MINNEAPOLIS — State lawmakers are looking at banning lead fishing tackle, targeting the most common sinkers and jigs on the market.

The small bits of lead, which have been building up on lake bottoms for decades, are poisoning and killing trumpeter swans, loons, bald eagles and other wildlife.

Swans and loons are especially vulnerable to ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The rapid growth of Omnia Fishing, an e-commerce retailer of fishing gear and tackle, has hooked the interest of anglers and funding from venture capital firms.

The Golden Valley-based startup was co-founded in 2018 by Matt Johnson, Dan Wick and Chris Morgal.

The site takes users through what the proper gear and tackle is for ...Read more

In her introductory remarks to the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) roundtable held virtually in January, the agency's commissioner, Sarah Strommen, mentioned almost as an aside that in coming months she would announce a new funding mechanism for her department and, presumably, for Minnesota conservation.

Strommen's remarks were ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — An eclectic group of outdoors people organized by the state a year ago to study how Minnesota can better promote its natural places and make those resources available to more people will soon recommend, among other advice, a new office be opened to achieve those goals.

The Outdoor Recreation Task Force was formed by the ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Common belief suggests most of us are being held hostage by the pandemic and are slumped in our basements awaiting the all-clear signal. Yet if this were true, freeways wouldn't be packed and resorts Up North wouldn't already be hanging No Vacancy signs out for the fishing opener.

I was thinking about this the other day and also...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — A dead Eastern coyote hung upside down above a bucket of dried blood in a rural Pennsylvania fire hall, its lips locked in a perpetual snarl.

Some men crouched beside it, while other adults twirled spaghetti with a fork, looking on from aluminum chairs. Children held canned sodas and stared.

“Thirty-eight pounds even,” the...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Say you were a deer living last week near Orr, Minn., about halfway between Duluth and International Falls. You've had a tough few days, weather-wise. Beginning Sunday, the temperature lows were minus-29, minus-29, minus-20, minus-20, minus-35 and, on Friday, minus-33.

Looking for relief in daytime? Forget it. High temperatures ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Dedicated accounts are the backbone of American conservation. Beginning with establishment of the federal duck stamp in the 1930s, such funds have helped the U.S. retain a semblance of its original open lands, clean waters, fish and wildlife.

By law, for example, 98% of funds derived from sales of federal duck stamps must be ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Monday morning was still and gray and cold in a way that makes nature in winter an authentic sensory experience. And so it was in the mixed woodland on the Meadlowlark and Sumac trails in Elm Creek Park Reserve in the northwest metro.

Amid aspen and oak, I set off with John Moriarty, senior manager of wildlife in the vast Three ...Read more

We who live in the West benefit from public ownership of 47% of the land across 11 states, most of it managed by federal agencies. It's our wild backyard — mountains, forests and seashores available to all for free or for a nominal entrance charge. But only 4% of the land in the rest of the country is publicly owned, and even in the West, much...Read more

Some Michigan fishers are reeling in rusty hauls for fun during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Magnet fishing, in which anglers use industrial-strength magnets of different weights, capacities and styles to find lost metal items, debris and artifacts in waterways, has been something to do for anglers such as Danny Hepler of Reed City.

Hepler ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota is home to nearly 1,500 state wildlife management areas covering some 1.29 million acres, an admirable collection whose origins date to 1951 and the dedication of a handful of employees laboring for what was then the Department of Conservation and is now the Department of Natural Resources.

One of those conservation ...Read more