Order Up….January-February OWO
Hard to believe we’re on the cusp of 2015. The older we get, the faster these years smoke by, especially I think when the calendar is marked not by the months of the year, but by…sturgeon spear, steelhead run, turkey hunt, open fish……. Isn’t it a fun being an outdoorsman in Wisconsin?
What’s nutsier than a sturgeon spearer? A Badger or Packer fan.
I’ve always loved being an outdoor writer, first for 20 years as a syndicated columnist, traveling Wisconsin with the camera and whatever gear necessary to bring a story back to the papers, and now as publisher of OWO. But I’ve always told people who have called me “lucky” not to be an outdoor writer if you actually want to hunt and fish. Time with the rod and gun takes a back seat to letting the words and photos hopefully enable other people who may be sitting behind a desk or plowing the street live vicariously through you until they can get out there themselves.
A Brule River steelheader shows his catch.
But I am very lucky. It has been my good fortune to travel Wisconsin and spotlight hunters and anglers and trappers from Superior to Racine who really bring their expertise to the field. I love lying on the ice and waiting to try and capture a jigging rod bend over the weight of a perch 100 feet down. Or sitting in the tall grass with the lens on a pointer frozen over a bird that you know is there only because of that trembling canine.
Deep water perch on Madison’s Mendota will bend the rod.
A busting rooster is easier to capture via camera when the dog tells you where he is.
But, like I said, field time takes a back seat and right now, we’re scrambling to get out the January-February issue of On Wisconsin Outdoors. Design Director Ali Garrigan, Copy Editor Heidi Rich, and about 30 OWO writers from throughout the state will make sure it happens again. We go to press December 26. Look for your copy in Kwik Trip stores and Menards within a week after that. Or read it right here online. In November, almost 27,000 sportsmen and women connected with this site and left more than 500,000 hits. Thanks too, once again, for patronizing the many and growing list of advertisers who enable us to give you each issue at no cost. We do appreciate it. So do they.
Steve Ellis fools a Wausau Tom, sometimes referred to a bit of Tom-foolery.
In between real work, I do have one eye on the hardwater that isn’t really safe here in the southeast after a few days of warm weather, and I will be on the Winnebago ice with the camera in a few weeks to capture Wisconsin’s most identifiable nuts who are about to wait in a dark shack for about a month in the hopes that a sturgeon will swim by. In the meantime, I also hope to spend some quality tree time in farm country waiting for one lone doe that has a reservation in my freezer.
Scott Heitman beats frigid January temperatures to tag a Winnebago County doe.
So that’s it…except to wish you and your families a heathy 2015. Anything after that is gravy. Merry Christmas. Embrace your 10 commandments. Embrace your God-given freedoms and never let go. Shoot Straight. Thanks for connecting with On Wisconsin Outdoors.
Dick Ellis