River Currents 9-11-07

River Currents
I started writing this column and when it came to date my writing I realized that it was 9-11! A day that will go down in our history as one of America’s worst and saddest. This monumental tragedy was carried out by terrorists whose sole goal is the destruction of the United States and everything that this country stands for. Though, September 11^th happened six years ago, we must never forget that day in our history because to forget history leads to repeating it. Remember that history is cyclical, it always repeats itself! Americans should never forget the thousands who lost their lives in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania to people whose goal is the downfall of our lifestyle and society. This attack on the United States must never be forgotten because no matter how some people now try to re-create history and the facts, we were not at fault!

I’m a little older and greyer, but I won’t forget the horrific events of 9-11-01 for the rest of my life. Take a few moments to say thanks for the great country and society that we live in and to those who protect us from the “sicko’s” of the world. I’m not saying that America is perfect, but it is still the greatest country in the world. Why else do people from all parts of the world still want to come to America and make it their home? There will always be things in our society that we don’t agree with or support, but that is what our country and freedom is about. We are free to voice our opinions and vote for the candidate of our choice. These days, so much is taken for granted and it’s too bad that a tragedy must happen to open some of our eyes. I’m sure that as I write there are people around the world trying to bring about the demise and destruction of America. I’m saddened to see film of children being taught to hate America and all that it stands for. These are kids the same age of those that we are trying to get involved and interested in fishing, hunting, and the outdoors. I wish the country had continued to try to come together as we did following 9/11, but party politics always seem to ruin a good thing. Try to remember the lessons of the past and don’t ever forget that millions of people are hoping for our downfall and defeat. God Bless America!!

Rain and Flooding

Earlier in the summer, I know that I was complaining about the dry conditions and low river levels on the Wisconsin River and area lakes. The precipitation that we received in August broke the all-time record for rain in the month. I’m pretty sure that weather records have been kept for well over a hundred years. The previous record for the month of August was a little less than 11 inches and I had over 13 inches outside Sauk City with some towns close by getting up to 20 inches of rain.

Though my immediate area received record rain, some areas north and east in the state got very little. The Wisconsin River Valley near Sauk City didn’t flood like it did a little farther downriver in the Gay Mills and the Kickapoo River Valley area. I did some checking and I didn’t have to go far to find flooding and roads closed across the river in Sauk County. Highways Y, which I live on, flooded and was closed for a week or so till some culverts were replaced. There has to be measurable rain in central and northern Wisconsin before I notice any change in the river near home. The Wisconsin River has many flowages and lakes to fill before any water makes it to southern Wisconsin. Northern Wisconsin has missed most of the rain and much of the north is tinder dry. The lakes, rivers, and streams are down feet, not inches. After experiencing drought conditions, I’ll never complain about rain and that includes this past August when it rained almost every day and ruined many of my guiding trips.

The Friends of the Lower Wisconsin Riverway (FLOW) did a great job is helping the clean-up in the Gay Mills area. Many members and friends made numerous trips down to help people clean up their homes and towns. It’s great to see “volunteerism” at its best and FLOW and leader Timm Zumm of Spring Green should be thanked. Ron Leys, Crawford County Board Chairman, made all FLOW members honorary Friends of the Lower Kickapoo Valley for their work. Initially, President Bush declared Crawford, La Crosse, Richland, Sauk, and Vernon counties disaster areas and later added Columbia, Dane, Grant, Green, Iowa, Jefferson, Kenosha, Racine, and Rock counties to those eligible to receive federal disaster assistance. Here’s, another example of people helping people! It’s too bad that it often takes tragedy and disaster to bring out our goodness and love of man!

Skeeters

The record rainfall has brought about one of the largest hatches of mosquitoes that I have ever seen in my twenty plus years of living on the water. Summers always some “skeeters” which come out before dusk and attack you when you’re in the woods, but the rain has brought mosquitoes in numbers that I’ve never been “blessed” in seeing. These pesky and unrelenting insects are out anytime of the day and everywhere.

Phil Pellitteri, a UW-Madison entomologist, said that of the 55 species of mosquitoes in Wisconsin, the one that is now causing trouble is the floodwater mosquitoes or Aedes vexans. The adults lay their eggs near the edge of water or in low-lying areas where water will accumulate. If the weather stays dry, the eggs won’t hatch. But, with the high water, eggs that have laid dormant anywhere from one to four years are now hatching. The only savior besides covering yourself with repellent is hoping for an early frost which will kill them off for this year.

