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Our Outdoors: Trip Tips for Late Ice Pike

Community Voices

The wet years of the late 1990s spurred a boom in northern pike fisheries across the upper Midwest, and in those early 2000s after flooded sloughs and high water levels in my native North Dakota harbored the fingerlings from incredible spawns each spring, solid pike fisheries were abundant. With the catches my friends and fishing buddies tallied, I quickly learned how to Y-bone fish in the five-to-eight pound range, and we had more than enough pike to fill a freezer or fuel fish fries until spring. Far easier to catch than walleye, and certainly an all-day affair on the ice, chasing ...

Now what?

Community Voices

In case you haven't noticed, life is full of 'Now What?' moments. We might think of such moments as a pain in the neck, but maybe those times are portals to opportunities. Just imagine where you could go or what you could do. Going back to when we were youngsters and just graduating from high school, many of us experienced a huge 'Now What?' period of time. What am I going to do after school? After all, I've been in school for twelve years. Good grief, now what? Of course, there were times when some of us didn't have an option because the draft board was waiting for ...

Vote Fischbach out of office

Letters to the Editor

To the Editor: What has Michelle Fischbach done for the citizens of Minnesota? We know she didn’t do anything about tariffs. Beef prices are higher than they have ever been, along with almost all groceries. She didn’t do anything about health care premiums, those have gone up 200 to 300%. Car insurance and homeowners insurance have risen almost 80%. She didn’t do anything for the farmers, when China didn’t buy a single soybean over the last 10 months. She didn’t do anything when Minnesota was over run by ICE agents, beating, kicking, dragging, pepper spraying and in more than ...

Gus Gus' passing reminds us of the beauty of life's fragility

Community Voices

It seems cruel to be writing about loss again so soon. But this week we said goodbye to our oldest dog, Gus Gus, after a short fight against cancer. Gus Gus was only 7 years old, and that only sharpens the pain of what seems to be our family’s neverending season of grief. However, if you would have known Gus Gus, dwelling only on his loss would be a disservice to his memory and a taint on his legacy of unconditional love he taught us. Gus Gus — or G-Town, or Big Swagger, or Gussy GooGoo Puppy PooPoo, as his mom liked to refer to him — came to us in a big ol’ package of ...

Authentic faith inherently political

Community Voices

Sometimes I imagine heaven as the church basement of my childhood. I grew up in a picturesque Southern California town nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, where our bustling non‑denominational evangelical church seemed to anchor the community. The church basement was where life happened: funeral lunches, wedding receptions, family movie nights, holiday potlucks and more. It was a joy-filled place where I could simply show up and know I would be fed, known, and loved. That basement felt like home and maybe even heaven. In that church, I was faithfully taught the ...

English translation of lyrics would have been helpful

Letters to the Editor

To the editor: Andy Krzmarzick's "Weeds" column (2/21/26), "A Bad Bunny with a good message" supported the NFL's choice for the halftime show at the Super Bowl game. It was a unique choice as the Puerto Rican singer sang only in Spanish. As the writer pointed out, many Americans learn Spanish and in New Ulm, some songs are sung in German. I have an 8-year-old niece in California who has attended a German immersion school since kindergarten.Had an English translation of Bad Bunny's lyrics been provided, more people could have felt included in the performance. The column writer especially ...