Corner Bar Merrillan

09/02/2026

The 2026 bear hunting season opens on Wednesday, Sept. 9. With diligent scouting and preparation efforts, bear hunters should again expect a quality hunting experience this fall.

The 2026 bear season is open from Sept. 9 to Oct. 13, with specific regulations based on a hunter’s bear management zone. Hunters must know the management zone in which they are licensed to hunt and the specific bear hunting regulations within that zone.

Zones A, B and D – Where dogs are permitted:
Sept. 9 to Sept. 15 – with the aid of bait and all other legal methods not using dogs
Sept. 16 to Oct. 6 – with the aid of dogs, the aid of bait and all other legal methods
Oct. 7 to Oct. 13 – with the aid of dogs only, no other methods
Zones C, E and F – Where dogs are not permitted:
Sept. 9 to Oct. 13 – with the aid of bait and all other legal methods not using dogs

Careful and regulated public hunting of bears is the primary tool used to help keep bear numbers in balance with available habitat across the state. Hunting also plays a critical role in black bear research. All bears taken must be registered with the DNR and a variety of data is collected which supports the science behind bear management.

The DNR’s Bear Hunting webpage provides general information about hunting bears, regulations and hunting hours, and how to complete the mandatory registration processes: https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/hunt/bear

09/01/2026

Good morning, baggers! Here are the updated standings as of matches from August 25th.

09/01/2026

09/01/2026

Tapper Tuesday!!! $1 all day

09/01/2026

08/31/2026

Sally's cooking her pork fritter special! Jayden is bartender...oh yeah buschhhhhhhh $2

08/31/2026

Gourd-ous !

08/31/2026

Eau Claire is pronounced oh-CLAIR. Two syllables. The E, the A and the U at the front make one sound and that sound is oh.

Outsiders do not accept this.

The most common attempt is EE-oh Claire, which treats the first word like somebody sounding out an eye chart. Close behind is Ee-yow Claire, which sounds like a person getting stepped on. Then there is Oh Clarey, delivered by somebody who has decided to add a syllable for warmth.

The truly committed will say Eeyore Claire, and honestly at that point you have to respect the confidence.

It is French. It means clear water, named by French traders for the Eau Claire River, and French does not care what letters are in a word. French looks at four vowels in a row and produces one sound out of them, then puts the extra letters back in the drawer.

Wisconsin is full of this and it is entirely the fault of the fur trade. Prairie du Chien. Lac Courte Oreilles. Fond du Lac. Trempealeau. Butte des Morts. All of them French, all of them mangled daily.

Prairie du Chien is prairie-doo-SHEEN, and locals will accept nothing else. Lac Courte Oreilles is la-COO-duh-RAY, which no reasonable person could derive from the spelling. Fond du Lac is fondle-ack when a local says it fast, and every single person from that town knows exactly what it sounds like and has made peace with it.

Then the Ojibwe names take over up north and the whole system resets. Oconomowoc. Waukesha. Menomonie. Kewaunee.

The correction here is gentle. Nobody is going to embarrass you. Somebody will just repeat the word back correctly in a normal sentence and keep talking, and you will either notice or you will not.

Oh-CLAIR.

Just those two.