Our Outdoors: New Neighbors
Our Outdoors: New NeighborsBy Nick Simonson I first saw our new neighbors in the dim light of an early February morning. As I walked the dogs past their driveway, they cautiously eyed us over but, unlike the residents who had been on our block for a while, they didn’t take off when both my large lab and German shepherd made sudden furtive movements toward them. I found that odd. The next encounter was much the same. Though this time, one of them was up on the rooftop of the house across the street surveilling their new neighborhood, again just before […]
Our Outdoors: Making the Most of the Least Spring
Our Outdoors: Making the Most of the Least SpringBy Nick Simonson The water was cold, fast, and dingy rushing out of the gates of Baldhill Dam, as atop the spillway the ghostly blue-gray ice still held fast to the shores of Lake Ashtabula at its generally widest and deepest point of the 12-mile reservoir, despite being a single day away from the month of May. While I figured the Sheyenne River’s run of pike would stack up under the outflow in the rush of spring water coming through, looking at the temperature readout on the website for the structure ahead […]
Our Outdoors: Less Is More for Luremaking
Our Outdoors: Less Is More for LuremakingBy Nick Simonson I’m not a huge fan of the saying “less is more.” I mean, MORE is more, right? Raised in the go-go-Reaganaut 1980s capitalism environment that I was, Gordon Gecko and just about every other big screen role model said greed was good, faster was better, biggest was best and certainly more is more. He who dies with the most toys, the biggest collection of fishing lures and the flashiest accessories wins. Sure. Whatever. Maybe I’ve mellowed out a bit in this stretch of middle age; but when it comes to spring […]
Our Outdoors: Stocked Trout Springboard
Our Outdoors: Stocked Trout SpringboardBy Nick Simonson Spring brings with it a change in the air, and where rain begins to pour down to bring those May flowers out on the landscape and fill the banks of streams, ponds and lakes with a recharge of something other than snow, so too come other additions to those waters. Stocked trout are placed by state fish and wildlife agencies this time of year to add to the angling variety found throughout the upper Midwest, and while many rainbows, browns and other species of trout are added simply as a put-and-take fishery, these […]
Our Outdoors: Spring Bearings
Our Outdoors: Spring BearingsBy Nick Simonson A full 30 inches of snow drift lined the banks of the small creek just down the road from the cabin in drifts that clung to and overhung its edges. Under the heating sun of mid-morning, however, they had already begun to add to it from the white extensions dripping meltwater, making perfect circles on the creek’s flowing surface with each droplet. Hoping to grab a photo of the half dozen just-returned mallard ducks that had been milling about in its waters the day before, or the two swans that had been sounding from […]
Our Outdoors: Spring Simplicity
Our Outdoors: Spring SimplicityBy Nick Simonson A twisting garden worm on a gold Aberdeen hook under a split shot just a couple feet below a red-and-white bobber; that’s how most of us start fishing and certainly how it began for me. The setup – and it feels like that term makes it seem all too complex, as if it were somehow part of an intricate angling method – caught perch and bluegills from the dock, swarms of bullheads from the grassy banks of the river and the occasional largemouth bass from the old farm pond throughout my childhood, and undoubtedly […]
C&R Calculations
C&R CalculationsBy Nick Simonson Catch and release angling isn’t anything new, in fact the conservation tool has been around long enough to have its own acronym of C&R, which is universally known in fishing circles. At the outset, providing the length or maybe the length and girth of that monster fish of the day wasn’t the most glorious statistic for anglers to share at the boat launch after a trip, as success was typically measured in pounds not inches. Over time however, as C&R caught on, anglers began to either accept the tale of the tape as the dominant measurement […]
Our Outdoors: (A)I’d Rather Be Fishing
Our Outdoors: (A)I’d Rather Be FishingBy Nick Simonson Winter weather has a way of worsening cabin fever. In our screen-filled world, the glow of a blue and white backdrop with black letters rolling out across it is a panacea of sorts, numbing my mind to the increasing white in the world outside, and creating hopes from whole cloth of a shift in the conditions and a changeover to spring’s greenery. At the very least, I can come up with some good “Top 10 Outdoors” tip lists while waiting for winter’s end.Beyond the spillage of text from the gray keys to […]
Our Outdoors: The Mix of March
Our Outdoors: The Mix of MarchBy Nick Simonson March is a magical month on the upper plains. It’s a set of 31 days that bring the best hopes of spring with the reminder that winter still has control at times. The whipsawing of the weather and the jet stream as the seasons shift and the planet’s angle tilts toward the ideas of something warmer give anglers and hunters a little bit of everything to consider. In order to take advantage of all those days, it’s best to have a couple sets of boots ready and be prepared to switch from […]
