Shrek!!!

Hunting season always has its share of ups and downs, successes and failures, euphoria and heartbreak. Over the past 15 years or so, I have been on both sides of the fence. Every major moment (of both good and bad), I can replay back in my mind like it was yesterday. I can tell you about all the mistakes I have made on every one of my missed opportunities. By no means am I going to tell you that I am a great bush man, outdoors man, mighty hunter, or anything else that resembles that (Side note: have you seen "Yukon Men"? This is the worst show I have ever seen. Complete garbage). Making mistakes is all a part of being in the outdoors and the learning process that goes along with it, and I'm not afraid to share... It's a part of the game.

I have been deer hunting the same section of land for as long as I can remember.  For the past 10 years, I have mostly stuck to one small area. It's a small meadow created by an old blown out beaver pond. I was generally up in my tree stand overlooking the meadow, but last year I decided to build a ground blind because I was sick of freezing my tale off in the tree (I know, I sound soft). I also figured that moving 15 ft. down to the ground wouldn't hurt my line of sight all that much. After constructing my magnificent blind made of burlap and bits and pieces of wood leftover in my dad's shop (it's probably the most homely looking ground blind ever constructed), I moved it into the meadow. I set it close to the area where most of the deer come out. The rest of the season I sat in my new blind, but out of the 30 some odd hours I spent in that blind, I only saw a handful of deer. At the end of the year I tucked my blind under a tree and left it for the winter.

This fall when I went to pull my ground blind out from its wintering spot, I noticed an unpleasant surprise. Apparently squirrels like burlap, because one had chewed it all off of the roof, one side of my blind and was starting new holes on the other sections. After the first day of sitting a deer winded me close to dark so I decided to move the blind back 100 yards and in the next few days it made a substantial difference. Looking back at it, I was a little eager to get really close to the action but what I had done was get a little too close, and backing it up made all the difference in the world. Luckily for me it was a fixable mistake.

Shrek... Shrek is what I named the deer that has visited my trail cam at this spot for the past month. I named him Shrek because he is big, looks mean, and probably lives in a swamp most of the year. He appeared once last year in my meadow but I ran out of daylight and time. This year he had been on my camera a few times but most of the time it was at night. I couldn't seem to catch him during the light hours of the day, but that all changed last week. I went to my parent's place to help my dad with some stuff, and at 1pm we finished up I headed out to my blind. I wasn't overly excited to freeze for the next four hours but lots of does had been moving through my area so it made sitting a lot easier. By 3:00 pm I had seen four different does and was watching a doe and fawn about 100 yards away from me (right where my ground blind use to be). All of a sudden, on the far edge of the meadow, I could see a buck walking across. I couldn't make out if it was Shrek but it looked big. I started shaking with anticipation, but after a few minutes, I realized it wasn't him (he was a nice deer though). He walked over to the doe and fawn, grunting the whole way. After he chased the doe and fawn off I though about shooting him but decided to let him grow a little more and he soon faded off into the woods. By 4pm the doe and fawn were back and by 4:15 two more does and one little buck were out in the same area. At that same time Kari started texting me asking me how hunting was going and when I was going to be home. Just after we ended our text convo, I looked up and saw him... Shrek... The one I had been freezing my tail off for the last two years. He was about two hundred yards off to my right, but he was making his way closer along the bush line. I no longer felt cold, my heart immediately started pounding, I started shaking, and the only thing I could think of was "please just give me a shot". He slowly walked towards me, which was great but it didn't give me much of a shot. Plus, in the amount of time it took him to move 80 yards I had turned into a emotional disaster (I felt like a 12 year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert). My buck fever was at an all time high as I raised my gun up and tried to put him in my cross hares. He finally took a step to the left and gave me a bit of a shot and I took it (I was afraid if I waited any longer my nerves would get the better of me). The buck immediately took off running right towards me. This made things worse for my nerves. I assumed I had missed him so I took a second shot at him. Then he stopped and fell... I'd like to tell you that I held my composure, that all I let out was a silent fist pump and a soft "yesssssss" like the pros do on tv but I didn't. I acted just like the 12 year old girls at the Bieber concert. I screemed, yelled, ran over to Shrek, snapped a picture with my phone (ps... I hit him with both shots), called my wife and dad (yelling I got him) ran back to my blind to get my knife but forgot why I went back to the blind, and ran back to Shrek until my dad showed up. When Dad got there I was still a emotional wreck and the first thing I said to him was "Dad I got him!" and he replied (in classic Chuck style) "Good, I hope you didn't shoot him where we have to drag him a mile". After we snapped a few pictures, we loaded him up and went home. It was the best way to end my fall and a day I'll never forget. I have to send out a huge thanks to my dad and my buddy Andy Carlson for all the help.

