MINNEAPOLIS — Challenging as it is to think about deer hunting when Pronto Pups beckon from the State Fair, a license buying deadline looms for perhaps hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans who hope to fill their freezers with venison for the coming winter.

Sept. 4 is the cutoff date for whitetail hunters to apply for special hunts in parks ...Read more

PITTSBURGH — The Pennsylvania Game Commission, along with hiking and land conservation groups, officially opened a new game land in Indiana Township on Friday.

Large, new parcels of public land for hikers and hunters are a rarity in Allegheny County.

The game land's grand opening is special because of its proximity to Pittsburgh and location...Read more

PITTSBURGH — The nonprofit Hunters Sharing the Harvest anticipates more growing pains as donations of deer from hunters increase.

The wildly successful program accepts deer from hunters, then pays to process the venison into ground meat and distributes the meat to food banks, soup kitchens and other charitable organizations across the state. ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — One of the unhealthiest lakes in Minnesota is 5 1/2 miles long and stretches into three pools that, when viewed from above, look like a wasp about to sting. It’s a few miles north of the Iowa border in the city of Worthington, where its waters, cloudy with muck and festering algae, choke out the sun.

In Lake Ocheda few plants ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — In the far north of Crow Wing County, about 30 miles beyond Brainerd, there’s a heart-shaped lake that locals don’t want anyone else to know about.

A stony brook runs through it, pouring in from the northwest shore and exiting over gentle rapids on the southeast, where the water is so clear that one could count the pebbles ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Count bird hunters among those baffled by the angst Minnesota Twins enthusiasts have demonstrated over the club’s trades and announcement the team won’t be sold.

If anyone should complain about wins and losses in Minnesota since Calvin Griffith moved his scrappy outfit here in 1961, it should be those who will go afield in ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota deer farmers have been denied a second time in their fight to stop a 2023 state law that will bring an end to their industry in Minnesota after another generation.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s dismissal of the group’s lawsuit, rejecting their argument that they have the right to pursue...Read more

SOLDOTNA, Alaska — A trio of anglers leaned on the edge of Jordan Carter's boat in shallow water on the Kenai River last month, victoriously enjoying a cold beverage.

Their ride with Carter, a local fishing guide, was brief but bountiful. The group pulled in 18 sockeye salmon in a flash, easily reaching their limit with time left to enjoy the...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — For the second summer in a row, Florida wildlife officials said they are suspending the popular scallop harvest along all state waters in Pasco County over worries of unsafe toxins from harmful algal blooms.

Water samplers have detected potentially harmful levels of an algal bloom called Pyrodinium bahamense and the toxins it ...Read more

NORFOLK, Va. — Recreational fishing industry leaders are calling on President Trump to limit industrial fishing of forage fish, such as menhaden.

Forage fish, also called bait fish, serve as food for other species. In recent years, oversight of the menhaden reduction fishery in Virginia has been debated through regulation requests and ongoing...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Genevieve Furtner took a glob of hundreds of fish eggs from a jar, placed it on top of a mesh screen and pushed a few clear, yellow eggs through it and into a pail of water.

Live muskie eggs have to be separated from the gray, dead ones taken over by fungi or they would die too.

With only an old fan to move the humid air, ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — There’s a scene in the movie “John Wick: Chapter 2,” in which no one else notices the shootout between the movie’s star, Keanu Reeves, and another dude because their pistols are equipped with “silencers.”

Memo to the Writers Guild of America: There are no gun silencers. Only gun suppressors.

Suppressors don’t make...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Anglers on Mille Lacs Lake will be able to keep an extra walleye soon.

The daily limit will increase from two to three of the fish, after a slow bite this summer has meant fewer fish have been harvested from central Minnesota’s premier walleye lake.

Only about 22% of the state’s annual Mille Lacs walleye quota had been met ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Todd Finkelson suffers from road rage, though not the kind that typically makes headlines.

Every day, when he drives from his home near Ashby in west-central Minnesota to Fergus Falls, where he works, he keeps a sharp eye on the road — and an even sharper eye on roadsides.

“In that short distance, I can count at least 10 ...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. — All was still on the New River near the Davis Seafood fish house. But when 83-year-old William “Buddy” Davis walked out of his home and pulled on tall rubber boots, it signaled the work was about to begin.

Not far from tourist-filled beaches of Topsail Island, the Davis family began preparing for the homecoming of the 58-...Read more