Maple syrup makers in eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin are fretting over unseasonably warm temperatures out of fear the trees will start to bud before all the sap runs.

John Morley, who sells equipment out of Morley's Maple Syrup in Luck, Wis., said the season will be saved if the region gets colder overnight temperatures to go with the warm days. But once the trees grow buds, the sap loses its sugar content.

"There's lots of nervous people out there,'' Morley said Tuesday.

Still, many producers have tapped their maples and are cooking sap, he said. In the area around Luck, sap lines have produced for an average of three days. A good tree can produce about 20 times, but one good cycle requires an overnight freeze followed by daytime highs above 32 degrees.

Poaching case continues

Prosecutors in Lac qui Parle County aren't backing away from a major deer poaching case and instead have filed a legal brief that says conservation officers legally placed a tracking device on the suspect's pickup truck.

Now it will be up to a judge to decide whether the surveillance of Joshua Dwight Liebl in fall 2014 was legal. Liebl's lawyer has argued that the Department of Natural Resources didn't have a valid search warrant when officers crept onto Liebl's property in darkness to attach the device.

Soon, Liebl was arrested for the alleged illegal harvest of a buck whitetail. A search of his rural Dawson home found 30 deer heads and racks and a similar number of guns.

B.A.S.S. winners

Professional angler Edwin Evers came from behind Sunday to win the Bassmaster Classic on Grand Lake o' the Cherokees in Oklahoma. The Talala, Okla., resident caught a one-day Classic record of 29.3 pounds to top Jason Christie — his traveling partner and roommate during the Elite Series regular season — by more than 6 pounds. Christie had posted the heaviest catches the first two days of the tournament.

Outdoors columnist Dennis Anderson contributed to this report.

Tony Kennedy • 612-673-4213