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Anthony Souffle/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Minnesota DNR's new electronic license system for hunters and anglers to go live June 9

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — Hundreds of thousands of Minnesota hunters and anglers will have the option to use their phones in new ways to buy and display licenses beginning June 9.

On Tuesday, the state Department of Natural Resources announced exact details on what it had telegraphed for months: the launch date of an upgrade to its electronic license ...Read more

Mark Stockwell/Boston Herald/TNS

Massachusetts lobsterman beats local red tape: 'He preserves … Cape Cod's identity'

Sports / Outdoors /

BOSTON — A piece of quintessential Cape Cod will be restored this summer, as a local lobsterman resumes a nearly century-old family tradition of selling from his home after being caught in small-town bureaucracy last year.

The Yarmouth Zoning Board of Appeals has approved a special permit for resident Jon Tolley to reopen his shop at his home...Read more

Anthony Souffle/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Minnesota scientists are unraveling the mystery behind the state's walleye strains

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — Working in a darkened laboratory, Laurel Sacco dips a cup into a large tank of water and scoops up dozens of young walleye. She pours one into a petri dish and examines it under a microscope.

The fry has been harvested from Pine River near the headwaters of the Mississippi River where the Minnesota Department of Natural ...Read more

Best times for anglers

Sports / Outdoors /

(Table for May 31-June 14)

This table lists top fishing times and days for the coming weeks. For best results, begin fishing one hour before and continue one hour after the times given. Times apply to all time zones.

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Sunday………..........Midnight.....…………………...........................................12:15 p.m.

...Read more

Dennis Anderson/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Dennis Anderson: On Lake Vermilion opening weekend, a tale of Ricky Bobby -- and 'walleyes n bacon'

Sports / Outdoors /

LAKE VERMILION, Minn. — On this big lake last weekend it was shake and bake, baby, another fishing opener, with walleyes n bacon on the menu.

That’s the way Tom Stuen spells it. Walleyes n bacon. His wife, Mary, spells it that way, too, and together they’ve scripted those words on the pickup camper that is their home away from home when ...Read more

Amy Kamps/Dreamstime/TNS

Fishing group ticketed for Detroit River walleye haul

Sports / Outdoors /

DETROIT — Five fishermen found themselves in hot water after taking more than their legal limit of walleye from the Detroit River, officials said.

The group from northern Michigan was caught Friday after fishing on the river near Milliken State Park, east of downtown on Atwater Street near Orleans, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources...Read more

Best times for anglers

Sports / Outdoors /

(Table for May 24-June 7)

This table lists top fishing times and days for the coming weeks. For best results, begin fishing one hour before and continue one hour after the times given. Times apply to all time zones.

———

Sunday………...........7:10 p.m.......…...…….…….........................................7:35 a.m.

Monday...Read more

Dale G. Young/The Detroit News/TNS

Michigan to limit how many bucks hunters can shoot in the future

Sports / Outdoors /

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan hunters in the Lower Peninsula will only be allowed to kill one buck starting in March 2027, the state commission that sets hunting and fishing rules declared Wednesday.

The change is in service of efforts to control the booming deer population in southern Michigan, where some communities have resorted to culling ...Read more

Kimberly McCarron/Dreamstime/TNS

Fishing tournament turns deadly when NC angler falls overboard, Tennessee searchers say

Sports / Outdoors /

An experienced North Carolina angler died for reasons unknown after he fell overboard at a bass tournament in western Tennessee, according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

The body of 36-year-old Alexander C. Luster of Boone was recovered late Friday from Watauga Lake, the TWRA said in a May 9 news release.

An autopsy will be ...Read more

Dennis Anderson/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Dennis Anderson: At Minnesota's Crane Lake, walleyes bite only 'intermittently,' but a great opener again

Sports / Outdoors /

CRANE LAKE, MINN. — Few anglers who wet a line in this picturesque northern border lake on Saturday had time to consider whether fishing is a sport or something more akin to a religious experience. Having pulled on every hooded coat and pair of coveralls they brought with them on this first day of the state’s inland fishing season, they were...Read more

Jerry Holt/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Youth fishing is catching on again in Minnesota

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — More Minnesota young people are fishing the state’s lakes and rivers.