Sorry about the I-Phone pic... I know it's not the best.
Thanks again, and I hope your fall leaves you feeling like you just got home from the greatest Bieber concert too.






   
        

The Wonderful World of Sout Dakota

About two weeks ago my dad asked me if I wanted to go to South Dakota for a pheasant hunt with my cousin Jay and some friends from Indiana. I wasn't overly eager to jump at the opportunity, because of a few things. One reason was "the rut" was just around the corner and I had a great deer on my trail cam, and the though of missing my opportunity at a shot at him made me sick. The second reason was Kari and I had just bought our first house and she was doing most of the moving herself. Lastly, I was very skeptical about South Dakota as a whole. I had never been there but all I could think of was a flat chunk of nothingness with little to offer besides a rich history of native culture and Mount Rushmore. On the other hand I don't get to spend a lot of time with my dad away from work, so I decided to go on the trip. At the time I viewed the trip as a huge sacrifice for me (like any man would). Along with not being much help to my wife during our move I was stepping away from a chunk of prime time deer hunting and Shrek (Shrek is what I named the deer that has been showing up in my trail cam and haunting my dreams for the last month).

From the moment we arrived at Wagon Wheel Ranch in Kimball, South Dakota my expectations were exceeded. The lodge was beautiful, the rooms were more than comfortable, the food was great, and the owners Curt and Maureen and their son Michael were awesome right form the get go. We arrived on the evening of the 6th and were scheduled to hunt the next morning. Because of regulations we were not allowed to start hunting until 10am (I don't know why the regulations are set this way but when your cousin wakes you up at 5am it makes for a long morning). Before we headed out Curt went over some safety rules and explained how we would be hunting. Curt also explained to Jay and I that it was only legal to shoot roosters (male pheasants) and the rest of the crew all chimed in on how you could tell the difference between the two. They said there was nothing to it at all... roosters make a clucking sound when they get up to fly, roosters have longer tails, roosters are way more colorful, roosters flap their tail when they take off ect (sounds pretty easy). Curt gave the best tip and said that the easiest way to tell the difference between roosters and hens was that roosters had a thick white ring around their neck and hens do not.  We would be walking rectangular food plots, driving the pheasant with walkers and dogs while each side of the food plot would be occupied by flankers, and blockers at the end of each.

After our pheasant orientation we hopped on a school bus painted like a tiger and headed out to our field. On the first drive Curt and Michael set me up at the end of the plot blocking. Once again I wasn't sure what to expect but as soon as the drivers started walking around 300 pheasants kicked up out of the field. It was remarkable! Just to clear things up a little bit, despite what Indiana boys may say, when you are pheasant hunting for the first time and 300 pheasants are flushed out of a field it IS NOT easy to determine roosters from hens. In fact out of the 200 birds that flew within shooting range of me all 200 made it out safe and sound. I was so in awe that I didn't get a single shot off. Fortunately for me, one rooster stayed in the field about a minute longer than his buddies and when he flushed up I was ready and able to make a good second shot (note: Curt was right. The white ring on the neck of the roosters is one of the best ways to distinguish roosters form hens). The rest of the day was filled with similar action. Every field was filled with life. Lots of birds and the occasional deer. We had 10 guys hunting in our group, and with the limit of 3 pheasant per-person, our group limit was 30 birds. We had our limit by 12:30 despite me going 2 for 10 on my shooting... It was crazy. We hopped back on the bus and headed back to the lodge for a great lunch. After lunch we walked out to the skeet shooting range they have at the ranch to brush up on our trap skills.That night we had a great dinner, shot some bull and headed off to bed to do it all over again.

