Countin' down...

When it comes to packing for a trip, be it hunting or fishing, I’ve always been kind of lazy about it. I suppose it has to do with having most of my gear pretty handy and all I really need to do it toss it in a pack and get going. I’ve had most of my stuff for years and I’m pretty comfortable with it and know its capabilities. But the trip I’m about to take had me sort of backed up on my heels. Two companions and I are about to float/fish/camp a river in some wild country. We’ll get dropped off by floatplane and picked up by floatplane after some seven days and 60 or so miles on the river. Of course we’ll all figuring on an awesome adventure, but we know the weather could be less than ideal. There’ll be no re-supply or quick exits, so our gear and supplies need to be in order.

I got to thinking about my stuff and realized that even though it’s of good quality, it is getting pretty old. I’m not against updating and replacing what needs to be replaced, but I don’t exactly want to buy an entire new outfit for this one trip, either.

That’s the trouble with all this stuff. Outdoor gear has come a long way in terms of technology. It’s light, waterproof, and comfortable. But I’m an old school guy who remembers wearing my grandpa’s Maine Hunting Shoes when I was a teen and grew to believe that equipment should not only work, it should last. I’ve went through many a pair of boots and jackets that were guaranteed waterproof, and were waterproof for a while. Turns out they’re waterproof until, well, they’re not. I suppose that’s why quick drying supplex type clothing is so popular, which really does work but wears out quickly, too – probably ‘cause it’s so thin. The shoulders of my very favorite “guide wear” fishing shirt disintegrated under the weight of my trout vest. I guess that may be a good thing: fishing enough to wear out a shirt, but I really expected to get more use from it.

I recently read an online review (for what it’s worth) of a big brand fishing shirt. One guy loved ‘em, gave them five stars. Said he buys six of them a year. Huh? That’s the price of having good, comfortable gear. When it works it’s great, when it gives up we buy more.

So I’ve gone through pretty much all of my gear: my tent, sleeping bag, waders, boots, etc. I’ve sorted out what I think is good, replaced some of the questionable stuff, and even repaired some of it.

The one thing that really had me busy was tying flies. We’ll be fishing for salmon and trout and using flies proven to the area. I’d never tied pink wogs before, or pink anything for that matter, but I am now. There’s a saying where we’re going, “if pink doesn’t work, try pink.” Of course that’s not enough. Gotta have some chartreuse, too. And purple. Some black. And white. And some brown. Mostly streamers of varying types. Barbell eyes. Coneheads. Egg-sucking. Sparkly, furry, feathery. Oh, don’t forget some mouse patterns! When those big rainbows hit a mouse it’s amazing, so they say. I gotta believe it.

It’s always fun to fish and explore new country, and this will be an exciting trip. I’ve been on a couple of fly-in fishing trips before, but I’ve never caught a salmon on a fly rod, and I’ve never fished were bear spray is standard equipment. I’m hoping I take the time to fill my camera with photos. I know it’s a little selfish, but I hope to come back with at least a few photos posed with big fish!

 

 

 

 

 

 

go fish!

Less than two weeks ago, shortly after Memorial Day, I lost half of my tomato plants to a late season freeze. We had a couple of mornings when the temps dropped into the 20’s. In June. Frost warnings were out and the plants were covered with Solo cups but I guess that wasn’t enough. Then came the rain that filled the banks of the small rivers and streams but still not enough to raise the lake levels much. The last few days have been beautiful and we’re all about convinced summer is here. It’s sunny, it’s hot, the grass is growing and the birds are singing. Nice.

I don’t know where all the deer where last fall, but this spring they seem to be all over the place. I was wandering around a meadow and came face to face with a doe and wobbly legged fawn. Mama deer jumped off a short ways but the fawn’s defense, unable to outrun anything, was to lay down. I didn’t want to bother them much but I did snap a couple of photos before backing away. In the last week I’ve seen perhaps a dozen newborn fawns in my travels, and the old finlanders in the area are talking about the “spotted fawn meatloaf” their mothers used to make.

 Yesterday morning I had to back my boat to the end of the dock on Lake Vermillion to get it off the trailer. Yeah, the water is still pretty low. It was early enough during the week that there wasn’t much traffic at the landing. The only other boat was an outfitter’s pontoon loading canoes and gear to ferry up to the Trout Lake portage. I’m always attracted to canoes, but yesterday I was going the easy way with boat and motor. There wasn’t a hint of a breeze and I used the electric trolling motor to work my way around the rocky islands and fly cast for smallmouth bass. Vermillion has a population of Muskies and northern pike, too, and I was kinda’ hoping for a chance at a big one of those. 

