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An unknown fish, which turned out to be a logperch, was on the exhaustive list of fish Vince Oppedisano caught from the Fox River this year.

Dale Bowman “Did any of the neighbors see?’’ my wife asked. In a yellow slicker, I had picked young dandelions from our lawn in the rain this month, then prepared them. I’ve had an interesting spring foraging or, more accurately, wandering around. † † † On Saturday, I wandered around a favorite morel-hunting area. There were no morels, despite friends sending photos of good finds. But mayapples caught my eye. They had grown much in two weeks, some nearing a foot high. I bent to see downy yellow violet, violets and spring beauty up close. Sizing up mayapples last weekend while wa...

So Great, So Fragile: Partnerships seek solutions to protect majesty of Great Lakes, Lake Michigan WLS Share: CHICAGO (WLS) -- The Great Lakes, while beautiful, are a fragile freshwater ecosystem that needs to be protected. The mission is to save North America's most valuable resource. Climate change and extreme weather are becoming more frequent. High lake levels and erosion is causing millions of dollars of damage to the prized shoreline. Pollution is causing toxic algal blooms and an abundance of plastic contamination in the water and along the shore. Invasive species are wreaking havoc on...

Provided But others? Well. Vic Santucci, Illinois’ Lake Michigan program manager, emailed, “I say crappie, as in row ‘crop.’ Sorry, old school.” Last week in the obituary for Ed Mullady, I noted how he said ‘‘croppie’’ for crappie, and it made me smile. He even wrote it as croppie. Enter Mark Brown, the erudite, ruggedly handsome (in a scholarly way) Chicago Sun-Times political columnist. “I’m confused by the lead in today’s column,” he emailed. “I thought the correct pronunciation of crappie is croppie.” When I suggested he join the 21st century on the fav...

So Great, So Fragile: Great Lakes, Lake Michigan health depend on keeping invasive species out Asian carp, zebra mussels, quagga mussels among threats to biodiversity WLS Share: Share: CHICAGO (WLS) -- On the surface of Lake Michigan, glistening water rushes over sandy beaches. But underneath the waves is a fragile ecosystem that interconnects a complex food web critical to the overall health of the Great Lakes. Disruption to that system can have dire consequences to its inhabitants, and that means paying attention not only to what is living in the water but on keeping unwelcome predators out...