The subject here is a brown trout Hellen caught last month in Lake Michigan. The 41-pound, 8-ounce fish was landed during a fishing tournament in Racine. It netted Hellen a well-earned $10,000 prize — and was a single ounce heavier than the whopper brown Healy caught last year in Michigan’s Manistee River.

That gives Hellen the world record brown trout because his is the biggest ever caught, right? Well, no. The IGFA requires that a new record must outweigh the old record by a certain percentage. In this case that amounted to 3 ounces.

So the two monsters will go in the books as co-record brown trout — until someone comes along with a 41-pound, 11-ouncer.

That’s sister-kissing on a global scale, but only on paper. Hellen’s was bigger, and even us guys from Michigan know it.

Not wanting to seem ungracious, he accepted. And as someone who understands where meat comes from, he figured if nothing else there’d be a mountain of pork chops in his freezer.

The hunt went something like this: Early morning they were dropped in the enclosure and told where the pigs might be. Some time passed, and the ranch operator drove into the enclosure again to see how they were doing. Within moments, the truck was surrounded by pigs expecting to be fed.

One bow-toting member of the “hunting” party decided that would be an opportune time to shoot a hog. He picked one out and drew, but the animal came closer, still expecting a meal. So the guy kicks at the hog to back it up, then grabs a stick to get it far enough away to shoot. Finally the porker gets the picture and backs away, and a point-blank arrow pierces its chest.

It runs away squealing, but that doesn’t deter the other hungry little piggies. So my friend shoulders his muzzleloader and pops another porker.

End result: Two fat pigs for the table, and a story that I cannot do justice. It still makes me belly laugh every time I hear it at deer camp. But it’s hard to call that a hunt. On any level.

I can’t help think about that as Michigan’s game managers go to battle against feral hogs, most of which have escaped from some sorry facility just like the one described above. They’re horribly destructive, a threat to wildlife, livestock and humans.

Michigan’s DNRE wants them declared an invasive species, which would make them illegal to possess, which would effectively shut down swine hunting operations statewide. The goal is to “shut off the faucet” and stop new animals from escaping.

First, I understand that there are high-end operations that manage their fences, keep strict control of their animals and even test for disease. I believe that those facilities are not the problem. I also believe they afford something that resembles a hunt, with quarry that could hurt you.

I’m not a high-fence guy. If it can’t turn and run for a mile the second it detects you, it’s not a free-ranging animal, and it’s not my bag. But we’re predators after all, and if you’re eating what you kill there’s no appreciable difference between collecting your own meat and having a butcher do it.

Hog-shooting lodges are not in themselves evil. But a hog-shooting lodge done poorly is. The risks of allowing such facilities to keep turning hogs loose are just too high.

Everyone agrees that a well-regulated industry would not be a problem. A bill introduced Wednesday by three Michigan lawmakers would mandate it.

Let’s see that it becomes law. Let’s see that the good operators pay for the sensible regulations that will ultimately keep them in business. Let’s see that the bad ones fail.

And let’s save future hunters the embarrassment.

With one small exception — no crossbow use on deer after Nov. 30 in the Upper Peninsula — Michigan on Thursday (August 12) became the fourth state in 2010 to make crossbows standard equipment for archery seasons. Delaware (?), North Carolina and Oklahoma already took the plunge. Beginning October 1, crossbows are legal equipment during archery season all over Michigan.

The Natural Resources Commission, which sets game law in the state, decided that the benefits of increased opportunity outweighed any possible impact to the deer herd (biologists say there will be none), and at the same time agreed to maintain a three-year study period so they could revisit actual Michigan data in 2012.

“From a biological standpoint it’s fine,” said Wildlife Division Chief Russ Mason. “We haven’t been able to demonstrate any impact to the herd at the level crossbows are being used, and crossbows could increase hunter opportunity, which is why the commission voted the way they did. It could have some benefit for recruitment, and it probably will have some benefit for retention.”

Proponents argued that crossbows put kids in the deer woods sooner and keeps older hunters out there by giving them a weapon that’s physically easier to manage. Opponents argued that bowhunting is supposed to be a challenge one must earn through physical ability and practice, practice, practice. They decry the proficiency-in-a-box that crossbows provide.

The one obstacle to all-out inclusion was the exception that closes the U.P. to crossbows after gun season. Some people argued that a December muzzle-loader season renders that ruling moot, but the rationale was that in December deer yard up and become easy prey for poachers. Enough Yoopers expressed that concern to make it the law.

