• Bob Schuh recounts a turkey hunt with his brother, Rick, in which he bagged a bearded hen.
• The DNR captured, tagged, and measured sturgeon at the Shawano dam, drawing a crowd.
• The DNR has launched the Wisconsin Fishing Finder, a new online resource for anglers.
• Woodland Dunes Nature Center will host a “Raising a Wild Child” event focused on salamanders.

My turkey season started out with lots of action in our woods near Menchalville.

My brother, Rick Schuh, picked me up around 4:30 a.m. on day one of the second season. We set up in the same blind as Rick did the week before when he shot that huge turkey in last week’s column.

We were concentrating on toms to the west that were gobbling like crazy at first light. There were also toms to the north of us gobbling, too, but they were north of the creek.

We heard the toms to the west of us fly down, and the gobbling continued at a frantic pace.

All at once, there were birds gobbling to our backs in the field. Rick got me swung around, and we waited for them to come into range.

They were going up the edge of the woods about 35 yards out and heading south. Rick whispered that we were going to take the shot because if we waited, they would start putting more distance between us.

Rick lined me up and, at the shot, the tom jumped up and flew about 15 feet, landed and immediately went back into strut.

Rick saw a couple of feathers come off the neck, but apparently I never hit any bone or tissue. Those toms made their way to the hens and were now out of range.

In a few minutes, Rick told me the hens were coming up the edge of the woods toward us and would maybe bring the toms with them. Rick then noticed one of the hens had a beard and asked me if I wanted her. I had never shot a bearded hen, so I said yes.

Rick lined me up again, and at the shot, he said, “You got this one.”

The bearded hen had a 7-inch beard but was very thin.

Even with me shooting twice, the toms in the woods were still gobbling hard. I shot the bearded hen out of the same shooting window as Rick shot his tom the week before.

Sturgeon draw crowd at Shawano dam

Last Saturday, Ken and Patty Marsicek picked up Mary and me, and we headed for the Shawano dam to watch the sturgeon.

We got lucky. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources personnel were capturing them, scanning for micro tags, measuring length and returning them to the Wolf River.

Lots of folks were watching, and the kids liked seeing the sturgeon going down the plastic slide as they went back into the river.

Lake sturgeon can live to more than 100 years and grow to more than 200 pounds. Male sturgeon first spawn at 15 years old and then spawn every other year. Female sturgeon first spawn at 25 years of age, then spawn every five years, and grow much larger than the males.

According to the pamphlet the DNR was handing out, a 66-pound female will have 400,000 eggs in her, a 110-pound sturgeon will have 800,000 eggs in her and a 176-pound sturgeon will hold 1.3 million eggs.

DNR launches Wisconsin Fishing Finder

The DNR announced the launch of its new Wisconsin Fishing Finder, a comprehensive online fishing resource for anglers.

Wisconsin has lots of great places to fish, including more than 15,000 inland lakes, 42,000 miles of perennial streams and rivers, 1,000 miles of Great Lakes shoreline, and 260 miles of the Mississippi River.

With so many places from which to choose, finding the place you want to fish is a little like finding a needle in a haystack.

The Wisconsin Fishing Finder is here to help anglers find the fishing spot they are looking for. It works using any internet browser to give anglers access to various fishing information, including the following:

• Fishing regulations (including bag and length limits) for lakes and trout streams;
• Boat launch locations and access points;
• Shore fishing locations;
• Public lands and easements;
• Healthy guidelines for eating fish;
• Lake habitat information;
• Habitat improvement projects;
• Invasive species;
• Fish stocking information; and
• DNR service center locations and where you can buy a fishing license.

“We’ve created this tool to help anglers find new places to fish or get insights into their current favorite fishing spots,” said Justine Hasz, DNR Fisheries Management Bureau director in a news release. “This is an easy-to-use resource that we hope will become a staple for all anglers looking to discover more about Wisconsin’s fishing opportunities.”

The information on the DNR’s TROUT tool, including trout streams, regulations and easements, is now available on the Wisconsin Fishing Finder.

The DNR urges any anglers using TROUT to transfer their bookmarks and saved locations to the Wisconsin Fishing Finder, as the TROUT tool will be turned off at the end of May.

Learn more about the Wisconsin Fishing Finder online.

Raising a Wild Child to focus on salamanders

Woodland Dunes Nature Center and Preserve in Two Rivers will present Raising a Wild Child – Salamanders May 8.

Session one will run 9-10:15 a.m. and session two will run 10:45 a.m.-noon.

Cost is $2 per child for members or $3 per child for non-members. The program is geared toward children ages 2-5 and all children must be accompanied by an adult.

Attendees are advised to dress for the weather as a majority of the program takes place outdoors.

Registration is required by the Monday before the session and space is limited. To register, email Jess at jessicaj@woodlanddunes.org or call 920-793-4007.

That’s it for this week, so have fun in the great outdoors.