Our Outdoors

By Nick Simonson In just a couple of weeks, hunters’ visions will shift from flushing or cupped wings to antlers bobbing up and down through the trees.  The fast-approaching firearms deer season never fails to ambush a few who push their bird hunting or late season fishing right up to the start of the most heralded two-week stretch on the outdoors calendar. What follows are some tips to make sure that – while that thirty-point buck might sneak by you – the beginning of deer season won’t. 1. Tag In.  Secure your deer tag now and place it in an […]

By Nick Simonson A great target shooter is a great field shooter. The ability to hit a clay streaking away at 43 miles per hour correlates closely with the same form, pivot, focus and follow through necessary to hit a rooster flushing into the sky, a ruffed grouse rushing down a forest path or a group of ducks coming into a decoy spread.  While target and field shooting have a lot in common, there are a few areas where they differ, often to the betterment of the hunter’s bag, and the same mentality in each can help overcome any difficulties […]

By Nick Simonson “Go down…go down…go down…go down…” Audibly from my stand, I urged the buck to tumble in the open field, and at the south end of it, it almost looked like he was ready to as his sprint slowed to a stumble-run.  The shot from my bow was a resounding “thwack” that left me confident I’d find my first arrowed deer somewhere in the brush at the end of the field. But what sounded good would result in a long night of tracing a fast-disappearing blood trail from one shore of a small river to the other and […]

By Nick Simonson Going from hunting sharptailed grouse on the plains to ruffed grouse in the woods often presents several changes and challenges. Beyond the distances traveled, the walking required, adjusting of chokes and the solitary nature of the birds, the most notable test is finding one’s way around in the towering and varied stands of trees. Where just a few days prior, covering a stretch for the prairie species was as easy as looking up to the unblocked horizon and following my dog’s nose to a flushing covey of sharpies.  While I’ve never done the research, or even checked […]

By Nick Simonson If one human year equals seven dog years as the old adage goes, then one dog year is 52.14 days, by my public school math.  If that is the case, then 5,214 days – or 100 dog years ago this week – my old lab Gunnar was born in a mom and pop operation just outside of Pequot Lakes, Minn.  I recall the evening I picked him up from the farm just off the gravel road, in the warm afternoon of Labor Day in 2004.  He and three of his siblings remained from a litter of eight, […]

By Nick Simonson All hunters reach a point, whether through the growth of their families or just a sort of natural progression, where they want to see a young person succeed in the outdoors.  Their focus becomes less about their full game bag or taking the biggest buck, to watching a kid take their first rooster or mallard or harvesting their first deer in the field.  However it happens, there’s never been a better time than now – with multiple seasons designed specifically for youth hunting, groups putting on mentored hunts, and growing shooting sports programs to help sharpen their […]

By Nick Simonson All hunters reach a point, whether through the growth of their families or just a sort of natural progression, where they want to see a young person succeed in the outdoors.  Their focus becomes less about their full game bag or taking the biggest buck, to watching a kid take their first rooster or mallard or harvesting their first deer in the field.  However it happens, there’s never been a better time than now – with multiple seasons designed specifically for youth hunting, groups putting on mentored hunts, and growing shooting sports programs to help sharpen their […]

By Nick Simonson The green leaves of late summer around my head stood still in the morning calm to match my statuesque stance on the elevated platform overlooking the field where the set of three does and two fawns obliviously nibbled at the remaining vegetation.  Only my heightened breath, directed out my nose and outlined by the cool humidity of the first day of the fall season, was a giveaway that I was there. I was certain that my adrenaline-fueled pulse was quieted by the shirt, jacket and safety vest I had on. At the far end of the hay […]

By Nick Simonson Summer, as it so often does, has flown by in a blur of green and warmth, punctuated by memorable days on the water with snapshots and postmarks of places fished. The season seems to disappear doubly quick when we get a late start and a transition from winter to warmth in a matter of days, as we did in that week which some referred to as spring this year.  Through warm stretches and thunderstorms, windy days and the rare, perfectly calm ones that seemed to coincide with (or plague) my few walleye trips, the ebb and flow […]