“I think that people look at the crossbow and think it’s a quiet weapon for unlawful behavior or somehow more effective than a longbow,” Mason said. “From the distance you can get in a deer yard you could reach out and kill a deer with a stick. And I dare you to shoot a crossbow inside a truck cab. You just can’t do it. But some of the people in the Upper Peninsula had some concerns and we had to listen to those. But it’s purely a social concern.”

That’s good.

Instead, it looks as though it was put into Lake Calumet several years ago by humans. That’s bad.

How many more Asian carp have been moved around? And to where?

And to those who think this fish’s origin proves that the barrier is working: Put down the kool-aid. Seriously. We’re talking about lots of water here. So far they’ve only found one fish on the bad side of the barrier. That’s great, but one fish doesn’t tell anyone jack squat about whether that barrier is working or not.

We all hope like heck that it is. But one misplaced fish doesn’t prove a thing.

What say we keep looking..

When the tape was applied, he came in a hair over 110 inches. To the trophy-minded I’m sure he seemed a year undercooked. But at first glance I knew he would be my biggest, and since I first shot a buck with my bow in 2003 I’ve held myself to shooting only bucks that were bigger than the last one (and of course does for herd management). He fit that easily.

A couple weeks later I was hunting the same area and saw the virtual twin to my buck — same height, same mass, same configuration. Since he did not meet the above criteria — and because I knew there were bigger bucks around — I let him go.

Well, I think this might be him that showed up on the trail cam last week. It’s the same general configuration, with considerably more mass and that intriguing palmation on the right antler. This picture was taken within yards of the stand from which I shot last year’s buck.

To which I can only say: Is it October yet?

So one day walking past the newsroom bulletin board I noticed a new posting that listed a whole slew of common mistakes that reporters and copy editors make. It was written, if I recall, by some revered know-it-all (I use the term with respect) from the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Most of them I’ve long forgotten, because but there was one that I will never forget: It ridiculed the use of the term “high-powered rifle” on the basis that ALL rifles are high-powered, and that it’s silly and redundant to call a rifle high powered.

Ahem. I beg to differ. Go shoot an elk at 100 yards with a .22 LR (of course, the R stands for rifle). Then at the same distance shoot it with a .338 Win mag. Now ask the elk if one was more powerful than another. Oops, maybe you should have asked after the first shot – the one that made it twitch its hide like it was bitten by an insect — because that second one vaporized its innards.

The fact is there are low-powered rifles AND high-powered rifles, and anyone who shoots rifles or has done even a little homework about which rifles are suited for which game (think .30-30 vs. .30-06) knows that.

I was reminded of that poor advice by the photo below, which of course pokes fun at the media’s general ignorance of firearms. Having been in newsrooms most of my adult life, I can assure you there isn’t some large-scale anti-gun bias in there. What is there is a pretty well-educated, mostly suburbanized group of people who know a lot about a lot of things, but not much about guns. Are some of them opposed to gun rights? Sure. About as many as there are card-carrying NRA members.  There are a handful of each, and a whole bunch who just don’t know their assault rifle from a hole in the ground.

It doesn’t mean they’re malicious. Just ignorant. And worthy of the poke.

I have on my desk a new video game titled “3-D Hunting 2010.” It’s made by a company called Kalypso, and promises that I can hunt 26 different species of “rare and wild animals” in a variety of “exotic locations.”

The selling points listed on the package include creating a unique “hunter,” developing skills, a wide array of weapons, realistic dangerous animal behavior, weather effects and 72 different missions.

It sounds like Kalypso did a nice job of making its game as realistic as a two-dimensional electronic game played in a controlled environment can be. But it’s the final feature that caught my attention: “Avoid being the hunted – don’t get caught by the gameskeeper or Game Over!”

Uh oh.

So I opened up the game, plugged the disk into my computer and watched my worst suspicion form on the screen. This is not a hunting game, it’s a poaching game. You start by choosing which POACHER you want to be. Half the game is shooting animals and the other half is dodging the law.

Really?

How hard would it have been for the folks at Kalypso to make this a legal hunt? You start the game by acquiring weapons and supplies with limited funds, so you’re already forced to make choices. Why not make a hunting license one of the requirements so that when the gameskeeper approaches, you can prove you’re hunting legally? Why couldn’t they have made part of the challenge passing up animals the hunter aren’t licensed to shoot? If they absolutely needed to include poachers, couldn’t they have made up some good guy/bad guy scenario where you can choose to poach with a different risk/reward structure? Or somehow pitted hunters against the poachers who are ruining their sport?

