Hardwoood Hearings
Where can you blow a duck call?
A lot of the nooks and crannies in my frictionally wrinkled life are filled with duck calls. They call to me and I hear their voices between the spinning helter skelter as I wait for fall every year.
Preliminary tribal fish harvest in Oneida and Vilas
Numbers to be finalized in July
In the preliminary data collected by the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), tribal fish harvest in Vilas and Oneida counties was estimated at 17,780 walleye and 149 muskie. Harvest ran from April 10 through May 15, and finalized numbers will be official in July.
Bugles in the Badger State
2026 post-calving population estimates
As within the last couple years, roughly 25,000 state residents recently submitted an elk tag application before the May 31 deadline. To remember a time when elk were on Wisconsin’s landscape prior to successful reintroduction, you have to go all the way back to 1886. That year, the last known record of an elk in the state was contained in a shipping receipt to a meat market after an elk was harvested just west of Stevens Point.
Preliminary tribal fish harvest in Oneida and Vilas counties
Numbers to be finalized in July
In the preliminary data collected by the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), tribal fish harvest in Vilas and Oneida counties was estimated at 17,780 walleye and 149 muskie. Harvest ran from April 10 through May 15, and finalized numbers will be official in July.
Lakeland trap team fires off awards from season
Range development grant for Minocqua Gun Club
The Lakeland trap team distributed season awards to athletes on June 1 at the Minocqua Gun Club. Amelia Wigant and Tyler Fadroski received Top Gun awards for having the highest individual conference score of all team members. Wigant scored a 181/225 throughout the nine week season, and Fadroski tallied 209/225. Fradoski’s 209 was also third in the Great North Trap Conference in the male varsity division and helped him earn first team all conference.
Hardwoood Hearings
Wings outside the walls
An outdoor classroom like no other, the duck blind is a place where wonder and thought can roam free with whatever else shall cross its path. Within it’s uncharming and nonconforming walls, made of a melting pot of natural things, a student can hide from avian detection, but never from distraction. The wind will twist a tree that looks like a bird flying by, or an otter can playfully scoff at the smear of fake ducks downwind.
Molecular methods help improve understanding of American black duck genetics
Hybridization dead ends and boreal forest implications
If you were to compare an American black duck (black duck or American black duck) to perhaps the most well known waterfowl in the world, the mallard, there would be many similarities. The two species, along with several others, have a close-knit relationship due to a short evolutionary timeline.
Hardwoood Hearings
Bogs and lettuce
Give fault and reason to whatever or whoever you want, but it’s probably no secret we live in a fast world. There’s always another thing to do no matter how many tasks we cross off.
Hardwoood Hearings
Over the shoulder
“Walleye chop,” my dad shouted from the back of the canoe as we paddled in the wind across one of the many lakes in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA). The waves lapped against our canoe, and the trees tossed in the breeze along the jagged shore.
Lakeland trap team shoots at the 8th annual Northwoods Invitational
The Lakeland High School trap team competed with 16 other teams in the Northwoods Invitational May 15 to 17 in Harshaw and Minocqua. An event that offered opportunities for athletes to shoot trap singles, trap doubles, skeet, and sporting clays, the event was divided between the Harshaw Sports Club and the Minocqua Gun Club to accommodate shooters from all 17 teams.
Midges emerge in Northwoods
Joining the warmer weather, insects have started to emerge, and among them are various species of midges. The short-lived midges swarm along our lakes and provide an important food source for the rest of the environment.
Rice restoration efforts at Spur Lake State Natural Area
Twenty thousand years ago, when the glacier over northern Wisconsin slowly receded north, a chunk of it broke off and got lodged in the ground about five miles south of Three Lakes. Eventually, temperatures warmed and that giant ice cube that was left behind melted to form what is now known as Spur Lake State Natural Area.
Hardwoood Hearings
Fur question, feather obsession
In all my towering love of the Northwoods, deer hunting admittedly never really left a rut in my repertoire of desired activities. I’ve harvested a few deer and enjoy the time outside and traditional family and friend company, but without a doubt would rather be holding a shotgun or camera eyeing up my feather obsession.
Conclusion of CDAC meetings
DMU 117 and 120 antlerless quota recommendations
The Citizen Deer Advisory Council (CDAC) meetings have concluded for Deer Management Unit (DMU) 117 and 120, which make up most of the rest of Vilas and Oneida counties with DMUs 116, 121, and 122.
A peeping proclamation
Our ephemeral residents have begun their cacophony of amphibious acoustics, and I have followed their serenade to the topographies of true.
Fire for fowl
Spring Creek State Wildlife Area prescribed burn
Any woods walker who wanders the trunks this time of year can hear the crunchy needles or leaves beneath them. Before any substantial amount of rain saturates our forests and before any new green growth sprouts to the sky and shades the understory, fire season engulfs our arid and fuel-rich landscape.
