Stokes Creative: 6 books

Do you believe in ghosts?   No?  How about you visit this house and then decide?There is a "haunted" house up there that squats like a huge wooden toad behind a thick grove of pine trees on the end of a dead end road. Maybe once it was painted, but now it has a gray cadaver-like complexion,...

Wisconsin had a big party in 1998. It was a roll-out-the-barrel, slice-the-cheese, strike-up-the-polka-band wing-ding that promised to roust every last badger out of state burrows and into the streets to dance with guests.

With a story from way back in such low-tech days that cows were milked by hand, you might have to hand-crank the car on cold mornings, and red fox families held forth across the rural landscape like a wild aristocracy.The red fox, it would seem, as adaptable as a mouse, has more or less moved...

The predatory genes we cannot deny are never more exercised than in deer hunting.  In each individual, they travel an age-related arc that begins in youthful passion and settles finally into old-age relaxation.  The blood lust with all of its attendant furies and dictates can be an awesome thing when...

Satchel was the undisputed king of the resident muskies. He had roamed the flowage for years, periodically terrorizing innocent fisherman by surfacing like a whale so close to a boat that the occupants could look deep into the fish's black eyes and see what seemed to be undiluted piscatorial evil.

A man can love a woman. There's no trick to that. And a man can love a dog, especially if it is a good dog with worship in its eyes. But can a man love a fish?An experienced trout fisherman reminisces about the love of opening day in various location in Wisconsin.