I headed to a good looking bay that’s covered with the small rocky bottom that screams bass habitat. There’re a couple of logs laying on the bottom and two docks as well. Vermillion is a popular and populated lake. It’s nowhere to look for solitude, but it’s a fishery known for walleye, musky, and bass.  Sometimes you gotta put up with some company. There’s so much structure you’d think the fish would easy to catch, but though I spent the morning casting over mostly rocky cover with divers and streamers, I didn’t really get into them. I had a number of strikes from small fish, however, and I did catch my first bass of the year, a couple of medium sized bronzebacks that where laying under one of the docks. In another weedy bay I tossed a big articulated streamer that was hard to cast and frustrating because I couldn’t get near the distance as a bass bug, but I had to try in hopes a big predator fish would take interest. None did. By early afternoon the lake was busy with boats running back and forth, the fishing was slow and I had a lawn to mow so I heading for the dock.

It’s funny – all winter long I think about all the fishing I’m going to do come spring. I can’t think of anything that would conflict. I’ll catch steelhead with snow still on the ground. Trout in the little streams before the leaves pop out. Walleyes to supply the fish fries. Big trout out west. Giant night-time browns on deerhair mouse patterns. Bass, musky, and northerns all summer.  Evenings around a hissing lantern sipping whisky, tying flies, sharpening hooks and cleaning lines. No chores or tasks, of course. No need for working or sleeping. Livin’ the dream with no reason not to. That’s what I think about. All winter.

gettin' ready...

I often say the fun should last at least as long as the time it took to get there. That can be construed in different ways, I know, but what I mean is if I drive 3 hours to go hunting, the hunt should last at least 3 hours. Of course it doesn’t always work out – I remember driving up to Blackduck Lake to fish for walleyes, which takes about an hour, and sitting at the dock, in the truck, waiting for the deluge of rain to end. It never did. At least not while Dad and I waited. I don’t mind fishing in the rain, but that time was ridiculous. Parked at the landing a few feet from the dock, we could see the end of the dock, but not much beyond. We drank our coffee on the way home.

 I’m glad I only hold that rule to the travel time. In a week the crew and I will drive a long day to go trout fishing in Montana. Then we’ll fish for a number of long days and drive home. It makes sense and seems right. When l count the travel time vs. activity time, I’m not including the hours spent getting ready. Good thing, because I’ve been getting ready for this trip for months.

Sometimes I think the “getting ready” gets in the way of the actual “doing.” Especially when it comes to all the projects to do around the house. I’ve got a few hammer and nails type projects pending and it’s like “don’t worry, I’m getting ready.” I feel like I’m always getting ready for something.

There are less obvious, but perhaps more important ways of getting ready. Ways that any outdoorsy folk would recognize as sensible. Life is short and so are the weekends, and when I spent a couple of those spring weekends following bird dogs around at field trials I was actually getting valuable and needed exercise that will come in handy for just about any summer adventure I partake in. The times I spent limbering up the fly rod trying for steelhead may have seemed like time wasted to the casual observer, but getting ready for upcoming fly fishing by early season practice casting can’t be discounted. This morning’s mountain bike ride may have seemed like a good way to get out of yard work, but the cardio benefit of off-road pedaling has got to help – if it doesn’t do me in first.

After I put my bike away I pulled a chair out in front of the garage and sat down. Aha! Says the industrious type. Resting is it, wasting the day away?! Well, I was sort of resting, true. That biking isn’t as easy as it used to be, but if you looked closer you’d have seen I was trimming deer hair flies into some sort of useful shape. I’ve got a big trip planned for late summer and I’m gonna need some pink and chartreuse pollywogs. Again, I’m just getting ready!

Once in a while I looked over at Jack, who was sitting quietly staring up at the birch tree. There was a squirrel in the tree planning to make its way to the feeder to swipe the seeds I put out for my favorite rose-breasted grosbeaks. The squirrel nervously inched down the tree. Jack was getting ready, too. 

Not every stage of getting ready involves preparing for something big, of course. More mundane, everyday tasks provide good cause, also. Like yesterday morning. I snuck out in the canoe for a short while, just long enough to catch one little river walleye barely big enough to fit alongside some eggs. I was getting ready for breakfast!