Day two, three, and four were almost identical the the first day. There wasn't a day where we didn't have a limit before 1:00 pm. It was one of the best hunting trips I have ever been on in every way.  I highly recommend the Wagon Wheel Ranch and this trip to anyone who loves the outdoors (I will definitely be making another trip). Curt, Maureen, and Michael are amazing at what they do and their hospitality is second to none. Last, I have to put my foot in my mouth and admit that South Dakota is beautiful and flat.

Sorry about the pictures. They were taken from my I-Phone but I will put better ones up as soon as I get them. 

Wagon Wheel Ranch
www.dakota-pheasant-hunting.com/index.htm
curt@dakota-pheasant-hunting.com
(605) 830-2925

    

Catching Up and Ghosts of the Fall

To everyone who reeds this, I owe you a huge apology for the inconsistency of my entries. August was busy, busy, busy (with three weddings), but I did manage to spend a fair amount of time on the water. The beginning of the month was a little tough for trout, walleye and bass, but the northern on Whitefish Bay were nothing short of amazing. We blasted a bunch of them that averaged from 9-16lbs and a few that came close to the 20lb range. Whitefish Bay is remarkable for big northern and is one of Northwestern Ontario's best kept secrets for monster northern (it's the only place that I have ever found northerns in schools). Most of my success, that time of the year, comes from trolling deep diving crank baits (10ft or deeper) over top of 30-60ft of water. Deep points and deep secluded islands are usually the places to troll.

September also produced a lot of great fishing. Actually it is one of my favorite times of the year to fish. The fall generally produces good numbers of fish and gives you a great chance of catching a monster of any species. This happens because fish usually go on a big food binge before the winter months. They usually start their food bender in mid September until ice on. These cold weather months have contributed to some of my best fishing days, but this time of year can be a pain in the butt to fish because of the cold weather. You have to dress like your heading out ice fishing in order to make it all day.

October has been bitter sweet. Its always the month that I make the transition from fishing to hunting but this year I spent the first half of the month on a reserve (Kasabonki) helping my dad fly out moose hunters. We got to Kas on the Sept 15th and left there on Oct 11th. Just before we left I reset my trail cams and when I came back I was a little disappointed to find that there was very little that had moved past my cameras. Prior to leaving I was averaging around 1400 pics a month between two cameras but the whole month I was gone I only had a total of 200 pics between the two... Not what I was expecting at all. Honestly I was shattered... I have spent a lot of time putting up stands, cutting trails, and scouting and to come up with hardly anything on the cameras so close to season was depressing to say the least (I all most pulled my cameras from the two areas altogether).

The next week was just as frustrating. Byron, Kari, Tinker, and I guided a couple of moose hunters out at Krooked Lake and came up short. Over the 6 days that we spent out there we only saw two cows. The weather wasn't in our favor and it seemed like wherever we went we were always a step behind what we were looking for. There were fresh tracks on every section so shoreline that we touched but there was never anything standing in the tracks. On the last day Byron and one of the guys we were guiding went for a walk through the woods and when they came back a bull had walked between where they had parked the boat and the tree line. It was enough to make me want to pull my hair out, but it's a part of hunting. When we lose as hunters its always a tough pill to swallow (getting outsmarted by an animal with a smaller brain capacity never goes well).