I realize that in the grand scheme of things this doesn’t quite rival thousands of barrels of crude oil billowing into the ocean every day. And I highly doubt that this video game will make kids run out and poach elephants.

But this game represents a frightening and somewhat disheartening gap that exists between hunters and non-hunters: Too many of the latter see no difference between hunting and poaching.

I never, ever hunt or fish without the proper licenses and legal equipment, and I believe that the vast majority of hunters are the same way. Do I want a conservation officer interrupting my hunt or stopping me to check out all my gear? Of course not. But I know before I start any hunt that if one does I will be in compliance. I have nothing to fear from them, and I’m glad they do what they do.

As hunters, we are willing and important participants in wildlife management in a world where more and more people have eschewed that responsibility. Game laws exist for reasons that most of us fully support, and if we disagree with them we adhere to them anyway because it’s right. If you don’t, shame on you and congratulations on your new video game.

The line between hunting and poaching is very clear to me, and I wish it were as clear to everyone. Anti-hunting groups like PETA and the Humane Society of the United States love to maintain that blur because it helps them convert the ignorant.

Hunting is hunting. Poaching is poaching. Equating them is offensive. The irony is that the folks at Kalypso designed this game for hunters – the very people they’ve minimized.

A sure sign that they just don’t get it.

Now the DNR wants those hunters back, and it’s coming to the table armed with $2 million in federal money that hunters have already paid into the system through excise taxes on guns, ammunition and other gear.

In the interest of full disclosure, Wisconsin’s DNR has thrown open a number of processes for all to see — and participate in. Four research projects involve the survival rate of bucks, the impact of predators on the deer herd, aerial deer surveys and human effects on the deer population.

It’s you-want-it-you-got-it, and I think Keith Warnke was only half kidding when he told me that any hunter with a dual-axle trailer is welcome to help haul deer traps. They’re still looking for volunteers to help build the traps, radio-collar deer and monitor deer movements.

Here’s the sunshine part: All the research will be updated on a DNR Web site for all to see.

So join in. Take a look any old time. Be part of the process. It’s all yours.

Either way, it’s a masterpiece. The “kit” is a detailed discussion about how to convince your spouse that you really, really, really need a boat. There are scripts to rehearse (”A boat would be great for our relationship. Get it? Relation-SHIP!”). There are earnest video pleas from profoundly happy boat owners (”How did Lori convince Bob to buy a boat?”). There is a budget planner (20 dinner/movie nights will cost you $1,100 in a year, or $92 a month. A $10,000 boat will cost just $105 a month!). And it tells you why owning a boat will make your friends happier and your children more pleasant.

But the coup de gras is the “7 Days to Boat Ownership,” which lays out your sinister plan with all the subtlety of Ndamakong Suh:

– On Day 1, you change your computer’s home page to www.discoverboating.com so your significant other (S.O.) can “be inspired by the beautiful boating images.”

– On Day 2 you offer a geography lesson: 90 percent of Americans live within one hour’s drive of navigable water.

– On Day 3 it’s dinner with friends near a boat dealership so you can “subtly point out the beautiful boats on display” when you pass the dealership — coming and going. Subtly. Right.

– On Day 4, it’s the budget. Skip Disney World. Buy a boat instead.

– On Day 5, a ride-along. Buy your S.O. a captain’s hat and rent “Miami Vice.” Just in case your S.O. is a dork with a thing for Don Johnson. 

– On Day 6, watch video testimonies, view pictures from the ride-along day before (in case your S.O. has suffered a head injury and can’t remember back that far) and bring home dinner and dessert “just because,” and watch the Discover Boating DVD. Maybe he/she is getting the picture now.

– On Day 7, you’ve covered all the bases so go in for the kill. More family time. More “couple” time. And finally: “I’ll let you drive.”

In other words, wear them down. It works like a charm.

“20 degrees this morning (Sunday), ice forming on my rod guides, water temp 46. Had to keep dunking my rod to melt it off. Went 2-for-5 on Saturday and 2-for-7 this morning. Hard to get good photos by yourself and not beat up the fish. First shot (left) shows hen spilling eggs. Second shot (right) shows red buck with my egg cluster fly in his mouth. Black stone fly took a lot of the hits, but when it works you keep tying the same thing on.”

Thanks, Juri!