Map shows Minnesota pheasant hunting prospects for this fall. (Source: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources)
In what will likely be a surprise to most hunters, Minnesota’s annual pheasant roadside counts were virtually identical to last year. They remain 22 percent below the 10-year average.
The statewide pheasant index is 63 birds per 100 miles of road traveled, which is up slightly from last year’s average of 59 per 100 miles.
After a harsh winter in the pheasant range, Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologists had expected a drop in pheasant numbers.
“We were surprised,” said DNR pheasant research biologist Kurt Haroldson of Madelia, Minn. “As hard as the winter was, we were expecting it to go down further.”
Haroldson said the winter was the hardest in Minnesota’s farmland region since 2001, although it ended early.
DNR biologists are expecting a pheasant harvest of 400,000, the same as last year. The harvest has been 500,000 or more in five of the past seven years, a result of mild winters and lots of acres in Conservation Reserve Program grasslands.
Pheasant numbers remain best in the southwest (104 birds per 100 miles driven) and in the central (76 per 100 miles) and west-central regions (70 per 100 miles).
Grand Marais and Boulder, Colo., polar adventurer and climber Eric Larsen is playing the waiting game in Namche Bazar, a tiny village high in the Himalayas. Larsen and part of his team of Sherpas is waiting for rainy weather and fog to clear so the rest of their team of Sherpas can join them from Kathmandu. Time is of the essence. The team needs to get in position on the mountain if it hopes to have a chance at the summit.
Larsen, 39, hopes to become the first person to reach the South Pole, North Pole and the summit of Mount Everest in the span of one year. He hopes to reach the summit of Everest in the third or fourth week of October.
Here’s his Monday update from his website: “I’m not saying that I’ve turned waiting into an art form, but over time, I’ve definitely refined skills of patience and managing expectations. Realistically here, my serenity is due more to the fact that I don’t have another choice. But, after three days in Namche Bazar, it would be very easy to be frustrated and anxious about our situation.”
For more on the expedition, check the website.
Kate Crowley and Mike Link spent time near Lake Superior in March before starting their hike around the lake in April. (News Tribune file)
Naturalists Mike Link and Kate Crowley of Willow River are now hiking between Hovland and Grand Marais as they near the conclusion of their 4 1/2-month walk around Lake Superior. They plan to reach Duluth on Sept. 18.
Link, 64, and Crowley, 60, are hiking the entire shore of Lake Superior to call attention to fresh water resources, especially those of the big lake. They left Duluth April 29, hiking east through Wisconsin and Michigan before venturing into Canada.
A welcome-home ceremony in Duluth is planned for 2 to 8 p.m. Sept. 18, so well-wishers can hike the last mile with them and visit afterward at Canal Park Lodge.
For more information on their hike, go to their website here.
A cedar waxwing sits on a branch near a white pine along the Superior Hiking Trail on Sunday. (Sam Cook photo)
Four of us spent a good chunk of Sunday on a stretch of the Superior Hiking Trail. We chose the section of trail that runs between Minnesota Highway 1 (near Finland) and Lake County Road 6. This is a section of trail with lots of ups and downs, a remarkable spur trail to an inland overlook and great vistas of Lake Superior and the South Shore.
We started at the Highway 1 end and hiked as far as Wolf Lake at the Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center. We also took the half-mile spur trail to an overlook called Fantasia that’s pretty spectacular. The spur winds around the west side of a ridge that offers expansive views of the forest below and the big lake, then re-enters the woods and delivers hikers to a small cliff overlooking a beaver pond and successive inland ridges.
We had lunch at the overlook, and it was so nice that we spent probably an hour and a half there.
We saw three other hikers — actual backpackers — who were headed the same direction we were and who planned to camp at Raven Lake near Wolf Ridge.
We hiked in the area that was hit so hard by an ice storm two years ago. Many of the birches and aspen, though still living, are bent over like white wickets in the woods.
While at lunch, we watched several cedar waxwings darting out from tall pines to feed on insects in mid-air, though we couldn’t see the insects.
At Wolf Lake, we stopped for a short break and I grabbed a quick photo of Lucy and Rode (say “road-ee”), the Labs who own us. Here’s the shot:
Our Labs take a break overlooking Wolf Lake along the Superior Hiking Trail near Finland. (Sam Cook photo)
Tom Neustrom of Grand Rapids used a jig to take this 25-inch walleye on Leech Lake in May. (News Tribune file photo)
Fisheries officials with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will offer two proposals that would maintain or modify walleye regulations on Leech Lake. A public meeting to discuss those proposals will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 13 at the Walker/Hackensack/Akeley school commons in Walker.
DNR fisheries staff will explain why the department is considering maintaining regulations adopted in 2005, which require Leech Lake anglers to immediately release all walleye 18 to 26 inches in length. Anglers are allowed to keep up to four walleye, only one of which can be longer than 26 inches.