When we got back from the hunt I was ready to get back in the boat and forget hunting for the rest of the year, but yesterday afternoon I decided to head out to the tree stand and check the trail cams one more time. I got out to the stand around 3:00pm and sat there until dark. At about 5:45 I saw something that looked like a doe about 300 yards away. I thought she spotted me because she wasn't moving at all. After 5min of her not moving I pulled up my scope and saw that I had been looking at a brown shrub. It's sad to say that the shrub was the most exciting part of my trip out to the stand. As I was leaving pulled the camera card out of my camera and shut my camera off. When I got home I plugged my camera card into the computer and saw that a great buck had been in the area every day this week (what was kind of depressing was that it had been standing in front of my camera an hour before I got out there).  Last night I could hardly sleep. I got up this morning at 5:30am and headed out to my ground blind at daybreak. The whole morning I froze my tail off and to make things worse I didn't see a thing. I took a short break at 11:00am, put some more clothes on, and was back in my blind at 12:00pm. The afternoon was almost as slow as the morning. I saw a fox around 2:00 and by 3:00 I had made a little squirrel my friend. I shared my Triscuits with him and in a few hours he was almost eating out of my hand (I have a short attention span). At 5:45pm I was busted. A deer got wind of me and all I could do was listen to it run of and snort at me. I didn't even get to see it but it couldn't have been more than 50 yards away when it caught wind of me. What is so amazing to me is how such large animals can be so quiet in the woods. They are just like ghosts that haunt hunters all fall and leave many of us heartbroken at the end of the year.

I'll keep you all posted on how the end of the season turns out. Thanks again for reading.    

Loonhaunt Lake

Well we are part way into July and things are starting to get a little bit uncomfortable temperature wise (at least for us Canadians). Honestly I have been praying for a day under 80 degrees for the last two weeks, but the temperature just seems to get hotter and hotter. Fishing is still good but every day seems to be a little more of a puzzle than the day before. This is normally the point of year where things get a little tougher, but who doesn’t like a little challenge (of course we all love to beat up on fish as if they were rented mules but in most cases it doesn’t happen that way).

Last week I spent most of my time out on Loonhaunt Lake with Bob and Chuck Baker and it was phenomenal. I really can’t say enough about this lake and if you’re a walleye or bass fisherman it’s a hard lake to top. The walleye fishing in the lake usually produces great numbers and the quality of fish is top notch. Actually, it is hard to catch a walleye in Loonhaunt that’s smaller than 17”. When it comes to walleye they are far from my favorite to fish for, but Loon is the exception. I usually do the best fishing for walleyes with Lindy Rigs and night crawlers. I usually use a 3/8oz bullet sinker and a 4-5’ snel line. Also, I use a worm pump or syringe to pump air into the worm so it floats a little higher off the bottom. This is a little trick I learned during my guiding on the Pipestone/Clearwater chain of lakes that converts really well to Loon. 

Bass fishing on Loonhaunt is even more impressive than the walleye fishing. The Baker boys and I laid a serious beat down on the smallmouth and largemouth. The first day we caught a pile of bass that ranged from 2-3lbs. Most of our success the first day came on wacky worms but we did catch quite a few on Zoom Flukes. We did the best around the deep cabbage weeds and on the edge of the pencil stems/reeds. Our second day we started out with wacky worms around the same type of structure but things were going a lot slower than the day before. Around 11am the wind completely died and we switched over to top water and immediately started to blast all sorts of big bass (It was like something you dream of).  For the next four hours we had some of the best fishing I have ever had in my life. It was 3lber after 3lber with the occasional 4lber mixed in.  It got to a point when Bob or Chuck lost a good fish they would just shrug their shoulders and say “I’ll get another good one in a few casts”. One of the last spots of the day (before we were chased off the lake by a ginormous lightning storm) Chuck hooked into a huge largemouth on a popper. As he was bringing it back to the boat it blew up out of the water and spit the hook. The hook came back to the boat like a missile and tagged me right in the butt (I was lucky and no barbs sank in my skin). Chuck was a good sport about the whole thing and helped pull the hooks from my shorts while Bob laughed and snapped pictures. It was a pretty humorous end to a great day. 

