WWW Chicago outdoors: Perfect

The weather looks so nearly perfect that I am not sure that anything matters other than getting outside; and here’s some help in doing that this Wild Weekend Wandering around Chicago outdoors.

Now, that’s a video that could make a person seasick.

LAKEFRONT ALERT: If planning anything near downtown on Sunday, be warned that the Chicago Marathon is being run. it is the biggest event in Chicago each fall and will draw some 37,000 runners and a million plus spectators.

YOUTH HUNTING: Both the youth deer hunt in Illinois and the youth waterfowl hunt (north zone) are this weekend. Weather is almost too nice for both of them. But good weather may help keep young hunters gongho about being in Illinois outdoors.

SALMON OPEN HOUSE: This is something I have meant to do for years. It just sounds neat. On Saturday, the Wisconsin DNR holds its Salmon Spectacular open house at the Root River Steelhead Facility from 9 a.m.-3 p.m.. Click here.

SHORELINE AND STREAMS SALMON: Fishermen keep sending photos of big salmon, caught all along the Chicago lakefront, as the big event in Chicago fishing keeps going. It’s not quite as good as the last couple weeks, but there are big fish being taken. Even better than the Chicago harbors may be the streams of Northwest Indiana, where kings are king but there’s also coho and a few steelhead mixed in.

WADING/FLOATING FOR SMALLMOUTH: Rivers are dropping back toward very low fall levels. It should be the last great weekend for wading until next spring, would be my guess, on the Des Plaines, DuPage, Fox and Kankakee.

BOWHUNTING: This will be the second weekend of bowhunting for deer and turkey in Illinois (and Indiana). It may be almost too nice. And I doubt that it can come anywhere near opening weekend in Illinois when bowhunters reported more than 5,000 deer bagged.

SALMON SNAGGING: Snagging for chinook and coho is open on the Illinois lakefront at four locations only: Lincoln Park Lagoon south of Fullerton Avenue, Waukegan Harbor (North Harbor Basin only); Winnetka Power Plant discharge area and Jackson Park Harbor (inner and outer harbors). No snagging is allowed at any time within 200 feet of a moored watercraft or as posted. I suspect the snagging will be outstanding. There are a lot of fish in the harbors.

ARCHERY: Archery Bow Range Chicago offers instruction.

PERSONAL PICKS: I am covering the Chicago Marathon for the Sun-Times this weekend, that has pretty much been my focus all week. . . . On Saturday, I will have a small break and I hope to get out for our weekend hike. It has become a family tradition, especially favored when we include Storm, the family’s mixed Lab meathead. . . . Work continues on an ongoing writing project. . . . As always, a fair amount of my spare time is spent working on “Outside,” the radio show Joel Greenberg and I are doing at 4:30 p.m. Mondays on WKCC-FM (91.1).