My daughter came home for spring break from college. She told me it might be time to do some spring cleaning. Most of her class mates went to Florida. She had other plans that included a list. My name was all over it. I was thinking I wished she liked Florida more than my house right now.
Continue reading "Spring cleaning" »
The stuff under my snow shoes is commonly referred to as snow, it’s just that this time of year, it’s like the frost in my freezer, white, brittle, and hard, so as I shoe over the stuff, wow, you cant help but notice how noisy it is.
Continue reading "Walking, out of winter" »
Some of you can guess at my age and from that glean the fact that I have actively fished for better than forty years. Encased in those years for me and perhaps yourselves as well was not just the hope of knowing that a large fish was more than possibly in your mind but as I, you KNEW it really existed in the depths of some lake.
Continue reading "The Vanities" »
People, I have been told can act kinda weird during the full moon. The Full moon has been linked to crime, accidents, fertility, and werewolves, among other things. Some people even follow the solunar tables to try and of all things just catch a fish. I mean can you imagine if a lunar moon table told fish when to bite and when not to.
Continue reading "Full Moon Fever" »
Five miles from where were parked is this little tiny brook trout lake nested inside the Superior National Forest. There is no snowmobile trail. No short cuts unless you own a helicopter which by the way I don’t. Five miles walking, is two hours one way. Two hours towing a small sled, and just about a mile into it you are well aware of the sled and the sounds of your boots crunching in the snow. After two miles and one downed water bottle it’s almost a mind numbing walk until you arrive.
Continue reading "The Very Last Step" »
When its snow storming, it’s a good idea to probably just stay home. Stay off the roads and lay low. Read a new book, one on Minnesota moose or maybe bake a cake. Since I don’t bake cakes and after three days of over cooking my own noodles I needed to get out of here, and go to there. There, is anywhere but here. I set the book down.
Continue reading "Moose poop" »
Tis the season, as they say, to start lookin ahead. Get all those new years’ resolutions written up, start the diet and since I don’t do any of that stuff, I’ll knock that off right there. But what I do, do, is take a fond look back every year.
Continue reading "AULD, lang, SYNE, tw style" »
I put a finger to the wind and called three guys, anybody up for some rabbit hunting. I got 3 solid yes’s. Saturdays are good for rabbit hunting since we don’t have safe ice so some of the boys who were successful deer hunting decided to try our luck with the local hasenpfeffer. We’d ruffed enough feathers earlier this year so I thought some ground pounding would be a big hit.
Continue reading "Weather forecasting" »
Well the deer hunting season at my place was just as it should be. Really not to big a deal. . I won most of the cribbage games, but was the last one to fill my tag. Some games I catch on a little slower, but I get there in the end. Everybody hauled firewood and Charlie for a change actually cleaned out the fireplace ash without being asked or guilted into it. Mara cooked. Mara washed dishes. Mara knitted. That’s Mara.
Continue reading "Why it’s called tradition" »
So about a week ago I was wandering around my place just listening to the wind shush about my leafless trees when I’m pretty sure I heard one of my apple trees tell the rest of the orchard that this yard was heavily browsed upon this summer by to many white-tailed deer, oh and As a general rule, I don’t talk to plants, but I do listen to them.
Continue reading "Baiting deer is illegal" »
Every year I take the same ten days off from everything. It’s called a vacation. I get a vacation from everything except paying my taxes. This vacation I wanted to find fall. I was looking for autumn. I was shall we say, kinda wore out from a bruising year.
Continue reading "A flock of leaves" »
You know anyone who shot a big buck last year? A record book beard on a long spurred turkey? How about some one who tailed a fifty inch Muskie? Netted a ten pound walleye? We have the long beard association, the Boone and Crocket or Pope and Young club record book fraternities to mention just a few, but I don’t recall any trophy duck hunter’s patches certificates or awards.
Continue reading "Ducks, A rare bird. " »
Eventually we have to go home. We don’t want to of course; it’s just the smartest thing to do at some point tonight. We have been at it all day. Tomorrow is another day. You can rationalize it all, but we still don’t want to go.