Something else note worthy, this week I went and picked up one of the camera cards form one of my trail cams. It was a camera I put in on the 20^th of May and I didn’t check it until last week. I had 1600 photos on it!!! I had tons of photos of deer (three bucks), about 700 photos of bears (two that sat in front of my camera for 15 hours and swatted my cam 5 times… Not cool), and one moose! The moose was the coolest by far. I couldn’t see if it was a bull or a cow because my cam only caught form its front shoulders back to the hind end (a result of my camera being spun out of whack from Yogi the Bear) but it was for sure a full grown adult. The only thing I put in front of the camera was a mineral lick I got from Tompkins Hardware called the “Rack Rock”. I don’t know how much this little thing was a part of the high traffic but as far as I’m concerned it’s a great product. 

Since I’ve been slacking in the blog entries I plan on writing another one as soon as I can. Thanks again for reading and all the support.  

Slow it Down

I don’t know if I can tell you how lucky I have been this year to fish with such amazing kids! So… this week’s shout out goes out to all of them (Jason, Cole, Colton, Parker, Shawn, and Tommy). Every single kid that has stepped into my boat this year has been nothing short of incredible, and it is great to see kids who have a love for the outdoors and appreciate what it has to offer. For a few of these kids, it was their first trip to Canada and it was a great privilege for me to be a part of it. 

Fishing over the last week or two has stayed consistently productive.  The surface temp on Lake of the Woods is hovering around 75-77 degrees F (which is crazy for this time of year). The walleyes are set up in their summer spots (on main lake weedbeds and humps) and we have been doing the best on a jig and minnow (jig color hasn’t mattered at all). Today we were catching walleyes out of 22” of water. We also caught crappie and jumbo perch mixed in with the walleyes. The northern fishing has been great. I think I have seen more big northern (30”-42”) caught this year than I have ever seen in all of my years of guiding. Most of the bigger ones have come from Whitefish Bay but we have smashed some dandies in the fly-in lakes too. We have busted the northern on basically everything. From jigs and minnows to X-Raps and spinner baits the northern don’t seem to care. Last week I probably had the best day for Musky I have ever had in my life. We went to Carver Lake and in the duration of 8 hours we caught 7 musky and lost 3 (it was wicked). All of the musky came from smaller baits I normally use for bass fishing but it didn’t matter. 

The bass are just coming to the end of their post-spawn stage, a point in the year when they are really finicky, docile, and hard to catch. I think that they get like this because their spawn puts a lot of stress on them. Not to mention the May flies are pretty thick so they’re almost stuffed full of those pesky things.  Both of these conditions combined, can almost drive a fisherman to the brink of insanity but fish eat everyday and there is always a way to catch them. The biggest rule I have come up with in these conditions is “Slow Down” (it’s something I have to tell myself repeatedly throughout the day). I know it’s nice to smash fish on reaction bite baits, but I think you can catch a lot more fish and bigger by slowing things up when it get tough. If you think about it, the fish are acting just like people. For example, if you ate a hundred snack size candy bars do you think you would jump off the couch, fly out the door and run down the ice cream truck when it drove by your house? I doubt it but you might walk out to grab one if the ice cream truck was sitting just outside your door. I think bass are the same way. I really don’t think they feel like chasing down a spinner bait that is ripping over their heads at 100mph when they are full and tired. One thing that I always do rather well on when things get tough is Mariboo jigs (I can’t tell you enough about these little fuzzy things).  To a bass they are just like a bite size candy bar. I work them really slow, hopping them along the bottom or swimming back to the boat. Another thing I have blasted big bass on during the post spawn and May fly hatch is wacky worms. Last week I probably had my best day fishing with wacky worms. Again I think the whole key is a slow presentation and the wacky worm is something that is slow moving, and easy for fish to catch up to. I usually twitch them 2-3 times in a row then let the worm flutter for 10 second then repeat the process until your bait makes it back to the boat (always work these baits the full way back to the boat. It might be painful but it will produce fish). The same thing goes for soft jerk baits like Zoom Flukes, Berkly Jerkshads, and the infamous Banjo Minnow (really, despite the horrible infomercial these are actually really good bates). If you are a power fisherman who can’t bring yourself to slow your stuff down and would rather burn baits all day long then something that you can try during tough times is the Alabama rig. These things look amazing in the water and if you don’t know what they are you need to check them out on youtube. Last week was the first time I had ever thrown one and I did really well even though the conditions were less than favorable. In fact, the first time I hooked up I had two fish on at one time (for real!!! I have witnesses to prove it). I loaded up my “A Rig” with four ¼oz Mimic Minnow Jigs with four 3” Impulse Paddle Minnows (both made by Northland Tackle). I caught fish on it pretty consistently at various speeds and had a lot more fallow it to the boat. Sometimes I would even have up to 10 fish fallowing it at one time (for something I thought looked really silly they really do produce fish). However, to throw the Alabama Rig you need a heavy rod and heavy line. You need the heavy rod because it’s like throwing a musky lure (it will wear you out if you throw it all day). I used a heavy action bait casting rod with 30lb braid and it seemed to work just fine.

