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…
They've become the "Bigfoot" of Illinois. Cougars, also known as "mountain lions," have been the mysterious subject of deer hunters' tales for the past five years. But wildlife officials have never confirmed the big cat's existence. Now, a researcher and associate professor from Southern Illinois University is contending that cougars are indeed making a comeback in the Midwest. Clay Nielsen,…
DNR announced today (June 14) revisions to the state’s late-winter deer season for 2012-13. "Based on an annual review of antlerless deer harvest and deer management needs in individual counties," the revisions result in the closing of 10 counties that had previously been open for the late-winter seasons: Cass, Christian, Henry, Johnson, Lawrence, Mason, Morgan, Tazewell, Union and Wabash. There…
With bullfrog season kicking off June 15, I find myself once again thinking of the opening line of Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “To be or not to be, that is the question.” The question for me is whether or not “frogging” is actually a fishing or a hunting experience. According to the 2012 DNR Fishing Digest, bullfrogs can be harvested by “hand,…
Sloppy accounting at Colorado’s Division of Wildlife caused the agency to overspend $32.4 million between 2007 and 2011, according to a state audit released Monday.
Well, I’ve done it! I’ve set out on my maiden food plot voyage. Though my journey is far from complete, shoving off was half the battle. For the most part, I’ve let the boys take care of the plot preparations. But, the longer I hunt, the more committed I am to being as proactive as I can. I want to…
Amid the flurry of bills that passed and failed late last week as the spring legislative session wound down, House Bill 4819 seemed to get lost in the debris. Some of you know it as the "Crossbow bill." If you haven't heard, it passed. All that stands between legal crossbow hunting during the second half of the archery deer season…
I'll be even more interested than usual this year to get New York's spring gobbler harvest figures, although for reasons I've never fully understood those statistics come much more slowly than the state's deer and bear kill numbers. But this spring, in the eyes of many gobbler chasers, seemed to be a challenging one. Some very good turkey hunters I…
Springfield — The plan to raise the cost of license plates to help fund Illinois state parks fell three votes short in the Senate in the wee hours of this morning. Senate Bill 1566, which included a $2 per year increase in the cost of license plates, was pushed through the House yesterday, but the proposal fell three votes short…
The DNR has scheduled four public meetings to review the state’s wolf season proposal, and those meetings will take place between June 6 and June 15 in Spooner, Black River Falls, Fond du Lac, and Rhinelander. The DNR will collect public comment on a wolf season “scoping statement” that was approved by the Natural Resources Board (NRB) at its May 23…
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…
Wisconsin Outdoor News reader Wes Kraemer, of Spring Green, e-mailed in with a good suggestion. Wes has been following the efforts of Scott Walter, the DNR's turkey ecologist, to update the state's turkey management plan. The DNR is trying to get as much input as possible on some questions related to turkeys and the state's turkey hunting format. Wes included…
After a series of strange twist in Springfield, the "DNR Sustainability" appeared on Wednesday appeared as if it was moving forward and would soon be awaiting the signature of Gov. Pat Quinn. The governor is expected to sign it, but given the odd nature of the spring legislative session, who knows? Now under the label Senate Bill 1566, the bill,…
After a series of strange twist in Springfield yesterday, the "DNR Sustainability" bill nowawaits the signature of Gov. Pat Quinn. The governor is expected to sign it, but given the odd nature of the spring legislative session, who knows? Now under the label Senate Bill 1566, the bill, which was mixed in with proposals unrelated to DNR, was moving forward…
Legislation has been introduced in Lansing to create a package of lifetime hunting and fishing licenses. On the surface, it sounds like a good idea that would save sportsmen and women a few bucks. But the devil is in the detail. The legislation, HB 5334 sponsored by Rep. Richard LeBlanc (D-Westland), calls for establishing lifetime licenses for fishing (restricted and…
All in all, it was a solid turkey season for spring hunters, who topped last year’s kill by more than 800 birds. According to DNR stats released today, 15,941 turkeys were taken during the 2012 spring season. Hunters killed 15,121 in the 2011 season. The state-record was set in 2006, when 16,605 turkeys were bagged. Youth hunters made a giant…
Some of my close friends and even family members think I am crazy for it. “You couldn’t pay me $2,000 to wake up at 2 a.m. and sit in a blind for hours on end just to shoot a turkey,” said my mother, Carol Dressel. It was still dark as I made my way up to Sheboygan Falls and, while…
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…
Bird dog names are a big deal to me. Admittedly, they’re probably too big of a deal. However, as I’ve written about in previous posts about dog names, a bird dog’s name says a lot about the owner as well as what you hope the bird dog will become. In naming a bird dog, there are two qualities I hold…
It’s sort of like something you’d see in a Transformer movie. With the click of a remote control, the creature’s head turns, tail flicks and front foot stomps. It’s Robo Buck – and even his antlers are interchangeable, making him Robo Doe in the blink of an eye. The newest version of this decoy is coming to a field near…
The last time that Larry Keith, of Eau Claire, and I hunted turkeys together was three years ago. It was a good day for both of us. We were hunting Crawford County, about a mile east of the Mississippi River, in the beautiful Driftless Area of Southwest Wisconsin. Larry set up his camouflage tent blind on the west edge of…
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….
I haven't strayed too far from the phone this week. A turkey-hunting friend of mine is out in Missouri and, as usual, he has clearance to call any time a gobbler is down, although with the one hour time difference it's pretty unlikely he'll awaken me with the news. It's been like that for years. When I'm not traveling to…
It’s springtime, and that means bears are out and about. And here at Offbeat Outdoors, that means there’s trouble bruin! Bruin Goes Bowling Colorado ranch hand Harold Cerda had just finished doing his business in a remote high country outhouse when a running black bear knocked him to the ground and chased him back to his car, where he sadly…
Hunters sometimes look down their noses at some conservation organizations, particularly those that don’t seem to be perfectly aligned with their interests. National Rifle Association, Ducks Unlimited, Quality Deer Management Association – to name just a few – are organizations that more or less make their missions plain in their titles. It’s not always as evident with groups such as…
The April 13-15 shooting industry expo at the NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits in St. Louis showed that many of the trends we’ve seen evolving over the last couple of years are still alive and well – especially the “undead” ones, but I’ll get to that in a minute. This year’s lineup of guns and ammo from the major manufacturers…
