Sports

/

ArcaMax

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Dennis Anderson: In Minnesota and everywhere, trees threaten grasslands and the pheasants they support

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — Cory Netland is a Department of Natural Resources area wildlife supervisor working out of New London, Minn. — not too far from where he grew up.

Like the state’s other 80,000 or so pheasant hunters, Netland is eagerly anticipating the Oct. 12 opening of the 2024 ringneck season.

And while Netland knows that wingshooters and...Read more

Brian Peterson/Minneapolis Star Tribune/TNS

Minnesota grouse hunting is back down to earth

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — One year after Minnesota grouse hunters enjoyed a phenomenal harvest, they’re settling in for a season that they can only hope will be fair to good.

“It seems like there are patches that are good, but there’s also patches that are as bad as we have seen in a while,” said Nate Huck, resident game bird consultant for the ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Summer walleye catches in Pennsylvania portion of Lake Erie were 2nd highest in more than 20 years

Sports / Outdoors /

PITTSBURGH — Anglers in Pennsylvania's portion of Lake Erie reported the second-highest walleye catch rates since 1993 for July and landed in the top five highest rates for August.

"This has been one of our better seasons," said Mark Haffley, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's leader for Lake Erie's research unit.

"These last seven ...Read more

Best times for anglers

Sports / Outdoors /

(Table for Oct. 13-Oct. 27)

This table lists top fishing times and days for the coming weeks. For best results, begin fishing one hour before and continue one hour after the times given. Times apply to all time zones.

———

Sunday.…....................8:45 p.m.....………………….……............................................9...Read more

Brian Krista/Capital Gazette/Baltimore Sun/TNS

Dan Rodricks: A Chesapeake fishing captain's long love affair with the bay

Sports / Outdoors /

BALTIMORE — Somewhere in the vast Chesapeake Bay, there’s a fishing spot known as Ed’s Lump. It is believed to be the remnants of a giant oyster reef, rising from deep water to within 24 feet of the surface. It’s where Ed Darwin, longtime charter boat captain and one of the bay’s greatest lovers, believed his customers would catch fish...Read more

Best times for anglers

Sports / Outdoors /

(Table for Oct. 6-Oct. 20)

This table lists top fishing times and days for the coming weeks. For best results, begin fishing one hour before and continue one hour after the times given. Times apply to all time zones.

———

Sunday…………..............2:25 p.m........……….........................................................2:...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Hurricane Helene spawns mass migration of a half-billion birds

Sports / Outdoors /

PITTSBURGH — As millions of people braced for destruction in the path of Hurricane Helene in Florida and other southeastern states, half a billion migrating birds capitalized on the strong storms.

Using radar and weather data, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's BirdCast bird migration map documented more than half a billion birds migrating last...Read more

Ann Brucciani Lyo/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

How much trash is under water in Mille Lacs? A scuba team looked into it.

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — There were fishing poles, cinder blocks, liquor bottles and golf balls in the tiny portion of Lake Mille Lacs that a scuba dive team sampled last week, but it was far less rubbish than they expected to find, the team’s leader said.

The preliminary and brief probe of the lake’s subsurface, paid for by a $67,000 grant from ...Read more

Bill Kennedy/Dreamstime/TNS

Accreditation for Pittsburgh Zoo will help save red pandas and reintroduce American bison

Sports / Outdoors /

PITTSBURGH — With recent gold standard accreditation, the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium is poised to lead in saving the endangered red panda and reintroducing the American bison.

The Zoo announced last Thursday that it regained accreditation from the Association of Zoos & Aquariums at the AZA convention in Calgary, Canada.

More than nine years ...Read more

Best times for anglers

Sports / Outdoors /

(Table for Sept. 29-Oct. 13)

This table lists top fishing times and days for the coming weeks. For best results, begin fishing one hour before and continue one hour after the times given. Times apply to all time zones.

