Dale Bowman

A thought on fishing vs. watching the Bears, meeting a big buck at Skokie Lagoons and the jump in sandhill crane numbers at Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area are among the notes from around Chicago outdoors and beyond.

Whether it is regulations on walleye, northern pike or smallmouth bass, or on snagging salmon, there are strongly held convictions on multiple sides of fishing on southern Lake Michigan and the Chicago lakefront.

Okàn Savanna, a rare high-quality black oak savanna, is the newest addition to preserved natural areas in the greater Chicago area.

A musing on fishing the Chicago River compared to northern Wisconsin, an exclamation on "dialectics of despair and joy of fishing in Chicago" and a possible connection between Banksy and graffiti art on Warner Bridge over the Kankakee River are among the notes from around Chicago outdoors and…

Go & Show this week includes the return of The Early Show, the Chicago area's only all-fly-fishing and -tying show, on Sunday, National Bison Day events at Kankakee Sands on Saturday and the annual fall Lake Michigan Fisheries Workshop by the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant on Wednesday.

A push to ban snagging of salmon on the Illinois lakefront was at the forefront of the second night meeting of the Chicago Fishing Advisory Committee.

A chance encounter with ruffed grouse led to my first photographs of a fanning grouse and an opportunity to contemplate personal and grouse history.

From a leucistic sandhill crane to a collared coyote in Lake County to tilapia in Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS) to a dark woolly bear this fall, there are freaks, mysteries and natural oddities to wonder about and enjoy around Chicago outdoors.

Fall trout season in Illinois opening Saturday and the setting up of general fall fishing patterns lead this sprawling raw-file Midwest Fishing Report.

Peeylair Caffie experienced something that is becoming more common, catching a northern pike while salmon fishing on the Chicago lakefront, and he earns Fish of the Week.