Sat. 5/16

Spring is short around here, and comes reluctantly. One day the temperature will be below zero and the next day it’ll read 40 above. The country road I live on, and my driveway, will turn wet, muddy and rutted – then freeze rock hard, but the ruts stay. The snow starts melting, patches of brown grass start showing in the yard and everyone is smiling ‘cause spring is in the air. Snow shovels are stowed, outdoor furniture is brought out, windows and doors left open and we step outside in light jackets or no jackets at all. People drive around with the car window rolled down. And just when we think we’ve got the winter licked, we wake up the next morning to a white landscape and deck chairs knocked over by wind driven snow. Parkas are donned again and the catch phrase of the day is a submissive “I’m sick of this.”

Spring does take over, however eventually, and when it does we find ourselves with so much to do that the immediacy of it grabs us in near panic. There are only so many perfect spring days yet there’re so many ways to fill them, and fill ‘em we must, because before we know it those pussy willows will have burst out along with the leaves and with that all comes the heat and bugs. Yeah, spring is short.

Yesterday would have been a beautiful day for dog work, sunny and just above freezing, but I had a pile of wood to split and I knew if I didn’t get it finished I’d be kicking myself next January. I suppose spending a morning with a splitting maul is not a bad thing to do and it’s pretty satisfying when it’s done, but when Molly flushed a grouse behind me while I was swinging the maul it was sure tempting to postpone the chore and hit the woods. I stuck with the task, however, with no regrets because last night the snow and freezing rain came and coated everything with a couple of inches of snow and slush. Cars were sliding off the road and snowplows were out again.

I’m thinking about fishing now and with a couple of exciting trips coming up I’m eager to limber up the rods. The lakes and streams are still frozen close to home, but there’s fishing to be had down on the rivers that feed Lake Superior, so things are looking up.  With a bit of luck there will be a steelhead or two in my near future.

The sun is setting and I’m looking out at the snow in the woods surrounding my yard, but in my head I’m hearing the zing of line in the air, the dip of oars in the water, and feeling the tug on the rod. I’m daydreaming of warm days floating bass and musky rivers and wading clear trout streams. Word is there are likely some salmon in the future. I’ll keep you posted – I can hardly wait!

29 March 2015

the shortest month... seems long.

It’s that time of year again when we all more or less wish we were somewhere else. Somewhere we could be hunting. Or fishing. Somewhere we could be outdoors without freezing our keesters off. Some warm sport filled paradise we could spend our winters at. Yes, I think I’d stay around here through deer season and then head to my winter quarters where there would be wingshooting available and water to fly fish. I’ve been to the southwest and southeast parts of the country, but I’m thinking someplace a little more exotic. Like Cuba, for instance. Hemingway wrote about the good shooting he found when it was safe to be there. I wonder what that would be like? I’ll bet I’m not the only one who dreams about such things either, and I’m betting lottery ticket sales go up in the winter for just that reason.

It was 15 degrees below zero on Valentines morning. If I remember right it was about the same last year. I suppose that can encourage some V-Day cuddling and no worries about melting chocolate hearts, but otherwise…. C’mon, it’s mid Feb, the days are getting longer so how ‘bout a warm up?

I went to town for some home supplies, stop by the sporting goods store to see who was about, and then the coffee shop for a snack and a cup for the ride home. I ran into an old skeet shooting acquaintance who is also about the most duck huntingest guy I know. Ducks and geese, that is. He told me he’d just made the long drive to the nearest Cabela’s to pick up a couple hundred more snow goose decoys to add to his trailer-full of more than a thousand. Well… if you need ‘em, you need ‘em. He likes Winchester auto-loaders and has 5 or 6 of the two models he likes best. I kinda wonder about that but have never asked. He has a lot of other gear, too, like layout blinds, stand up blinds, sit down blinds, sneak boats, and big boats. He doesn’t have a dog, but he likes hunting over someone else’s if the dog is really, really good. Heck, we all like that.

We compared notes about last season and I enjoyed recalling the times I spent in a duck boat or sneaking along a river with my spaniel at my side and my new camo-clad shotgun in hand. I’ll always have a soft spot for the old A5, but my new gun is much lighter to carry and a good shooter to boot. It’s also the kind of gun you could use for a walking stick, a wading staff, or a canoe paddle without worry if you had to. I’ve already used it once to catch my balance in some tough marsh and stuck the buttstock in the mud to the trigger. I sloshed it around in the river to clean it off and never gave it another thought. Then I took it to Dakota and shot ducks with no trouble. I didn't give it a decent cleaning until the end of the season, and I’m not sure it mattered, then.

