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• Pro-life law firm to appeal Menomonie's pharmacist's case to state Supreme Court
• Ellsworth's Rod and Gun Club fishing contest set for May 3
• Record fish caught in Mississippi River off Pierce County

A pro-life law firm has asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to consider reversing the state's disciplinary action against a pharmacist who refused to give out birth control.

The Third District Appeals' Court recently upheld the punishment given to Neil Noesen.

A state board reprimanded him, put limits on his pharmacy license and told him to take an ethics course.

That's because he refused to fill a birth control prescription for a University of Wisconsin-Stout student on a Saturday afternoon in 2002. In addition, he refused to let her fill it somewhere else, saying it's against his religious beliefs.

The court decision is being appealed, but the Supreme Court has not said if it will take the case.

Attorney Paul Linton of Chicago's Thomas More Society says Noesen is being punished because he doesn't compromise on his religion.

The state board also told Noesen to pay $21,000 for the costs of handling his case but the appellate court ordered a review of that mandate.

The annual trout fishing contest at the Ellsworth Rod and Gun Club will take place May 3.

Hot breakfast, drawings, an auction, numerous prizes and a barbecue chicken feed highlight the event, which is sponsored by the Eau Galle Rush River Sportsman's Club.

A Whitewater man broke a Wisconsin state fish record and he did it in the Mississippi River in Pierce County.

According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Donald Peyer reeled in a 6-pound, 4.8-ounce sauger on April 2 near Lock and Dam No. 3.

The fish, which measured 23.75 inches long, weighed nearly half a pound more than the previous record sauger of 5 pounds, 13 ounces.

The key characteristic for distinguishing sauger from walleye is the crescent-shaped spots on sauger dorsal fins.

"It was a pretty good fight," says Peyer. "The fish took it (bait) back under the boat."

Peyer had been fishing for three days on the river with family and friends, and the group had been planning to leave at 11 a.m. that day when the fish bit around 10 a.m. on an artificial bait.

Peyer wrestled with the fish for a while and then landed the sauger, much to the delight of his fishing companions.

"Wow! That's gotta be a state record," Peyer recalls them saying. "I said, 'I doubt it.'"

He thought the fish was a walleye and was about to release it back into the water because he doesn't keep walleyes over 6 pounds for eating. When his nephew noticed the fish bleeding, Peyer decided to keep it.

His son pulled alongside in another boat and said, "Let me see that big fish. Oh my God, it's a sauger."

DNR fish biologists confirmed that the catch was indeed a sauger. The key characteristic for distinguishing sauger from walleye is the crescent-shaped spots on sauger dorsal fins. Walleye have no such spots.

Asked for any advice on how to catch a state record fish, Peyer, who's been fishing for most of his 57 years said, "You just gotta fish to catch them. I never catch any if I don't go."