Weekly News Archives

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       New Product  Archives

Trijicon Introduces HD Night Sights

Wixom, MI - Trijicon Night Sights� have served as the industry benchmark for more than two decades. Highly effective at close quarters,  Trijicon Night Sights are standard issue with hundreds of municipal and county police and sheriff's departments, numerous state police  departments and federal law enforcement agencies. In addition, they're the first choice of major handgun manufacturers, and are widely used in  military applications and for home defense. New for 2011, Trijicon sets the bar even higher with the introduction of its new line of HD Night  Sights�

Trijicon's New HD Night Sights are designed to excel under the most demanding conditions by placing primary emphasis on faster front sight  acquisition. This new design incorporates enhanced front sight visibility with a de-emphasized rear sight. Upfront, a tritium lamp lies within an  extra-large, brightly colored (yellow or orange) dot area that provides a distinctive sighting picture. In addition, special photo luminescent  (glow-in-the-dark) powder in the paint aids in faster front sight acquisition during transitional lighting operations.

The rear sight contains custom black-outlined tritium lamps

surrounding a wider "U"-shaped notch and features a redesigned sight face that's  back-angled with serrations to reduce glare. As an added feature, the rear sight incorporates a "hooked" design that assists with one-handed  emergency pistol slide manipulation.

Proprietary testing has shown that most users are appreciably faster at achieving center mass hits on a target with the HD Night Sights than  with standard pistol sights. Data shows this regardless of the user's current proficiency level in pistol shooting, and is due to the ability to  obtain a faster focus on the front sight of the HD Night Sights.

Trijicon self-luminous Night Sights increase night-fire shooting accuracy by as much as five times over conventional sights. Equally  impressive, they do so with the same speed as instinctive shooting- and without the need for batteries.

For more information on Trijicon's new (HD) Night Sights�, and the complete array of Brilliant Aiming Solutions� for the hunting, shooting,  military and law enforcement markets, contact Trijicon, Inc. � at (248) 960-7700 or visit www.trijicon.com.  

Trijicon Introduces New TrijiDot Fiber Optic Shotgun Sight

Wixom, MI - Shotgun shooting isn't always a point-and-shoot proposition. Many scenarios require a careful sight picture, leaving standard  bead sights in the dark! New for 2011, Trijicon, the world leader in Brilliant Aiming Solutions�, is excited to offer its first fiber optic bead sight  specifically designed for ribbed-barrel shotguns.

Designed to deliver the ultimate in brightness and durability, the TrijiDot� Fiber Optic Shotgun Sight features proprietary Trijicon fiber optics  that magnify and focus ambient light to provide a brilliant aiming point in a wide range of lighting conditions. The moderate-sized 4mm fiber  optic is available in Red or Green and is capped with a protective sapphire lens that helps distribute light and provides protection from damage  and solvents.

The TrijiDot fiber optic is housed in a protective base that's

constructed of aircraft-grade 6061-T6 aluminum and features

a hard anodized black  oxide coating to withstand heavy shotgun recoil, intense barrel temperatures, and years of extreme use in the field. Installation is easy, and the  sight is mounted using a system of magnets, bead locating pocket, and set screws that provide the most secure and rugged user-attachment  method available. The TrijiDot is available in a variety of sizes to fit most popular shotgun models with rib widths between .230" and .400".

Perfectly suited for a wide range of applications, Trijicon's new TrijiDot provides a bright reference point for upland hunters, waterfowlers,  turkey hunters and all clay-target shooting disciplines. The TrijiDot is also the perfect addition to ribbed-barrel shotguns for tactical and home  defense applications.

For more information on Trijicon's new TrijiDot Fiber Optic Shotgun Sight, and the complete array of Brilliant Aiming Solutions� for the  hunting, shooting, military and law enforcement markets, contact Trijicon, Inc. � at (248) 960-7700 or visit www.trijicon.com .

Connecting Wildlife, Habitat and People Conference March 9

2011 Wildlife Diversity Conference Theme

COLUMBUS, OH- Making connections between wildlife and people will be the subject of discussion at the 2011 Ohio Wildlife Diversity Conference, scheduled for Wednesday, March 9 at the Aladdin Shrine Center in Columbus. The conference, �Connecting Wildlife, Habitat and People,� is sponsored by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), Division of Wildlife. It is open to the public.