I broke my new gun in on the river north of here, shooting wood ducks chased off the upstream lake by other hunters. A dog is essential for this kind of hunting, and Molly does the job well and loves it. It’s a mile hike to get to the river so I carried a few rounds of 7 ½ steel shot loads for any grouse along the way. It’s the only full camo, synthetic stocked gun I’ve used and I’m impressed with its versatility. I’ve always been something of a traditionalist, but it seems right to grab this gun, my spaniel, and a pocketful of different loads to hunt whatever we come upon.  I’m not giving up my double-gun and pointing dog, of course, but fitting in a little “rough shooting” now and then is just right.

still dogs...

When you’ve spent most of your life in the company of hunting dogs it hardly occurs what things would be like without one. When I was a kid I never really considered our spaniels and labs as hunting dogs. To me, they were just dogs. In the off season they were pets and companions. And they were always around.  It seemed second nature then, that when I walked or pedaled my bicycle down the road a dog would be at my side or when my dad’s car door opened a dog would either slip in or hop out, depending on if the car was coming or going. Feeding the dog after supper was a chore that I more or less assumed everyone did, though when my buddies and I got together for a whittling session with our pocket knives or a backyard football game, it seems the only dog there was mine. When autumn came the same dog flushed and retrieved every sort of game we could get a shot at. There was nothing unusual about it: just normal living.

I remember when I was in my twenties, working a tough and dirty nightshift job, I would spend long and monotonous hours in a perpetual daydream about hunting grouse over an English setter. I was getting pretty well settled in my own home by then and spent my free time hunting and fishing. I had a big liver Springer spaniel named Tyler who was a pretty good dog, but I’d starting reading a lot of sporting literature by then and I couldn’t get the vision of that pointing dog out of my head. I’d shot plenty of birds over Tyler, but grouse often flushed the wrong way and I started believing I would get shots at every grouse if only I had a pointing dog. And while I entertained that fantasy, I reckoned the right dog would make me a better shot, as well.

Even though I’d never seen a pointing dog in action, and the fact that I grew up with Labs and springers, there was never any doubt when the time came the breed for me was a setter. I didn’t realize it at that time, but the vision of pointing dogs may have been sort of imprinted in my head since I was a little boy. It took a while, but when my folks were moving and selling their big house they asked me to take what I wanted from my upstairs bedroom, which was pretty much the way it was since I’d left. There were two old framed prints that had hung on the wall all the years I lived there. One depicts a tri-color setter retrieving a grouse, and the other shows a proud boy hiking home with a trio of pheasants (including one hen) slung over his shoulder and a setter at this side. 

These were the pictures I saw every day as I was growing up. And my dad has a couple of old paintings and even some jigsaw puzzles that portray various English, Irish, and Gordon setters and English pointers locked up, oddly enough, on flushing mallards off a pond. Most of this art belonged to my grandfather who loved his spaniels, but the popular sporting art of those long past days was apparently pointing dogs. Whether I noticed it or not, this stuff was part of my daily life and I suppose it’s obvious how it impacted me. Back then I never imagined smartphones or gameboys but I was living large with a jackknife in my pocket and a dog at my side!  

A cool old gun

I’ve lately had a hankering to kill a bird with a sweet little shotgun of my Dad’s that’s been in my possession for a while now. I’ve hardly used it and had never taken a bird with it but Dad used to shoot a few ducks and pheasants with it just because he liked it. I’m not a gun snob nor a collector but there is a soft place in my heart for old guns, particularly American made guns. Over the years I’ve gotten hold of a couple of old doubles that I like and expect to use until my shooting days are over, but when I spotted the sweet little pump gun in the back of my gun safe I figured it was just too cool a gun to spend it’s days unused. How Dad came upon it is a story I’ve heard many times. The details can change a bit with each telling and I can’t attest to the accuracy but it’s still a good story.

Shortly after Dad left the Navy he and his brother walked into Haskell’s Hardware and spotted two Winchester Model 42’s on the rack and had to have them. My uncle was shorter than Dad so he took the 26” barreled full choke model. Dad’s has a 28 inch modified choke. The year was 1947 or ’48 and they each paid $37.50 for their little .410’s. Dad proudly showed it to his pheasant hunting companions and they quickly kidded him about his little popgun. Then he turned his spaniel loose and promptly filled his limit without a miss. Over the years I’d heard the two guns had consecutive serial numbers, but my uncle’s 42 was sold or traded or somehow disappeared long ago.

The 42 doesn’t fit me very well and I don’t shoot it very well, but if I bear down and concentrate I can hit with it, sometimes. I took it to the skeet club a few years ago and the boys lined up to try it. Fit or not, it’s fun to shoot but I have guns I do better with and never really thought about taking it out to shoot birds. I wouldn’t consider changing it, but the modified choke is a little too tight for our grouse woods and it’s hard enough to hit with a .410 in the best of conditions. I’ve killed ducks with a single shot .410 when I was a kid and we used lead shot for waterfowl in those days, but those days are long gone.

