I built it in one week. Setting up a rearing pen for pheasants took five years. Over those five summers I improved it. The chicken wire walls are steel post reinforced. Wire has been buried below grade 12 inches to keep predators out. I have over head...

As I look back at the last 12 months, it seems that 2007 will still fall into that category, but as for next year or 10 years from now, who knows. As most people agree, the only sure thing is that things will change. Maybe for the better. Possibly for the worse...

In light of recent news about dead loons being found around some of the Great Lakes, what is the condition of Minnesota's loon population?

I'm not wishing for flood-type conditions, just a decent snow pack that delivers an injection of moisture into the Lake Sakakawea and Oahe feeder system. It's no secret our smelt, walleye and the overall fishery have been living on borrowed time for a few years, and it’s not realistic to expect this fishery to rebound without a significant increase in water level...

For the majority of hunters, the close of the regular deer gun season, followed by the calendar change from November to December, pretty much seals the fate of fall. While the past couple of weeks, I wrote about the many opportunities still available, the transition is inevitable. And it's not only hunters who are switching their focus...

I beg any reader to honestly say they don't know a deer hunter in North Dakota. While not every adult North Dakota citizen will hunt deer, it has more participants than any other form of hunting. Not a sports rivalry in our state claims nearly a hundred thousand participants...

Above my head is a five gallon pail swinging from a deer gambrel. The pail should be full of deer tallow saved from the November deer season. My daughter and I slice off the creamy fat in long thick chunks, and...

Fall is an excellent time of year to start composting, or for those who already compost, to think about improvements. State air quality and fire control rules restrict the burning of yard waste in Wisconsin, and a growing number of communities have made local rules that may restrict or completely prohibit burning of yard waste because of the air pollution and fire hazard created...

The past few winters have been relatively quiet across much of central and southern Minnesota. Is there anything in Minnesota's historical weather records that indicates what type of winter we will have this year?

As a young deer hunter on opener morning one year in the late 1980s, I was out scouting the landscape as day broke in south central North Dakota. It wasn’t so much to watch for deer moving around as it was to just scan the field and let my imagination paint scenarios of where the deer would break out of cover, who would push, and which guys would post...