Rhinelander team wins dartball state championship
Wiedeman inducted into hall of fame
Rhinelander’s McDonald Bus Service dartball team, captained by Jeff McDonald, shot a bullseye — or hit a home run rather — in the 2026 State Dartball Tournament, taking home the Class C championship after defeating Balz Inn of Athens last month at the Central Wisconsin Convention and Expo Center in Rothschild.
General fishing season to open May 2
New regulations in place for Oneida and Vilas counties
The wait is over for the anglers who have anticipated getting back on the open water of more than 15,000 inland lakes across the state to cast their crankbaits with the hopes of reeling in a big one. As anglers head out for the general fishing season opener tomorrow, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) reminds residents to check updated regulations for the 2026-27 season. There’s an abundance of lake specific changes across the state, as well as new season frameworks for inland trout and muskie.
Deer management unit 116 CDAC meeting
Zero-doe-harvest quota to be recommended to Deer Advisory Committee
With the statewide Citizen Deer Advisory Council (CDAC) meetings wrapping up, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Deer Advisory Committee will soon review CDAC harvest quota and season framework recommendations. Towards the end of May, the DNR administration will review harvest quota and season framework recommendations as well, before the final proposal is made to the Natural Resources Board (NRB). The NRB will approve final deer season structures during their scheduled June 24 meeting in Kenosha.
Wisconsin Conservation Congress spring hearings held statewide
The Wisconsin Conservation Congress (WCC) held their annual spring hearings on April 13 from 6-9 p.m. in all 72 counties. Public comment was welcomed at the hearing, and questions were taken by a panel of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) staff and WCC members.
The importance of scouting
Any fundamentally sound duck or goose hunter ought to know the importance of scouting. They know that to have a successful day afield, you have to hunt where the ducks want to be, and the only way to do that is to find them.
DNR reminds public that young wildlife are soon to emerge
In a recent press release, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) described what to do if you encounter young wild animals as temperatures continue to increase across the state. “The public can help keep wildlife wild by observing from a safe distance to provide young wild animals their best chance of survival,” the release stated.
Timberdoodle timeline
On a recent moonlit drive home, the gravel roads wound a reminder around my impossibly cornered eyes of just how chaotic spring can be here in Wisconsin. With an almost 60 degree high before nearly a foot of snow and ice in the forecast, I shouldn’t be surprised.
From block to block: Time Capsule Decoys
“You got some history there, young man,” Kenley Cordts, 90, of Tomahawk told me as a I leafed through a book titled “Ducks and Men: Forty years of co-operation in conservation.” The book, copy written in 1978, tells the story of Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC), and the beginnings of its integral part in conserving continental waterfowl populations.
NRB to consider adopting emergency order regarding migratory bird hunting regulations
Concealment restrictions to change if adopted
The Wisconsin Natural Resources Board (NRB) will meet Wednesday, April 15 at 8:30 a.m. in Madison. On the NRB’s agenda is Emergency Board Order WM-13-25 (E), which, if adopted, would affect chapter NR 10 (game and hunting), specifically the 2026-2030 migratory bird season framework and regulations.
2024-25 creel survey reports for Tomahawk Chain, Minocqua, and Kawaguesaga lakes
If you’re an angler who fishes on the Minocqua Chain, you may have been interviewed by Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) fisheries staff during past fishing seasons about what you caught, how long you’ve been out, and some of the specific species you’re targeting.
Caramel on the Coast
A journey for the fulvous whistling duck
Of all of the duck species in North America, the fulvous whistling duck is probably the most unfamiliar to Wisconsin. It likes the warm, treeless coastlines of Texas and the ocean expanses that border the Louisiana bayou. Habitats like the Everglades, where you see American alligators, is where you can find fulvous whistling ducks.
Lakeland Trap team welcomes 61 athletes this spring
The Lakeland Trap team features a record 61 athletes, including nine female shooters, that will compete in the Great Northern Trap Conference (GNTC) this year.
Long-term monitoring of lake trout on Trout Lake
DNR continues research on genetically unique lake trout
As part of a long term monitoring project, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) fisheries management continues the sampling of lake trout on Trout Lake.
Rediscovery
It’s probably no secret my love for the outdoors started immediately, when I sprouted from a coppice aspen cut into the cool February air of Park Falls — claimed to be the ruffed grouse capital of the world. Since then, it’s drummed up something more than just a feathered fondness of wild and scenic rivers winding around hometowns nobody has ever heard of. It has become a way of life. I live it and breathe it, see it and feel it. I make my own life out of it. And most important to me, I photograph it.
Snowstorms blow through the Northwoods
It should come as no surprise that Wisconsin gets a late snowstorm every year. Whether it’s still officially late winter or early and mid-spring, it’s bound to happen. Even as late as May, spring can get suffocated by an envelope of January or February.
Arctic Ambience at Loess Bluffs
Right where the states of Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri converge, there’s a conglomeration of arctic noise bound for the profound north. For now, though, that arctic ambience is found at the Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge near Mound City, Missouri. Just west of the refuge, the historic Missouri River rambles southeastward to shape the state lines and provide a compass for migrants of the far-off heavens.