If there's anything more unnerving than watching a venomous snake swim toward your boat, it's suspecting it found a way aboard and is hiding.

That happened Sunday to Todd Winn, a human resources officer in the U.S. Navy, as he was enjoying an "eco photography boat tour" off North Carolina's Outer Banks.

"I was taking photos of this cottonmouth...Read more

Charles Hudler used to look out his window at Wixom Lake, resplendent with fisherman, boaters and families of ducks or swans moving slowly across its tranquil, blue-green waters.

He now looks out on a vast field of mud where his waterfront utopia used to be. The lake is gone. The Tittabawassee River has re-emerged. Erosion is ongoing.

And this...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- Upward of 250 fishing tournaments are going forward in Minnesota this season despite significant rule changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jon Hansen, fisheries consultant and tournament policy coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said he will contact tournament organizers soon to remind them ...Read more

IN AFTON STATE PARK, Minn. -- On Tuesday, May 19, while hiking in this oak-laden expanse of bluffs, ravines and grassy ridgetops that adjoin the St. Croix River, Erika Rivers was uncertain when Minnesota state parks would again be open to overnight camping.

The second oldest state park system in the nation, Minnesota's latticework of 66 state ...Read more

ON LAKE MILLE LACS, Minn. -- Unable to book paying clients when Minnesota's summer fishing began May 9, Tony Roach was on this big lake that day nonetheless, casting a jig and retrieving it while boating one walleye after another.

Like other Minnesota fishing guides from Winona to Warroad, Roach's business (roachsguideservice.com) had been ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- As the weeks drag on and the weather becomes increasingly pleasant, the sense of cabin fever caused by our collective coronavirus quarantine is sure to increase.

So many entertainment options we used to take for granted are now indefinitely off limits: Forget about taking in a baseball or softball game. Date night at the movie...Read more

The number of people fishing across the U.S. went up in 2018, including more women and more minorities than ever before, according to a comprehensive report on angling in America.

The "2019 Special Report on Fishing," a joint effort of the Outdoor Foundation and the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation, polled more than 20,000 people ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota is tracking an explosion of interest in fishing as the Department of Natural Resources approaches a peak sales period for fishing licenses.

New information will be released Monday, but sales of licenses two weeks ago were 41% ahead of last year's pace. The fastest-growing category was "resident youth," covering licenses...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- Michael T. Osterholm is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. A renowned epidemiologist who is advising governments worldwide during the coronavirus pandemic, Osterholm is a passionate angler who grew up trout fishing in northeast Iowa.

In the interview below, he talks ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- In the normal spectacle of Minnesota's fishing opener, a half-million anglers scatter across the state, mainly in search of walleyes.

But this year, with some 200,000 of those license-holders being urged to fish close to home in the seven-county metro area, there's not nearly enough walleyes to go around.

To fill the void, a lot...Read more