Notes come from all around Chicago outdoors.
MUSHROOM OF THE WEEK
Ray Ramsey emailed about the family hunting morels earlier this month at Kankakee River State Park. Four of them searched for two hours. “My wife found the only one we have ever found, only a foot off the dirt path,” he emailed. Then he added (maybe this should be Wild of the Week, too.), “Then [last] Friday we went over to the preserves in Willowbrook to hike after the flooding, and found this big garter snake sunning himself.” That’s getting it done all around.
MOTW, the celebration of mushrooms around Chicago outdoors, runs as apt in the special two-page outdoors section in the Sun-Times Sports Saturday. Submit nominations by message on Facebook (Dale Bowman), on Twitter (@BowmanOutside) and Instagram (@BowmanOutside) or email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com).
WILD TIMES
HALL OF FAME
July 8: Deadline to submit nominations for the 2020 class of the Illinois Outdoor Hall of Fame, call (217) 785-2003 or go to ilconservation.org.
ILLINOIS PERMITS/SEASONS
Through June 15: Perch fishing on Lake Michigan closed.
Through June 30: Second lottery, Illinois firearm/muzzleloader deer permit applications
DALE’S MAILBAG
“Hagen’s will not take outside fish to smoke this year due to COVID-19. Is there any other place you know of here?” Capt. Scott Wolfe
A: “Until further notice,” Hagen’s Fish Market on the Northwest Side is only doing their own fish. An alternative recommended first by Arden Katz is Fish Time, 703 Devon Ave, Park Ridge. Their phone is (224) 585-6144.
BIG NUMBER
48: Pounds of Illinois’ oldest hook-and-line fish record, a buffalo caught in 1936 from the Mississippi River in Adams County by C.B. Merritt.
LAST WORD
“Sorry to see this month end. It’s what I wait for all winter. Any month that begins with turkeys and morels, finishes with largemouth bass on topwaters and has bluegills, smallmouth bass and brook trout in between should be longer.”
Pete Lamar, describing May
