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Where Tiffany and Crowley stand on the outdoors
Plus: a record muskie, a winter that looks like the lost one, and an Oct. 31 sturgeon deadline
Forrest Koslowski
October 22, 2026
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Mornin’ to the world’s largest badger in Birnamwood, who just got a fan. Sarah Widder is biking Wisconsin’s state trails, Lake Superior to past Milwaukee, for about three weeks to rally support for the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund. She called the giant badger a favorite stop. Sorry, Lake Superior.
This is the Wiscampsin Weekly, the email that gets you in the know on the Wisconsin outdoors in 5 minutes or less. New reader? Subscribe here.
This week’s weekly:
🦌 Pheasants, elk and a sturgeon deadline
❄️ This winter is shaping up like the lost one
🐟️ A dentist lands Wisconsin’s longest muskie
🗳️ STORY OF THE WEEK: Where Tiffany and Crowley stand on the outdoors
🦌 Pheasants, elk and a sturgeon deadline LINK
Pheasant season opened Saturday and runs through Jan. 3, two roosters a day now. The DNR is stocking about 65,000 birds on 82 properties, but it stops Nov. 19, earlier than usual, to save money. The stocking map shows where.
Elk season opened the same day, Wisconsin’s ninth since elk came back. Just 16 hunters were drawn from more than 34,000 applicants. Next year’s applications open March 1. We applied. We’ve also never won a meat raffle.
Sturgeon spearers, buy your Lake Winnebago license on Go Wild by Oct. 31. That’s the deadline for a season that doesn’t open until Feb. 13.
❄️ This winter is shaping up like the lost one LINK
NOAA’s outlook gives northern Wisconsin a 50 to 60% chance of a warmer than normal winter and a 30 to 40% chance of a drier one. Blame the strong El Niño we flagged in September.
That’s about how the odds looked before 2023-24, the “Lost Winter.” It was Wisconsin’s warmest on record, snowfall came up 20 to 60 inches short, and snowmobile trails never opened. Our sled spent that winter as a shelf.
These are odds, not a promise. The Weather Service says El Niño doesn’t erase the risk of a big storm. The north is also in severe drought, and the outlook sees no relief.
🐟️ A dentist lands Wisconsin’s longest muskie LINK
David Grisar of Saukville boated a 57.5-inch muskie on Green Bay on Oct. 7, trolling a 6-inch perch-colored crankbait. It was the first muskie he ever caught. The DNR certified it as the new state catch-and-release record.
His guide, Capt. Nolan Koepp, is also his patient. Koepp measured it, snapped a few photos and had it swimming away in two minutes. Same as your dentist tells you to brush.
It beats a 57-incher from August 2025. That makes four state muskie records in a row from Green Bay, where Koepp says the big ones are gorging on shad and perch before winter.
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🗳️ STORY OF THE WEEK: Where Tiffany and Crowley stand on the outdoors LINK
Election Day is less than two weeks out, and you’ve seen the ads. Here’s what they skip: where the two candidates for governor stand on hunting, fishing and public land.
Republican Tom Tiffany is a congressman from northern Wisconsin. Democrat David Crowley is the Milwaukee County executive. We’re not telling you how to vote, just where each one stands.
The money. Your hunting and fishing licenses pay for most of the DNR’s fish and wildlife work. That account is about $16 million short. Costs keep rising, fewer people buy licenses, and fees have barely moved since 2005. Two northern fish hatcheries closed this summer. For now, lawmakers cover the gap by shifting money over from the state’s forestry account.
Tiffany wants to audit DNR spending before raising any fees. An audit lawmakers ordered already found the money was spent properly, but his campaign says it was too narrow. Crowley wants a long-term plan “instead of patching it with stopgap transfers budget after budget.” Neither has said whether your license should cost more.
Knowles-Nelson. That’s the state program that buys land for public hunting, fishing and trails. It expired this summer. Both say they’d bring it back. Tiffany wants to take care of “the lands we already own” before buying more. Crowley wants it fully funded and on steadier footing.
Wolves. This is where they agree. Mark your calendar. Both want the gray wolf off the federal endangered list so Wisconsin can manage it, and state law then requires a wolf hunt. Tiffany backs a bill in Congress that would also block court challenges: “It is time to get out-of-state judges and bureaucrats out of the way.” Crowley supports a hunt with “guardrails” and a say for farmers, tribes and scientists. He says Tiffany “is going much further than I would like to go.”
What they’d change at the DNR. Tiffany is open to splitting it in two: one agency for hunting, fishing and wildlife, another for environmental permits. Crowley has focused on something else: pausing new data centers while the DNR studies how they affect water and wildlife.
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Find your polling place at MyVote Wisconsin.
Now get out ’der!
WISCAMPSIN WEEKLY POLL
Last Week's Trivia Check
We asked what happens to a Ruffed Grouse's feet every October. This was a tight race! A leading 41% of you nailed their built-in snowshoes, while 35% bet on bristle feathers for gripping icy branches.
The Correct Answer: They sprout stiff, comb-like scales along their toes to act as natural snowshoes.
The Takeaway: Every fall, grouse grow rows of stiff cartilage fringes along their toes. It doubles the surface area of their feet so they can walk right on top of deep powder, before shedding them again come spring.
This Week's Trivia
Paddle or walk along a quiet Wisconsin creek or flowage right now in late October, and you will see beavers working overtime before ice-up. Since they do not hibernate, they spend autumn jamming hundreds of cut tree branches into the mud outside their lodges to build an underwater winter pantry.
Why do beavers deliberately pile their least-favorite, bitter branches on the very top of their winter food cache?Give it your best gut check: |
Well, how'd we do this week? |
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