MINNEAPOLIS — The joke at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is that managers’ happiest workers are also the lowest paid.

Their dogs.

If that’s true, the eight tail waggers who toil for DNR conservation officers aren’t looking to form a union. They’re too busy sniffing out evidence that bad guys hide, finding disoriented ...Read more

A hunter accused of killing a federally protected animal in Idaho faces a hefty civil penalty and jail time, wildlife officials said.

The man thought he was shooting a black bear when he killed the female grizzly May 9 in the Priest Lake drainage area of Idaho’s Panhandle, McClatchy News reported from Idaho Fish and Game.

Once he realized ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — In Minnesota, if you’re a poacher — meaning if you intentionally kill wildlife without a license or by other illegal means — should you go to jail?

A lot of legal hunters think so. So do a lot of conservation officers, who sometimes spend years gathering evidence on bad guys, only to see the miscreants go to court, pay a ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Whether he’s having lake trout or walleye for shore lunch, Lukas Leaf employs the same recipe.

“We fry up a pound of bacon, eat the bacon, and fry the fish in the bacon grease,” Leaf said. “With fresh fish, there’s nothing better.”

Similar culinary rituals played out on lakeshores from Winona to Warroad and Winton ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — At a time when anglers are debating if advanced underwater sonar technology is wrecking the sanctity of fishing, wetting a line on Annie Battle Lake is becoming more of a throwback than ever.

Nestled inside Glendalough State Park in Otter Tail County, this deep and clear 334-acre lake is set aside by the Department of Natural ...Read more

MILLE LACS LAKE, Minn. — Within minutes of the clock striking midnight, marking the official start of the Minnesota fishing opener on Saturday, 24 extra-eager anglers cast their lines from a boat in the dark, hoping luck would shine upon them.

Almost right away, 13-year-old Katelynn Norman’s orange bobber sank below the water.

Boat Capt. ...Read more

PITTSBURGH — While door-to-door campaigning in 2019, Dan DeMarco, president of the Ross Board of Commissioners, had several residents ask, "What are you going to do about the deer?"

Six years later, after the Board banned residents from feeding white-tailed deer and rolled out managed archery hunts, he said, there are still too many deer.

"...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Pat McGowan was already on the road at 5 one morning last November when he received a call that a boat had overturned on Leech Lake and hunters were in the water.

A Department of Natural Resources conservation officer since 2008, and a longtime duck hunter himself, McGowan knew the lake was frigid and that no one could last long...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Only if President Donald Trump and Gov. Tim Walz squared off over a Department of Natural Resources plan to lower Minnesota’s walleye limit could the proposal be more controversial than it already is.

But even those political rivals couldn’t add more sparks to a fisheries management proposition that already is sizzling among...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Some 60,000 turkey hunters are expected to head out into farms, fields and woods across Minnesota last week in the hopes of hearing the scratchy, echoing cry of a tom and calling one in. Spring turkey hunting season, which ends May 31, has begun.

Turkeys, which were once completely wiped out of Minnesota and nearly all of the ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota anglers who want to fish anytime soon are still going to need paper licenses despite last year’s assurance by the Department of Natural Resources that outdoors licenses and registrations would go digital well before opening day.

The agency has been working on the $3.5 million project since 2021 and last year hired a ...Read more