That’s about all I have for this week but you can always email me if you have any questions or comments. Thanks again for reading and I’ll catch up with you all again in a week or so. 

Dallas Mosbeck

dkmosbeck@yahoo.com     

Rock Solid Sprin

Well it’s been a week and then some since I had the chance to write, but things are going great up in Northwestern Ontario.  The weather this past week and a half has been a mix of really warm & cold and rainy (the only thing that has been consistent has been fishing and the meteorologist’s bad predictions) but so far the fish are a little ahead of schedule. The weeds are starting to grow up pretty thick, smallmouth and largemouth are almost at the end of their spawn, big northern are still up shallow, and walleye are active and starting to move to early summer spots. 

Walleye has been great all around. Most of our success has come on a 1/4oz jig and minnow but I have done rather well on 4” Berkley Gulp minnows. A week ago guest Dan McFeeders caught a 42” Northern on a 3” minnow bait on 6lb test (it was crazy awesome). At first it tried to eat a smaller northern Dan was reeling in.  Also, Byron has had a lot of success catching quality size northern on a #5 Mepps. As far as bass go I’ve spent a lot of my time guiding on Whitefish Bay (Lake of the Woods), Otterskin Lake, Shingwak Lake, and Lake Kishkutina. In all of these lakes the bass were on beds and as long as you could get your bait in the vicinity of their bed they would hit it (it goes to show you smallmouth are more protective of their young than a crazy hockey mom).  We caught the bass on top-water, Zoom Flukes, Jig Worms, X-Raps, Maraboo Jigs (if you have never used these you are really missing out), and 1/8 Mimic Minnow jigs with 3” Impulse Minnow baits (both made by Northland Tackle).  My cousins, Sam Jackson and Cam Mosbeck have also been busting up big smallies on Clearwater Lake with tube jigs. Bed fishing is a great way to get good numbers but it’s almost like cheating. I think you could actually catch a lot of these fish on a bare jig head (trust me it’s that easy). 

On that note, as anglers and hunters you have to take advantage of every opportunity to improve your chances of cracking “the big one.” Sometimes these advantages come in small packages but the rewards are amazing. In terms of fishing I don’t know if there is anything more important than a pair of polarized sunglasses (especially for bass fisherman). Fishing without them is like fishing blind and I can’t tell you how many times I have caught fish/big fish due to polarized sunglasses. In my opinion, polarized sun glasses are one of the most important things you can have in your arsenal. The best thing about polarized glasses is that you can find them all over the place and they are super affordable (as low as $15.00) so if you lose them you don’t feel like crying (I know from experience). Right now I use Costa del Mar sunglasses but there are plenty of others that work just fine.

   

I also have to send out a special thanks to Matt Foltz for letting me borrow his underwater camera to shoot some cool footage of bed fishing on Otterskin Lake. The camera he had was called a “Go Pro” and they are totally designed for the outdoors. They are so cool I might even be able to talk Kari in to letting me get one.

