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Gretchen Steele

Gretchen Steele: The deer hunter’s annual September lie: ‘I’m ready’

Featured, Hunting, Illinois, National Hunting, Opinion /

Somewhere between the Fourth of July and the first cool September morning, somebody stole about six weeks from the calendar. I would like them returned immediately.
Because Illinois archery deer season is coming, and I am ready. Except I’m not. That was a lie. It is the same lie deer hunters across Illinois are telling spouses, hunting partners and, most enthusiastically, themselves.

Gretchen Steele: The deer hunter’s annual September lie: ‘I’m ready’ Read More »

Gretchen Steele: When the regulations become a hunt of their own

Blogs, Featured, Fishing, Hunting, Illinois, National Fishing, National Hunting, Opinion /

There was a time when preparing for hunting season in Illinois meant finding a place to hunt, checking the weather, sighting in the gun or bow, and maybe negotiating with a dog that had discovered a fresh mud puddle. These days, another item belongs on the checklist: figuring out which rules actually apply.
That may sound simple, but Illinois outdoorspeople know better. A hunter, angler, or trapper can start with the annual digest, move to an IDNR webpage, follow a link to the Illinois Administrative Code, and then discover that a site-specific rule changes the answer again.

Gretchen Steele: When the regulations become a hunt of their own Read More »

Gretchen Steele: Around here, the best things leave tracks in the mud

Featured, Hunting, Illinois, National Hunting /

Some anniversaries arrive looking polished and put together. There’s cake, speeches, and a program folded in someone’s hand. Others wander in from the bottoms with mud on their boots, coffee cooling in a paper cup, and marsh water on their cuffs – clear signs they’ve been somewhere worth the mess.
Twenty years – when you say it out loud, it sounds so tidy, so simple. But anyone who’s helped with a conservation banquet knows that it’s never that simple.

Gretchen Steele: Around here, the best things leave tracks in the mud Read More »

Snake bite highlights Illinois’ last remaining massasaugas

Featured, Illinois, National News, Nature Page & Night Sky, News /

A 41-year-old Michigan man learned the hard way that getting too close to an eastern massasauga rattlesnake can be dangerous. The man was bitten last month while attempting to photograph an eastern massasauga at a boat launch in Michigan’s Proud Lake Recreation Area.
For Illinois, the incident provides a reminder of a very different concern: The eastern massasauga is not only venomous, but it’s one of the state’s rarest reptiles.

Snake bite highlights Illinois’ last remaining massasaugas Read More »

Gretchen Steele: Young silver carp found in the Marseilles Pool of the Illinois River

Featured, Home Page News, Illinois, National News, Nature Page & Night Sky, News /

Here’s a sentence I hoped I wouldn’t be writing this summer: crews just pulled several hundred baby silver carp out of the Marseilles Pool of the Illinois River — about 80 miles from Lake Michigan, and closer to the front door of the Great Lakes than these fish have any business being.
The catch came Aug. 14 during what the biologists politely call “routine intensive monitoring” of the upper river. The fish measured a modest 4 to 6 inches. It’s the first time invasive carp this small have shown up this far upriver since the monitoring program started keeping score back in 2010.

Gretchen Steele: Young silver carp found in the Marseilles Pool of the Illinois River Read More »

Gretchen Steele: Illinois’ summer heat is a burden, but also a ‘wildlife manager’

Featured, Illinois, Nature Page & Night Sky /

It was barely daylight, and I was already out on one of the trails at Illinois’ Pyramid State Park, wondering what in the world had possessed me.
Heat and I have never gotten along. These days it flattens me flat, and it sends my MS into a full-blown snit. So much so that if one more well-meaning family member suggests I get one of those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” gadgets, somebody is getting slugged.

Gretchen Steele: Illinois’ summer heat is a burden, but also a ‘wildlife manager’ Read More »

Gretchen Steele: Southern Illinois’ Kaskaskia River Delta Waterfowl Chapter to celebrate 20 years of showing up

Featured, Hunting, Illinois, National Hunting /

Some anniversaries arrive with fireworks and fanfare. Others arrive wearing mud on their boots.
This summer, the Kaskaskia River Delta Waterfowl Chapter in southern Illinois reaches its 20th year, and I find myself thinking less about banquets and more about mornings, less about the dollars raised and more about the people who raised them.

Gretchen Steele: Southern Illinois’ Kaskaskia River Delta Waterfowl Chapter to celebrate 20 years of showing up Read More »

Gretchen Steele: Natalie Phelps Finnie, a southern Illinois girl, heads home

Featured, Fishing, Home Page News, Hunting, Illinois, Nature Page & Night Sky, Opinion /

On July 1, Natalie Phelps Finnie stepped down as director of DNR. After more than four years inside the agency – first as deputy director beginning in August 2021, then as director since January 2023 – the woman from Eldorado is closing one chapter and opening another.
Let me back up, because not everyone reading this knows the whole of it.

Gretchen Steele: Natalie Phelps Finnie, a southern Illinois girl, heads home Read More »

A greater appreciation for gar — Illinois’ misunderstood ‘dinosaur fish’

Featured, Features, Fishing, Illinois, National Fishing /

On quiet summer mornings along southern Illinois backwaters, a slow roll near the surface of the water often appears before the fish does. A long shadow gliding between lotus stems. Then a quick gulp of air, and the ripple disappears into reflections of cottonwoods leaning toward the river.

A greater appreciation for gar — Illinois’ misunderstood ‘dinosaur fish’ Read More »

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