A second proposal would require anglers to immediately release all walleye 20-to 26-inches in length. The bag limit would remain at four fish, with one of those walleye allowed to be longer than 26 inches. If DNR population surveys determine that female walleye density is negatively affected by the reduced slot limit, the DNR could revert to the 18-to 26-inch slot limit.
“The ability to revert back to a more protective slot limit gives us flexibility,” said Harlan Fierstine, the DNR’s Walker area fisheries supervisor. “It allows anglers to keep larger fish while providing a useful management tool that allows us to protect younger year classes of walleye. if necessary, to meet population objectives established by Leech Lake’s citizen input committee.”
Those unable to attend the meeting in Walker may submit written comments until Oct. 25 via e-mail to harlan.fierstine@state.mn.us or via postal mail to DNR Area Fisheries, 07316 State 371 NW, Walker, MN 56484. Telephone comments can be made by calling the Walker area fisheries office at (218) 547-1683.
A yellow Lab hustles back to its master with a rooster pheasant. (Sam Cook photo)
The third annual Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and Pheasants Forever Mentor Pheasant Hunt will be held Oct. 23 throughout Minnesota. This year, the event will be open to youth ages 12-17 and to women. Deadline for applications is Sept. 8, so act quickly if you’d like a chance to take part.
Applications are available at www.dnr.state.mn.us (search “mentor pheasant hunt”) or by contacting the DNR Information Center at (888) 646-6367. Successful applicants will be notified via mail or email by Sept. 25.
A Mississippi kite, like the one shown here, passed over Hawk Ridge in Duluth on Wednesday. This is only the 11th time that a Mississippi kite has been observed at Hawk Ridge. (Ohio Department of Natural Resources photo)
A Mississippi kite flew over Hawk Ridge at 1:45 p.m. Wednesday, just the 11th time that the species has been observed at the hawk migration station.
The bird appeared to be an adult, but it was extremely high as it came directly over the hawk platform, according to official counter Karl Bardon. The kite was viewed by Cameron Rutt, Andrew
Longtin, Aldo Raul Contreras Reyes and Bardon.
“It really was a perfect kite
day today — thousands of dragonflies in the air, a good flight of falcons (kestrels and merlins)
and persistent south to southwest winds during the last week.”
Considered rare in the upper Midwest, the Mississippi kite is usually found in the southern part of the United state. The species has become an “expected rarity” over Hawk Ridge, Bardon said. All kite records at the ridge have occurred between Aug. 30 and Sept. 15.
Other non-raptor sightings at the ridge on Wednesday included 47 white pelicans in a single flock, more than 1,500 warblers, 1,222 red-winged blackbirds and more than 1,800 bluejays.
Justin Taylor climbs into his bear stand early today on the opening day of Minnesota's bear season. (Sam Cook photo)
Today is opening day of Minnesota’s bear season. The state’s bear population is healthy, and wildlife biologists estimate that 20,000 bears roam the state.
I spent Wednesday morning with 13-year-old Justin Taylor and his dad, Bill Taylor, of Duluth. This is Justin’s first bear season. He was hunting on private land in the Grand Marais area with his dad sitting beside him.
Justin shot his first bear about 8 a.m. today. Read the details of his first hunt in Sunday’s Duluth News Tribune Outdoors section in the back pages of Sports.
Hunters participating in this fall’s bear hunt, which opens Wednesday, should avoid shooting radio-collared or ear-tagged bears, say Minnesota Department of Natural Resources wildlife officials.
It is legal to for a hunter to take a bear wearing a radio collar unless the bear is accompanied by a researcher who has identified the bear to the hunter as a research animal.
DNR researchers are monitoring about 35 radio-collared black bears, most of them in northwestern Minnesota. Additional radio-collared bears reside in and around the Chippewa National Forest, Camp Ripley, Cloquet Forestry Station and Voyageurs National Park.
Bear research also is being conducted between Ely and Tower near the Eagles Nest chain of lakes in northern St. Louis County.
“Hunters near these areas should be especially vigilant for collared bears,” said Dave Garshelis, DNR bear research biologist, in a prepared statement. “However, bears travel widely in the fall, sometimes 50 miles or more, so collared bears can turn up almost anywhere.”
Most of the monitored bears have brightly-colored ear-tags to make them more visible to hunters. Some bears also have brightly-colored tape or streamers on their collars. DNR officials recognize that a hunter may not be able to see a radio collar or ear tags in some situations.
Any hunters who do shoot collared bears should call the DNR Wildlife Research Office in Grand Rapids at (218) 327-4146 or (218) 327-4133.
Thomas Wahlstrom, a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources conservation officer at Tofte focused his enforcement action in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness this past week, along with other area officers.
“Many groups were checked, with a wide array of equipment,” Wahlstrom wrote in his weekly report. “The most interesting piece of gear that was lugged across a portage was a large rock with a rope tied to it for an anchor to be used later in the trip.”
Sam Cook