Continue reading "Quitting time" »
Not all trees end up as rotting logs in the woods, but I’m glad the one my backside is seated on did. It’s a nice fall day to be sure but my dogs are barking. To quiet them hot feet down I like to change my socks half way through the hunting day. I imagine down there by my toes things are less than fragrant. I don’t wash my boots insides as a general rule and going over the tops in fording rivers probably counts as a deep rinsing but not a good scoured cleaning.
So last Wednesday night I was frying up some walleyes for a supper on demand. A buddy and his wife I have known for more years than needs mentioning was coming into town and they said they had a hankering for a good old fashioned shore lunch and wanted to show off the soon to be newly expanding family.
Continue reading "Love at first bite. " »
When I’m fishing alone the conversations can be kinda one sided and like over toasted bread, dry. I think to myself when the fish don’t bite maybe I should try over there. So then I go over there. Over there, might be off a far island or into a back bay, but since I don’t have to explain this to anyone else, I just think over there, and that pretty much covers it.
Continue reading "Dry Toast..." »
When the weather is predicted at a fifty percent chance of rain I’m left wondering if that’s a glass half full or a glass half empty prognostication so I just look outside and make up my own mind.
Continue reading "What's the Chances" »
I lock up in mid step. Just that third of a leg movement changed the view in front of me. It wasn’t like I didn’t stare holes through the balsam stand in front of me before moving either. I checked individual tree trunks one at a time. I knelt down slow. I peaked around, nothing. I stood back up so slow it felt like I was a shadow moving across the landscape at exactly noon. I scoured the pine needle floor for any hair out of place. Nothing, nowhere, so I thought I’d sneak back out. Then in mid stride,
Continue reading "The Schnozz" »
It’s the “dog days” of summer. . It’s going to be Hot, and humid. Not too many of my co-workers are thinking about the upcoming winter. There all pretty busy tossing salads, or golf clubs, sun tans and ice tea recipes.
Pesco-vegetarianism means you eat veggies and fish, and I do that as often as possible so I’m considered one of these at times. Carnivore, if I machinate the definition just abit means I’m an animal that eats other animals (not to be confused with a cannibal), so once again I feel included here.
Continue reading "Fish: it’s what’s fer dinner!" »
We had an above average day. A mother father daughter trio hit the tri-fecta on some fine looking sunfish. Twenty per is the limit and they kept forty two which is well shy, but plenty. Dad not only paid me, but tossed in a nice tip. Smiles all around.
Continue reading "Honeys’ Sun’nie" »
Dad who got that fly ball? Father answers, number eight CAUGHT that infield hit, pal. He’s your fave remember, he’s the shortstop. And you’re my shortstop, got it? Yeah dad, I got it. Then the rod started to bend.
Continue reading "The Little League" »
After quite a few years I can say I have camped a time or two. We all as a group over the years show up with “our” own boats, canoes, tents, lawn chairs and cookware. Multiple coolers and minnow buckets not to mention a vast array of fishing rods leaned up next to tackle boxes stuffed with treble hooked lures. It’s our stuff.
Continue reading "Camp Fire" »
Its rather amazing to think that if you have your life jackets stored in your boat holds, or snapped in place securely on your boat seat, if the boat goes down, so does your life jacket. Try jumping in very cold water this spring that’s way over the walleyes head and yours, then try to retrieve your life jacket floating away in that perfect walleye chop.
Continue reading "Amazed..." »
If I asked you, do you fish? And you reside on planet earth... your response might be, why of course I fish. Then if I asked how……its gets interesting real quick. Take the folks in the southern United States that fish with there hands…its called noodling. The fisherperson simply reaches into a catfish hole and hopes the catfish latches on and is hoisted to shore. In Great Britain it’s called trout ticking. You slowly rub the trout’s stomach, numbing it abit, and toss it ashore.
Continue reading "Do you Fish...?" »
Along time ago, but after flight was first invented, I joined part of the US military that was very involved with flying. The first thing they did was put me on a plane and flies me to Texas. I got off the plane and was shown lots of things, but one thing I was wholly unprepared for.
