Scott Rall
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistApril 05, 2022Prescribed fire is one of the most beneficial management tools and is one of the most misunderstood. Spring burning gets a really bad rap from those who do not fully understand prairie ecosystems. Even when these benefits are explained, there will always be a certain percentage of folks who will disagree as they have drunk the wrong Kool-Aid served up at some local coffee shop. The most difficult…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistMarch 29, 2022Writing an outdoor column can help make our readers more informed about wildlife and resource issues. My column today is about Earth Day, and my research for this script has resulted in my gaining a large amount of new information to share with you. Earth Day was started in 1970 primarily as a student campus activity. The date of April 22 was chosen because it fell between spring break and…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistMarch 15, 2022When out on my wildlife rides, I routinely stop at bridges to check water clarity and to see if northern pike can be seen getting ready to spawn. Pike are about the first fish in our area to spawn and will often stage in the shallows under the ice when there is open water near shore. This happens even when the lake is still ice-covered. This time of year, most of the water I see is usually pretty…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistMarch 08, 2022The number of outdoor issues in the Minnesota news these days is mind-boggling. They won’t often show up where you might be reading, but there are game- and fish-related bills all over the place this legislative session. Some of these are going to be hitting a little closer to home than normal for the average outdoor person. The one I think will get the biggest fight is whether the state should…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistMarch 01, 2022So, wolves are again in the top headlines of natural resource issues across the nation. A few weeks back, a judge from California reinstated protections for gray wolves across most of their range. It is the same rally cry heard over and over by pro-wolves activists. They claim that wolves have not recovered enough to be delisted from the endangered species list or protected status, depending on…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistFebruary 08, 2022It happens every year around this time. We finally have enough snow to cover the ground and folks start to think automatically that wildlife is on the verge of starving to death. The calls start coming in as to where they can find some corn to feed this destitute wildlife. It is true in years with heavy snow cover and below zero temperatures for extended periods that wildlife will start to show…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistFebruary 01, 2022Some fishing and hunting outings end with full game bags or fish stringers, and others end up with nothing but the receipts of the money you spent. Empty fish stringers don’t always mean that the trip was not a fun or successful one, though. It depends on what criteria you use to define success. I recently traveled to St. Cloud to attend the Minnesota Pheasants Forever state meeting. This event…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistJanuary 25, 2022I spent the weekend trying to keep an old family tradition alive. My parents, now both in the upper 80s, used to make old-fashioned ring bologna. I asked them over and over how it was done, and a few years back my family and I made a batch together. It was comprised of beef and pork and a whole lot of garlic and other seasonings. It is not wild game by any means, but when it comes to outdoor life…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistJanuary 18, 2022Last week I gave you all the rundown about how the 2021 pheasant season went. Record-keeping for some outdoor people is totally off the charts. One guy I know records every flush and every harvested bird on every spot he has ever hunted over the past 20 years before he goes to bed. I would fall asleep trying to do that. I don’t have a lot of my outdoor facts and figures written down. Mostly they…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistJanuary 11, 2022The 2021 pheasant hunting season has come to a close, and overall it was a year I would consider only fair. I keep track of the number of birds I harvest each year. In fact, I have one tail feather from each rooster dating back to 1996 when I got my first trained hunting dog. This year my harvest total was down about 40 percent. There are several reasons for this, but the lack of roosters in…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistJanuary 04, 2022I was sitting in my garage over the New Year’s weekend having a few adult beverages with my neighbor when an all too familiar topic was raised. He expressed his angst about the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources — that they are just too powerful. I then prodded for some additional details. I asked him to give me an example of what he thought was too powerful. He came up with a very vague…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistDecember 28, 2021I have a great job as a self-employed, independent investment adviser, helping people try to get to a comfortable retirement. Saving money for your later years is not something that everybody is good at. I would like to think I have made a measurable difference in that regard for my clients over the past 33 years, but they still needed to participate in order to achieve success, and that takes…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistDecember 21, 2021This is a year much like last in that there are more hunters afield later into the season than normal. If Mother Nature delivers like she normally does, there are only a few diehards still chasing what by now are the smartest remaining roosters in the state. This year and last year were very different. This is my hypothesis as to why. In a normal year there are thousands of bird hunters…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistDecember 14, 2021This has been a fabulous fall for conservation work, and I spent the last six to eight weeks with a variety of needed preparations for the coming spring. These include mowing fire breaks and seeding grasses. If you intend to do a prescribed fire in the spring, you need to do all of the preparations before the snow flies. I mowed about five miles of burn breaks so that when the temperatures warm…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistDecember 07, 2021There is no greater supporter of public lands and public lands hunting than me. You have certainly heard me say this before. With the great gift of public lands comes the responsibility to care for them and manage them to their highest potential. Most citizen-owned lands in my part of the state are managed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and they do a fine job with the limited…
By Scott Rall, outdoors columnistNovember 30, 2021My newest Labrador, Ghost, is all grown up now at 1 1/2 years old. He makes No. 4 at my house with his superiors being 10, 7 and 5 years old. At full size he is the smallest dog I have ever had at a whopping 40 pounds. I did all of the obedience and collar training on this dog starting at about 7 to 8 months of age. The puppy needs to grow up a little before you can expect their brains to be…
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