———

Sunday……….................9:40 a.m.....…………………...................................................Read more

Dennis Anderson: Whether ducks were many or few, Minnesota opener produced memories

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — Saturday morning, when the state’s waterfowl season opened anew, lightning streaked across a stormy sky, a Bear retrieved a blue-winged teal and duck gumbo was delivered to an ailing wingshooter in a Brainerd hospital.

These were a few of the memories made on a day when perhaps 50,000 Minnesotans pulled on waders, paddled onto...Read more

Best times for anglers

Sports / Outdoors /

(Table for Sept. 22-Oct. 6)

This table lists top fishing times and days for the coming weeks. For best results, begin fishing one hour before and continue one hour after the times given. Times apply to all time zones.

———

Sunday.…....................3:25 a.m.....………………….……...........................................3:...Read more

Dejavu Designs/Dreamstime/TNS

Re-introducing the extinct Guam kingfisher one chick at a time

Sports / Outdoors /

PITTSBURGH — Talk about your precious cargo.

Transporting three chicks of an extinct bird species, the Guam kingfisher, was not a standard procedure, but was doable for Pittsburgh's National Aviary.

Three chicks hand-raised at the Aviary this summer were among nine young kingfishers that in late August became the first to be released since ...Read more

Deyan Georgiev/Dreamstime/TNS

Dennis Anderson: Duck camp stays aloft on wings and memories

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — When Kevin Schleif was a kid, on the nights before the duck opener, he was sleepless in Owatonna, Minn.

His favorite place in the world was the duck camp his dad and a buddy had leased for a song years earlier. The waterfowling outpost on Buffalo Lake in southern Minnesota wasn’t fancy, just a couple of shacks with no indoor ...Read more

Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Media Group/TNS

Osprey starvation in the Chesapeake Bay spurs renewed debate about fish harvest

Sports / Outdoors /

BALTIMORE — The Owl Moon Raptor Center in Boyds in Montgomery County usually takes in about 50 ospreys a year for a mix of reasons, such as fishing line entanglements. But this year more than 80 of the birds were admitted, most of them young and battling starvation.

Many of the chicks and juvenile birds died shortly thereafter, said Suzanne ...Read more

Best times for anglers

Sports / Outdoors /

(Table for Sept. 15-Sept. 29)

This table lists top fishing times and days for the coming weeks. For best results, begin fishing one hour before and continue one hour after the times given. Times apply to all time zones.

———

Sunday………….............10:05 p.m........……….....................................................10:...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Dennis Anderson: For these Minnesota women, bird hunting wouldn't be sporting without their dogs

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — Last year the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources sold 230,000 resident small-game licenses, fewer than 10% of which were issued to women.

Only a small minority of Minnesota women chase ducks, pheasants, grouse and woodcock, in part because deer hunting has replaced small game hunting as the state’s entry-level field ...Read more

Zrfphoto/Dreamstime/TNS

Lurking in Lake Erie: At least 145 invasive species documented at Presque Isle

Sports / Outdoors /

PITTSBURGH — Lurking in the steel blue waters of Lake Erie and its marshes, a green mat of vegetation suffocates native plants with its fast-growing layers of tangled fiber.

Some fish swim the other way.

The more than 4 million annual visitors to Presque Isle State Park don't see the underwater battle waged against starry stonewort, an ...Read more

Best times for anglers

Sports / Outdoors /

(Table for Sept. 8-Sept. 22)

This table lists top fishing times and days for the coming weeks. For best results, begin fishing one hour before and continue one hour after the times given. Times apply to all time zones.

———

Sunday………................3:40 p.m.....………………….....................................................Read more

Joseph Wiley/Dreamstime/TNS

Dennis Anderson: Telling female and male mallards apart in September is a tough problem for hunters to duck in Minnesota

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — The hens aren’t coming home to roost, and something’s going to have to change.

Beginning in Minnesota.

The hens in this case are mallards, specifically adult hen mallards, and their absence on the breeding grounds, including in Minnesota, the Dakotas and prairie Canada, means trouble for duck hunters and duck hunting.

It�...Read more