The keynote speaker this year, Mark Damian Duda, executive director of Responsive Management, will speak on �The Identification, Life History and Habitat Requirements of the Wildlife Viewer.�

"As wildlife managers, a huge component of our jobs is understanding the needs of the people who enjoy wildlife, and providing opportunities for them to use this resource whether it�s through bird watching, nature photography or on a more consumptive level with hunting and fishing," said Kendra Wecker, wildlife diversity coordinator. �We want to tie in these three important aspects needed for a positive wildlife experience.�

Other conference topics include discussions of sandhill cranes, softshell turtles, riparian corridor protection, how to attract people to birding, conservation genetics, and

freshwater mussel and hellbender health assessments.  The second Ohio Wildlife Legacy Stamp, which features the amber-winged dragonfly, will be available to conference attendees. Proceeds from the sale of the stamp will be used to support:

endangered and threatened native species; habitat restoration, land purchases and conservation easements; and educational products for students and wildlife enthusiasts.

Anyone who pre-registers online for the conference may purchase this collectable stamp at a discounted price of $12 � a 20 percent savings. Details about the Ohio Wildlife Legacy Stamp can be found at www.wildohiostamp.com.

Representatives from a range of conservation and natural resource organizations, such as the Black Swamp Bird Observatory, Columbus Audubon and Ohio Biological Survey, will present displays and be available to answer questions. The Wildlife Diversity Conference has steadily grown in popularity. The first conference, held in 1985, drew 40 people. Last year, 942 people attended the day-long gathering.

For more information or to register for the conference online, go to http://bit.ly/WildlifeDiversityConference   or call 1-800-WILDLIFE. The registration fee prior to February 26 is $25. After that date, the fee is $35.

Final mission of state Great Lakes research vessel finds low numbers of yellow perch

EDITOR'S ADVISORY: A slide show with photos from the last mission of the research vessel Barney Decine is available on the Lake Michigan Research Boats page of the DNR website.

MILWAUKEE -- The last mission of the state research vessel Barney Devine was a melancholy one: its annual search for yellow perch turned up low numbers of the fish fry favorite, heavy ice cover in Sturgeon Bay resulted in a small hole in the vessel�s hull that let on water, and the crew was having a hard time saying goodbye.

The Department of Natural Resources plans to retire the 74-year-old boat from active duty when its replacement, the Coregonus, is delivered later this spring. Burger Boat Company in Manitowoc is building the 60-foot RV Coregonus to replace the Barney Devine, which has become technologically obsolete and is facing increased maintenance costs.

�For the crew here in Sturgeon Bay, the boat isn't gone yet but when it disappears it will be like a part of everyone's life is gone,� said Brandon Bastar, who captains the Barney Devine.

The vessel steamed out of Milwaukee Harbor on Dec. 8 and 9 and again on Dec. 15, 16, 17, for one last netting survey aimed at looking for yellow perch of all ages.   �This is time of year where we don�t see the fish segregate by size or sex. We think it�s the best time to get an idea of number, size, sex ratio and age composition of the perch population,� says Brad Eggold, fisheries supervisor for southern Lake Michigan, who was on the vessel. �Unfortunately, we caught a lot fewer fish than previous years.�

Over the past five years, DNR's December yellow perch surveys had netted about 1,000 or more fish per survey; in December 2010, that number was only in the high 200s, Eggold says.  �So we were quite a bit down,� he says. �We were in the same spot, same location, same time as past years, so there's nothing to explain the numbers drop in terms of our sampling.�

More worrisome than a one-year drop in numbers is that the nets were virtually devoid of any small fish from the last few years of natural reproduction, even though some of those years saw bumper crops of young fish hatched. We didn't really see any small fish from the last couple of year classes,� Eggold says. �We're seeing fish from the 2005 year-class and some from 2002.�

For some reason, while other DNR surveys show that yellow

perch seem to be reproducing in good numbers, the young

fish aren't surviving to their second or third year. For example,

beach seine and micromesh gill net surveys in August and September 2005 of fish born earlier that spring found the largest number of yellow perch ever. But that hasn't translated into the largest year-class ever. Likewise, August 2009 surveys saw pretty good numbers in the nets, �but we're not seeing them in this assessment,� Eggold says.

