Chicago Sun-Times

Patience, practice keys for bowhunters

Sun, 29 Sep 2013 02:38:08 -0500

The question I put to Fred Lutger was about the biggest mistake new bowhunters make. His answer applied more broadly. ‘‘As far as hunting, not being patient,’’ he said. ‘‘That goes for new hunters and older hunters themselves. You picked a spot because deer are there. Wait them out. Don’t get out and push them around. Have the patience to wait them out.’’ Ouch. I am only a gun hunter and have made that mistake for decades, be it for deer, turkey or squirrels. Bowhunting for deer begins Tuesday in Illinois. It is the most involving form of hunting in …

Brookfield man lands first alligator gar in Illinois since 1966

Tue, 24 Sep 2013 21:18:05 -0500

For an alligator gar, 28 inches is tiny. But for Olaf Nelson of Brookfield, finding and catching the first alligator gar in Illinois since 1966 was huge. Nelson, along with Bill ‘‘Garman’’ Meyer, the south suburban man of garfishing.com notoriety, and Ben Cantrell, a native fish enthusiast from the Peoria area, went searching for alligator gar at an Illinois River backwater Aug. 31. ‘‘We knew they were there,’’ Nelson said. ‘‘That was our only goal.’’ Alligator gar were declared extinct in Illinois in 1994. In The Fishes of Illinois, Philip W. Smith says they were ‘‘apparently always rare in Illinois.’’ …

Lake Vermilion offers much more than your average fishing destination

Sun, 22 Sep 2013 02:41:16 -0500

COOK, Minn. — A bald eagle coasted over as Steve ‘‘Big Tuna’’ Statland and I motored slowly out of Spring Bay on Sept. 14 on Lake Vermilion. A few minutes later, a loon with two young floated off the boat before we made our first cast. Vermilion holds the stuff of dreams. I had wanted to fish Vermilion for years and finally was able to do so for a week as part of the five-team, 30-man contingent the Chicagoland Muskie Hunters chapter of Muskies Inc. sent to the Gil Hamm Memorial Chapter Challunge. Dreams? I give you Glenn Jaros. The …

Even running is going to dogs

Sun, 29 Sep 2013 00:02:00 -0500

The most layabout mutt is a better-built endurance athlete than the most finely tuned distance runner. ‘‘With the proper training, a dog in every case will be able to outperform any human,’’ said Dr. Brian Zanghi, a research nutritionist at Nestlé Purina Pet Care. Even so, there’s a method to running right by your dog. Taking your house dog along on the final buildup for the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 13 probably should wait until next year. Otherwise, Zanghi had good ideas for combining the good of an active lifestyle for human and dog. While there are similarities between humans …

Pre-tournament fishing outing a net loss, even with good muskie

Tue, 17 Sep 2013 20:53:47 -0500

COOK, Minn. — As muskies go on Lake Vermilion, a 37-incher is nothing much. Unless it comes with a story. What is life well-lived without a fish story, especially one that includes a camera and a Beckman net sinking into the deep? I thought the oddest thing on this trip came on the drive north with Steve ‘‘Big Tuna’’ Statland. As we rolled Saturday through Superior, Wis., I noticed a shop selling ‘‘Wild Rice, Lobster Tails, Fireworks.’’ That sounded like a party. We are on the Grumpy Old Men team, part of a five-team, 30-man contingent gone north from the …

A romantic, a boat and the perfect proposal

Sun, 15 Sep 2013 02:37:37 -0500

Guys like Capt. Rob Newsome make it tough on the rest of the male gender. He’s a well-built, good-looking guy; even more, he has a romantic heart fit for a sonnet. I’m talking a marriage proposal down on a knee in an impossibly perfect setting. Let me digress. For many summers, staff at the Chicago-based National Marine Manufacturers Association have taken me on a boating outing to hear the latest on boating trends and hype. It has become a comfortable part of the summer. Well, after several weather-related delays, we finally got out after Labor Day. It was four of …

Wheelchair field filled with intrigue

Thu, 12 Sep 2013 00:21:53 -0500

Paths change with spinal injuries. Then again, sometimes paths twist around afterward. Take Bob Swanson, who had athletic connections to Adam Finney and Geoff Kent before a snowmobile accident changed his direction. Swanson will race his first Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Oct. 13 as part of the largest wheelchair field ever with 69 entrants. Plus, it will be a historic race in other ways. Tatyana McFadden, a three-time champion in Chicago, is trying to become the first to win three consecutive marathons. She has already won the Boston and London marathons. ‘‘It is going to be tough, there’s …

How great thy art

Tue, 10 Sep 2013 21:04:54 -0500

F ish silhouettes are interspersed with the drawings Larry Green made of his arm during hours of dialysis. The sketch books are not ghoulish, just a fascinating juxtaposition. They mirror the complexity of Green himself. Or humans in general. This weekend I spent time with Green while he manned a booth of his art (drawing, paintings, photography, book) at the Ultimate Outdoor Show along the Kankakee River, a connection to his kidney transplant. When Green found out he needed a kidney, there was a five-to-seven year wait in Illinois. To be proactive, he went on craigslist. Eventually a woman had …

Chicago Half Marathon: Irishman, Roselle woman tops in South Side race

Sun, 08 Sep 2013 23:47:04 -0500

A local flavor hung with the humidity Sunday morning for the 17th annual Chicago Half Marathon on the South Side. Thomas Frazer, 31, an Irishman transplanted to Lake Forest, repeated as the men’s champion, while Lindsay Flanagan, 22, of Roselle, made her first half marathon a notable one by winning the women’s side. Frazer’s finish in 1 hour, 7 minutes, 22 seconds was 10 seconds slower than last year. “But we have to adjust for the conditions,’’ he said. “What do you expect when you run in near 90 percent humidity. That is not optimum conditions.’’ But Frazer is familiar. …