Continue reading "First “sigh” of spring" »
When I started driving years ago I thought the road lanes were as narrow as the holes in the pool table I was occasionally taking a poke at. After awhile on the road black top or the velvet covered slate my perspective broadened. Funny how the road width or pocket size never changed, but my attitude did.
Continue reading "A Perch perspective" »
Some doors get knocked on, some doors get knocked down. Make no mistake with my hunting buddies. They slam the house doors and fling wide the porch screens when its time to be outside.
Continue reading "You Feel It" »
Most of nature is pretty pristine. Things get kinda murky in the verbiage department when what seems easy or obvious suddenly goes awry. I stop speaking clearly and use words that really don’t add to the ethereal outdoor experience. Words that upon calmer reflection were used in oral haste.
Continue reading "Son of a Fish" »
During one of my senior moments I was taking a nap and I had a fishing dream. I was thinking about a fishing trip with a new age charter service. Fishing some water that no one I knew had ever fished. Pristine, untouched by human hands. No garbage laying at the public access. Maybe catching a fish no one had ever heard of before. Frying it up at a shore lunch and thinking to myself, wait until the guys back home see the photos.
Continue reading "Outer space fishing" »
If you grab your toothbrush, add some paste, most of us just start brushing our respective choppers. This previous summer I fished with a guy that acted like it was easier to move his head, and hold the toothbrush still.
Continue reading "You can lead a fish to water. " »
Law of Nature, number one. 1. THAT BITES: Once in nature you will be bitten by something. It will itch or become a rash at the very least, unless you’re bitten by the “king of beasts” and then it won’t really matter. For all lesser bites see a biteologist which is different than a biologist, but the biteologist will explain the empirical fact that, “that bites” is simply a law of nature.
Continue reading "Law of nature" »
Psalm 90, verse, 12: -So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. What number would I give each day? 42, 24, 36 and a half, 7, 93, there are lots of numbers to choose from.
Continue reading "Your Days are Numbered" »
I was busy pulling a lake trout from the bottom of one cold bwca Trout Lake. Life is good. I knew it was a signature fish. The tug, weight and rod bent meant this was a wall hanger. Blue sky, sunshine and no bugs sealed the deal, or so I thought.
Continue reading "Moose are Bigger" »
I called in sick today because yesterday I saw a little boys face in the school bus window. He was staring so hard at my boat and trailer in tow I thought his neck was gonna break. I had yesterday off from work, one of my perpetual mental health days, but that little kid sitting there, I remember being his age and thinking when I get older I’m going fishing every chance I get. Diseased Day two, is for that little guy.
Continue reading "The little kid, in ME" »
Last night I stopped at the bait shop for the minnows I needed today. “So where ya headed?” I mention I’m gonna fish the new ice. I was told point blank I was a dang fool. We were out on the ice very early this morning.... pre-sunrise. The sheet we hiked was cast and set hard with nights and days of below zero temps. Wind chills that froze water so quickly it’s crystal clear through its six inches of air-bubbled, incased and slightly pocked pane.
For several months I had been emailing with a woman who wanted to try ice fishing for the first time. She made mention on several occasions how she was most definably, a city girl. Was concerned about having enough warm clothes and we could not move at the pace of a mountain man as she was four years older than me. I assured her that since I was just a Minnesota flatlander, we shouldn’t have too many problems.
Continue reading "Next weekend, just the guys" »
If you have ever walked up to a trout stream and the fins just zips out of sight, you could have warned the gill breather by vibrations from your heavy foot falls or maybe you were busted by “Snells window”.
Continue reading "Poikilothermic fish" »
Today, back from the tannery I’m holding one fully furred red fox. It’s prime as I run my fingers through the pelt, right out to the tip of its tail. I like red fox. I think from the dog family or as canines go, I would keep one as pet if I could.
