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Jarrid Houston column: Wisconsin fishing opener down, Minnesota is coming

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Jarrid Houston column: Wisconsin fishing opener down, Minnesota is coming


The “open” sign flashed brightly for the state of Wisconsin’s annual fishing opener last Saturday, and now it is Minnesota’s turn.

We think things are shaping up to be a good one. Despite an early ice-out this spring, water temps have been able to stay on the cooler side. A mix of cool days, as well as off-and-on recent rain showers, have kept water temperatures from spiking. That is good news for anglers because that should make for a longer-than-usual bite timeline. Still, this is fishing, and any avid angler knows you can be humbled.

With that said, let’s all be optimistic and hope for the best fishing opener ever. As of now, the weather looks to be decent, so let’s keep our fingers crossed for that. For the Wisconsin opener, we had to fish in the cold rain, which wasn’t ideal.

Let’s dig into the next big holiday we call the great Minnesota fishing opener:

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Lake Superior anglers have had on and off days depending on what Mother Nature has provided. We can report that boat marinas are filling up with vessels, and boat traffic is picking up a tad. From Ashland to the North Shore, we will start to see more and more big water boats out trolling. Best fishing continues to be trolling shallow running stick baits in a few different colors that can change daily.

This week, it sounds like bright orange was best for getting some coho bites. Fish locations are not as concentrated as we were seeing a month ago, but that is typical as many spring rituals are in motion. We are just coming off a pretty decent smelt haul, and humans were not the only ones harvesting some tasty morsels. Best depths targeted for coho have been in and around the 80–120-foot areas, but similar to changing bait colors, these can vary often too.

For the charter captains about to take to the waters, have a great season, and we look forward to hearing what’s happening out there.

Stream fishing continues to be going decent for some anglers. The streams from Two Harbors up the North Shore are seeing a few good fish being caught. Fan-casting fly rods with float indicators over fly lures continue to get a few bites. Water levels have risen, and flow is going pretty decent at this time. We expect to see some canoe and kayakers taking to the streams as we move farther into May.

The St. Louis River Estuary will be one of the busiest places for walleye anglers for the next several weeks. We expect to see many anglers launching boats throughout the system. Water temperatures, as mentioned, are still on the cooler side, hovering around the 50-degree mark, which should be good. The big girls should be heading back toward Lake Superior, but as usual, some lucky anglers will have a hook-up with these big, beautiful fish.

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Please make the right decision on harvesting. I have often heard people say old walleyes can’t reproduce, and that is absolutely inaccurate. And, I promise, if you take a fish out of the water, it will 100% have no chance to reproduce. Keeping a few fish is OK, just make sure to know the rules, and please, please only keep fish of the juvenile type — say under 18 inches.

For success on the lower river and harbor, I would look toward the channel edges and work a slow bait. Crankbaits can be ideal, but spring fishing is usually better suited with live bait rigs. Lindy rigs, spinner rigs, dead sticks, or one of my favorites, “corking” (bobber fishing), will all be good tactics. Your fishing electronics will certainly show a bunch of fish, but not all will be active. Once a big group of boats with several baits start infiltrating fish schools, they can turn off pretty fast. The point is, don’t be afraid to find areas of the river with less traffic.

On to the inland lake fishing bite. Let’s start with Wisconsin, as we have been on somewhat of a bite to start the season. Fishing started slow on opening weekend but has picked up a little since. Water temperatures are just over 50 degrees in many areas we have been fishing. Walleyes have seemed to be better morning, and later evening biters for whatever reason. Usually, during the early part of May, we can get them pretty consistently throughout the day, but not this year as yet. Pike have been easy picking working weed edges around the 10-foot depths. Some beefy fish can be tackled this time of year, so if the walleye bite is a little “off,” don’t be afraid to cast out some stick baits or spinner baits toward shorelines.

For panfish enthusiasts, we are just getting rolling on some nice crappie bites near deeper breaks. Wind-blown shorelines, cork and split shot, with a crappie minnow, is a good recipe for some crappie fishing. The sunfish will be going in the shallow, warm water soft bottom areas. Using a bobber and a worm chunk is a good bet.

For Minnesota opening morning, if you are looking for walleyes, don’t overlook the big flats near substrate transition areas. Rock to sand is hard to beat. We look forward to hearing of some success from all of you. Man, is it great to be back to fishing! Everyone have a safe and enjoyable week, and we will most definitely see you on the water.

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Jarrid Houston of South Range is a fishing guide ( houstonsguideservice.com ) on Minnesota and Wisconsin inland waters, the St. Louis River and, in winter, on Lake Superior.





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Wisconsin Weekend: Pride bar crawl, Father’s Day deals, and more

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Wisconsin Weekend: Pride bar crawl, Father’s Day deals, and more


MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee has no shortage of ways to celebrate this weekend, from a Pride bar crawl to Father’s Day deals around the city and Juneteenth celebrations.

Summerfest and Northcott Neighborhood House are hosting a Juneteenth celebration filled with music and culture at the Summerfest grounds.

Watch: Kidd O’Shea breaks down this weekend’s events:

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Wisconsin Weekend in a Minute: June 19-21

The event kicks off right after the traditional Juneteenth Day Festival wraps up.

Pride Bar Crawl

The 9th annual Pride Bar Crawl kicks off Saturday at 4 p.m. at Walker’s Pint.

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Tickets include drinks and access to exclusive specials at partner bars. Twenty percent of proceeds will benefit the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center.

The crawl wraps up with an after-party and drag show at La Cage Nightclub.

Father’s Day

On Sunday, The Motor Restaurant at the Harley-Davidson Museum is offering a free beer for dad when purchased with a meal, along with free admission to the museum. Reservations are highly encouraged.

