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Patrick Durkin

Patrick Durkin: No room for guilt if scoring on rare gobbler double

Featured, Features, Home Page News, Hunting, National Hunting, Wisconsin /

If I didn’t view turkeys as nature’s most fickle, frustrating and fascinating bird, I might have felt guilty for shooting a gobbler May 8 as it stood confused while its buddy flapped its last among my decoys.
I suspect that Emily Krumenauer, my hunting buddy and family-friend, frazzled my gobbler’s composure when she shot its running mate seconds earlier with her late father’s Model 12 Winchester.

Patrick Durkin: No room for guilt if scoring on rare gobbler double Read More »

Patrick Durkin: Wisconsin’s spring hearing voters support license fee increase

Featured, Fishing, Home Page News, Hunting, National Fishing, National Hunting, Wisconsin /

Wisconsin’s outdoors community supports paying more to operate the state’s fish and wildlife programs, but not necessarily at any price.
That’s one point to take from nearly 6,900 votes cast during mid-April’s annual conservation hearings, a statewide effort by the Department of Natural Resources and the citizen-based Conservation Congress. This year’s hearings consisted of in-person meetings April 13 in all 72 county seats, which drew 1,268 attendees, followed by three days of online voting, which drew 5,598 participants.

Patrick Durkin: Wisconsin’s spring hearing voters support license fee increase Read More »

Wisconsin 3-year-old fires shot while turkey hunting, wounds two people

Featured, Home Page News, Hunting, National Hunting, National News, News, Wisconsin /

A 34-year-old hunter mentoring a 3-year-old child Sunday afternoon, April 12, during Wisconsin’s two-day youth-only turkey season helped the youngster aim at and shoot another man and a 7-year-old child after mistaking their movements for a turkey in western Racine County.
Pellets from the 12-gauge shotgun struck the 7-year-old’s head, and the man’s left hand, shoulder and backside as they hunted turkeys on state forest lands in the Rochester township.

Wisconsin 3-year-old fires shot while turkey hunting, wounds two people Read More »

Patrick Durkin: This year’s Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame members getting recognition they long deserved

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

Whenever folks badmouth public servants who work for schools, agencies or simply “the government,” you’d like to stand them before a crowded auditorium to meet guys like Neil Payne, Keith McCaffery or the late William Lunney.

Once you whistled everyone to attention, you’d invite the critics to explain how and why these three public servants didn’t do enough for Wisconsin during their careers at UW-Stevens Point, the DNR, and our state courts, county offices and county parks. Once the critics failed to justify their griping, you’d hope they have the grace to concede Wisconsin never paid or honored these men enough during their decades of public service.

Patrick Durkin: This year’s Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame members getting recognition they long deserved Read More »

Wisconsin’s conservation patron license defies trends, gains buyers

Featured, Fishing, Home Page News, Hunting, National Fishing, National Hunting, National News, News, Wisconsin /

Even as sales of most fishing, trapping, and hunting licenses decline in Wisconsin, the all-inclusive conservation patron license has grown nearly 50% in popularity after bottoming out in 2012.
Sales of the $165 patron license hit 65,803 in 2025, up from 44,049 at the same price 14 years ago. As with all resident hunting, fishing, and trapping fees, the patron license’s price hasn’t increased since 2005, when it cost $140. The record sales year was 2002, when 81,896 sold at $110 each. Wisconsin also offers a patron license for nonresidents.

Wisconsin’s conservation patron license defies trends, gains buyers Read More »

Patrick Durkin: GoWild crash elicits angry reactions from Wisconsin turkey hunters

2 Comments / Discussions, Featured, Home Page News, Hunting, National Hunting, Opinion, Wisconsin /

“Thundering herd problem.”
That’s how IT (information technology) folks diagnose uncommon, but not rare, calamities when computer systems collapse as people stampede websites to buy coveted tickets for concerts, playoff games or hunting licenses. Wisconsin’s turkey hunters recorded their third such meltdown in 18 years on March 16 shortly after 10 a.m. That’s when the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) began selling leftover $10 tags for the spring hunt.

Patrick Durkin: GoWild crash elicits angry reactions from Wisconsin turkey hunters Read More »

Patrick Durkin: Milo Hanson dies with record buck still No. 1

Features, Home Page News, Hunting, Hunting, Hunting, Hunting, Hunting, Hunting, Hunting, Hunting, Hunting, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, National Hunting, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin /

Some lucky deer hunter eventually will shoot a whitetail with antlers bigger than those atop the buck that Milo Hanson killed Nov. 23, 1993, near his Saskatchewan farm.
No hunter will ever tell a better, more modest hunting story about a world-record buck than the one Hanson told until his death Feb. 9 at age 81. Unlike many big-buck stories today, Hanson’s tale includes no nickname for the buck. Neither does it include treestands, box blinds, or trail-cam photos.

Patrick Durkin: Milo Hanson dies with record buck still No. 1 Read More »

Patrick Durkin: City dwelling red foxes face endless challenges

Featured, Home Page News, Nature Page & Night Sky, Wisconsin /

If a red fox tunnels under your tool shed or burrows beneath putting greens on golf courses, you won’t guarantee it a long, healthy life by hiring a trapper to have the fox moved to a suburban woodlot or even a rural wetland.
That’s what researcher David Drake reported during a talk Feb. 12 at the annual winter meeting of Wisconsin’s Wildlife Society in Stevens Point.

Patrick Durkin: City dwelling red foxes face endless challenges Read More »

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