Kick Off

Hey there everyone! I’ll start off by sending a shout out to Andy Carlson and Troy Norman for a great finish in the Sturgeon Bay bass tournament! It’s always nice to see buddies and great local fisherman do well at high end tournaments. Great job guys!

OK… Last week I drug a tree stand through the bush to a new area I found this spring. On my way in, I realized that I might have picked a spot that was a little too hard to get to (I’m pretty sure that tree stand is there for life).  After an hour of crashing through the bush/swamp I arrived at my new spot. I thought the tough part was over but I was way wrong. I took a pole saw and started cutting the branches off the balsam tree I had chosen for my tree stand. After I figured I had reached well above 15’ and was covered in sap and needles, I tried to put up tree stand. The tree that I was putting it up on was on a bit of an incline and when I almost had it in place I slipped, fell backwards, and the stand fell back and on top of me (it squashed me like a bug). The only good thing about the whole situation is that I set my tree stand far enough away from my trail cam so it wasn’t caught on tape. About 6 tries later I got the stand in place and strapped down. I’ll be sure to upload some trail cam pics as soon I have a chance to check my trail cam.

This last week was my first week of guiding for this season. Needless to say, it’s great to be back on the water, but this first week provided a series of challenges. Up until a week ago the weather had been relatively consistent (with daytime temps averaging in the 70’s) but the day before I was scheduled to hit the water that all changed. The temp dropped to the mid 50’s, wind picked up, and rain poured (May in Northwestern Ontario… It will throw you curveballs).

My first day was spent guiding the Wigle family on Arrow Lake for Walleye. Without a doubt Arrow is one of the best walleye lakes I have ever fished. As a guide it’s a great lake to be on because it’s easy for a novice fisherman to come out of there looking like a rock star. On an average day it isn’t uncommon to put over 75 fish in the boat (I know this might sounds like B.S. but if you ask any of the guides around Nestor Falls about it they will tell you the same thing) but my first day out on Arrow was well short of that. We probably totaled around 45 fish, with the biggest one measuring around 17”.  Not the day I was hoping for but a good day none the less. Almost every spot we stopped we caught fish but they didn’t seem to be holding in big schools. We mostly used 1/4oz jigs tipped with minnows.

My second day guiding was again with the Wigle family on Loonhaunt Lake. This was a tough day to say the least. The wind was relentless, the temp hovered around 50 degrease F, it rained most of the day, and fishing was tough. The only thing that we had a lot of success doing was trolling weighted Rattle Traps along the shore line  for lake trout in 40 to 50ft of water (this is something Byron and I had a lot of success on earlier this year out on Kairiscons). The coolest part of the first two days was fishing with Joe Wigle (a 10 year old kid from Rochester MN). Joe is by far the most patient kid I have ever fished with and I’m not sure if I have ever seen someone his age show so much enthusiasm towards the outdoors. Both days we were faced with some pretty cold weather and harsh conditions but he never complained once, it was impressive.

Yesterday Byron and I headed out on Sabaskong Bay (Lake of the Woods) for a day of walleye fishing. Things were a little windy but nothing that wasn’t manageable. Actually I think a good strong wind on Lake of the Woods helps you more than it hurts you. When the wind blows a lot it pushes the water around and creates a lot of current (in fact the wind will push so much water around that the water level can change up to two feet in less than an hour). Most of our success came from these stretches where the wind was pushing a lot of current. We caught the walleyes form 12’ to 20’ of water on jigs and minnows. We used 3/8oz and 1/2oz jigs depending on how much current was running through the area.

Anyway over the next few days I’ll be chasing some smallies around so I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Ice Off

Howdy!!! It's been a while since my last entry so I figured I'd get you all up to date. Since I've been home, I've been consumed with camp work and the NHL Playoffs. The other day I was redoing a bathroom in one of our cabins, and to put it lightly, I was stressed to the max.  I was in the Nestor Falls hardware store 3-4 times in one day. On my last trip to the hardware store, Bill (the owner), asked me "how's it going now?"  I replied with a frustrated tone "not good Bill, I think I'm breaking more crap than I'm fixing."  He just laughed and said, "you'll make a good camp owner." His little joke lightened up my mood and made me forget all of my prior frustrations.