Families can also take dad to the Milwaukee County Zoo, where all fathers receive free admission on Sunday.

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These Wisconsin swing voters say Trump’s war in Iran wasn’t worth it

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These Wisconsin swing voters say Trump’s war in Iran wasn’t worth it


Vessels are anchored along the Strait of Hormuz.

Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images


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Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images

The war in Iran was a costly blunder, according to swing voters in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

NPR observed two online focus groups on Tuesday featuring voters who supported Joe Biden in 2020 and then Donald Trump in 2024.

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President Trump had just announced a framework agreement to end the war, which he signed on Wednesday.

Yet among the focus groups’ 13 participants, no one said they thought the conflict with Iran was “worth it,” and nine said they felt that the U.S. is coming out of this conflict weaker than before.

Corey M., a 33-year-old independent voter, said he is concerned that the U.S. expended “so much financially and so much of our arsenal,” with little to show for it. (All participants agreed to be part of the focus groups on the condition that they be identified by their first name and last initial only.)

“We essentially got nothing out of it,” he said. “It’s hurt our economy and increased expenses for the everyday American, and it accomplished the square root of nothing.”

Focus groups are not scientifically significant like polling. But they provide insight into how Americans are thinking about what they see in the news.

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These focus groups — made up of 10 self-described independents, two Democrats and one Republican — were conducted by messaging and market research firms Engagious and Sago as part of the Swing Voter Project. NPR is a partner on the project.

Rich Thau, president of Engagious, moderated the focus groups. He has been asking voters in key states about this conflict since March. And he said voters have been consistent.

“They were never on board,” Thau said. “Not the beginning. Not in the middle. And as we just learned, not at the end either, judging from what we heard from Wisconsin swing voters.”

Sam M., a 30-year-old independent, said from what he read about the deal, it wasn’t leaving the U.S. in a better position than before the war. In fact, he said he thought the Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration — which Trump backed out of — was a better deal for the United States.



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President of Wisconsin’s largest mosque released from ICE custody

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President of Wisconsin’s largest mosque released from ICE custody


A federal judge has ordered the release of the president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, after finding that immigration officials probably detained him in retaliation against his public advocacy for Palestinian rights, suppressing his first amendment rights in the process.

The US district judge James Patrick Hanlon’s order on Thursday marked a sharp rebuke against Trump officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who had tried to paint Salah Sarsour as a national security threat.

“Salah Sarsour, who has lived in this country for more than three decades and served as a core pillar in his community without any issues, should never have been detained in the first place,” his legal team wrote in a statement. “While we continue to fight these baseless claims in court, today is about celebrating a family being reunited. It is also a sober reminder that, if the government can target Mr Sarsour, everyone’s free speech rights are at risk.”

Sarsour describes himself as a stateless Palestinian, according to the order. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says that he is a Jordanian citizen. He has lived in the United States for more than three decades, becoming a legal permanent resident in 1998. Immigration officials approved Sarsour’s citizenship application decades ago, though he did not naturalize.

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Sarsour has garnered public attention as a champion for Palestinian rights, and serves as a board member of an advocacy group called American Muslims for Palestine.

But Rubio personally signed off on a memo to the DHS last year describing Sarsour as deportable despite his green card, because “his actions undermine US foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world”. The memo, cited in Hanlon’s order, accuses Sarsour’s group of being “found to have been involved in activities providing funds to Hamas”.

A group of plainclothes ICE officers from at least 10 unmarked vehicles swarmed Sarsour on 30 March of this year, arresting him and putting him in deportation proceedings. ICE ultimately detained him in Clay county jail in Indiana.

Sarsour lost 30lb while detained, the order says. His lawyers told the court that he was “at constant risk of developing serious complications from diabetes given that the medical staff only checks his blood-sugar levels once a month”. Tightly controlling diabetes typically requires multiple glucose checks daily.

Hanlon’s order says that homeland security officials and Rubio probably trampled on Sarsour’s first amendment right to free speech and appeared to have arrested him in retaliation for his Palestinian rights advocacy.

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The order cited a New York Times story and the website for the Heritage Foundation, the conservative thinktank that dreamed up Project 2025,

The Heritage Foundation presented the White House with the idea to present prominent foreign-born Muslims and Palestinian rights leaders as terrorists in order to sue them, deport them or pressure employers to fire them, the order says, citing reporting from the Times and Heritage’s own website. Sarsour was probably among the targets of that campaign, the order says.

The federal government, through its lawyers, contended that Sarsour should be deported based on two convictions from more than three decades ago in Israel – one for throwing a molotov cocktail and the other for attempting to store weapons and ammunition.

Sarsour denies having committed those crimes.

But Hanlon viewed those crimes as a non-issue for justifying his incarceration, noting that the federal government knew about them since the 1990s and approved his legal permanent residency and his citizenship application anyway.

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Sarsour’s speech on Palestinian rights “is core political speech and squarely within the scope of the First Amendment”, the order says. “Mr Sarsour has submitted evidence allowing a reasonable inference that his protected speech was ‘at least a motivating factor’ in Respondents’ decision to detain him.”

A spokesperson for homeland security described Sarsour as a “terrorist”, citing the convictions from his youth in Israel.

Government lawyers had argued that Sarsour did not have the same first amendment rights as US citizens. If he were released, they said, he should have to pay a $25,000 bond, wear an ankle monitor, check in routinely with ICE and remain confined to his house.

Instead, Hanlon ordered his release on personal recognizance, meaning that Sarsour does not have to pay a cash bond to compel him to show up in court again. The order, however, requires him to remain in the state of Wisconsin.



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