One-sided buck, suburban wild turkeys, sharks & bluegills, world-record whitefish

One-sided buck, suburban wild turkeys, sharks & bluegills, world-record whitefish

A one-sided buck in a forest preserve, another expansion of wild turkeys in the suburbs, the world-record lake whitefish and Quint on bluegills and sharks are among the notes from around Chicago outdoors and beyond.

One-sided buck, suburban wild turkeys, sharks & bluegills, world-record whitefish

On Jan. 20, Jeff Getz of Park Ridge emailed, “I spent the afternoon photographing my favorite local forest preserve whitetails and thought you would enjoy some of the shots. As I was expecting, the bucks have started shedding their antlers, almost to the day as last year. I followed the guy with the one antler for a while hoping it might drop, but he wandered off, probably to the secret elephant graveyard of sheds.”

BOTW Unplugged, the celebration of live big bucks around Chicago outdoors, runs as apt in the special two-page outdoors section in the Sun-Times Sports Saturday. To make submissions, email

Same applies to Shed of the Week, a note on shed antlers found around Chicago outdoors.

“In my Tinley Park neighborhood, this is getting to be old news (or perhaps old news to you), but we’ve had a resident hen wild turkey for about a month. I’ve always said that my neighborhood has every wild animal except for turkeys, but apparently that statement is no longer valid. While I’ve heard reports of wild turkeys on the outskirts of Frankfort, New Lenox, Lemont and Burr Ridge for years, this is a first for my neighborhood. We’ll see if this turns into a resident flock in the coming years, but hopefully not common enough to be a nuisance!” Jay Damm

A: I remain awed by where wild turkeys turn up in Chicago and the suburbs.

“Not like going down the pond chasin’ bluegills and tommycods. This shark, swallow you whole.”

Click here for the complete list of show, outdoors classes and swap meets.

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