MADISON, Wis. – Frogs will soon begin chorusing throughout Wisconsin and the Department of Natural Resources is looking for volunteers to lend their ears for help with two different frog and toad surveys.
Category: Outdoors & Agriculture
A pot-belly pig went on a grand adventure through the town of Clyde this weekend, befriending neighborhood cattle on its way.
One of the surest signs that Spring has arrived is the opening of the local golf course. In the absence of a winter golf trip to a warm climate, most golfers put away their clubs for approximately five months. Seeing the snow melt and weather turning for the better leads golfers to a happy place, knowing golf at our local course is not far off. Instead of just watching golf on television, we can actually go out and play golf with our friends. The Spring Green Municipal Golf Course is now open for play, and on good weather days has been quite busy.
Despite no action being taken, the Spring Green village board heavily discussed the possibility of allowing an ATV/UTV route through the village at its regular meeting March 24.
Spring is here and with it brings an increasing risk of wildfires, with two small wildfires burning a combined 0.30 acres in Spring Green over the weekend. On Saturday alone, there were 36 fi res burning over 100 acres across the state, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Five structures were burned and several more were threatened. None of those structures were in the Spring Green area.
Follow along each week on the adventures of Mark Walters, a syndicated outdoor adventure columnist who lives in Necedah, Wisconsin. He began writing his column, An Outdoorsman’s Journal, in 1989. It includes hunting, fishing, lots of canoeing and backpacking. He currently writes for around 60 newspapers on a weekly basis. He hopes you enjoy reading about his adventures!
This week’s column has way more to write about than I have space, so here it goes. Ashland, Lake Superior, Chequamegon Bay and ice fishing/winter camping along with two buddies that are all pushing 60 that have known each other since the early 70’s.
Friends of the Lower Wisconsin River (FLOW) along with Department of Natural Resources Warden Dave Youngquist met to clean up debris from a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) island upriver from the Arena boat landing, on Saturday.
Vortex Optics out of Barneveld recently opened an out-of-the-box training facility to offer different educational opportunities.
From a hike in state parks to a first-time deer hunt, state and local data in Wisconsin show an exceptional increase in outdoor pursuits during the crisis months of COVID-19.
Routes for ATV/UTV’s in Sauk and Iowa counties have been expanding in recent months, with counties and surrounding municipalities choosing to expand routes or secure funding to up-keep routes for the use of recreation vehicles.
Follow along each week on the adventures of Mark Walters, a syndicated outdoor adventure columnist who lives in Necedah, Wisconsin. He began writing his column, An Outdoorsman’s Journal, in 1989. It includes hunting, fishing, lots of canoeing and backpacking. He currently writes for around 60 newspapers on a weekly basis. He hopes you enjoy reading about his adventures!
This week I am writing to you about an ice fishing trip that I took with my good friend Doug Cibulka and my golden retriever Ruby. Back in 1997 I fished Upper Michigan’s Little Bay de Noc for the first time. On that trip I was driving and sleeping in a Jeep Eagle and I did not catch a fish.
The following year I arrived with my Chevy pickup camped in a tent and caught a couple of walleyes in the six-pound range. The following year many of the guys from my deer camp came up with permanent shacks and we would spend three weekends each year catching big walleye and laughing a lot.
Migration continues to ramp up across southern Wisconsin, bringing more birds inching farther north almost daily. The return of sandhill cranes, Canada geese, red-winged blackbirds and American robins have been especially welcome for many bird lovers from Eau Claire to Wausau to Green Bay and southward. Other new arrivals include the first American woodcocks, tree swallows, turkey vultures, eastern bluebirds, song sparrows and American white pelicans.
The River Valley School Board moved forward and narrowly approved the sale of 120 acres of school forest property in Arena at their March 11 meeting, along with continuing the equity, diversity and inclusion conversation that was started at last month’s meeting.
Follow along each week on the adventures of Mark Walters, a syndicated outdoor adventure columnist who lives in Necedah, Wisconsin. He began writing his column, An Outdoorsman’s Journal, in 1989. It includes hunting, fishing, lots of canoeing and backpacking. He currently writes for around 60 newspapers on a weekly basis. He hopes you enjoy reading about his adventures!
This past week I stayed in a 17-foot Ice Castle fishing shack on Stump and Devil’s Lake near Devil’s Lake, North Dakota. Dakota Jeffords, Ross Moll, Joey Weber, and Weston Sexton all grew up near Niagara, Wisconsin and graduated in 2012. Dakota is stationed at Grand Forks, Air Force Base and is the man responsible for hooking us up with the Ice Castle. This week’s column will literally be all over the map as there is a ton to write about.
In rural South Central Wisconsin, many communities are establishing community gardens for their residents. Why? Many people have a desire to get back to nature and grow their own food in a healthy, non-chemical environment but don’t have the space for a garden at their dwelling.
MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced March 2 that fire management crews plan to conduct prescribed burns on DNR properties throughout the state from March 2 through mid-June. These burns take advantage of Wisconsin’s optimal conditions during the spring. Additional prescribed burns will occur in late summer and fall (mid-July through November).
Follow along each week on the adventures of Mark Walters, a syndicated outdoor adventure columnist who lives in Necedah, Wisconsin. He began writing his column, An Outdoorsman’s Journal, in 1989. It includes hunting, fishing, lots of canoeing and backpacking. He currently writes for around 60 newspapers on a weekly basis. He hopes you enjoy reading about his adventures!
My original plan for this week’s column was to hike from my house with a backpack loaded with essentials and hunt rabbits and coyote for three days. That plan changed and became the “I am going to launch my canoe at a public landing and go on an ice fishing trip on The Wisconsin River trip.”
The February 2021 wolf harvest season closed at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 24. State statute authorizes the DNR to close management zones to harvest following a 24-hour notice based on harvest information. Because of the nature of harvest registration and 24-hour notice, it is possible for harvest quotas to be exceeded.
Greetings from the Upper Sugar River Watershed Association invasive species program! 2020 was a great example of what you can still do online or remotely to protect the environment. Our core of great volunteers and an expanded staff allowed us to keep projects like boat landing outreach, access signage, and clean bait reminders rolling smooth in tough times.
Ready for spring? We have good news for you – in the bird world, it’s underway! Southeast Wisconsin always sees the first migrants, and this year is no exception as the first red-winged blackbirds, killdeer and sandhill cranes have been reported there. American robins overwintered in good numbers, but new migrants are also moving in now. Horned larks, an early migrant of open grasslands and agricultural fields, are also showing well on rural roadsides. Farther north, trumpeter swans are returning to limited areas of open water, and the first bald and golden eagles have begun to wing their way northward overhead.