MINNEAPOLIS — The Department of Natural Resources is moving ahead with its plan to lower Minnesota’s walleye bag limit by putting its formal recommendation up for public feedback and possible legal review.

The agency hopes to make the change from six walleye to four, with the new limit to take effect March 1, 2027, said Brian Nerbonne, a ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Tim Walz has a lot on his plate right now.

Pointing out that many Minnesota hunters, anglers and other conservationists consider it good news that he won’t seek re-election seems like piling on.

But there it is.

When he was elected governor in 2018, Walz seemed as if he might follow in the conservation footsteps of his ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The fact that Ross Petersen is a fishing guide and also a former mayor of Ely doesn’t make him unique. Two other recent mayors of that small town on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness also are fishing guides.

But Petersen does stand out among both fishing pros and politicians for another reason.

He’s not ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — As wind and snow blew hard across White Bear Lake on Dec. 31, Mark Walker was keeping to his winter clock. This time of year, he, his wife and his daughter make time for ice fishing.

Walker worked a bucket of crappie minnows over two holes from inside a heated ice house. He already had hauled in a 24-inch northern pike and a ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — I keep my New Year’s resolutions simple. Stay out of jail at Christmas. And trust dogs to do the right thing.

Some years ago, in Tennessee, early on Christmas Eve, I was coming off the East Coast in a White Freightliner, loaded for Tulsa.

Which was when, rising over a hill, with another 18-wheeler passing me, I whisked ...Read more

WICHITA, Kan. — Deer carcasses and aluminum containers with the remnants of baked beans were found illegally dumped in a public ditch Friday, the McPherson County Sheriff’s Office said.

“With little info at this time, it appears the deer may have been taken lawfully, however, their disposal at this location is both illegal and tacky,” ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Imagine pulling up to a fishing spot. You hook a fish, a beautiful snook. As you reel it in, the water boils, a shark’s tail smacks the surface. The fish stops struggling. All that’s left of the snook is a bloody stump.

On the next cast the same thing happens. There’s no reason to continue fishing in this spot, ...Read more

A hunter who went missing a week ago south of High Rock Lake has been found dead, according to investigators in North Carolina.

The body of Jerry Eugene Sutton Jr. was discovered Dec. 16, in a wooded area about a 14-mile drive southeast from Salisbury, the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office said in a Dec. 22 news release.

It’s suspected 41-year...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota waterfowlers will hold a Duck Summit March 27-28 in Nicollet — near the shores of venerable Swan Lake, which once was one of North America’s migratory bird meccas.

The planned gathering, long overdue, is born of the frustration of Minnesota duck hunters, who in autumn are tired of seeing mostly empty skies, but who...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Yia Vang whispered to his friend and squirrel hunting guide Chang Her as flakes drifted from the sky. The crunch of snow under their feet echoed through Sand Dunes State Forest, northwest of the Twin Cities.

The squirrels were hunkering down in their nests, like many other Minnesotans that day, Vang said. While the squirrels ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The problem with pulling a trigger is that you can’t unpull it — a lesson some hunters learn the hard way.

Excited to raise your shotgun in the direction of what you think is a snow goose, only to find out the bird you killed is a protected trumpeter swan?

Too late, once you’ve pulled the trigger.

Think that late-...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — On a recent Sunday morning, Carrie Schmitz and her family were cruising to church in Golden Valley when they spotted an enormous buck lying dead in the highway median. Her three children went wild at the sight of its massive antlers, shouting dubiously that it must have been a “30-pointer.”

About an hour and a half later, at...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — A deer hunter admitted he messed up and bagged a moose, whose population is a far cry from what it was in Minnesota two decades ago, according to a criminal complaint filed last Wednesday.

Dane Landon Nelson, 37, of Duluth, was charged in St. Louis County District Court with illegally taking the moose, a gross misdemeanor, while...Read more

HARTFORD, Conn. — The brook trout, the only species of trout native to Connecticut, will soon be getting a minimum size limit to harvest for the first time in over 70 years.

Officials with the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection are placing more protections on the fish after monitoring revealed a declining population. ...Read more