At 11 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, Oct. 21 — a day of prayer — Jeff Henry’s day was taken prey.

PEPIN — Approaching a familiar spot, Earl Black instinctively waved his right hand to signal an abrupt halt. 

Twelve hours out of Eau Claire, I was pointed southeast in my Honda hybrid. 

KNAPP — Zach Mohr’s involvement with improving trout streams started when he was 12 or 13 and he happened upon a state Department of Natural Resources fish habitat crew and Trout Unlimited volunteers working on the banks of Elk Creek.

I’m going to admit this publicly. I recently did something stupid.

STANLEY — The mowed path led through a small meadow, with goldenrods and the usual late summer flowers blooming, then into the woods where it became a narrow, slightly hilly earthen path.

FALL CREEK — For Dan and Jane Brown, the discovery of a deer that tested positive for chronic wasting disease in Eau Claire County this spring was a call to action.

The Pacific Crest Trail is a 2,650-mile-long thin ribbon through the wilderness of California, Oregon and Washington that runs from Mexico to Canada. 

CHIPPEWA FALLS — A melancholy Patsy Cline tune played softly on the radio while in a side room Bob Bernier looked over three fishing rods spinning slowly on an electric rotator/​dryer so the varnish on them dried evenly.

What: Welcome Back Bird Day. 

Until 2014, Wisconsin bow hunters could only use crossbows during hunting season if they were 65 or older, or if they had a note from the doctor indicating they could not draw a bow.

Of all the things that make birds so amazing, the most remarkable is their mastery of the air. 

Speakers at Eau Claire’s first Aldo Leopold banquets years ago were frequently interrupted by rumbling overhead.

RICE LAKE — Though it’s a silent sport, cross-country skiing needs the whirring of whining of engines to keep skiers in stride.

The inspiration for his work comes naturally for wildlife artist Connor Severson.

KNAPP — Wood smoke drifted in the air while an 8-foot-high bonfire crackled as branches and logs were added. 

While driving the interstate during the holidays, I spotted a strange white blob atop a road sign. 

MADISON, Minn. — I have come west again, to kill a pheasant. Maybe several pheasants, should our fortune be so good.

SPOONER — Tall golden grasses poked through the deep crusted snow, bobbing in the gentle-yet-biting wind. 

SPOONER — The Dead of Winter is upon us, even though officially, winter has just begun. 

Carl Kringle is comfortable shooting his .44 Magnum handgun at 35 to 50 yards. 

By its plumage, each wild bird is named.

RICE LAKE — The old deer hunter met his goal on the opening morning of the gun deer hunt. And though he’s 82 years old, it wasn’t simply to just go out in the woods.

The first sentence in a recent email message to the Leader-Telegram read “Now I truly understand your newspaper spreads terrible lies.” 

CODY, Wyo. — A thin covering of snow had settled over the Wyoming landscape as our hunting group worked up the river bottom trail shortly after sunrise.

HAYWARD — Friday the 13th sends chills up the back of the superstitious, but for one 47-inch muskie in Lost Land Lake on that date last month, that day was one of liberation, a day to flap its untethered tail.

So, you don’t believe that the Earth’s climate is changing as a direct result of human activity, even as scientists around this sweaty planet provide proof after proof?

The furnace clicked on for the first time the other morning as I prepared to take our dogs Gus and Hannah out for their morning walk — a walk that during the past couple of weeks has gotten darker and darker as nightfall seems to hang on longer.

RICE LAKE — A calm, textbook reaction and a 40-ounce stainless steel water bottle finally ended a bizarre encounter between hikers and a bear last month on Barron County Forest land east of Rice Lake.