One good thing is that there haven’t been any reports of the West Nile virus this summer. The Madison area had two people contract West Nile last summer, but there are no confirmed reports this year. Madison has more than 500 sites that are checked and monitored at least three times a year and treated if necessary for the West Nile mosquitoes.

The larva of the mosquitoes is checked for the virus and none has been found with the virus this summer. Dry weather doesn’t reduce the populations because the quiet water that they prefer isn’t flushed out by rainfall.

Deer

The Wisconsin deer herd is still growing. Despite, the many ways and methods that the DNR has used deer numbers have continued to rise. Last fall and winter hunters harvested 510,000 deer which was the third largest kill on record. But, because of another mild winter, the statewide deer numbers have grown by at least 100,000 deer from last year. It is possible that deer numbers could approach 2 million deer and jeopardize the hunter’s ability to control the herd.

The state uses a complicated formula to come up with its population estimate. The formula includes the previous winter’s severity and the number of female deer killed last season. Last year, the herd was somewhere between 1.5 and 1.7 million deer. This fall, the range is 1.6 to 1.8 million deer and maybe even more!

The mild winters have resulted in more births of healthy twins and even triplets. There have been four or five mild winters in a row that have allowed the deer herd to grow despite the big harvests. The average annual harvest for the last 10 years is 466,000 deer. During the 1980’s, the average kill was 270,000 deer. By these figures, the deer herd has increased more than 75% in the last 20 years.

Our aging population and falling hunter numbers are possibly going to affect future deer numbers. If hunter numbers continue to fall and deer numbers continue to rise, we could be facing more crop damage, more car-deer crashes, and more changes in our forest ecosystems. I always encourage people to take kids fishing, but we also need to recruit more children and adults into the hunting world or game management could really get out of whack.

Delta Waterfowl Flurry

While most hunters and outdoors people have heard about Ducks Unlimited, fewer know about another great conservation group, Delta Waterfowl. Delta Waterfowl’s is based out of Bismark, North Dakota in the U.S. and Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada. Their vision is to be North America’s leader in waterfowl ecology and waterfowling. Their mission (according to their website) “is to provide knowledge, future leaders, solutions, and its passion for waterfowl to scientists, resource managers, waterfowlers, conservationists, and the public to enhance waterfowl populations while securing the future of waterfowling.” This says a lot, but I’ve been following them for years and I know that they do top-notch work with a high percentage of donated funds put back into meaningful research and study. I’ve been following some studies that they’ve been doing for the last few years on duck nest predation which is very interesting. Delta Waterfowl is a group worth joining if you duck hunt or are a conservationist because they put your money and monies raised to good use.

This past weekend, September 8 and 9 Delta Waterfowl held their 12^th Annual Flurry Shoot fundraiser at the Waunakee Gun Club. The event is a two person, 100-target flurry shoot. There were over 600 shooters from the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan. Many of these shotgunners are the best in the Midwest. The event had four different classes; 12 gauge, parent/child, pump gun, and side by side gun. Shooters were in 2 man teams for the different divisions.

It was a beautiful weekend to be outside and the breeze at the gun club made the bugs disappear. The Waunakee Gun Club is a top-notch facility with its own sporting clays course and clubhouse in a beautiful setting. I met the President, Brad Jones, who talked and showed me the club. Jones said the club is a non-profit club that promotes the sport of shotgun shooting. I’d highly recommend this club to anyone. The funds raised from the weekends “Flurry” will be given to Delta Waterfowl for buying a couple of “prairie potholes” in the Dakota duck region or the prairies of Canada. Later this fall, they are planning another event to benefit Pheasants Forever.

Every year, we are losing more and more wetlands which duck populations are greatly dependent upon them for survival. Delta Waterfowl is trying to stop this wetland erosion and insure waterfowl for the future. Check them out at their website or call them at 1-888-987-3695 for any information.

