Open Season

My dog's breeder, Jeff Jalbert of Top Shelf Kennels in Horace, gave me a sideways glance as he set down his Busch Light on the polished wooden bar that wrapped...

On Saturday, it was 95 degrees as gusting winds blew heat like a hairdryer set on "inferno." By Sunday morning, people donned light jackets to brace against the 30-degree temperature...

The wind whipped Ottertail Lake into a wave-riddled froth resembling an army of white-helmeted soldiers marching to war. Then the trolling motor quit. When dead in the water on angry...

Fishing is as simple or complicated as a person makes it. In its most basic form, willing a creature to ingest a dangling bait can mean nothing more than the...

For the longest time, I considered corned beef a "mystery meat," akin to bologna or summer sausage. Thinly sliced and neatly stacked behind glass deli counters, the scarlet-hued flesh seemed...

Hunting waterfowl in the spring can be a tad unnerving. For one thing, it's weird being in a field that is about to be planted instead of harvested. Then there's...

A slab of sapphire ice a foot-and-a-half thick and the size of a dinner table jutted forth from Red Lake like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Around it,...

Remy went downwind of where the crippled rooster had flopped into the tall stems of prairie grass and immediately turned and pointed.

Remy's tail wagged fervently as he worked the ground ahead. A strong breeze from the west pushed scent perfectly in his direction, and the 19-month-old pup used it to his...

The morning chill was every bit the 17 degrees promised by my digital truck thermometer, if not less. Almost immediately upon removing the Remington 870 pump shotgun from its case,...

In my circles, seldom do I get a "hi" this time of year. And normally a talking standard, weather now rarely is a topic-starter - unless it's how the hunting...

As my dog and I rounded the bend, the birch-laded woods appeared to part like intricately painted cardboard props in a Shakespearian play. A stick- and leaf-strewn path popped into...

It took more than an hour, but the first duck of North Dakota's waterfowl opener finally discovered my decoy spread. Placement of the dozen or so decoys was less than...

For years, my father has given me compasses as gifts: pin on compasses, technical palm compasses, even a small, easy-to-carry neon blue compass with a built-in survival whistle. Other than...

Devastated, crushed, completely demoralized; pick an adjective to describe pure melancholy and it probably fits the bill. "He'll be laid up six weeks," the veterinarian said, "minimum." By my rudimentary...