By Nick Simonson   Through thick fog, the gurgle of my boat’s motor joined the crowd launching from the east side of Garrison Dam, with one more search for summer salmon as its primary mission.  As we cleared the first of phalanx of boats readying rods and dropping downrigger balls, I turned the wheel over…

By Nick Simonson   To the west of Underwood, N.D., my cousin and I cruised with the rising sun lighting the blacktop pavement of Highway 200 toward the boat launch at Government Bay. It was the final stretch of the trip, and we sped along with the hopes of grabbing a lower-tier parking spot at…

By Nick Simonson   That new boot smell is the hunter’s equivalent of new car smell.  The fresh scent of slightly greased leather emerging from the crackling beige wrapping paper is a signal that autumn is not far away.  Clean and bright stitching, unmarred by dirt, mud or rain and running in a dotted yellow…

By Nick Simonson   I’ve been prone to some idiotic moments in the outdoors, such as toting an unloaded shotgun racked over my shoulders on the way back from a long walk in the field, when all of a sudden birds start flushing; or missing a buck standing broadside at 20 yards with my bow…

By Nick Simonson   Our time in the outdoors, much like life, is defined by the successes and amazing events that live on in memory and require no photograph or journal entry to remind oneself, or perhaps a group of close friends around the campfire, of what happened. A simple “do you remember that time…

By Nick Simonson   The tinny buzz of the mosquito hovering annoyingly close to my ear was almost enough to distract me from completing the draw on my bow string and setting up the umpteenth arrow of the day.  With a sideways exhale that pushed the micro-menace away for a few more seconds, I steadied…

By Nick Simonson The late spring was no more evident than when the water passed my waistline while wading out in the delta of the inflowing feeder creek, looking for walleyes.  The chill was dampened through the stocking feet of my waders and the jeans I wore underneath, but as I reached into the floating…

By Nick Simonson As snow piles higher and higher across the region and cold temperatures refuse to lift, the one-two punch of a suddenly very real winter has many conservationists worried for wildlife.  Additionally, looking forward to an eventual melt, concern also rises in regard to spring flooding as coulees, drains, creeks and streams will…

By Nick Simonson The overnight snows that clipped southern Minnesota turned the beige and black harvested landscape into a winter wonderland with a white blanket nearly half a foot deep.  In seasons past, when I played host and my friends would visit me on the post-Thanksgiving weekend, it was almost a certainty that the season’s…

By Nick Simonson More than a decade ago, I was introduced to still hunting for deer by a co-worker, Gene, before I married and moved away from my hometown.  Being a new deer hunter at the time, I was beyond the edge of my ability with the more experienced sportsmen in my usual group of…

By Nick Simonson “When we get one on, it’s a Chinese fire drill,” my buddy John explained with a laugh as we motored out along Garrison Dam on the south end of Lake Sakakawea in search of the chinook salmon which are stocked annually in the reservoir and provide a unique, cold-water fishery that fires…

By Nick Simonson With a smack, the foam fly flopped over on the cast next to the silver metal of the boatlift at the end of the dock. A second later, a dimple appeared and the offering was gone, replaced with all the might of a silver-dollar sized sunfish which swirled and turned under the…

By Nick Simonson While the number of people engaged in fishing activities has declined in recent years, it’s safe to say that those who remain in the ranks of anglers throughout the upper Midwest are armed with uncountable lures, amazing watercraft and technology that rides the cutting edge.  As a result, this concentrated core of…

By Nick Simonson I’ve fished a great number of lakes in the past few years, from alkaline-clouded sloughs in eastern North Dakota to crystal clear lakes near the Canadian border in northern Minnesota. Of all the waters fished, it is the latter that has provided the greatest challenge. Those lakes where a person can sight…

By Nick Simonson Manning the booth at the Bismarck Sport Show for the teams I’m helping to get off the ground with a hard-core group of 20 other volunteer coaches gave me some time to reflect on all our cadre had accomplished since last fall.  From my joining the group mid-summer after relocating to the…

By Nick Simonson Some of the most memorable fishing trips I’ve been on have been the result of disaster. Okay, not disaster in the terms of life-threatening circumstances, but, it would probably be fairer to say, major inconvenience.  Whether motorless in the flow, or without power on hard water, finding the silver lining hasn’t been…

By Nick Simonson The gentle up-and-down motion of the gulf waters against our walk-on charter boat sitting a few miles off the coast played with the thick line of my borrowed saltwater setup.  Between my brother and brother in law, I watched for the tap-tap-tap coming up from a hundred feet below on the beefy…

By Nick Simonson The darkening grayness of the overcast sunset hour crept down from the buttes along the small valley formed by the feeder creek and river where my bow stand rests, near their junction.  The rising north winds carried flurries into my eyes which I blinked away. I looked down at the frosted the…