Considering the post-pandemic drop in license sales to young anglers — and overall — the uptick is positive news and an encouraging sign as the 2026 season opens.

About 111,000 licenses were bought by people ages 16 to 20 in 2025, an increase of more ...Read more

Best times for anglers

Sports / Outdoors /

(Table for May 17-May 31)

This table lists top fishing times and days for the coming weeks. For best results, begin fishing one hour before and continue one hour after the times given. Times apply to all time zones.

———

Sunday…….............12:35 p.m................……………...................................1:10 a.m.

Monday�...Read more

Best times for anglers

Sports / Outdoors /

(Table for May 10-May 24)

This table lists top fishing times and days for the coming weeks. For best results, begin fishing one hour before and continue one hour after the times given. Times apply to all time zones.

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Sunday………...........6:35 a.m.....…………………..........................................7:00 p.m.

...Read more

Anthony Souffle/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Dennis Anderson: How the Lindner brothers developed the Lindy Rig, changing walleye fishing forever

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — The most famous Minnesota invention was not water skis (1922). Nor was it packaged cake mix (1947), crisp crust frozen pizza (1979) or even Post-it notes (1980). It was the Lindy Rig, which doubtless has brought more thrills to more people in more places than any of the state’s many other innovations, including the pop-up ...Read more

Anthony Souffle/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Minnesota's lake weeds are plentiful. Can you eat any of them?

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — Growing up in northern Minnesota, Nathan Stanelle spent plenty of time fishing on Lake of the Woods. The lake is known as the Walleye Capital of the World, but fish weren’t the only thing Stanelle remembers reeling in.

“We would pull up some weeds and we would always joke we have our ‘salad’ for the meal,” Stanelle ...Read more

Dennis Anderson/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Dennis Anderson: Artist and duck hunter David Maass lived in the best of times and painted them all

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — Fascinated from childhood about colors, and particularly about the coloring of duck feathers, wildlife artist David Maass was never more at home than in a waterfowl blind. It was there that the tawny hues of marsh grass often blended with the foreboding grays of an autumn sky to frame an incoming squadron of bluebills or ...Read more

Courtesy Cyrus Hair/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Dennis Anderson: Yoga and Pilates? Walleyes? Some northern Minnesota resort guests want it all -- and get it.

Sports / Outdoors /

MINNEAPOLIS — When Tom Lantry was a kid growing up at his parents’ resort on Lake Vermilion in northern Minnesota, he often felt like he lived in the outfit’s fish-cleaning house, wielding a knife into the late evening, filleting guests’ walleyes.

“What I remember most is the camaraderie of our fishing guests,” Lantry said the other...Read more

Best times for anglers

Sports / Outdoors /

(Table for May 3-May 17)

This table lists top fishing times and days for the coming weeks. For best results, begin fishing one hour before and continue one hour after the times given. Times apply to all time zones.

———

Sunday………...........12:50 a.m.......…...…….…….......................................1:15 p.m.

Monday�...Read more

David Joles/Minneapolis Star Tribune/TNS

This fast-spreading disease is being called the 'biggest threat' to deer. It's getting closer to Connecticut.

Sports / Outdoors /

HARTFORD, Conn. — Chronic wasting disease in deer, a fatal and contagious neurological disease that has been called “the biggest threat to deer hunting,” is quickly spreading across the United States. Though the disease has been found as close as New York, no confirmed cases have appeared in Connecticut, according to officials.

The ...Read more

Matt Stone/Boston Herald/TNS

Massachusetts fishing group blasts Beacon Hill for 'violation of public trust' proposal

Sports / Outdoors /

BOSTON — A Massachusetts fishing group is throwing a sharp hook into a proposal at the State House that would divert license money into the general budget, which it claims is a “violation of public trust.”

The Massachusetts Striped Bass Association has put out a call to action ahead of Beacon Hill budget debates, alerting anglers and ...Read more