Manitowoc County Lakes Association will hold its annual banquet Oct. 13 at Larrabee Sportsmans Club, 16306 Harpt Lake Road, Mishicot.

Social hour with cash bar is at 6 p.m. Dinner is at 7 p.m. Guest speaker and program follow dinner.

RSVPs are due by Oct. 6 to Dan Dufek at [email protected] or phone/text 920-860-4933.

Cost is $20 per person with advance registration, payable at the door. Without advance registration, cost is $25 at the door.

Speaker is Eric Olson, director of Extension Lakes. He will discuss “The Wisconsin Lakes Partnership and the Lake Leaders Institute.”

This is the annual meeting of the Lakes Association. It will include election of officers, presentation of the lake stewardship award, a 50/50 raffle and door prizes.

Door prize donations from lakes associations or individuals are welcome. Inform Dan Dufek of door prize commitments by Oct. 6.

The event is organized and hosted by the Manitowoc County Lakes Association and the Larrabee Sportsmans Club.

Read last week’s column:Sixth-grader downs bear with one shot, and more news in Bob Schuh’s Manitowoc outdoors report

Scoping the Great Outdoors: Read on for more outdoors news from throughout Manitowoc County and Wisconsin.

Maribel club trap shoot open to the public Oct. 14

Maribel Sportsman’s Club will hold a trap shoot open to the public Oct. 14. Shooting will be from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m.

Notice to youngsters who took hunter safety this past year: you can redeem your Northeast Wisconsin Youth Shooting Program, Inc., coupons for a free round of trap that day.

Maribel Sportsman’s Club is next to Interstate 43, exit 164, State 147, Maribel.

Wisconsin DNR encourages hunting on public land

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is encouraging the public to explore and hunt on public land this hunting season.

Wisconsin is home to millions of acres of public land, and the majority is open to hunting.

Time spent exploring and hunting these areas alone, or with family and friends, creates memories that last a lifetime, the DNR said.

Hunters can start their quest for new public hunting areas from the comfort of home using the DNR’s online public lands mapping tools. The following tools provide information about state-owned properties, voluntary public access lands and more:

• Public Access Lands Atlas — This atlas includes all DNR properties and nearly all federal and county owned lands. Hunters should contact landowners beforehand to verify hunting is allowed.
• Fields and Forest Lands Interactive Game Bird Hunting Tool (FFLIGHT) — Hunters can use this tool to locate young aspen and alder habitat, woodcock and ruffed grouse hunting areas, pheasant-stocked public hunting grounds and public-access dove fields.
• Voluntary Public Access-Habitat Incentive Program (VPA-HIP) interactive map — Funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the VPA-HIP map provides landowners with financial incentives to open their properties year-round to public hunting access. Hunters should read the guidelines for accessing VPA properties.
• Map of lands enrolled in Managed Forest Law and Forest Crop Law — This map is especially useful for scouting locations in the central and northern forests. Once hunters have done their preliminary research online, the next step is to scout the habitat and search for wildlife sign. The DNR recommends hunters scout multiple options in case of changing weather conditions or added hunter pressure in an area.

Advisory on baiting and feeding deer

Wisconsin DNR reminds hunters and the public to help prevent the spread of chronic wasting disease by following all baiting and feeding bans and refraining from baiting and feeding in areas where no bans are in effect.

Notably, Manitowoc County itself has a countywide ban on all baiting and feeding of wildlife. This countywide ban overrides DNR ruling, so it is enforced by the county and not the DNR.

CWD is an always-fatal disease that affects the nervous system of deer, elk, moose and caribou caused by a misshapen prion protein. The disease can spread through contact with an infected animal’s saliva, urine or feces. It can also spread indirectly through exposure to a contaminated environment.

CWD prions are extremely resilient, and they can stay in the soil for a long time, making containment of an affected area a challenge.

Baiting is the intentional placement of any material, including food, scented materials, salts, minerals and grains, to attract wild animals for hunting purposes.

Feeding is the deliberate placement of material used to feed or attract wild animals for non-hunting purposes, including recreational and supplemental feeding, except as allowed for birds and small mammals.

Baiting and feeding encourage deer to congregate unnaturally around a specific location, creating an environment where infected deer can quickly spread diseases like CWD through direct contact with healthy deer.

Infected deer can also leave behind infectious CWD prions in their saliva, blood, feces and urine, creating a risk to healthy deer that visit the site in the future.

CWD can spread rapidly when these prions remain in an area where more deer are sure to congregate, such as a feed pile.

To mitigate these risks and slow the spread of CWD, state law directs the DNR to impose baiting and feeding bans within any county with a confirmed CWD-positive deer.

Counties fall under a three-year baiting and feeding ban when a wild or farm-raised deer tests positive for CWD in the county.

If the CWD-positive deer is found within 10 miles of a county line, the adjoining county will fall under a two-year ban.

More Bob Schuh:Click here to read more columns by Bob Schuh

If additional CWD cases are found during the lifetime of a baiting and feeding ban, the ban will reset for an additional two to three years.

Find more information about baiting and feeding regulations and a map of counties with active bans on the DNR’s baiting and feeding regulations webpage.

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

Outdoors columnist Bob Schuh’s “Scoping the Great Outdoors” column appears each Sunday in the Herald Times Reporter. He can be reached at 920-682-3106 or [email protected].