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When it comes to safeguarding valuable and sensitive lands, shorelines generally top the list.  And shorelines are a high priority for the Northwoods Land Trust, dedicated to permanently conserving natural parcels of land in Vilas, Oneida, Forest, Florence, Iron, Price and Langlade counties. Last July, the land trust reached a milestone with its 100th conservation easement.…

Please feel free to share this post with your personal and professional networks, and to subscribe to my blog. A highlight of my year on the lake is watching the ice form, a process that generally covers a few weeks from mid-November into early December. It takes quite a few days to make a complete…

You are welcome to share this post with your personal and professional networks, and I invite you to subscribe to this blog.  As a kid I had a frog lure that I inherited from my grandfather. I included a story about it in my newest book, You Shoulda Been Here Last Week (Cornerstone Press). It…

On a late-summr evening I hooked and landed a smallmouth bass on Birch Lake, where I live. It was only an 8-incher, but it was significant because I caught it using a fly rod and a bass bug. And I owe this event largely to my 13-year-old grandson, Tucker Kulow, of Plymouth. I’d neglected my…

Please feel free to share this post with your friends and personal networks and to subscribe to this blog. Many people write about the outdoors. Some can make readers feel like we’re actually out there, on the lake, in the woods, wearing the boots or snowshoes. Far fewer also help us appreciate the why of…

Please feel free to share this post within your personal and professional networks and to subdscribe to this blog (it’s free!). I grew up in a small town on Lake Michigan and saw firsthand the proliferation of zebra mussels there. They encrusted hard surfaces and clogged water utility intake pipes. Their shells built up in…

When the ice leaves the lake, winter is over. And here on Birch Lake, winter ended on April 15. This year the ice on our lake reached 26 to 28 inches thick, and the mostly cold weather through the end of March and the first weeks of April made me think ice-out would be much …

The Lake Steward program established in Minnesota is coming to Wisconsin! I gave a presentation about it with Lily Carr of Minnesota Lakes and Rivers Advocates during the Wisconsin Lakes and Rivers Convention in Steven Point on March 27. Lake Steward uses positive recognition and neighbor-to-neighbor interaction to encourage lake property owners to install or…

The Wisconsin Lakes and Rivers Convention is a great place to learn about our state’s waters, network with other lake lovers, and get a dose of springtime. I’ll be at the convention all three days (Wednesday through Friday, March 26-28). On Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. I will be part of an author Meet and…

As I sit on a red cooler working a waxworm on a jig sixteen feet below the Birch Lake ice, I hear a piercing scream from somewhere high in a tree along my shoreline. Of course it’s a bald eagle, and I wonder what he or she is doing still here in the middle of winter,…