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Patrick Durkin

Patrick Durkin
Outdoors writer/editor, weekly columnist for 17 Wisconsin newspapers, regular contributor to American Hunter magazine, and former editor of Deer & Deer Hunting magazine.

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Whitetail Deer

Playgrounds to Ponds: When Deer Die in Strange Places
I’m still waiting for two sticks of summer sausage from a buck that died in my driveway in November 2015. Something tells me the guy down the street forgot all about his promise to bring my reward for finding his bow kill.
Funny thing, gratitude: It’s abundant in the moment but fizzles faster than morning fog. Not only did I find that bow kill on my property, but I also found the bowhunter after backtracking the buck’s blood trail through two...

Wildlife Management

Is Killing More Deer the Answer to Reducing Tick Diseases?
Few flying, creeping, or crawling bugs freak people out more than ticks. These arachnids infect hundreds of thousands of Americans annually with more than 17 different devastating diseases and allergies.
So, wouldn’t it be great if we could shoot our way out of those problems? Whitetails especially are key hosts for several tick species, including Lone Star ticks, dog/wood ticks, and the infamous blacklegged tick, aka the “deer tick.”
Deer ticks...

Public Lands & Waters

Deer Woods Murder: The Day a Trespasser Killed 6 Hunters
Two of eight Wisconsin deer hunters survived a shooting rampage Nov. 21, 2004, for one reason: The enraged killer ran out of ammo after firing his SKS 7.62×39 semiautomatic rifle 22 times.
That man—Chai Soua Vang, 36, of St. Paul, Minnesota, a certified sharpshooter and six-year National Guard veteran—opened fire by first shooting the group’s only armed hunter. He then shot three where they sat or crouched, chased down a father and adult son...

Policy & Legislation

How Hunters Use Venison to Feed the Hungry
Much as the quickest way to a lover’s heart is through their stomach, the surest way to help nonhunters accept hunting is through meat from deer, elk, and other wild game.
Whether it’s Steven Rinella serving venison to a roomful of nonhunting New Yorkers, or a Swedish hunter substituting a moose roast for wine on a Friday dinner date, “venison diplomacy” politely reminds recipients that hunting remains vital to the human experience.
Such are meat...

Whitetail Deer

Do Moon Phases Affect Deer Movement?
If the hunting gods ever created a belief system more indifferent to scientific scorn than the moon’s supposed impact on big-game animals, they’re keeping it to themselves.
Researcher after researcher since the 1970s has failed to document any changes in deer activity during new moons, quarter-moons and full moons. Despite that lack of scientific evidence, most deer and elk hunters staunchly defend a lunar-based belief. In fact, when possible...

Big Game

Are Mule Deer Going Extinct?
Hunters have been watching or reading about the mule deer’s decline for so long that some worry they’ll witness its end.
Writers and speakers often quote Professor Valerius Geist’s opening lines of Chapter 8 in his 1990 book “Mule Deer Country,” where he warned: “For all its current abundance, the mule deer, so different, so uniquely American, so young and promising, is nevertheless a species marked for extinction.”
Geist’s next two sentences...

Freshwater

Long-Drowned: The Men Who Find Corpses Others Couldn’t
People seeking Keith Cormican’s expertise know they’ll never again see their loved one alive. They’ve realized their child, spouse, sibling, or parent has drowned, and that local search-and-rescue teams must abandon the search and return to more pressing duties.
But families need answers, and they want to bury their dead. So they call Cormican, often begging for his help. Lest there be any mistake, Cormican’s boat states his somber mission...

Habitat

Black Market Burl: The Underworld of Illegal Timber Heists
Thievery has its tools of the trade. Muggers wield handguns; burglars, glass-cutters; and cattle rustlers, wire-cutters.
And timber thieves? Chainsaws, of course.
Big-time timber thieves—those who rustle lodgepole pines, or oak or maple saw-logs—also require a serious truck to haul their bounty. It’s not uncommon for unscrupulous loggers to write landowners a check for seven loads of pulpwood when they actually got paid for 10 loads by a mill...

Boating

Confidence Kills: How to Avoid Boat Accidents this Season
Experience alone won’t guarantee hunters and anglers safe passage on troubled waters, no matter how big your boat.
In fact, confidence can kill you.
Consider Ernest McSorley, who was 63 and commanded 10 ships during 40-plus years at sea and on the Great Lakes. And Edward John Smith, who was 62 and commanded ships for 27 of his 40 years at sea.
Both men were well-seasoned mariners who went down with their ships; Captain McSorley while commanding...

Wildlife Management

Isle Royale: Are the $2 Million Wolf Reintroductions Working?
Riddle me this: How can a male wolf be both father and half-brother to a female wolf?
Answer: By breeding their shared mother.
Just such an Oedipal pairing about a decade ago begat what became the lone surviving “native-born” wolf duo on Isle Royale National Park in northwestern Lake Superior. The male and his daughter/half-sister became the last wolves standing on the 9-by-45-mile-long island in 2018, the inbred remnants of a population that...