Despite all the hiccups the past two weeks, I have managed to get out a little bit. Last week I spent one day out on Clearwater looking for deer shed and scouting new areas for hunting season this fall. I didn't find any sheds but I found a gem of a new area (I know it's a little early to be thinking about deer hunting but my lack of success last year has me motivated this year). The new area I found is  a old logging road from 40 years ago that is on the edge of a swamp. The area is full of good buck rubs and deer trails, but there's a down side... It is a pretty long walk into where I want to put a tree stand. I'm going to walk in there tomorrow and put up a trail cam on one of the runways and see if anything good walks by in the next few months.

I also managed to get out on the water twice in the past two weeks. Ice out on the lakes in Northwestern Ontario is one of the best times of the year to catch big fish...  If you have the time and don't mind numb extremities. The first time I got out on the water was two weeks ago. It was the earliest I have ever been out on the lake in a boat around here. I froze my tail off! The water temp is sitting around 38 degrease F  and when the wind blows the cold air coming off the water makes the air temp feel a heck of a lot cooler than 38. The first day I went out on the lake, Cody (my brother), Eric (my cousin), my Dad, and I did a little Trout\Walleye combo.  Both were a little slow but we did manage to get a few. Dad cracked a pretty good walleye (that he made sure we all knew all about) but other than that there really wasn't much to talk about. The next day Cody, Eric, Andy Carlson (a good buddy of mine), and I took a stab at some smallies on Rainy Lake. Fishing wasn't all that bad but the weather was brutal. The wind was strong, temperatures were around 33 degrees F, and  it rained most of the day. We were only on the water for a few hours but all together we managed to catch around 12 smallies. All of our bites came on minnow baits on jigs in 25'-30' of water.  

At any rate, I'm going to go watch the game but hopefully I'll have a chance to write in the next few days with a little better update on the fishing, cold weather, and whatever else pops up in between.

The Gulf

Well Kari and I just made it back to Canada! It was a long 30-some hour drive that felt like it would never end, but it's a great feeling to be back (despite the fact that Florida winter has turned me into a complete sissy when it comes to cool weather. I felt like I was going to freeze to death today and the temps here were in the 40's). I actually think our dogs are more excited to be back here than we are, they have spent the last 6hrs chasing each other, squirrels, and digging holes in my mom and dad's yard (sorry mom and dad). As of today the ice is completely off of Clearwater Lake! It is the earliest ice-out that I can ever recall. I hope to get a little trout/smallmouth fishing in over the next few days before all the work around the camp starts, but we'll see. 

Three days before we left Florida I had the opportunity to head out on the Gulf of Mexico for a little saltwater excursion with a few friends. Needless to say it was amazing and if you ever have the opportunity to hit up the Gulf, I strongly suggest you go, the ocean is carling with all sorts of life. This whole experience of ocean fishing was new to me and I was well out of my league. I had no clue what I was doing and my equipment was way to light for what we were doing but my buddy Garret (who thankfully had a ton of saltwater experience) was our guide and did a great job of putting us in the right areas. We were mainly after tarpon and sharks, sad to say we struck-out on both but we did catch a mess of lady fish, grunts, catfish, sea trout, redfish, and flounder (by the way flounder do not look like Flounder form "The Little Mermaid." They look like a halibut with vampire teeth... By far the creepiest thing I have ever caught). Also, we saw all sorts of sharks, tarpon, manta rays, and dolphins. To tell you the truth the thing that made my trip was the dolphins. On multiple occasions they came right up to the boat and would just swim around us while we were fishing. Also, I think it was the first time in a long time that I actually took a step back and admired what was around me. All around it was a remarkable trip and a great way to end the "Florida Experiment."       

I have a great video of the dolphins that I'll put up as soon as I have a chance.