Kickass and Hooked-up Dogs

Attribution: Hhoefling, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, is on another recycled, long-ago grouse hunt with the keeper, this one up in the northwest where the keeper and the other hunters, all carrying shotguns, stood in the farmyard with their new farmer friend who planned to join the hunt.  The …
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Kickass and Grouse Hunting

Attribution: Henry Thomas Alken , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper using this bright Oct. 18, 2024, to jerk his memory machinery back 50 years or so to the days when he and John Lawton wallowed in the glory years of ruffed grouse populations across the state. …
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Kickass and Hunting

Attribution: Photo by Daniel J. Schwarz on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper accepts his “predator” identification and recalls how he enjoyed exercising it over decades of hunting birds and animals, especially at this time of year when he wallowed in the beautiful transition of the seasons with weapon in hand and …
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Kickass and the Crane Hunt

Attribution: Kyletracysrs, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, says the keeper notes yet another push for a Wisconsin hunting season on sandhill cranes.  As reported by Henry Redman in the “Wisconsin Examiner” the crane hunt is being touted as relief for farmers who claim losses of $900,000 from cranes …
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Kickass and Bear Hounds

Attribution: kikiciao, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in his periodic rant about Wisconsin being the ONLY state where the outrageous summer bear hound training is not only allowed but promoted to attract bear hounders from all over the country who come to Wis. in July …
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Kickass and Bear Hunters

Attribution: kikiciao, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper with the annual reminder that of the many things that set Wisconsin summers apart there is the July 1-Aug. 31 outrageous, inhuman, unbelievable bear hound training program. Thousands of bear hounders from all over the country gang into …
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Kickass on Morel Stand

Photo by Phyllis Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, always ready to assist the keeper in his unfailing efforts to innovate, approves of his adaptation of deer hunting techniques in the seasonal morel mushroom hunt. Hence forth, the keeper will not stumble about the woods wearing his eyes out trying to spot examples …
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Kickass and the Fox Hunts

Attribution: Photo by Amanda Frank on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper recognizes this time of year as the season of the great fox hunts when he and country cousins and comrades in northwest Wisconsin spent Saturday afternoons slogging through deep midwinter snow as they followed the track of a fox that …
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Kickass Joins the Dumb

Attribution: Shakib khan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, hears the keeper’s confession that he recently joined the “dumbest” parade by expressing his opinion of some of Wisconsin’s prevailing political gerrymandered dumbness.  In assessing the way this puts the keeper right in there with the dumbest of the dumb, …
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Unsportsmanlike Conduct

Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Towering White Pines—monarchs of the North. Beautiful cold and crystal-clear lakes. Deep, dark, peaceful woods. Silent, gold-tinged, magenta clouds scattered across the skies at sunset. Wisps of fog rising from the water at dawn. Red-eyed loons rising from the cool depths. These are the Northwoods of Wisconsin, better …
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