Turkeys are native to the continental USA. I suppose they would not have moved as deep into Minnesota if not introduced or possibly reintroduced by man.

Turkeys can be intrusive to ranch yards and can be destructive to stacks of hay bales, but not as intrusive as deer.

Are turkeys any more invasive than smallmouth bass, muskie, or even walleye in lakes where it was man that put them there and not nature? or lakes that lack natural reproduction of the stocked fish so any long-term sustainable population has to be replenished (restocked) ???

Great time … son lost his senior season to Covid closures. I helped most afternoons his team shot. About 10% of his team were young ladies.

Nothing wrong with a good autoloader … gas systems have lower recoil if you are shooting a lot or if you shoot with higher dram load shells it can matter. May also be good for smaller shooters and young ladies.

A300/A400 are nice. Saw a young (18) man win the WI state sporting clays tournament with an A400. Surrounded by men shooting O/U with a price range of $2K to > $15K.

If you get to a high competitive point, the better shells have a bit faster velocity and hardened pellets, both which may help break an occasional target that cheaper shells may “miss”. Hardened shot has more uniform patterns especially at further yardage.

Scouting turkeys is fun for something to do when we are between turkey hunting seasons and fishing seasons, but the birds’ dispersal and movements are significant in March and April. Add in hunting pressure and what you see today probably is not what you see during your season.

I usually scout occasionally in April and then scout heavier the season prior to our season and scout in season when we are not in the blind.

We hunt Season E and do quite well. Killed birds in Season F also. No easy birds that time of year … fewer toms, pressured toms, but if you find the right spot lonely toms.

Black Hills has also gone to a limited draw on NR turkey licenses. Big change for many Minnesotans to head there.

Turkeys appear susceptible to over harvest (albeit there may be other reasons for population declines in key states).

Many states that once had higher limits, long seasons, and over the counter nonresident tags are now decreasing limits and hunting pressure.

Eliminating time periods and increasing bag limits would result in higher pressure on the bird population and could induce more leasing, etc…

Running a few errands and listening to KFAN … commercials so punching buttons and by chance stumbled onto a Leach Lake fishing guide talking to the WCCO radio guy about FFS and the issues. It was a good conversation.

They want to run a study on muskie hooking mortality in the summer … DNR is supportive, but would need funding …

I am not a tournament guy and have no interest in watching it on TV. I do talk with several guys though that are into this kind of thing and have been for decades.

If you want to ban FFS, then how about banning scouting with FFS, pre-fishing and scouting/pre-fishing by tournament entrants’ friends and employees.

Plenty of bigger name tournament guys in MN have scouts on lakes patterning fish long before they show up in their boat.

The Muskie fisherman raising concern are those that have not embraced FFS. The few diehard muskie fisherman I know of or talk with all use FFS. They are all catch and release guys.

I know of a few walleye and bass fisherman who would not cry over a few less muskies.

I would say FFS is more of an issue (if it is an issue) on species of fish that are caught, kept, and consumed.

The regular Twins TV crew was broadcasting on twins tv. Sure glad I did not panic and buy the MLB package. It was running well on comcast (FIL) and on FUBO (my house).

The FOX crew seemed pretty StL homer …

Ask other shooters where they go

Agree with other’s comments above. Only a couple of handfuls of NCAA D1 football teams will be play-off bound on a regular basis. The rest hope to have winning season, a good bowl game (becoming less relevant based on with winter portal process) and maybe with hope, luck, and prayer make the play-off once a decade or so.

If MN football can keep up or exceed Wisconsin and Iowa each year that says a lot. Gopher Football 2024 … one some big wins in California, had one or two stolen from them, and laid their regular egg or two. Gophers put a decent amount of players in the NFL, recruit fine, and seem to have found some success in the portal. Can’t imagine Gophers could do better with someone else besides PJ.

It is not the big multi-national corporations that typically drop money on NIL college endorsements.

It is the local guys who have done real well and live large by their affiliation with the local college team. Car dealerships, law firms, local insurance, local/regional banks, local eating and entertainment establishments, etc… There is a gopher hockey player doing adds for KSTP so Hubbard is involved.

Many college endowments for individual University departments are the same way. Wealthy individual or couple donate millions to have their name on a building or professor chair or scholarship program.

Most D1 and even smaller schools at least have sponsorship names on most of their facilities (arenas, stadiums, and practice facilities). 3M already had its name on the hockey arena, Huntington Bank on the football field, Williams Arena (no sponsor?). That seems to be the place where larger corporation choose to play on the collegiate sports affiliation.

The portal and NIL will not go away anytime soon. Adapt or die.

I have lost most all interest in college athletics except for hockey. Will watch a gopher football game or two if I am not hunting and maybe some of the college football and basketball playoffs if I remember to turn the game on.

… love to see D1 college athletics follow the NFL “parity” rules but that isn’t happening.

Cigarettes are legal and taxed.

Prohibition of most anything rarely works.

Why not regulate and tax cigarettes instead of an outright ban.

The black market, cartels, bootleggers, mafia, native reservations (your choice here) would fill any void if cigarettes were banned.

