Loon on bluegill: Notes on Chicago outdoors

Notes from around Chicago outdoors.

FIELD NOTES

WILD OF THE WEEK

Alan Anderson photographed his first common loon of the spring on the first day of spring at Lake Opeka in Des Plaines. I believe that is a bluegill it is eating.

WILD TIMES

HUNTER SAFETY

April 9-10: Chicago, (630) 479-0708 . . . Beecher, huntedclass@aol.com

April 12, 14, 19, 21: Downers Grove, (630) 963-1300

April 14 & 16: St. Charles, (630) 444-3190

April. 16-17: Morris, (815) 941-3122

April 23-24: Elwood, hunteredsignup@aol.com

DUCKS UNLIMITED

Tuesday: Palos Park Happy Hour Social, free, Fox’s Pizza, Orland Park. Contact Ski Verdun, (630) 878-7778; Joe Enzenberger, (312) 848-4146

NATIONAL WILD TURKEY FEDERATION

Saturday: Will County Cutters banquet, Cardinal Creek Golf Club, Beecher. Contact Troy Claus, blacklab99@comcast.net

FISH GATHERING

Wednesday: Panel–Mike Orawiec, Jason Drewa, Steve Everetts, Dave King, Mike Mulqueen— on early spring fishing in Sturgeon Bay, Walleyes Unlimited, Gurnee American Legion, 7 p.m., walleyesunlimitedusa.org

ILLINOIS SEASONS

Thursday: River otter and beaver trapping ends . . . Conservation order light goose season ends

DALE’S MAILBAG

Email: “Smithsonian.com: The Grand Coulee Powers On, 75 Years After Its First Surge of Electricity. google.com/newsstand/s/CBIwyYKfvCQ.’’ Howard Bass

A: Bass sent along the link to this interesting account/update on the Grand Coulee, one of the greatest man-made structures in the United States, in response to my column last Sunday on dams.

BIG NUMBER

2: National ranking of the West Suburban chapter of Ducks Unlimited in the Chairman’s Elite Chapters for raising at least $1 million for DU projects

LAST WORD

“And [the coho] are really nice fish. They ate this winter. Not sure what they ate, but they ate. These are the fish we usually get at the end of April. They are 35 days ahead of schedule.’’

Rich Sleziak, proprietor of Slez’s Bait in Lake Station, Ind., on the size of the early coho on southern Lake Michigan.