription and score a free hat. pic.twitter.com/Ac30s2F1zl

— Outdoor News (@OutdoorNews) August 22, 2024

After getting your fill of fair food and visiting the livestock barns and other attractions, stop by the DNR building (located near Nelson Street and Judson Avenue, right next to the Outdoor News booth) to take visit with a DNR conservation officer, a wildlife manager, or others. Check out the huge fish pond or climb the fire tower. Be sure to visit the Outdoor News booth to renew your subscription and score a free hat.

Regular fair-time admission is $18 for adults (ages 13-64); $16 for seniors (age 65 and older); $16 for kids ages 5 to 12; and free for kids age 4 and under. Fairgrounds hours are 7 a.m. each day to 11 p.m. (it closes at 9 p.m. on Labor Day). For more information, visit mnstatefair.org

MORE COVERAGE FROM MINNESOTA OUTDOOR NEWS:

Sunday ushers in a new season in Minnesota as dove, goose hunting begin

Volunteers improve remote Wildlife Management Area on Minnesota’s Lake Vermilion

Minnesota’s 2024 bear hunt offers more promising outlook than last year

DEER LOTTERY APPLICATION DEADLINE IS SEPT. 5

St. Paul — The Minnesota DNR reminds firearms and muzzleloader hunters who want to harvest antlerless deer in a deer permit area designated as antlerless permit lottery this hunting season to purchase their licenses by Thursday, Sept. 5.

Hunters who purchase their licenses on or before this date are automatically entered into the lottery for the deer permit area or special hunt area they declare.

Successful applicants will receive a postcard in the mail authorizing them to take an antlerless deer using their regular license in that antlerless permit lottery area. No lottery application is needed to take antlerless deer in permit areas with either sex, two-deer limit, three-deer limit or five-deer limit designations. Hunters are reminded that DPAs 235 and 251 went from either-sex to lottery this year.

More information about designations and regulations for deer permit areas, as well as details about special hunt opportunities, are available on the Minnesota DNR website and in the 2024 Minnesota Hunting and Trapping Regulations Handbook.

ZEBES CONFIRMED IN BIG CARNELIAN LAKE IN WASHINGTON COUNTY, FREEBORN IN DOUGLAS

St. Paul — The Minnesota DNR has confirmed the presence of zebra mussels in Big Carnelian Lake, near Stillwater in Washington County, and Freeborn Lake in Douglas County.

The DNR received a report of a zebra mussel attached to riprap on the Big Carnelian Lake shoreline. The DNR, along with staff from the Washington Conservation District and Carnelian-Marine-St. Croix Watershed District, searched Big Carnelian Lake for adult zebra mussels. Adult zebra mussels were observed at all sites searched, and zebra mussel larvae, called veligers, were detected in water samples.

In Freeborn County, a DNR invasive species specialist found a zebra mussel on a settlement sampler on a dock at the Freeborn Lake public access. Settlement samplers are solid surfaces placed in the water that people can regularly check for attached zebra mussels, to aid in detection.

People should contact a Minnesota DNR aquatic invasive species specialist if they think they have found zebra mussels or any other invasive species that was not already known to be in the water body.

More information is available on the aquatic invasive species page of the DNR website.

HUNTERS ASKED NOT TO SHOOT EAR-TAGGED, RADIO-COLLARED RESEARCH BEARS

Grand Rapids, Minn. — The Minnesota bear-hunting season opens Sunday, and the Minnesota DNR is once again asking hunters to avoid shooting marked research bears. These bears are marked with distinctively large, colorful ear tags and wear radio collars.

Researchers with the Minnesota DNR are monitoring 48 radio-collared black bears across the state, especially in bear-hunting zones 27, 45, and parts of the no-quota zone. Most of the radio-collared bears live in or near the Chippewa National Forest, Camp Ripley Military Reserve, the Pillsbury State Forest, and the Brainerd/Baxter area. However, the bears also range widely from these sites.

More information is available on the Minnesota DNR bear-hunting webpage.

IN IOWA, PHEASANT COUNT DECREASES; HUNT STILL EXPECTED TO BE GOOD

Des Moines, Iowa — Results of Iowa’s 2024 pheasant population survey are in, and the results were nearly identical to the 2022 and 2021 surveys. The annual August roadside survey found Iowa’s statewide pheasant population to be 19 birds per 30-mile route, down from 23 birds per route in 2023. The decline was expected after much of Iowa received 3 to 7 inches of rainfall above normal during the nesting season.

“Iowa hunters have enjoyed good pheasant hunting over most of the state for the past five seasons, including last year, when we had the highest harvest in 16 years. If our dry weather continues into fall, the corn and soybean harvest could be mostly complete by opening day, and that usually leads to good success,” said Todd Bogenschutz, upland wildlife research biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Based on the results of the August roadside survey, Iowa hunters can expect to harvest 350,000 to 400,000 roosters. Last year, Iowa saw an increase of an estimated 20,000 pheasant hunters over 2022, which helped push the harvest to nearly 600,000 birds.