LAS VEGAS — The Southern Nevada fish thought to be the world’s most endangered has made a stunning rebound.

During a fall count in Death Valley National Park’s Devils Hole, next to the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, biologists counted 137 Devils Hole pupfish, up from 77 last spring and 69 last fall.

“These results reflect the ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — When the Minnesota firearms deer season opened early Saturday morning, Sheldon Weston toted a Marlin lever-action .30-30 rifle to his stand.

Also along, like memories he couldn’t shake, were recollections of long-ago hunts with his dad and brothers near their Roseau, Minn., home, on the Minnesota-Canadian border.

Now 63 years...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Good deer meat starts with good marksmanship, says Hank Shaw.

“Don’t shoot a running deer,” the award-winning wild game chef and author advises, explaining that adrenaline pumping through a deer’s muscles can give the meat an unpleasant flavor. The same happens if a shot doesn’t kill the deer quickly, and it runs for a...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — So much of deer hunting is tradition.

But certain tasks will be new this year — especially for successful hunters.

Minnesota’s regular firearms season starts a half-hour before sunrise Saturday.

But hunters need to be aware of the changes well before.

Here are five new rules and requirements to know, from buying your ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — For the seventh consecutive year, California officials are delaying the Bay Area’s commercial Dungeness crab season because of the high number of migrating humpback whales already getting ensnared by old crab-pot fishing lines and other gear.

And again this year, conservation groups are expressing frustration with what ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Want to bag a trophy whitetail when Minnesota’s firearms deer season opens Nov. 7?

Of course you do.

Everyone who has ever climbed into a tree stand prefers that a buck ambles by within shooting range, rather than a doe.

And the bigger the better.

With its own data center, the Boone and Crockett Club (B&C) can help you ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — The water might have been choppy early and it took some time for the fish to start biting, but on board Jon Cooper’s boat Monday morning the Lightning coach’s “process-over-outcome” mantra was in effect on Hillsborough Bay.

It marked the ninth time Cooper has held his “Coop’s Catch for Kids” fishing tournament, ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Nearly a decade after Minnesota set a goal for hunters to kill 200,000 deer in a season, it might happen.

With this year’s hunter harvest outpacing that of recent years, and with generally liberal hunting limits for the main firearms season in two weeks, the numbers are on track to break the 200k barrier for the first time ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The beauty of upland hunting is knowing which wild lands produce which wild birds, and where.

Sharptails and prairie chickens inhabit the West’s vast expanses of big bluestem and wheatgrass, while pheasants often linger closer to corn and other crops, in Minnesota and elsewhere.

In western North Dakota, and into Montana and ...Read more

TACOMA, Wash. — In 2008, Concrete, Wash., resident Tyler Kales, 14, was hunting bear with his brother in rural Skagit County, north of Seattle. One hundred-twenty yards away, Pamela Almli, a 54-year-old woman from Oso, Wash., was hiking nearby with a friend on the Sauk Mountain Trail. Kales shot her in the head while she was leaning over to ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Earlier this month, the DNR abandoned plans for a change to the state’s duck hunting rule after a debate highlighted a philosophical split in the duck hunting community.

On one side are those who want to make duck hunting, or at least its rules, simpler.

On the other: those who say the proposal would have dumbed down their ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Brian Myres of Clear Lake is a thinker.

So are Dave Zentner of Duluth, Matthew Smith of Willmar and Greg Kvale of Baxter.

They’re also cabin owners, some of them; walleye fishermen, all of them; and hikers, campers, hunters, paddlers and boaters.

They’re active, also, in Ducks Unlimited, the Izaak Walton League, ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — For perhaps 20,000 Minnesota families, the question of what do with the kids for MEA weekend has an answer: Take them deer hunting.

Since 2019, the four-day weekend in October has coincided with a statewide deer hunting season for hunters ages 10-17. This year, those dates are Thursday, Oct. 15, through Sunday, Oct. 18.

It ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — With slightly more than 400 residents, Chokio is a farm-country village some travelers might overlook while gallivanting in west-central Minnesota.

Credit bygone Dakota tribes with not making the same mistake. In their language, Chokio means middle, or halfway, and the tiny burg is that: midway between the towns of Morris and ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota archery hunters are killing deer at nearly twice the pace of 2025, according to early harvest data, raising the prospect of another record-breaking year.

As of Monday, 7,948 deer had been killed since the archery season began Sept. 19. That’s 88% more than the 4,232 deer killed at this point in the 2025 season, and ...Read more