Our Outdoors

Our Outdoors: Summer Holiday By Nick Simonson My favorite holiday comes in mid-August. No, not National S’mores Day or International Beer Day (close runners up though), but that day, after the hustle-and-bustle of summer activity gives way to a warm, lazy Sunday afternoon when I can unwrap my favorite late-summer present – the memory card in my trail camera. Sure, it’s not a traditional holiday with a set date, occurring every couple of weeks between July 4th and Labor Day, it’s just as enjoyable, without the calorie count of those events either. Positioned over a well-hit mineral lick, the camera […]

Our Outdoors: Seven Pre-Season Pointers By Nick Simonson In about a week, hunting seasons will begin to open across the upper Midwest, starting with North Dakota’s early goose management season on August 15, with similar options available just a couple weeks later in South Dakota and Minnesota.  Following that, mourning dove season starts the upland game portion of autumn on the first of September, and then the flood gates let loose as other small game, upland and waterfowl seasons kick off that month and into October.  Regardless of summer conditions, hatch reports and recruitment hunters will take to the field […]

Our Outdoors: The Things I’ve Forgotten By Nick Simonson The dark wood of our living room floor is the color of coffee, making it easy to disguise my spills when the replacement pot I bought this spring leaks a few drops down there on my first pour of the day.  But since getting Ole, my new yellow lab puppy to replace my retiring Gunnar, now aged 13 and struggling to make it around the block, the dark wood floor has also created a bit of a random Russian roulette with each new puddle that appears from day-to-day.  Is it water […]

Our Outdoors: It’s Not What You Think By Nick Simonson Recently I wrote a column on that moment when youset the hook into something big.  You just get that feeling; that sense of knowing that the fish on the end of the line from the moment it’s connected is a big one.   During a recent return for walleyes on Lake Sakakawea with a pair of fishing buddies from days past, however, I was reminded that no matter how much we think we might know, we really can’t predict everything by feel and past experience and any water can surprise us […]

Our Outdoors: Seven Tips for Late Summer By Nick Simonson The heat of July means fast fishing, and with that comes added stress to all the things that help us catch fish.  Line gets nicked by sharp teeth and structure, knots shift and slip, reels require maintenance and all sorts of other little things can get overlooked as fish after fish comes to boat.  Making sure these minor things are taken care of throughout a fishing trip and the rest of the season will help insure that when the big one bites, you’ll be ready. 1. Knot check.  When presenting […]

Our Outdoors: Christmas in July By Nick Simonson I grabbed the pink-and-purple deep running crankbait off the floor, almost as an afterthought.  It had sat, stashed away for years in the miscellanea that most anglers have – lures, baits and other items of tackle that don’t quite make the cut, aren’t of any sort of confidence color, or just don’t fall into the standard offerings they’re used to putting out there.  For a time after I had received it, it hung on my bulletin board with a number of unused baits until the recent move, when it ended up in […]

Our Outdoors: Intersections By Nick Simonson A few years back during the Great Recession, my buddy Marty and I met the same fate as I was laid off from my job in the steel industry, and he from his work on a Kentucky horse farm.  We reconnected that summer after a few years of not seeing one another, and spent the occasional angling trip on the varied lakes between our hometown of Valley City, N.D. and northeastern Minnesota where I lived and his extended family had a cabin. Green to the sport, he began his first forays into fishing with […]

Our Outdoors: On New Waters By Nick Simonson The near silent whir of the trolling motor pulled me away from the metal dock under the gray skies which spit tiny raindrops that made half-dollar-sized circles which rippled into one another and disappeared into the mirror-like surface of the lake.  It was a water I had never been to before, and a decade ago, hadn’t even existed, but the small impoundment had stood out on my must-visit list for the summer, as it was stocked with all my favorites – largemouth, crappies and trout – to maximize angling opportunities.  Like skeletal […]

Our Outdoors: When You Know, You Know By Nick Simonson It was my first trip around the fifty-acre impoundment southeast of town, a traditional decades-ago dam that shunted the water up rills and creekbottoms and turned an old meandering valley into a stockable small reservoir which absorbed some of the local fishing pressure.  Under the rippled gray skies of Sunday morning, my cousin and I set out searching for the abundant largemouth bass and sunnies that had shown up in the recent surveys of the water.  Making the turn out of the small arm that was home to the boat […]