Roger's Outdoor Notes

OUTDOOR NEWS:   THE FRIENDS OF THE BRANCH RIVER will be meeting on April 3, 2017 at the Taus Town Hall at 6:30 pm. Guest Speaker will be Tim Lukasek who will be speaking about their scholarship/restricted children’s scholarship funds. The group will also be talking about plans for tree planting, needing volunteers for the up-coming brat fry, setting a date for their summer family event, plans for bridge crossing clean-ups and also some potential dates to collect crawfish from the river. They are also planning a run/walk to be held the first Saturday in October. So if you have a family or not, this is one group of hard working people in Manitowoc County and they are the Friends of Branch River. Please, join this family group of very hard workers and remember to bring your children if you have them as they plan just about everything around the children to get them involved in nature. At the meetings they have something for all ages of children to do while the meeting is going on. If you would like more information on this wonderful group, please contact their secretary Emily Endter at 920-323-3486 or email at  emilyendter@yahoo.com.

NSSF praised the bipartisan introduction of S. 593, the TARGET and MARKSMANSHIP TRAINING SUPPORT AID of 2017 in the U S Senate, sponsored by Senators Capito (R-W.V), Sen. Bennet (D-Colo), Sen. Boozman (R-La), Sen. Heitkamp (D-N.D.).  This legislation would provide state fish & game agencies more flexibility to use Pittman-Robinson excise taxes dollars raised from the sale of firearms and ammunition to enhance existing public shooting ranges and to build new ones to meet the growing need for additional places for target shooters to participate in their sport. Public shooting ranges afford hunters with a place to shoot and sight-in their firearms for hunting seasons. Also allows Hunter Education instructors places to train the students and a place for recreational target shooters a place to shoot and enjoy their sport.

ATTENTION ALL DEER HUNTERS, The next meeting of the CDAC committee will be meeting this coming Monday at 6pm at the Viking Bow and Gun Club. This is the time and place to let your voices be heard about the up-coming deer season. Each committee will review key deer metrics in order to develop preliminary antlerless harvest goals and antlerless tag recommendations within our county for the 2017 deer hunting season. All CDAC meetings are open to the Public.

Also coming up this week are public hearing through-out Wisconsin regarding the fall waterfowl hunting season structure. The public input process for establishing waterfowl hunting seasons is slightly different from previous years, which will allow hunters to know waterfowl hunting season dates by late April, rather than late August as in past years.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS:  April 10^th is our Annual County DNR Spring Hearings and Wisconsin Conservation Congress Meetings at the U W Campus in Manitowoc. Hearings start at 7 PM and if you want to know more about the hearings, go to the  dnr.wi.gov and search “Spring Hearings” to see what questions are going to be asked.