Wisconsin Outdoor Reports

[Lee Borgersen]

       Wisconsin Outdoor Reports

Published September 28, 2017


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The warm weather of the past week may have slowed the early fast pace of fall colors coming on, but much of the state is at 25 to 50 percent fall color on the Wisconsin Department of Tourism's Fall Color Report (exit DNR) and some far northern areas are close to peak. Tamarack needles are turning yellow and soon to fall off. It is the only conifer in Wisconsin to shed its needles.

The warm weather made fishing difficult, the northern zone duck season opener hot and buggy and grouse hunting grueling. Boaters were happy to get another weekend of perfect weather in. The beach at Whitefish Dunes State Park was crowded on Saturday, an unusual occurrence for a Lake Michigan beach in late September. Hunters and fisherman alike look forward to cooler days ahead.


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Anglers are still picking up decent numbers of perch and walleyes on Lake Winnebago. Some walleye and smallmouth were being caught in the Menominee River and anglers floating the Peshtigo River report catching good numbers of smallmouth bass and northern pike. A few salmon have been seen in the Peshtigo River.

Last weekend's unseasonably hot weather brought out more recreational boaters than anglers on Green Bay. Perch fishing out of Little Sturgeon Bay and Sawyer Harbor was good with many boats coming back with fish and a few even hit their limit.

Chinook are just starting to move into the Sturgeon Bay shipping canal for the fall run. Some were seen jumping on the east end of the canal as they make their way to Strawberry Creek.

Along Lake Michigan, anglers at Kewaunee experienced the first taste of the salmon run this season thanks to a drastic drop in lake temperature two weekends ago that sent a good push of chinooks upstream. Action was intense at the start of the week although the fresh, hard-fighting chinook didn't let anglers land them easily. A few chinook salmon were caught on the Sheboygan River but none were caught this week on the Root or Pike rivers but shore anglers at Racine did very well last weekend in the harbor and a few anglers had some luck casting and trolling in the Kenosha harbor and in front of the Pike River.

 
Opening weekend of the Northern Zone Waterfowl season was slow due to the heat. The southern duck opener is this weekend and many ducks are still prevalent including wood ducks, teal, mallards, and mergansers.

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Bachelor groups of bucks have been observed by archery hunters who braved lasts week's heat and mosquitoes. Due to the hot temperatures elk bulls haven't been bugling much but may start up again as temperatures are dropping and depending on how much competition there is with other bulls.

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Regulations recently changed in regards to tagging deer and turkey--the requirement to validate and attach a tag has been eliminated, but hunters must still register their harvest as data is still needed to manage populations.

American painted lady butterflies are being seen along with some monarchs. Purple asters and goldenrod are still blooming.

This week DNR biologists confirmed a single cougar was captured on two separate trail cameras in Clark and Marathon counties.

Fall color festivals and events kick off this weekend with Art in the Park at Copper Falls State Park and fall festivals at Governor Thompson and Roche-A-Cri. Bikers will be out in force taking in the Fall Color Festival Bike Rides on the Kettle Moraine State Forest-Southern Unit's renowned John Muir Trails. Celebrate National Public Lands Day on Saturday at the Horicon Marsh State Wildlife Area and lend a helping hand collecting native prairie seed. And don't forget SturgeonFest at Lakeshore State Park in Milwaukee will give you a chance to release live sturgeon. For all programs, search the DNR website for Get Outdoors.


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Statewide Birding Report
Plenty of news in the birding world this week. Most notable early on were two warm-weather rarities, the state's fourth-ever magnificent frigatebird in Marathon County on Sept. 22 (http://bit.ly/2wZPdKA) and eighth Say's phoebe in Bayfield a day later. Tuesday's cold front brought northwest winds and many southbound birds on Wednesday and Thursday. Other rarities found at this time included black-backed woodpecker in Bayfield, Swainson's hawk in Ozaukee, Franklin's gulls in Dunn, and a northern mockingbird in Dane.

But it's the short-distance migrants that are taking center stage statewide. American robins, rusty blackbirds, and both kinglet species are on the increase, while now is peak time for yellow-bellied sapsuckers, northern flickers, and cedar waxwings. Look for winter wrens, brown creepers, and hermit thrushes amid declining numbers of house wrens, Swainson's and gray-cheeked thrushes. Notice more blue jays around lately? Migratory populations from the Canadian breeding population have moved in over the past couple weeks. Open fields, weedy roadside edges, and shorelines are now hosting horned larks, Lapland longspurs, and American pipits from the arctic as well.

Now is a good time to get your ground seed out (e.g. black oil sunflower, white millet, and/or cracked corn) for migrating sparrows, especially white-throated, white-crowned, fox, dark-eyed junco, eastern towhee, and others. Wet weedy fields are hosting savannah, swamp, Lincoln's, and a few bobolinks yet in the south. Yellow-rumped and palm warblers dominate now, though small numbers of other warbler species remain, with 15-plus species found in the south yet. Some hummingbirds remain in the south as well, while nearly all have departed the north. Impressive roosts of chimney swifts were recorded on the Sept. 27, including 1,400 in Dane and 1,700 in Ozaukee. Pine siskins remain plentiful across the north woods. Geese are moving in numbers (Friday Sept. 29 could be especially good), sandhill cranes have begun staging in some areas, and a few ruffed grouse were heard drumming as is typical of this time of year. Raptor migration has been good, featuring the last of the broad-winged hawks, peak sharp-shinned hawk flights, some merlins and peregrine falcons, and a mixed bag of others. Find out what's being seen and report your finds at http://www.ebird.org/wi. Good birding. - Ryan Brady, Bureau of Wildlife Management research scientist, Ashland

Unseasonably warm temperatures Saturday, Sept. 23 brought out the crowds to Whitefish Dunes State Park.

Photo Credit: DNR
 


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