PATRICK DURKIN OUTDOORS

Matt Jefko says he can’t sacrifice the time and money to hunt Western states, so he turns his Wisconsin hunts into hard-earned adventures whenever possible.    But after this Middleton high-school teacher arrowed a buck in southwestern Wisconsin’s Yellowstone Lake State Park, he triggered more adventure than most hunters ever find on the Great Plains or in the Rocky Mountains.    Jefko, 41, wouldn’t wish similar misadventures on anyone.    He’s just grateful he’s still enjoyi

Wisconsin’s bowhunters registered 103,904 deer during 2024’s four-month arrow-flinging season, the fourth highest archery kill in modern times and the fifth in which they’ve killed over 100,000 whitetails.    That success — driven mostly by folks shooting crossbows and compound bows, along with a smattering of “stick-bow” traditionalists toting recurves and longbows — ended a three-year slide in bow-kills from 2021 through 2023. In 2020, when participation increased during th

Wisconsin’s bear hunters bagged 3,724 bruins during the 35-day season, a 16% decline from 4,432 in 2024, according to preliminary data from by the Department of Natural Resources.    Though the overall kill also fell 8.6% short of the DNR’s 4,075-bear harvest target for this year’s season, it was within 2.6% of the 5-year average of 3,824 registered during the 2021 through 2025 seasons.    The DNR issued 13,110 bear tags this year, and hunters recorded a 28% overall success r

While rearranging tools and lawn-care gear in our backyard shed last week, I paused to inspect the duck and goose decoys stacked high and wide along the shed’s south wall.    My hand-crafted decoys aren’t works of art, and I doubt they’d sell for much if dumped at a garage sale. Still, I built 99% of them back in the early 1980s, a time when I counted down the days till duck season with the same zeal I still have for deer season.    Back then, I considered myself an aspiring

Lawmakers have ignored their many harms to Wisconsin’s deer herd since slashing funds to manage chronic wasting disease in 2007, outlawing earn-a-buck rules in 2011, ending in-person deer registration in 2016, and eliminating mandatory carcass tags in 2017.    Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised the Department of Natural Resources failed to manage  deer numbers or slow CWD’s spread with recreational hunting the past 20 years. CWD has now been found in wild deer in 59 of Wisc

Like most hunters, I’ve walked countless miles in darkness before dawn and after dusk.    As those walks eased with headlamps, GPS units,...

Only two of Wisconsin’s nearly 19 boating-related deaths each year happen between October and December, but that doesn’t mean autumn is a...

Whether a bald eagle tears a wriggling fish from an osprey’s talons or an American marten steals elk meat from your cached game bag,...

What do you say to convince yourself to stick with a treestand where you haven’t seen an elk after 11 hunts totaling 50 hours the past 5½...

Given the minuscule mechanical expertise one gains from a journalism degree, I didn’t recognize my truck’s death knell when its engine...

If you spotted an old recurve bow with a twisted limb in your father’s closet, you might think he'd be lucky to sell it for $5 at a...

American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “If a single man plants himself on his convictions and then abides, the huge world will...

The little city of Eveleth, Minnesota, is 65 miles north of Duluth, and it’s home to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.    It’s also just west...

My nine grandchildren have no idea how lucky they are to have never fished with me when I was raising their mothers Leah, Elle and Karsyn...

You name the critter, and Mark Naniot has probably uncorked a can, jar, cup or bottle from its head during his nearly 40-year career as...

Those of us who scouted for deer in the 1980s sometimes rigged strings across game trails so an animal’s hoof or lower leg tripped a...

KETCHIKAN, Alaska — You know you’re meeting catch-and-eat fishermen when their airline baggage includes a bundle of flattened cardboard...

Even the most casual upland-bird hunters figure out where to focus their efforts when reviewing DNR surveys on Wisconsin’s springtime...

If Doug Duren placed historical markers on his family’s Richland County farm, one would mark the car crash that killed his brother Matt...

No one steps into a boat, kayak or canoe expecting to drown.    Likewise, no one saddles up an ATV or snowmobile, or climbs into a side-by-side utility vehicle expecting to bash a tree or roll into oblivion on the first corner.    And yet ATV, UTV, boating and snowmobiling accidents combined to kill an average of 68.4 people annually the past five years in Wisconsin. That’s a 20.4% increase from 2015-2019, according to records kept by the Department of Natural Resources.    B