Year in Review: COVID-19 daily-journal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from daily-journal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
burbot, fishing, Chicago Lakefront Beer, Bourbon and Burbot Festival, outdoors
Burbot make an easy pick for Fish of the Year.
Two Illinois records (and near-records) came this fall. More important, burbot put excitement into late-season lakefront fishing.
Last week, Dale Rehus held the first Chicago Lakefront Beer, Bourbon and Burbot Festival with a handful of anglers. A young angler to remember, Jeremy Preucel, took honors with a burbot ounces off the Illinois record.
‘‘If things go according [to plan], I should be on track for the next one,’’ Preucel messaged.
Saro Kevorkian holds his burbot after weighing on Dec. 7, 2020 at Park Bait to be the next Illinois record.
Closed campground, recreation site in Pope Co., Ill to reopen in 2021
Rauchfuss Hill recreation area gets a makeover By Marsha Heller | December 29, 2020 at 1:26 PM CST - Updated December 29 at 5:08 PM
POPE COUNTY, Ill. (KFVS) - A campground closed for nearly a decade in Pope County, Illinois will reopen to the public in 2021.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources announced the Rauchfuss Hill State Recreation Area will reopen for camping in spring of 2021.
Approximately 15 tent sites and 15 camper sites are expected to be available to campers, with future plans to expand the area for additional sites in the following months.
The campground was closed in 2013 due to lack of funding and a staffing shortage.
Provided
Colleen Callahan, the director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, did the traditional year-end interview, via phone. Obviously, pandemic-related questions made up the bulk of it.
A couple of issues will be discussed at another time, including the chance for increased conservation funding for farmers/landowners under the incoming Biden administration and a look at safety courses (IDNR deputy director Rachel Torbert reported nearly 5,500 certifications between online and in-person courses, despite the pandemic).
What have you learned and what would you do differently in the IDNR’s response to the pandemic?
‘‘We learned how much we can do when we put our minds to it,’’ Callahan said. ‘‘We know now we can accomplish our mission of conservation, preservation and presentation in ways never envisioned before.’’
3 If a community, regional, or state government agency is seeking to partner with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) Chicago District to address a water resource problem within any of its seven mission areas, the Planning Branch is the first to be called.
“Usually the Corps is approached by a state or local government entity about a water resource problem that they have identified,” Dave Handwerk, chief of the Planning Branch’s Economic Formulation Section, said. “Sometimes this is a result of a storm event, sometimes through our outreach efforts. We frequently get approached by units of government that we have worked with in the past such as the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago or the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.”