A rescue that works out owl right

Sun, 08 Sep 2013 02:42:52 -0500

Great horned owls are tuft guys with a soft heart. There’s a fierceness in their faces, between the yellow eyes and the earlike tufts, yet a vulnerability, too. The vulnerability is accented when the nocturnal bird is seen in daylight. At night, their hoots are haunting. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology at allaboutbirds.org describes their call as ‘‘a deep, stuttering series of four to five hoots.’’ All I know is I pull sharply awake when I hear their hoots at night. It happened again about 3 a.m. Thursday. The hoots coming from down the street were eerie enough that even …

Blancarte’s loss is a win

Fri, 06 Sep 2013 02:28:04 -0500

Change came in a big way for Miguel Blancarte Jr. And the 26-year-old from Little Village is running with it. On Sunday, he’ll run his second half-marathon. Thousands of others will also run the 17th annual Chicago Half Marathon and the Hyundai Hope On Wheels 5K on the South Side. The difference with Blancarte is about 196 pounds. In January 2012, he weighed 344. Since then, he joined a gym and changed his life. By October, he began running. He ran his first 5K in November. He ran his first half-marathon this summer. Then he did the Chicago Triathlon. It …

American idyll: Town pond provides perfect endingto another summer

Wed, 04 Sep 2013 14:47:37 -0500

Annual cicadas raised a racket Sunday at sunset as I cast my way around the town pond. Everybody should have that local spot to fish for a half-hour or an hour to clear their heads. The town pond is mine. It’s where I can think the colloquial dog-day cicadas seem more apt and descriptive. With a couple of hours before the cold front arrived, I was determined to catch a largemouth bass on my favorite topwater, a Skitter Pop. A few fish surfaced, not as many as I had hoped. The guys in two johnboats puttering back toward the launch …

One big mess and one big cleanup for IDNR this summer

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 02:40:28 -0500

Two actions this summer make Labor Day weekend a good time to reflect on the job done by Marc Miller, director of the Illinois Department of Nature Resources. The implementation of the Water Usage Stamp, which began July 1, was a mess, while the signing of SB1042 (recreation liability bill) by Gov. Pat Quinn is a major plus. The WUS is a minor piece of the DNR Sustainability package, which may be the best legacy of Miller and Quinn. But implementation of the WUS, beginning to end, makes me wonder how connected the department is to a key constituency and …

Dove season just around the corner

Tue, 27 Aug 2013 21:35:24 -0500

I put grilled dove breasts, wrapped in bacon with twin slivers of jalapenos, with quail and deer backstraps as the best eating of our local game. Some things don’t change. When it comes to doves, some things do change. Dove hunting opens Sunday in Illinois and many other states. First, Eurasian collared-doves have become common enough that knowing the regulations is important. There is no bag limit on Eurasian collared-doves or ringed turtle doves, but they only may be hunted during the dove season in legal hours and hunters may not continue to hunt if they have filled their daily …

Matt Mullady planning outdoor show on banks of Kankakee River

Sat, 24 Aug 2013 01:16:41 -0500

KANKAKEE — When an osprey comes hunting the same water you are setting up to fish, you have an inkling it is the right spot. That’s what happened earlier this month, shortly after veteran Kankakee River guide Matt Mullady launched me and his son Mick out of Bird Park near the Route 17 bridge. The osprey splashed down and captured a fish in riffles at the end of a break. It was quite the show. Then it flew past us with a fish in its talons. ‘‘Notice they carry the fish aerodynamically,’’ Mullady said. ‘‘Eagles are stupid. They carry the …

BOWMAN: A week of outdoor oddities

Sun, 22 Sep 2013 06:37:19 -0500

A wild week in Chicago outdoors began with a snake and a tropical fish Thursday. As a bonus, tack on an eel caught Saturday from the Kankakee River. A big snake climbing the door of his apartment building on West Huron naturally caught Dan Kobel’s eye Thursday. Just as naturally, he wondered what it was. ‘‘It didn’t seem to be eating, but it did appear to have recently shed its skin,’’ he emailed. ‘‘I haven’t seen a snake since my Little League days, so it was really cool to watch this snake hang around my stoop.’’ My snake guy, Don …

If adults show willingness to perform outdoor activities, kids likely will follow suit

Thu, 19 Sep 2013 09:45:58 -0500

Our two youngest kids found a sand sculpture of a turtle at the tail end of a sandbar last month after waters finally had receded enough to allow for wading in the Kankakee River. The designer crafted the turtle, more the whopping size of a sea turtle than even our biggest snapper, down to the lines on the shell. It was spectacular, a wild moment for the summer. The hubbub about getting kids outside long has irked me because it is an adult issue being treated as a kid one. One thing I know is if adults are willing to …

Ben Collins has home-course advantage in triathlon

Sat, 24 Aug 2013 22:22:33 -0500

Ben Collins is a little different. Not many elite triathletes or runners have made Chicago their home. Colorado is preferred, and Collins did his stint there. But last summer, days before the Life Time Tri Chicago, Collins moved to the city with his girlfriend, who was pursuing medical studies at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park. Collins now is working on an MBA there. ‘‘I am really excited to race at a hometown race; Chicago is my home,’’ Collins said last week. ‘‘I didn’t just move here for the short term. I grew accustomed to living here.’’ That hometown …