Sometimes, you do not have to travel far in order to witness wildlife behaviors when some critters abound just outside your front door.

As a wildlife photographer, this time of year can present challenges to attaining great animal imagery.

Opening the world of hunting to those who didn’t grow up in hunting families is a challenge.

Twenty years and three Labrador retrievers ago, I was perched in a dense stand of cattails, awaiting the first flights of ducks to wing over the decoys.

Adam Griffith has gone from blue collar to black crappie.

Thirty-three years ago, the Minnesota DNR embarked on a wild turkey stocking program in our area.

Caring for the Minnesota River has been Scott Sparlin’s life’s work.

Hunters can be an opinionated lot, especially those with decades of experience on their boots.

Through 10 years as a father, and I’m counting in utero toward my service record, I still have no idea how my kids are going to turn out.

It is pretty rare to find yourself hunting quarry with no limits set by state or federal game management departments.

The world of navigation has changed rapidly in 20 years.

For dyed-in-the-wool waterfowlers, the fall bird migrations bring hope for game bags stretched full of colorful, varying duck species.

There is something to our human psychology of always wanting the new and exotic, of coveting the latest and greatest.

Looking from the standpoint of a wildlife photographer, the current wave of warm weather does not aid getting images of bald eagles.

Scott Stuerman walks past a group of senior ice anglers, sitting out on a lake on a warm late winter day.

A temperature of minus-20-something degrees wouldn’t seem like ideal conditions to wildlife watch.

Southern Nebraska wears her best colors in the fall, mixing earthy browns with an exhaustive catalog of yellows.

For many hunters, February marks the end to a wonderful season of dining on wild game meats.

Last weekend’s lake trout opener found me sitting in the company of my wife’s uncles on Saganaga Lake, set up in 40 feet of water and hoping to spy a mark on the humming dial of my SONAR flasher.

In August, 1980, I was subscribing to three newspapers: The Free Press, The Star Tribune, and Pioneer Press.

As an on-the-move ice angler, I’m loving this warm winter.

Eleven hours to paradise.

October of 2012 presented perfect conditions for hunting ringneck pheasants in central South Dakota.

It’s funny the impact ice has on the angling psyche.

Christmas eve, 2012, I was sitting 15 feet above a forest floor, bow in hand, waiting for whitetail deer to follow the well-used trail that wound its way only 10 yards from my stand.

Scant weeks ago, the Minnesota waterfowling season seemed to be at an early end due to plummeting temperatures locking up most open water with ice. Not that long ago, I found myself at a prairie pothole, long-handled hammer in hand, breaking ice to entice passing ducks to alight in favorable…

Last December while in Tennessee on a duck hunting trip, I bought my wife a five-liter bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, partly for the immense novelty of size, partly because she loves wine and sharing with our friends.

Right now, the scene outside my picture window looks exactly like a shaken snow globe.

Yesterday’s firearms deer opener couldn’t get here fast enough for legions of hunters across the state. Eight months of a rollercoaster pandemic coupled with a drawn out and ugly election was reason for many men and women to need an escape to the woods. Minnesota hunters and anglers have tur…

There are few events in hunting that match the exhilaration of watching a thick-necked, rutting whitetail buck ghost out of dark timber and approach your deer stand.

In another slight to our battered psyches, Mother Nature pulled the plug on fall early last week, sending the barometer plunging and unleashing the first snowfall of the year.

It’s 3:30 a.m. when the alarms go off, and two angling fanatics are up and dressing.

Midwest whitetail deer hunters are creatures of habit.

Skepticism is a waterfowl hunter’s constant companion.

Jonny Petrowske wakes up each morning nestled between Upper Red Lake, Pine Island State Forest, Big iBog Recreational Area and the Rainy River.

Another southern Minnesota summer has flashed by, driving avid hunters headlong into a busy fall season.

A couple weeks ago, I arose well before sunrise and loaded a kayak into the bed of truck. After securing the little boat, and stowing camera gear and water in the truck, I headed for vast Swan lake.

Several years ago, on a near-perfect October day, yellow lab, Luna and I were striding through knee-high CRP grasses seeking rooster pheasants.

Safety has become a forefront issue in my life.

Heat index.

Late spring camping trips to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness bring some of the best fishing of the year.

October of 1999 found my lab pup, Mercury, and I hidden on a small southern Minnesota slough awaiting the noon waterfowl opener.

You’d better have a good excuse to not be fishing now that the calendar has flipped to June.

In the world of wildlife, water is essential for life. So, it’s no wonder I spend as much time as possible sitting inside my camouflaged kayak, silently prowling the Mankato area’s many waterways.

The first June bug crashed into my windshield on my drive home the other night, a visual reminder of summer’s arrival.

Springtime is well underway.

The world of wildlife spins on without interruption, even in the face of a pandemic.

Two sets of headlights with trailers in tow coasted past me at an intersection in the early morning darkness.

While he expects it to be a little cold on the water Saturday for the annual Minnesota fishing opener, the fishing should warm you up, said Craig Soupir, area fisheries supervisor at Waterville.