A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Sorted by date Results 426 - 446 of 446
Most every Friday as I arrive home from work, the kids pepper me with requests. Inevitably the questions fall along a common theme. "Can so-and-so come over?" "Can we go do A, B, or C with them?" Or the all-time favorite, "Can (insert friend's name) spend the night?" This Friday I turned the tables on my unsuspecting wife. "Jamie, can I go play with Mr. Horvat in the morning?" Of course it was worded a lot manlier, but that was the basic question. Translated to the outdoorsman's wife: I'm going...
I stood swaying back and forth in the parking lot of PJ’s Little Store, half asleep on my feet, after a particularly long overnight shift. It was early December, and my brother Bruce was slated to pick me up. I wasn’t going to let a little sleep deprivation get in the way of our plans. We headed south past Moose Lake. Our mission: chuck the spear at a few pike. We parked the truck along a gravel road near the water’s edge. Frozen cattails, suspended in winter’s grip, welcomed our arrival...
My Christmas wish is not for more stuff. If I'm honest, I have enough rods, reels, and tackle to last me until the Vikings win the Super Bowl. What I really want is what I already have: My wife, my family, my job along with the time and freedom to experience new things. This past year I've had the chance to fish new waters and hunt new ground. The family and I also headed south over spring break and explored new territory between St. Louis and Nashville. When I think back, it's always travel...
DNR issues ice warning for aerated lakes The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has issued its annual ice safety warning for lakes with winter aeration systems. Aeration creates areas of thin ice and open water that are extremely hazardous to people and pets. Open water areas can shift or change shapes, depending on weather conditions, and leaks may develop in air lines, creating other areas of weak ice or open water. The updated list of aerated lakes and more information is available at mndnr.gov/eco/lakeaeration. “We’re urging peo...
Merry Christmas to all of you Pine Knotters! Time passes so quickly, 2019 will soon be upon us. Our last adventure required time travel as we investigated the origin of the red clay that is carried by the Nemadji River. Our new adventure requires us to get small, but I happen to have a shrinking machine. Miss Frizzle would be proud. This time we are examining the root-beer-colored water of the St. Louis River. This brown-colored water is also common in most of the north shore streams that spill...
My wife will no doubt agree that I’m full of great ideas. On this particular November Sunday I’ve decided I should chase some walleyes. That’s not the great idea — it gets better. I have sold myself on the idea of fishing a new stretch of water and, just to be different, I will be packing my blaze orange and deer rifle. After consulting the onXhunt app on my phone, I’ve identified a section of river that meets the criteria I’ve laid out in my head. It needs to have a decent boat landing, an...
John Stumpf grew up in a time when a kid didn't have to attend a hunter education class in order to shoot a deer. "I started hunting when you didn't need to be taught. When you were old enough to go, you went," he said, calculating that he was probably around 8 years old the first time he went hunting. That means the Cloquet resident has been hunting for close to 85 years. At age 90, Stumpf was still heading out to his deer stand to sit for hours on his own, waiting for the next big buck to...
Bear hunters who are successful in 2019 and after would be required to submit a bear tooth sample to be eligible for the upcoming year’s bear hunting license lottery under a new rule proposed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The DNR has for many years required hunters to submit bear tooth samples. In response to low compliance, the agency two years ago began mailing letters reminding hunters to send the samples. The proposed rule would give hunters an incentive to follow the legal requirement, and the DNR would stop sending t...
Hello again from the red clay waters of the Nemadji River. Last week we journeyed back in time and were lucky to see Glacial Lake Duluth and witness a lake 450 feet higher than current Lake Superior. It was so high it backed up and covered Jay Cooke Park and a good deal of Carlton County; it existed there for about 1,000 years, according to glacial geologists (glaciologists). The presence of this ancient lake is an important part of the Nemadji River story. We know the Nemadji River basin has an...
I usually just buy my wife something I want for Christmas. If Santa happens to bring her a new trolling rod or shotgun that I can put to good use, all the better. With Christmas quickly approaching, and it clearly understood I have no idea what women want, I’ve decided to put together this gift buying guide for all the ladies looking for the perfect gift for their outdoorsman. Under $25 Best bet, gift card. B&B or Outdoor Advantage. The holiday spirit comes alive with meat sticks or a fistful o...
