Last week’s warm up has me optimistic, foremost that the old groundhog was wrong in his prediction of six more weeks of winter, but also just from the fact that temperatures soaring into the 40s and even 50s on some of those days following Phil’s prognostication, suggest at least an easier trudge is at hand through February and the start of the next season. Along with the hope of open water, news across the conservation community in the upper Midwest brought a more auspicious outlook to the young year, with the release of a new habitat program in North Dakota and more options for conservation-minded anglers in Minnesota.

At long last, Legacy

North Dakota’s struggle to maintain habitat, like many states in the years following the peak of the federal conservation reserve program (CRP) in the early 2000s, is well documented. Drought seasons and harsh winters have hit both deer and pheasant populations recently and the lack of good grass cover for fawning and nesting has hindered a smooth rebound to historical records from two decades ago. Coupled with the fact that 40 years ago, commodity advocates and farm groups forced no-net-loss statutes through the Legislature, making the addition of public hunting lands and related habitat almost impossible even through willful transfer by an owner for such a lasting memorial to conservation. The impact was evident on both hunting conditions and hunter access.

With a square hole created by these restrictions, and the obvious limits on conservation due to the recent federal government programs with lower caps, North Dakota’s sportsmen, wildlife management agencies, and those same commodity groups, suddenly found everyone struggling to find what they wanted. For hunters, it was more habitat and access, for producers (especially this year, with soy laying in piles unable to be sold due to a tariff war and lower prices) it was ways to improve their bottom line. However, following the North Dakota Game & Fish Department’s Habitat & Hunting Access Summit last January and the mounting pressures of all these factors, all involved came up with a plan to properly apply funding from the state’s Outdoor Heritage Fund to incentivize the planting of grass on marginal acres once again, to the tune of a $4.3 million dollar grant rolled out over six years.

Like CRP, the state’s new Legacy Soil Health and Habitat Program will provide payments and insurance credits to farmers who idle unproductive land, helping them first by removing the cost of wasted inputs on acres that simply don’t produce and second, giving them a real dollar incentive to put more grass in the ground, which in turn, helps wildlife. While about two decades behind Minnesota’s Legacy system, and not nearly as flexible due to the restrictions in place under statute, North Dakota’s new Legacy program is a step in the right direction, and a realization that all parties can win when conservation is at the forefront.

Bassin’ forever

As an avid bass angler, coming up fishing the feisty smallmouths on the Sheyenne River in eastern North Dakota and spending my summer from Memorial Day to Labor Day flipping lily pads and skipping baits around docks near the family cabin on Detroit Lakes just across the border into Minnesota for largemouths, I along with other like-minded anglers on message boards and in magazines advocated for catch-and-release fishing for both species more than three decades ago. It was the crest of a collective thoughtwave that anyone who enjoyed tangling with a 20-inch bass of either color was quick to ride.

Seemingly, by the 2010s, that wave crashed on the proverbial shore and bass fishing — while still not as popular in the upper Midwest as walleye fishing — became something of a mandatory catch-and-release practice among anglers, even if not mandated by law, regulation or rule. Minnesota opened an early C&R season, giving anglers more opportunities in the spring to find these active sportfish sooner after ice off, without detriment to their spawn or populations. Now, that season expands, with the mantra of catch-and-release angling well established in the region’s angling psyche.

With the acceptance of a rule modifying the bass angling calendar in the land of 10,000 lakes, anglers now have the opportunity to pursue smallmouth and largemouth bass all year round. Effective Jan. 26, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) changed fishing regulations by creating a year-round continuous bass season with some stretches being catch-and-release only, while the more traditional summer months granting some harvest. This will allow the continued opportunity for conservation minded anglers who love to fish for bass — even in tough conditions and cooler waters of fall and winter — the opportunity to pursue their favorite fish year-round in Minnesota.

Despite all that is going on in the world today, the gridlock in Washington; the evolution of wildlife conservation and fisheries management; and the demand for more huntable game, fishable species, and access to both by hunters and anglers, these recent developments show change for the better is possible. Even in light of challenges created through past actions, and those traditions which may need a bit of review, good things like the Legacy Program and a change to a year-round bass season that symbolize a new mindset can come to be by interested parties meeting in the middle, staying focused on the future, and aiming for a plan that works right now … in our outdoors.