Saturday while watching and taking some photos at the Flurry in Waunakee I ran into a friend, Bruce Ramos, who is a member of the club and was shooting in the event. Ramos is a master shooter who was recently inducted into the Wisconsin Sporting Clays Association Hall of Fame for 2007. Bruce has an outstanding shooting record. He has been Wisconsin State Championship Runner-Up twice in 1990 and 1993. He also was the state champ in 20 gauge in 1993, the state 28 gauge champ in 1993, and the state .410 Champ in 2003. Bruce is an eight-time member of the Wisconsin All State Team. His lifetime sporting clays count is 33,150 and his skeet target count is 91,150. Ramos continues to add to these great numbers and I’m proud to have him as a friend whose support and passion for the shooting sports are making it one of the fastest growing outdoor sports. Congratulations Bruce!

Hunting

The dove season that opened September 1st has been good for those who have gotten out in the field. The Mazomanie, Lodi, and Brooklyn Public Hunting Grounds all are holding birds and there’s little competition. Farmers will be harvesting more crops as things dry out and that means better dove hunting. Doves like harvested grain fields that are close to their roost trees and watering areas. Do some scouting and try to find large harvested grain fields close to public land. If you do you’re scouting early and late in the day, you should be able to run into doves as they fly back and forth from their roosting, feeding, and watering locations. This is a perfect time to take young and novice hunters a field because there are few hunters, it’s a good place to try their wing shooting, and hunter safety can be practiced in a real hunting situation.

Fall turkey hunting opens the 15^th of September and by what I’ve been seeing it should be another good fall. There must have been a very good hatch this spring because in my travels, I’ve been seeing young poults of all sizes everywhere that I go. Most people that I talk to also have been commenting on the large number of turkeys that they’ve been seeing in this part of Wisconsin. I interviewed Sauk County Conservation Warden, John Buss, last week and he confirmed my turkey observations and also said that in his 20 years as a warden in Sauk County he has seen more pheasants this summer than ever before. Sounds good for local pheasant hunting to me! The Sauk County Chapter of Pheasants Forever has been working hard putting in food plots and residents have responded favorably by all accounts.

Bow hunting opens this weekend and hunters should have a good opener except for the mosquitoes. Be sure to have proper clothing for protection and a bug repellent that doesn’t give off too much human scent. My suggestions for bow hunters are to keep scouting and glassing for bucks in the field and trying to pin down their tight patterns. Then, put up your stand or stands in a couple of places so you have some options with changing wind direction. Deer and bucks in particular, haven’t been pressured for a year and are now locked into predictable bed to feed patterns. This is a great time to harvest a nice buck before things get hectic in the woods. I’ve seen bucks still in velvet and others hard-horned.

The Early September Goose Hunt has been quiet along the Wisconsin River. I see and hear geese every day, but either the hunters haven’t been out much or the geese are already changing their flight patterns in adjusting to hunters. This early hunt is aimed at harvesting some of the geese that now stay in the area year-round. The milder weather and open-water has geese nesting here and not migrating. I see these geese during the winter and wonder why they stay here. Sure, the winters are getting milder, but all these geese have to do is go to southern Illinois and escape a vast majority of winter. There must be enough food for them and the river stays open most of the time, so they brave the few frigid weeks of winter and remain local residents. The best goose hunting is in November when the northern geese are migrating through the area on their way south. Late in the season, the Lower Wisconsin River is a great place to hunt ducks and geese because every other body of water has frozen up.

Be sure to read my pheasant forecast for Wisconsin in this issue. It looks like it’s going to be a good year for ringnecks with good numbers of stocked birds raised at the Poynette Game Farm and by all accounts the wild pheasant numbers also look promising. Don’t forget to contact your local congressman and senators about renewing the CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) provision in the 2007 Farm Bill. Wildlife is depending on you! If millions of acres of CRP are lost, the wild pheasant population and many other species of wildlife will go downhill. Hunters must realize how important this Farm Bill is to the future of hunting.

Fishing is going to do nothing but improve from now on in all lakes and rivers. The water temperature on Lake Wisconsin and the Madison Chain of Lakes is still above 70 degrees. But, there’s some cool weather on the horizon that’s going to start cooling things down. Fall turn-over is still a ways away, so don’t put that boat in storage yet. Some of the year’s best fishing for all species is coming soon, especially walleyes, muskies, smallmouth, and pike. I’ll be all over the state casting Cowgirls and rigging redtail chubs, so look for the red Mirrocraft Bucky Boat and say hi.