Hello, everyone in the Pine Knot community, hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I did! I spent time with my family, my favorite mother-in-law and some of my grandkids. We always like to take a little hike in the woods and look for stuff; this time we ventured a little way out on a frozen pond and enjoyed looking through the ice and crystal clear water for plants, animals and whatever else we could discover. This got me thinking about the color of water in my own neighborhood. In Carlton...
I welcomed the early morning help from my oldest brother Bob in preparing my own shore lunch pack. It was my first day as a fishing guide, and I had enough to worry about. A guide’s shore lunch pack is as individual as each guide. Some are heavy packers, prepared to cook a seven-course meal to impress guests. The rest are light packers, relying on their fishing skills to make the day memorable. I had no interest in becoming a shore lunch chef — I would be a light packer, come hell or high wat...
We are back to the beginning - 175 days later. Today is the Minnesota rifle opener, and the deer are there, but relegated to the back of my mind. The walleyes, as they often do, have won the battle for my time. The boys and I started the open water season on the St. Louis River upstream of Boy Scout Landing. Today, nearly seven months later, we will wrap up our open water season on this same stretch. We pull into the landing mid-morning; the parking lot is surprisingly full. The docks have been...
The weeks leading up to a deer hunting season are filled with anticipation. For those of us who celebrate Christmas, the feeling you had as a child is probably similar to what I feel in the weeks prior to the opener. Fall is a time to make sure your deer stands are in good shape, game cameras check out, cleaning up the shack and, of course, getting the provisions together. Everyone needs a new blaze orange hat, jacket, boots and socks. Don’t forget you must get a new box of ammo and check out o...
Local hunt paid off Rural Cloquet resident Trish King shot this massive buck Nov. 3, on the first day of firearms season. The eight-plus-point buck weighed in at 220 pounds at Fisherman's Corner, and King had to stand on three pallets to be able to touch its antlers. "It was the first time in more than 25 years that I haven't gone up north to hunt and it paid off big time," King told the Pine Knot News....
The moon is full, pulling us like the tide. We really have no business heading over to Mille Lacs today. The Vikings just wrapped up another game and the afternoon is slipping away. It is the last full week of October, and time is tight. I run the math in my head, as I have done all day. Leave at 4:15 p.m., get to the landing by 5:45, trolling by 6 p.m. Due to special regulations, we needed to be off the water by 10 p.m., meaning, in reality, we needed to be back to the boat ramp by 9:45 p.m....
Last time we were together, we explored the formation of the unique bedrock of downtown Thomson. We traveled in the time machine of science and saw 2-billion-year-old mud compressed into shale, then cooked and deformed about 1 billion years ago, turning into slate. Now it is exposed in the St. Louis River in Jay Cooke Park and lines the community of Thomson. After that journey through time, I hopped into my Dodge Dakota, left Thomson, and traveled less than a quarter of a mile before I got...
The closest I ever came to a divorce was the afternoon I first made venison brats. Admittedly, it was a rush job. I harvested my deer in the early morning, dragged him to a nearby trail, waited for the hour that made it legal to run my wheeler, and hauled him out of the woods. I drove him home, hung him, skun him, quartered him in quick fashion. From there the real work began. Everything about processing a deer is a ritual: a personal one, one that comes back to you the moment you sharpen your k...
If anyone has a Big Buck photo from this year you'd like to share, please email to [email protected], drop off at 122 Avenue C in Cloquet or text to 218-213-1231 with your name, the general location where you shot your buck, how many points, weight if you know it and any other details you want to share. Then look for it in the Pine Knot News....
After eight years of talk and planning, the new Cloquet skate park opened for business at the end of September at the corner of 14th Street and Prospect Avenue in Cloquet. The city hasn't had to advertise its $420,000 park - there are kids and young adults with skateboards, scooters and bikes there anytime school is out and there's still daylight. The 6,000-square-foot park has it all: quarter pipes, handrails, banked ramps, a bowl, stairs and a ledge. There is no charge to skate there,...
I'm not sure how I convinced my boys, David and Joseph, to crawl out of bed this morning. The world was still dark and a light rain fell: perfect weather for duck hunting. However, late fall crappies and bluegills would be the target of our collective efforts. Just a week ago the three of us made this same trip. It was a disaster. Weather was nasty, the wind was brutal, and fishing was worse. We took our beating in stride; today was marked for redemption. In reality, you can't control all the...
