on the Beautiful shores of the Minnewaukan Flats on Devils Lake!
701-739-9934 • 701-739-6086 www. westbayresort. com
We had only unlimited opportunity to explore. I’ ve always wished our youth today could still enjoy that. But it’ s gone.
Our first-born, Jodi, of all the outdoor experiences she grew up with into adulthood, recently asked me to relive one of them. Not sure what it could be, she asked if we could hunt nightcrawlers again. I was a bit shocked. That event, routine for me at the time, meant so much to her even today as she approaches
West Bay Resort
on the Beautiful shores of the Minnewaukan Flats on Devils Lake!
Enjoy Modern, All-Season Cabins with Exclusive Private Lake Access- Guide Services Available- Year-Round Fishing & Hunting- Daily & Seasonal RV Sites- Seasonal Camping
701-739-9934 • 701-739-6086 www. westbayresort. com
6660 Highway 19, Minnewaukan, North Dakota 5.5 miles Northeast of Minnewaukan & 15.5 miles West of Devils Lake on Highway 19
Page 82, Dakota Country, September 2025
retirement. Elder folks who’ ve been around for many decades look at things differently. While our present resources in the Dakotas are mostly at historic highs, it has consequences. There are more people wanting to share those resources than ever before. The North Dakota Badlands, for instance, is still the same size it was when Pres. Theodore Roosevelt lived there. But there are thousands more hunters today
waiting to snuggle into the buttes and draws of that primitive land with a mule deer or antelope or bighorn sheep tag in their pocket. Some hunter folks even proclaim that the rugged, remote Badlands are getting crowded. Can you imagine that?
Dennis Block of Sioux Falls, a long-time fisherman and hunter who grew up in northeast South Dakota, recently sent a note to popular Dakota Country writer Bill Antonides, regarding a recent column. Block highlighted some thoughts we hear from readers of Dakota Country magazine often.
“ I rarely hunt upland game or waterfowl anymore, mostly as a result of shrinking places for the public to hunt,” he said.“ I’ m not paying to hunt a‘ free’ bird’.”
He added another comment that strikes the heart of many veteran outdoor folks in the Dakotas.
“ Hunting and fishing reductions by all ages is the result of too many fishing / boating regulations,” he said.“ It’ s not the limits, but other regulations. Those regulations take away from the fun and relaxation those two sports represented in previous years.”
South Dakota, in fact, represents a highly complicated system of deer and waterfowl zones and other scattered regulations that most folks, according to our mail, resent. Many say it’ s a mess and they don’ t want to deal with it. Hunting and fishing, they say, shouldn’ t be that complicated. I agree.
Retired GFP game warden Antonides responded to Block:
“ I agree with your contention that hunting and fishing is over-regulated,” Antonides said.“ I often pass along information to keep my readers out of legal trouble, but that doesn’ t mean I always think the law or regulation is good or necessary.
“ Governmental entities justify their existence by seeking solutions for problems that don’ t exist, and average citizens pay the price in loss of freedoms. It’ s hard to relax when we need a team of lawyers to keep us within the confines of the law. And when dad and mom decide it’ s just too much trouble to go hunting and fishing, we lose the next generation of sportsmen, and the next, and the next, until we’ re left with a handful of folks who are financial-
www. dakotacountrymagazine. com