In the Outdoors

By Kurt Krueger

WE?WERE busy catching walleyes on the outside edge of cabbage weeds, three of us in the boat, when the rarest of wild encounters unfolded.

A loon with a chick on its back swam right past the boat, almost as if we didn’t exist. It came so close that I feared moving to unzip a camera bag might spook them away.

My wife and daughter knew exactly what this opportunity meant — the walleyes would have to wait. I grabbed the camera and a zoom lens. When the birds got an appropriate distance away, we pulled anchor and let the boat

By Kurt Krueger

AS ANGLERS add bass fishing to the mix on opening day this Saturday, the opportunity to chase multiple species on different lakes in a single day will hit its peak for the season.

Let’s say you hit the Eagle River Chain early for walleyes, head to Boot Lake for some midday crappie action, and then finish up the day chasing smallmouths on Butternut or Kentuck.

Sounds like a plan. Similar scenarios are played out again and again this time of year as anglers make the most of their days.

It’s called lake jumping, and it’s an inseparable part of Wisconsin’s fishing tradition. The trend has become even more common since tribal spearing gave us three-walleye and two-walleye bag limits, where anglers are forced

THE?STATE’S first wolf hunt last fall did nothing more than keep wolf numbers in check, so Wisconsin is still faced with severe overpopulation and all the problems that go with it.
There are a minimum of 809 to 834 wolves in the state, including 215 packs and 15 lone wolves. That’s almost identical to the previous year’s count of between 815 and 880 wolves — prior to the first hunt.
All known wolf mortalities in 2012 included 117 from hunting and trapping, 76 from depredation control, 24 from vehicle collisions, 21 from illegal kills, and five from unknown causes.

THERE?IS little doubt in my mind that Department of Natural Resources (DNR) fisheries biologist Steve Gilbert is right that the slot limit protecting 14- to 18-inch walleyes has done some good for the fishery.

If growing a few more larger walleyes was the major goal, then the experiment with a different regulation worked. The question, however, is at what price for the tourism industry?

This is not a body of water that ever had a problem with walleye reproduction, for like the Three Lakes side of the 28-lake chain, there was always abundant recruitment of young fish.

I’m writing on the topic today because walleye

By Kurt Krueger

WE WERE tossing bobbers and small minnows near shoreline trees for crappies when my fishing partner fired an errant cast toward the deep, one of those misfires where most would say oops, reel it back and try again.

I’m not sure if it was a sigh from my end of the boat or some other body language that was to blame, but he stuck with the cast as if it had a purpose sitting in deep water some 40 feet off the tree.

I was sharing boat space at the crack of dawn with my dad, Leland Krueger

By Kurt Krueger

THE?TURKEY hunt went from bust to boom in a hurry earlier this month, literally, just after the scribbler penned a column about the late spring and the lack of gobbling activity in the turkey woods.

It was a whirlwind trip to central Wisconsin’s farm country near Marion, as I didn’t plan to be gone more than 24 hours. The chance at extra tags and a chance to hunt property owned by old classmates and good friends is an opportunity that’s hard to pass up.

The drive came in time for an evening hunt on my third-week tag. For the first time since the season structure was changed from a Sunday to a Tuesday ending, I would have a chance at a double.

I was back on the Dave

By Kurt Krueger

MOST DADS can attest to the fact that you really can’t ruin an opening day when the plan calls for sharing boat space with your daughter, but Mother Nature sure tried her best to goof it up.

Daughter Melissa made it a grand event by showing up, but she added a lot more than that to a special weekend outdoors. We had agreed to be up by 4:15 a.m. Saturday, a crazy tradition that came with a plan to try some river fishing before checking the lakes for open water.

She’s a real outdoor trooper who enjoys the challenge

By Kurt Krueger

SONGBIRDS were singing at 4 a.m. Friday when the alarm woke me long before sunrise, and I knew it was going to be a great morning to watch a new day come alive in the turkey woods.

If you’ve never sat in total darkness in the woods and listened as the world awakes, you have missed one of the most awesome events Mother Nature has to offer.

It was just a 10-minute drive to the Dave and Lisa Egdorf farm north of Caroline, a property surrounded by a diverse mix of fields, swamp and steep hardwood ridges. It is truly some of the best deer and turkey country Wisconsin has to offer.

Birds were tweeting in the trees as light came

By Kurt Krueger

YOU WOULD think the uncertainty of a late ice-out and the lowest walleye bag limits in the history of northern Wisconsin angling would dampen a person’s enthusiasm, yet my anticipation for opening day hasn’t faded.

The fever that hits die-hard anglers prior to opening weekend can’t be cured with anything other than getting together with family and friends in the

By Kurt Krueger

THOSE who guessed that the proposal to allow anyone to use a crossbow during the archery deer season was too bold to pass, had their suspicions confirmed when the vote came back 2,479 no to 2,277 yes.

Though the margin of defeat was just 202 votes and the proposal lost in only 28 of the 72 counties last Monday, the vote should tell the Natural Resources Board that the majority disapproves of the idea.

I suppose the argument could be