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,…
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…
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…
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 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…
We rarely forget to feed and provide water to our hunting dogs and family pets. What about some respect for special trees, shrubs and other plants we’ve spend money, time and energy planting? Some counties in southern Wisconsin, and elsewhere, continue to be short on normal precipitation, by as much as five inches since 2012 began. Still worse, most of…
Thinking about a mid-September ruffed grouse hunt is enough to take some of the sting off summer’s hot, humid days. But the news, fully anticipated for the last three years, reported a 25 percent decline in the roadside monitoring survey of drumming male birds. Still, there was some encouragement because biologists suggested that the weather this past spring was good…
Whether we know it or not, if we hunt deer in one of the 32 counties where baiting and feeding is prohibited , we are (or should be) part of a research project to study this issue and practice. This is particularly true in northwest Wisconsin. Recently four counties — Barron, Burnett, Polk and Washburn — were added to the…
A formal notice was issued by the WDNR this week reminding ATV and UTV users, but only those whose machines are registered as public use machines, that the machines are required to have a back “license” plate by July 1, 2012. This requirement does not apply to machines used on private property or farm use machines. But if someone takes…
It seems we cannot get away from playing the blame game, suggesting they, not us, are the problem. We have seen the blame game in politics for longer than we care to remember. Tell everyone who will listen about all of the wrong things the other guys and gals have been doing. But leave us out of the guilty category….
An ongoing discussion, after a number of very warm days in March, has been whether or not morel mushrooms will be plentiful, slim picking, or completely absent. The questions have not been completely answered for Wisconsin except these mushrooms began appearing in late March. I found some March 29, which were two to three days old. By April 1, a…
We’ve become accustomed to expecting many major plant and animal events to be prompted by photoperiod. Plants flower and animals mate based on increasing or decreasing day length, it seems. But what about March 2012? March was so atypical that events were weeks ahead of a normal schedule and sequence of events. Will this early spring have any impact on…
Wisconsin’s spring turkey hunters will face a few changes in how things are to be done when it comes to hunting wild turkeys this year. The six hunting periods are seven days, instead of five, Wednesday through Tuesday. No big deal to most hunters. We’re likely to see little impact on the success rates by hunters, or even total hours…
It is easy to find a newspaper story about hunters doing or acting poorly, doing things that reflect negatively on all of us, or endangering the lives of others. We owe it to the greater community to make everyone aware of some of the positive, ethical acts many hunters do routinely, just as we need to publicize unlawful acts. The…
There’s some truth to the saying, “if something can go wrong, it probably will.”That’s often the case when computers are asked to do our sorting, not because computers make mistakes, but because we have to tell them exactly what we want them to do and sometimes we don’t give them the correct message.There was a glitch during Wisconsin’s spring turkey…
During the past several months we have had numerous chances to look at photographs of game taken by hunters during the gun and archery deer seasons.While I won’t say all, but some are not particularly pleasing to look at. Some are demeaning to the animal.What’s wrong with them? How could we make them, and us, look better?First, it is the…
When is enough gun deer hunting enough? Should I deer hunt in southern Wisconsin during the Holiday Hunt, which closes Jan. 8? And during the landowner season, which continues through March 31? Or is it best to be a traditionalist and hunt during the nine-day season and then stop; maybe just hunt the first weekend of the regular gun season…
It seems that almost every club, organization, and even some state groups are scrambling to grow hunter interest and eventually hunter numbers. You name it and it's a method that has been suggested and most have been tried, including reducing the cost of licenses for some and changing hunting rules in the face of science, safety and probably management. How…
A month is a long time to us. A year is forever, it seems. But we need to get over our impatience when viewing environmental changes and results from our manipulations of the ecosystem. I’m talking about the mix of season structure, winter severity, forest maturity, hunting season weather, hunter attitudes, hunter recruitment, and a host of other variables that…
Wisconsin pheasant hunters, for the most part, are finding out just what two to three tough winters can do to wild pheasant populations. While carryover of state-released birds, or birds raised by landowners, have made a difference in some years, much of that carryover was wiped out by deep snow, icy crusts and sub-zero temperatures. Of course pheasant populations, as…
Now that the dogs’ noses have found the scent and the hunters’ guns have been fired, this is a time to assess Wisconsin’s ruffed grouse population as best we can. Hunting conditions have been ideal at times, other times the temperatures have been more August-like than Octoberish, but hunters and dogs have coped. Autumn leaf color and subsequent leaf fall…
I recently read an unpublished story written by an Alaska man. He and his friend had gone on a moose hunt last autumn, being dropped in the bush by a pilot. They had their camping, hunting and necessary river equipment to float down river, hunting at various points along a 35-mile journey. After several harrowing experiences, one that almost took…
A recent news release from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection brings to the forefront the value of having science involved in rare animal sightings. Hearsay, rumors, hoaxes and flash sightings have made us all leery of claims, but this case says two things about how important science is and should remain in documenting animal movements. More than…
The 2011 Wisconsin Deer Hunting Regulations pamphlet is not so much about what we can or cannot do, or should and should not do, but who is sending the message. Wisconsin has a fine staff of biologists, ecologists and property managers, dedicated to the state’s wildlife, not to egos or distant handlers. But did any of those biologists have any…
Turkey hunting used to be easy, or at least we thought so based on the numbers of birds registered and gobbler responses in the fields and forests. Not so much now, at least that's what a vocal few seem to be preaching. It's easy to attach blame onto a single reason, such as weather, not as many birds, too many…
It was reported several weeks ago that one or more of the organisms in lichens are able to produce a substance that can degrade prion proteins, the molecules responsible for causing fatal brain diseases in cervids. The research should awaken us to the significance of basic research, science that studies organisms and processes simply to find out what they are…