�We updated all the yellow perch models and data, and looked at it all over course of several meetings in 2010 and came to the conclusion that we were not going to make any changes to bag limits or to the closed commercial season,� Eggold says. �Population is lower than it had been historically, and while the adult population still seems to be relatively stable, there is a lack of young fish coming up, certainly not enough to have a higher bag.�

Eggold says there's a lot of speculation that the failure of perch hatched in the spring to survive to the next spring and beyond is tied to fishes' difficulty in finding enough food. �Food availability is nowhere near what it was back in the 1980s when you saw large year classes being produced over a 10-year span.�

Quagga mussels, an invasive aquatic species that now carpets the bottom of Lake Michigan, are believed to be a huge factor in yellow perch sustainability. �It is number one on the list� of why food availability for these young fish has decreased, he says.

Quagga mussels, which feed on plankton at the base of the food chain, are closely related to another invader, the zebra mussel. Both are native to the Caspian Sea in Eurasia and both most likely arrived as stowaways in the ballast water of ocean going ships. Quagga mussels were first found in Wisconsin's Lake Michigan waters in the late 1980s, and quaggas within the last decade.

Quagga mussels are considered even more damaging than zebra mussels because they can live in a wider range of water temperatures, water depths, and they feed all year, even in winter when zebra mussels lie dormant. In fact, in Lake Michigan, quagga mussels have essentially outcompeted and displaced zebra mussels in the last few years.

DNR and counterpart agencies around Lake Michigan started detecting very few small fish nearly 20 years ago. And while the number of adult female yellow perch has been recovering and there have been some years with good, even great natural reproduction, the number of fish surviving to catchable size is not improving.

2011 Winnebago sturgeon spearing season opens Feb. 12

Record numbers of spearers are expected for the Feb. 12 opening day of the 2011 Winnebago sturgeon spearing seasons, and fish populations, increased harvest caps, and conditions are coming together for another banner year, state fish biologists say.

�There are more trophy-sized fish in the system than at any time during the last 75 years, and we've been able to raise the caps because the population has increased,� says Ron Bruch, DNR fisheries supervisor in Oshkosh.

�Three weeks out, ice conditions are excellent and water clarity, fair to good now, is expected to improve. All of these factors should come together for another record-setting year in terms of increased spearing opportunities and the chance to land that really big fish.�

License sales for the season set a new record at 12,423 (including the 490 sold for the Upriver Lakes fishery), reflecting

the growing interest in recent years by a wider range of people attracted by the growing success of spearers and the big fish.

Last year, Ron Grishaber of Appleton set a new state record on opening day with the 212.2 pound lake sturgeon he speared, erasing the previous record by 24 pounds. Recent state harvest and sturgeon survey results suggest that there are many more big fish to be had.

Trophy lake sturgeon are typically considered to be any fish 100 pounds or larger, and historically fish this size have made up less than 1 percent of the total annual harvest. But in the last decade, the percentage of trophy fish has gradually increased over the last decade to more than 5 percent in 2010.

Regulation changes developed through a joint effort by DNR and the Winnebago Citizens Sturgeon Advisory Committee since 1993 have lead to an increase in the Winnebago lake sturgeon stock, and an increase in the number of trophy size fish in the population and, subsequently, the harvest, Bruch says.

Leftover spring turkey permits go on sale March 21

MADISON � Remaining permits for the 2011 spring turkey hunting season will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis starting March 21. Leftover permits will be first issued for sale by zone, one zone per day, with each zone having a designated sales date.

In total, 225,729 permits were available for the spring 2011 turkey season. More than 145,500 permits were issued to hunters who applied for permits by the Dec. 10, 2010 application deadline, leaving just more than 80,000 permits available after the drawing.

Hunters should check the turkey zone map (pdf) to verify where they want to hunt and then check the turkey permit availability page to see if permits are available for the period and zone in which they wish to hunt.

Leftover spring turkey permit sales will be held on a zone-per-day basis for five consecutive days, with customers able to purchase one permit per day. Sales will start at 10:00 a.m. on March 21 and will continue through midnight each day, or until permits are sold out. Any remaining leftover permits for all zones will go on sale Saturday, March 26, and will continue until sold out or the season ends.