Really? Lingcod? King, woodpecker & Smokey the Bear: Chicago outdoors

Notes from around Chicago outdoors.

FIELD NOTES

WILD OF THE WEEK

Elizabeth Pector worked a long time for the photo above of a well-framed redheaded woodpecker July 24 at St. James Farm in Warrenville.

Wild of the Week, a celebration of wild scenes around Chicago outdoors, runs as warranted on Sundays on the Sun-Times outdoors page. Send nominations by Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or email (straycasts@sbcglobal.net).

DALE’S MAILBAG

Q: My nephew lives in Austria in a tiny town near Linz, near the Czech, German and Austrian borders. The other day, he went fishing and caught a big fish. I don’t know what kind of fish it is. — Richard Tupper

A: Former Shedd researcher Solomon David and his scientific friends quickly tweeted back that it was a lingcod, the oddest fish I’ve been asked about.

BIG NUMBER

41.48

Pounds of a Chinook salmon caught Tuesday on Great Lakes Guide Service out of Muskegon, Michigan.

LAST WORD

‘‘For a hundred years, we’ve been very good at suppressing them. And now we’re reaping that fiery maelstrom. We have fires now we can’t stop. And they’re going to continue to burn until the landscape is so scarred and so broken up, there isn’t going to be a whole lot left to burn.’’

— William Armstrong, then a U.S. Forest Service fire manager, in a 2012 NPR story about wildfires. Those are words to remember as the propagandist of fire suppression, Smokey Bear, had its 73rd anniversary Wednesday.

WILD TIMES

ILLINOIS PERMITS/SEASONS

Through Aug. 21: Applications for second lottery, fall wild turkey shotgun season, dnr.illinois.gov/hunting/Pages/TurkeyHunting.aspx

Through Aug. 25: First-come, first served, free online dove permits, dnr.illinois.gov/hunting/dove/Pages/OnlinePermitApplication.aspx

Through Aug. 31: Applications for free upland-game permits, click here for info

HUNTER SAFETY

(Click here for full package of northeast Illinois hunter safety classes)

Sept. 7 and 9: Newark, (815) 210-4995

Sept. 9-10: Kankakee, (815) 935-2700

Sept. 16-17: Kankakee, (815) 935-2704 . . . Momence, (815) 388-3853

WINGSHOOTING CLINIC

Saturday-Sunday:Shabbona Lake State Park, (815) 758-2773

NATIONAL WILD TURKEY FEDERATION

(Click here for general list of banquets and events)

DUCKS UNLIMITED

(Click here for the general list of Illinois DU events)

PHEASANTS FOREVER

(Click here for general list of Illinois PF events)