I looked over the Engel and Frabil (several versions). Overall, the Engel appears to be better made.

I bought the 7.5 this year from Scheels when they were running a spot/flash sale. It works great for me … I do the vast amount of my ice fishing walking out with a sled and fishing without a shelter.

I do not use any aerator when on the ice, only when I keep the minnows for a few days to a week between trips. Even overnight I have found aerating the cooler is not necessary if kept in a garage (when temps don’t drop to low). The insulation in the cooler keeps the water from freezing too. I have rarely had a minnow die … the cool/cold water really slows their activity …

Not sure about that exact location, but overall the ice on the St. Croix must be really thick. I have never seen so many vehicles on the ice on both sides of the river when we went over the Hwy 36 bridge. It was a city of vehicles between the bridge and the power plant area. I suspect quite a few are trying to hook a sturgeon right now.

The world is not flat, it is not round, it is just a dream. Quantum mechanics proves this out.

Crawdaddy – lived through that texting madness. When I crossed paths with others that knew the demon side of this person all experienced the same thing. Seems like some of us would be trying to reach out while others were cutting him off completely.

All too personal for me as I have had several men close to me (family and friends) follow this exact cycle. It is extremely exhausting to watch and try support.

The person has to own it and want to get better or there is little hope for change. You can encourage change but it is not easy. My main press point is your children will forgive if you recover.

Rock bottom is a myth … it is a bottomless pit!

Unfortunately for some the only escape is death. Again all to close … in the situations close to me it was alcohol induced chronic health failure but death none the less.

Bringing fish up slowly out of deep water improves the odds they will swim back down the hole faster than when they came up. That has solved our problem on LOTW on hot bite days.

A long time ago … I had a woman trooper pull me over for about 53 at the start of the St.Paul 45 mph zone. I could see she was going to write me a ticket. She said 53 in a 45. I said if you would have pulled me over past the next exit/on ramp I would have been going faster. She did not like my joke.

Currency values (which does impact inflation) are often manipulated by countries to make their goods cheaper in the USA (largest economy). China is very good at keeping the value of their currency lower than it should be which further magnifies the cost differential of their products (keeps them artificially low). Many industries are also partially or fully government owned and the goal is primarily employment. China routinely “dumps” goods into the western countries at costs that often only cover their raw material inputs. These issues can be handled on a case by case basis.

Counties that manipulate currency values should be subject to high tariffs.

I have been to China and I have been in some of their manufacturing plants. Yes – they do have low labor costs which helps in assembly line made products … but countries like Vietnam are now the lower cost assembly countries. Many newer China production plants (set up in the past 25 years or so) are fully modern with robotics and state of the art automation.

When it comes to boarder protection, the US still owns it whether it is people or goods entering the country through boards, airports, or ports.

Trump is great at smoke & mirrors. Fentanyl issue is certainly real but lumping Canada into this with China and Mexico is crazy.

A good share of Ram and GM/Chevy pickup trucks are assembled in Canada and Mexico. Mostly Mexico.

Only the Ford F-150 is 100% assembled in the USA. All other brands “domestic” and foreign owned are not. That said, Ford gets 45% of their parts outside of the US and Canada. Data available typically combines US and Canada parts together …

So even US assembled vehicles will have cost impacts on parts.

A couple of the largest refineries in the US located in Texas run on heavy Canada crude because it is dirt cheap vs. the higher quality grades found across much of the US. They actually move solvent to Canada and mix with crude oil so that it can flow decent.

Mine does it on occasion. I have had a 24V SM for several years now and it has been a great light weight auger. I have both a 6″ and 8″ flight … use the 6 most of the time in the metro. You can pull a 20″ bass or a 19″ walleye through that hole diameter no problem.

You did check your mail box ? USPS is notorious at our house for jamming anything they can fit into our mailbox vs. walking it up to the door.

Once the shipper marks the package as delivered, the seller is typically no longer responsible. The actual change in ownership (location, etc) would be part of the purchase agreement in most cases. Rarely is anything shipped anymore where a signature is required upon receipt.

In this day of front door cameras, it is pretty easy to determine if the package was actually placed (delivered) where they said it would be.

If you look at the independent contractors delivering for Amazon, they almost always take a photo of the package at the delivery site. I will share that in one case the photo was of my package at my neighbor’s front door.

Standard package insurance with the USPS (priority and ground advantage) is up to $100. Coverage above $100 is available at an added fee.

The Watson hunting camp possessions were just auctioned off too. Apparently that camp has closed. Watson was a hunting outfitter in the LQP area. I think I drove by once or twice, but never stopped in. Seems like they tried to extend their operations to renting ice castles, being a regular bar and grill, and becoming a wedding reception venue the last few years based on FB (looked at via wife’s account).

Instead of Elk MN should go all in on Woodland Caribou in the Superior Old Growth Forest.

There were some around a decade ago:

The last few Lake Superior woodland caribou may be on the brink of extirpation thanks to the freakishly cold winter of 2014 and hungry wolves decimating caribou herds in their last two holdouts

Seems like reason enough to delist wolves to protect the woodland caribou