Minnesota Letters to the Editor: How many S.D. resident turkey hunters are there in the Black Hills?
Reader-submitted letters to the editor published in the Jan. 24, 2025, edition of Minnesota Outdoor News.
January 22, 2025
Minnesota’s new muskie plan will put an emphasis on yearling stocking
A session at the 2025 Minnesota DNR Roundtable on Friday, Jan. 10, focused on state muskie research and future management of the species. Brian Herwig and Mike Knapp from DNR Fisheries along with Aaron Meyer of the Minnesota Muskie and Pike Alliance led the discussion.
Knapp, the Brainerd-area fisheries supervisor, began the session by explaining that sport catches of muskies go back to the late 1800s. Many Minnesotans know the story of the “Muskie Rampage” on Leech Lake in the summer of 1955.
Minnesota’s new muskie plan will put an emphasis on yearling stocking Read More »
Farm bill extension has no funding for access; how might Minnesota’s Walk-in Access program be impacted?
When Congress last month passed an extension to the federal farm bill for 2025 and avoided a government shutdown, the bill, unlike other extensions, did not include funding for a popular bipartisan federal walk-in access program important to hunters.
The Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program (VPA-HIP) funds state walk-in access programs – private land that’s open to hunters, anglers, and other outdoor recreationists. The vast majority of funding for the Minnesota DNR’s Walk-in Access program comes from VPA-HIP grants.
WI Daily Update: Conservation groups call Supreme Court decision a victory for wildlife and public lands
The U.S. Supreme Court recently rejected a lawsuit by the
Measure allows tribe to acquire Illinois state park
Nearly two centuries after losing its reservation in Illinois in a land sale that most people now concede was illegal, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation could soon get its land back.
In the final hours of a lame duck session on Jan. 7, the Illinois House gave final approval to a bill authorizing the state to hand over to the tribe a 1,500-acre state park in DeKalb County, land that largely overlaps the tribe’s original reservation.
Measure allows tribe to acquire Illinois state park Read More »
Christine Thomas: Remembering the perseverance of Wisconsin conservationist Roy Sebald
“I could bet you that I can set a trap for a coyote and predict which foot I can catch him by,” challenged Roy Sebald with a twinkle in his eye. “I have won that bet many times.”
I met Roy Sebald for the first time in January 1990. I did not know it at the time, but Roy, at 70 years old, was a world class conservationist in the style of the many Wisconsin conservation greats.
Christine Thomas: Remembering the perseverance of Wisconsin conservationist Roy Sebald Read More »
Dean Bortz: OK, let’s try this archery elk hunting thing one more time
During my days as a soldier in the U.S. Army’s Alpha Co., 2nd/60th Mechanized Infantry Battalion at Fort Lewis Washington I often found myself right up against it for one reason or another.
Most of those “up against its” were my own doing.
Like the day Paul Banas, of Utica, N.Y., and I borrowed a very straight 1969 two-door Buick Wildcat from roommate Sam Cowgill, of Missouri, to make a run to the PX (postal exchange – military’s version of Walmart or Costco). On the way back, with our case of Rainier bottles, we took Sam’s Wildcat for a spin down the tank trails that wind through 20,000 acres of woods on Fort Lewis to exercise the 370 hp in the car’s 430-cubic-inch V-8.
Dean Bortz: OK, let’s try this archery elk hunting thing one more time Read More »
Iowa DNR, Pheasants Forever have partnered for decades to expand wildlife habitat
The farm crisis of the 1980s fundamentally changed the Midwest in multiple ways, as did the large-scale loss of habitat on farm land leading up to it, which was the circumstance that ultimately created Pheasants Forever (PF) in St. Paul, Minn., in 1982.
Iowa is proud to be home to the first chapter outside of Minnesota, the Iowa Pioneer Chapter, and that excitement continues today as Iowa is home to the most chapters in the country with 94 active chapters across the state.
Iowa DNR, Pheasants Forever have partnered for decades to expand wildlife habitat Read More »
Changes greet hunters at Long Island’s Ridge Hunter Check Station
Most veteran hunters on Long Island are familiar with the Ridge Hunter Check Station.
Located on the Ridge Pine Barrens State Forest and Maintenance Center on Randalls Road, for more than 60 years New York State Department of Environmental Conservation wildlife staff on Long Island have been providing sportsmen and others with countless days afield to experience a taste of wilderness in an otherwise suburban landscape, much of it through the little check station at Ridge.
Changes greet hunters at Long Island’s Ridge Hunter Check Station Read More »
