Farewell to Wisconsin's Deer Registration Traditions?
Those involved in implementing the Deer Trustee Report seem to be charging full bore into an electronic age and as far away from tradition as possible.
Wisconsin – Jerry Davis
Abundant Gathering Awaits
What a waste. Buckets of mulberries have fallen from a tree onto a town road.
Habitat improvement would help more than Walker's $13 million walleye plan
It appears Wisconsin is using walleye stocking as a way of showing folks someone is listening to bag limit complaints (reduced) and other fishing concerns.
Could there be such a thing as chemical 'trail cameras' for CWD
A neighbor, Bill Robichaud, has been consulting in Laos on the critically endangered saola, a small, horned mammal.
Keep looking – maybe it takes moving a piece of elm bark to find a morel
There are days when trout don’t bite, deer don’t move, morels don’t grow, and turkeys don’t respond; sometimes those days last an entire season.
Silence is not necessarily golden when it comes to the DNR
This year I have read in newspapers numerous times about people complaining that the Department of Natural Resources is doing this or doing that.
Many Morels this May?
Forecasts are just that, forecasts for the most part. They are guesses, sometimes based on a few facts or even other forecasts or predictions.
Buy some Wisconsin turkey permits
90,000 turkey tags awaiting hunters
Hunter Ethics; Do the right thing, not the easy thing
Is it as important to recognize someone for the state’s hunter ethics award as it is to report a violation of the state’s hunting regulations?
MacKenzie mission can evolve, but keep environmental education part of the program
The immediate and strong negative reaction to the idea of changing the focus of the MacKenzie Environmental Center from youth environmental education to training mentors for trapping, angling, and hunting was encouraging.
Keep wildlife public
Remember the public trust doctrine? It was probably discussed during hunter education class.
Promise Yourself to get Outdoors
Many outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen, like most folks, are not much into making resolutions for a new year. Neither am I.
Need to Think Through Wisconsin Mining
Anything that disturbs the earth and environment as much as mining does needs to be thought through thoroughly.
Outlook for Wisconsin Turkeys Seems Good
Everything seems to be pointing to one of the better spring turkey seasons Wisconsin has had in some time. The excitement dates back to last May and June when recruitment conditions, primarily the weather, were near-perfect in many areas of Wisconsin. Brood counts and other numbers associated with young birds continued to confirm things were going the turkey population’s way….
Environmental Attitudes
By now many who have an interest in things environmental have at least heard of Tom Heberlein’s new book, “Navigating Environmental Attitudes” (Oxford University Press, 2012).
Words have meaning
A spokesperson for a police department recently reported on the news that a number of live bullets were found on a school playground. Say what? The only way one could have live bullets is if they were flying through the air, and then we’d never be able to see them. When are we going to learn that words have meaning. …
Experiment with new rules
The door to changing deer seasons and rules opened with the "lesser implement" season that allows deer hunters to use archery equipment, crossbows, shotguns, muzzleloaders, rifles and handguns during the nine-day gun deer season, all under the authority of their gun license. The only reason one might find fault with this idea, introduced in 2012, was the complexity of tossing…
Shooting of White and Albino Deer
Some interesting issues were brought to the forefront during the 2012 gun deer season when two white deer were legally killed by hunters in Sauk County. It’s easy for news reporters to hype a store like this because there are plenty folks willing to give energy-charged interviews. There are reasons why white and albino deer can be hunted in some…
Simplifying becoming too complicated
You’ve heard the complaints. “We don’t have any new trout anglers or deer hunters because the regulations are too complicated. We’d need a Philadelphia lawyer to interpret them for us.” Well, guess what. Some of us, through our favorite politician, the one we contributed heavily to during the last campaign, has helped us get a new regulation on the books…
Sharing the harvest
While talking to a farm manager regarding an article about pheasant hunting recently, drought, short grasses for bird cover, and poor wild mushroom crops became an interesting sideline. This manager was lamenting not finding a single hen-of-the-woods mushroom this year. She loves this fall fungal growth form, which often appears year-after-year next to certain oak trees. She wasn’t alone in…
Why not take advantage of fall turkey hunting
This year in particular – because wild turkey populations are showing the impacts of a very good recruitment year – it is time to reevaluate our general attitude about hunting this large game bird when the leaves are falling. Or how about when there’s snow covering the ground? One only needs to look at the success percentage, a paltry 9.9…
Promoting Ginseng
An outdoorsman called the other evening with his thoughts about ginseng harvesting in Wisconsin. He was disappointed that he had been seeing “all these glossy photographs,” of ginseng in local newspapers. His frustration was that the print media, and those who write about outdoorsy things, were showing everyone what the plants look like and these young people, or new diggers,…
A thought about wolves and dogs
Rare is the person who is so set in his or her ways, those who raise their voice every time a certain topic comes up, but then surprises us by being won over by our way of thinking. In other words, why would someone be swayed by someone else’s ideas? That’s asking them to give in to two things, not…
Learning more about ourselves than deer
Now that the James Kroll report on Wisconsin deer management has been filed, and the bills paid, we’re beginning to understand that much of the problem was and is – us. In listening to the three consultants (James Kroll, David Guynn Jr. and Gary Alt) at one of the town meetings last April (Mount Horeb), I was most impressed with…
Wisconsin Deer Management
Maybe we – outdoors writers and media – should take some of the responsibility for there being so much angst swarming around Wisconsin’s deer hunting and managing issues, especially during the last decade. Seems it’s just too difficult for a writer to be unbiased when it comes to deer hunting (management), just as it probably is for most gun deer…
Deer Registration Changes?
Deer registration stations are what makes an outdoors writer’s job more interesting, easier, and a whole lot of fun. There are all kinds of people there, many of whom killed deer, some who do not. The Department of Natural Resources employees are usually there. I could go on and on, but for many of these same reasons that I do…
