Sports

After earning a come-from-behind win over Emmetsburg in its opening contest of the Class 2A district baseball tournament, Spirit Lake was unable to repeat that result in a loss to seventh-ranked Estherville Lincoln Central on Saturday, July 17. The Midgets jumped out to an early 4-0 lead and hung on to end the Indians’ season with a 7-3 score at Hoyt Luithly Field in Estherville. It was the third meeting between the two rivals on the season...

Spirit Lake fell behind early in its first contest of the Class 2A baseball postseason, but the Indians plated three unanswered runs in the fifth and sixth innings to top former Lakes Conference foe Emmetsburg Tuesday, July 13. The Indians topped the E-Hawks 3-2 in Estherville...

Indians’ softball season ends with walk-off loss to rival Midgets

Okoboji’s improbable run in the Class 3A regional softball tournament came to an end Friday with a loss to Siouxland Conference foe MOC-Floyd Valley. After shocking the state with a 2-0 win over 13th-ranked Bishop Heelan in the tournament’s opening round Tuesday, the Pioneers fell 2-1 to the Dutch in Orange City...

Harris-Lake Park’s softball season came to a close with a one-run loss to Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn in the opening round of the Class 1A regional tournament held Tuesday, July 6. The Wolves fell 8-7 to the Hawks in Hartley. “I am proud of the battle the girls showed,” Harris-Lake Park coach Ashley Delaney said. ...

Okoboji’s baseball season came to an end with a loss to Siouxland Conference foe Sibley-Ocheyedan in the opening round of the Class 2A district tournament held Monday, July 12. The Pioneers took an early lead but fell 7-1 to the Generals in Emmetsburg...

Harris-Lake Park saw its baseball season come to a close Monday with a loss to Fort Dodge St. Edmond in the opening round of the Class 1A district tournament at Bishop Garrigan High School in Algona. The Wolves fell 15-0 to the Gaels. “We are a much better team than we showed tonight,” Harris-Lake Park coach Jared Rahe said. ...

While 17 miles is all that separates Milford and Lake Park, Okoboji and Harris-Lake Park baseball teams had gone the better part of a decade without meeting on a Dickinson County diamond. That changed Tuesday, July 6, as the Pioneers and Wolves squared off on a drizzly summer afternoon in Lake Park...

This time of the year is always a great time for panfishing on the Iowa Great Lakes. I especially like to target the bluegills on West Okoboji. However, this past month has been a crazy one for my wife and me. You see, we decided to downsize from our house with a huge corner lot in Arthur Heights on the east side of East Okoboji. We loved our time there, but now in our 70s, the many flower gardens, the huge yard and size of the house had just gotten too much, so we decided to put it up for sale...

Fishing is so many things to so many people. Some folks go fishing to relax, some go fishing to enjoy being outside or being with a person that they like to be with, and other people go fishing to catch a specific species of fish. For most people though, fishing is a combination of all those things...

Pheasant hunters harvested nearly 300,000 roosters in Iowa during the 2020 season, which was the second highest harvest reported in more than a decade. In 2019, hunters harvested nearly 284,000 roosters. “The 2020 roadside survey showed our pheasant population was 18 percent higher than in 2019, so an increased harvest was expected,” said Todd Bogenschutz, upland wildlife biologist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR). ...

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is offering a program to teach skills needed to hunt, field dress and cook mourning doves to individuals who have little to no dove hunting experience. The August 14 workshop will feature a mourning dove knowledge and skills building session with instructors that will provide hands-on learning as well as a live-fire wingshooting clinic...

If you enjoy photographing Iowa state parks, the Iowa DNR invites you to enter your photos in the America’s State Parks 2021 Photo Contest, hosted by the National Association of State Park Directors. Photos will feature state parks from Iowa and other states, and could be included in calendars and other publications...