MINNEAPOLIS — Ted Burger knew last fall he likely wouldn’t hunt ducks again. He and his identical twin, Bud, were in a blind on property they own not far from Bemidji. Ted hadn’t been feeling well, and on this last morning, he cradled his Benelli and peered into the gathering morning light. He shot a drake redhead, and that was that.

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RALEIGH, N.C. — The NC Triangle’s persistent drought shows its cruelest impact near the west end of Falls Lake: a moonscape of cracked mud, where great blue herons wade in puddles.

Take Little Lick Creek, where the Mountains-to-Sea Trail carries hikers along a boardwalk through a pool of shin-deep, stretching hundreds of yards in either ...Read more

KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C. — The air is filled with salt and the low hum of ocean. A gentle surf is heard breaking below, and above, a wispy breeze carried an osprey up and over into a dive. Here atop the Avalon Pier in Kill Devil Hills, fishermen cast plugs. Baited hooks, slung over railings, drop some 20 feet before hitting the water.

Far ...Read more

DETROIT — There's something troubling happening to fish that live more than 600 feet below the surface of Lake Superior.

Researchers are increasingly finding emaciated lake trout, which they call "zombie fish," during deepwater surveys in Lake Superior. The emaciated fish's bodies are far thinner than their healthy counterparts.

It's unclear...Read more

HARTFORD, Conn. — Pull up a chair, sit by a pond and toss your line. If a rushing river is more your style, there’s quite a few great spots in the state to catch some trout or bass or other varieties of fish. Fishing is also a wonderful way to relax during the summer. Here are a few of our favorite spots in Hartford County to fish.

There ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — At Game Fair in August, a debate is planned for gubernatorial candidates, and the hope among those concerned about Minnesota’s woods, waters, fields and wild critters is that the gathering isn’t a waste of time.

That’s been the case sometimes previously, as past candidates for the state’s highest office have either shown...Read more

DETROIT — No worm in the foam bait box was safe from 5-year-old JaKari West.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," he said as he dug through the box of soil. He gave each fat wriggling worm a name, like Hulk or Canchy, before volunteer Heather Mayernik sent it off on its journey to be hooked and cast into Belle Isle's Lake Okonoka.

West ...Read more

Anglers are reeling with joy as massive yellowtails showed up just a few miles off the Orange County coast recently, a rare sight close to shore.

Captain Steve Locken, of RockenReel Sportfishing, said large groups of 40-pound yellowtail were seen last Monday and Tuesday three miles in front of the Dana Point Harbor in water just 220 feet deep. ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Virtually every Saturday during the fall, Rick Baturin watches dogs rush onto his land from nearby hunting grounds in Colleton County.

The canines leave areas where sportsmen are using them to chase deer and enter his property, an annoyance with potentially dangerous implications that has left Baturin frustrated after years ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — That stink in St. Paul’s Como Park neighborhood last weekend? It wasn’t the blooming corpse flower in the conservatory.

About 10,000 crappies and bluegill sunfish died in Como Lake last week.

The die-off was the result of low oxygen in the water, according to the Capitol Region Watershed District, which oversees water ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — To say the plan to expand the state’s wild elk herd to northeast Minnesota from the northwest where the animals currently reside is a multimillion-dollar debacle might not be entirely fair.

But it’s accurate.

After a year’s delay, the first elk from the northwest were supposed to be transported to the northeast this ...Read more

DENVER — When he was young, Javier Refuerzo and his little brother used to fish through holes in the floor of City Park’s bandshell gazebo. And when his wriggling carp were too large to pull through the 3 to 4-inch openings, he’d cut them loose.

“There were a few kids that were there most weekends,” said the 42-year-old Denverite, who...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — How exactly it happened, Alan Johnston’s death, no one knows. But in the end, on May 13, Johnston’s Golden Retriever, JJ, was in Johnston’s boat alone, and his master was in Lake of the Woods.

An independent sort whose family in the 1800s was among the first white settlers in Warroad, Minn., Johnston, 78, had been a ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Ron Schara was sitting with his back to a tree when he realized he’d shot enough turkeys in his lifetime.

Known best for his role as a host on Minnesota Bound, a television series he started in 1995 to highlight the outdoors and now airs on KSTP, Schara said he watched a small flock of turkeys pass by as he sat last year at ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota anglers say they are catching and keeping more fish than previously believed. A boatload more.

A new federal study published this month in the peer-reviewed journal Fisheries found that Minnesotans are bringing home an estimated 80 million pounds of freshwater fish annually. That’s more than twice the state’s ...Read more