Use turkey scouting, season to forget about winter
Do some scouting and practice calling to prepare for this spring’s six turkey seasons.
Wisconsin – Jerry Davis
Planting natural vegetation, improving habitat best way to feed deer in winter
Now is a good time to consider species to be planted this spring.
Consider hunting ethics when heading afield this year
Sportsmen may nominate a fellow hunter for the annual Wisconsin Ethical Hunter of the Year Award.
Lending a helping hand now to maintain, or gain, permission
Anytime is a great time to lend assistance, but extra labor is particularly helpful during a tough winter. Our landowner friends, particularly farmers, must do a day’s work after a big snowstorm before their day of work begins. After school, on weekends, holidays, snow days (specifically), check and see if one of the farmers on whose land you hunt, hike,…
Try stove-top syrups this spring
Seeing displays of sap-tapping tools and equipment might turn most outdoors enthusiasts and gardeners to a different store location. But fear not, anyone who can identify a maple tree, any maple, even a box elder, can make enough maple syrup for at least one pancake or French toast feed with a few neighbors. While most sugar-bush tappers wait until a…
Now might be a good time to reconsider some of Wisconsin’s hunting, fishing, trapping rule changes
Conservation Congress, sportsmen could start with rule change ideas that would cost nothing to implement.
For squirrels, nowhere to hide in Hyde hunt
10th annual Hyde squirrel hunting tournament draws hunters, participants of all ages.
Here’s a way for hunters to demonstrate landowner appreciation – and perhaps gain future access permission
Early winter and late spring a good time for hunters to volunteer for woodland projects.
Wisconsin hunters: Watch what you’re wearing during post-hunt photo sessions
The Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners also gave preliminary approval to a measure that would simplify requirements to wear fluorescent orange material while hunting. (Photo by Jerry Davis)Some of the most unlikely to-do-so publications run photos of smiling hunters inappropriately dressed while doing their activity and with their prey nearby. Safety is often the issue and being illegally dressed another. OK,…
Alaskans travel to Wisconsin to hunt whitetails
Father, son hunters head to Wisconsin to stack up venison.
Make use of all hunting and trapping seasons
Wisconsin’s small game, fall turkey could stand to see higher participation.
Campground hosts, volunteers Pat and Jerry Cornelius receive award from Governor Dodge State Park
Pat and Jerry Cornelius (center) accept an award from David Borsecnik and Kathleen Gruentzel at Governor Dodge State Park. (Photo by Jerry Davis)Who says folks from Illinois aren’t friendly, giving and respectful of their neighbor to the immediate north? Pat Cornelius and her husband, Jerry, both 73, have been volunteering at Governor Dodge State Park for several months each summer…
Wisconsin DNR bulks up holiday pheasant stocking
Stocking numbers – between Dec. 19-21 – upped from 1,700 to 2,200 birds on eight public properties, up from five sites last year.
Take part in Wisconsin DNR’s CWD testing – it helps us twice over
Testing also helps the DNR track the spread of CWD.
Wisconsin needs to clean up violations during ginseng digging season
DNR game wardens can’t do the work alone; ethical ginseng diggers will have to help out.
Board should wait for some science before closing ruffed grouse season early
The 100 ruffed grouse headed to Missouri this fall should be of little concern to hunters.
Wisconsin DNR placing cameras on ginseng plants to gather season-long information
The Wisconsin DNR is trying to learn more about wild ginseng by using trail cameras to monitor plants. (Photo by Jerry Davis)I know science and its methodology, called research, are dirty words in some Wisconsin places and to some people. Call it what you want, but it’s a necessary endeavor if there is any chance of saving the state’s herb….
Start building your plant-knowledge arsenal yet this summer
This elderberry is infected by a rust fungus that produced a strange growth or “plant antlers.” Some plants can be recognized by diseases that infect them. (Photo by Jerry Davis)Of the 1,800 plant species in Wisconsin, consider getting to know a half dozen or so this summer and come back to the task next year with a goal of another…
Sauk City library checks out fishing rods to kids, too
Emily Judd and Wayne Whitemarsh have worked on a method of loaning fishing rods to kids in the Sauk County area. (Photo by Jerry Davis)A brilliant idea surfaced a decade ago in Sauk City and, after a long hiatus, it is finally coming to fruition. McFarlanes’ Retail and Service Center in Sauk City is a local business that seems to…
Wisconsin Natural Resources Board tinkering with ruffed grouse season
So far, sentiment for shorter season supported by conjecture, not science.
Make summer assessments for autumn gathering
Deer hunters aren’t the only hunters/gathers who can do some scouting now.
Join in on the citizen science aspects of data collection for ruffed grouse
Hunters can participate in ruffed grouse monitoring this summer and fall in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota.
Go outside of hunting to recruit hunters
Use gatherings like heritage days and county fairs to sell the outdoors.
Carcass registration: Is it worth anything anymore?
Has Wisconsin’s change to electronic registration resulted in lower reporting by deer and turkey hunters?
Anxiously awaiting in Wisconsin: Ruffed grouse drumming discloses potential bird densities
Wisconsin DNR personnel and volunteers now running spring ruffed grouse drumming surveys.
Turn journaling into phenology
Morel mushrooms begin appearing about when upland sandpipers return from Argentina. (Photo by Jerry Davis)Morel mushrooms appear when the oak leaves are the size of a squirrel’s ear, someone once proclaimed. That was an old adage using phenology to correlate one event with another. Even though this adage is no longer as accurate as it may have been, it points out…
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