Paul called and reported moving good numbers of grouse and woodcock near his shack and thought we should get together for a hunt. Sounded good to me and a good chance for the Model 42. With enough chances I may have some luck. I loaded Jack and the little gun in my truck and went for an afternoon in the woods.

We turned Jack and Scarlett loose in good looking cover but the dogs hunted hard with no results for the first half hour and I started to wonder if I was gonna get a chance to try the .410. Even Paul said he was eager to hear the popgun go off. Things started to heat up when Jack pointed off to the left and Scarlett stopped in the cover to the right of the trail we used. As I moved in front of Jack I must have passed close to the grouse that flushed behind me and was fast escaping when I found the safety and swung the gun around to shoot. Thank goodness for a good forearm to grip, I believe that thin little shell-shucker could fly right out of my hands! My shot was way behind and I had to remember to chamber another round so by then it was too late. The grouse flew off unscathed.

When I was in high school I bought a 12 gauge pump-gun, a used 870, and it was my meat and potatoes gun for a long time. I shot small game, ducks, birds, varmints, critters and furbearers with that gun. It was the days before choke tubes so I bought another open choke barrel for it. I shot on a trap league and skeet with it and I still have it. I was pretty good with it but now I have to think to work the action and you know what that means. 

It didn’t take long for Jack to lock-up again and I approached with my finger on the trigger-guard safety button so I wouldn’t have to search for it when the time came. A woodcock went up and offered a very good opportunity climbing for the treetops. I threw the featherweight gun up and shot too quickly and missed. But I jacked another skinny round into the chamber just as the bird topped out and the woodcock went down! The good thing about those skinny little shells is you can fit a lot in your pocket. I was going to need them. Scarlett showed up at the action and beat Jack to make a lovely retrieve. I’d killed a bird with the .410 and was feeling pretty good. We took a break then to water the dogs and I took a couple of photos. The afternoon went on and we had chances at a few grouse and more woodcock.

 I’d started out hoping to kill one bird, but when I dropped another I was suddenly thinking “limit.” And I had chances for a limit, but of course I missed. Again and again.

It was near sundown when we were walking the logging road out and a grouse surprised us from the side and flew straight down the trail. Paul called “take im!” and it was a great chance to kill a grouse with Dad’s little 42. My finger searched painfully long for the safety in its unfamiliar location and when I finally found it I snapped the firing pin on an empty chamber. I’d forgotten to cycle a fresh round after shooting at the last bird! I can still hear Paul chuckling.

That Model 42 is a neat little gun and I had a fun afternoon with it. I can’t say how often I’ll use it – I know I can bag more game with another gun, but… then again, now I’d kinda like to take a grouse with it. 

fall muskies...

A couple of weeks before, we’d had a musky up to the boat that we couldn’t get in the net. It had hit my big articulated dual hook red and black streamer and came halfway out of the water on the take. Minutes later and after a comedy of errors that had me jumping out of the boat, the fish under the boat, and my line wrapped around the boat sawing at my leader, the fish broke off. It was the biggest musky I’ve had on my fly rod.

I had another on later that struck at the bank and held on until it was at the boat. Then it just let go and swam off. A nice musky rolled at Scott’s big fly but no hook-up. Then we watched an even bigger one chase a sucker across the shallows right up to the grassy bank. After a splashing attack the musky swam back to and under our boat with the big sucker crossways in its jaws. Scott's biggest flies were no match to that kind of meat.

Those big predator fish start hitting in the fall, right? Everyone knows that. We saw those four muskies in the morning. Things must be starting to get good. There was still time and we’d get after ‘em again. I went home and tied a couple more jointed flies. Scotty got a bigger net. A plan was devised.

It couldn’t have been a prettier autumn day. We were rigged and ready. Likely the last trip of the year and muskies were the target. Big Autumn Muskies. Yes! Some seven hours later we found the take-out in failing light. Shoulders hurt from casting big flies in stiff breeze. Shoulders hurt from rowing. Sore shoulders from fighting fish? Hands sore from palming the reel? Nope and nope.

The worst day fishing is better than the best day working, we all know that, too. This was the only trip of the year where no one got a strike. Maybe it was fitting. Maybe a good way to end a season’s fishing. Sure was a pretty day, but we were both glad it was over.

 Let’s go hunting.