Continue reading "Going over the tail" »
So early last summer I was hiking up the headwaters of the Temperance River. I was looking for a mess of trout. Much to my surprise, and even more for some young lad who was looking for lords knows what in a stream bank , who by the way, I didnʼt see, who by the way, didnʼt notice me, until I was casting over him. Then he yelled so loud I about soiled myself midstream. I immediately slipped and fell in the river. Letʼs just say I was hot. The kid said I looked like a relic from the past.
Continue reading "Fools Gold" »
I'm under the bridge. Nobody gets to this terminal hole sooner then me on the days I fish it. It’s the only spot worth fishing. So to try and crowd the short downstream run or perch in the rock wall above I do not bother. When guys hook up on fish above me it gets dangerous. I love catching fish as much as the next guy but I’m not going to fall off a rock ledge for any steelhead.
Continue reading "Dark Smoke" »
I have seen this antlered deer five times this fall. He’s got a blonde tall tined rack that nobody could forget. He’s not Boone and Crocket or a record head for any one but me. In my book, he is spectacular. I caught him sleeping one day I was chasing woodcock in October and I have been buck struck, ever since. I watched him sleeping and actually saw him open his eyes. The sunlight was making him blink. When I registered in his senses he leapt, whirled and butt over teakettle disappeared in a thunderous brushy exit. I was eleven
Continue reading "Not a Buck, That's my buck" »
When you get a little older sounds enter the ear canal just not as loud as you need them to. So you lean a bit and look harder to make the sound clearer, which is mostly nonsense. Well near as I can tell, my hunting partner is snapping branches in his deer stand.
Continue reading "Deer Noises" »
On my computer, at work, is a photo of me with a very nice stringer of walleyes. In the photo I'm wearing sunglasses and a green earth tone raincoat on a walleye wind chopped lake. The scenery in the background is typical boreal forest with an accented rocky shoreline.
Continue reading "Photo's that talk" »
This is the first hard frost of the fall season. Its gonna be cold tonight. The full moon is white and bright as if the yard light is on. Only Kenny and I are not in a yard. Were up in the super natural forest. (Superior National Forest). It’s late September and in a few days it will be the month of pumpkins.
Continue reading "Woof Wolf Wolves" »
Camping alone re-energizes all my feelings of what I grew up hearing, “good Old Catholic guilt”. I can eat all the fun stuff out of my food pack first if I want to. Instead of gathering firewood from the dead fallen stuff in the nearby woods, I brought a big pile of split ash from home. I just woke up from a nap where I put my sleeping bag on the top of the picnic table and used one of my hunting jackets for a pillow.
Continue reading "Sel-Fishing" »
I set the hook, my rainbow wrenched like a rodeo bull. The snout was whipsawing in the water and mini waves are thrown airborne. My fly was easily visible in the clear water. It looked a third of the way back on the lower right side of the jaw. It felt solid.
Continue reading "A Rainbow'd Arc" »
Three thirty in the afternoon on your regular Tuesday. I called in to work last night and left a message that I was going to be sick tomorrow. Mental health day. A small twinge of guilt because I know their going to be busy without me but my mind was tangled and I needed some very fresh air.
Continue reading "Some Fresh Air - Red Fox Style" »
The cockpit of my kayak, when properly loaded with a quantity of two hundred and four pounds of me, is a full load. By propping one fly rod in the stern and laying my spinning rod from bow to stern, I have my rods secured. My kayak paddle is laid across my waist, amidships, and I have lashed a tether to it to keep from loosing it.
Continue reading "Kayak Attack" »
After shooting a mid sized black bear, I promptly dressed it and stashed it in a buddies vegetable cooler. He has this nice little family farm with nuisance black bears. After contacting a local conservation officer, and getting the bear license, he validated my tag. It was a quick hunt. The first afternoon they were strolling about his sweet corn.
Continue reading "Just the Bear Facts" »
I step outside and the darkness is everything. I stand still to let my eyes adjust. Chips of starlight appear in the night sky. Underfoot is Snow and glows white, anything above ground level appears black. If I focus directly on anything the shapes melt. So I just scan the yard. Stars and snow illuminate bit by bit.
Continue reading "Into the Night" »
I’m lying in the sunshine on a very large rock. This piece of ancient igneous is located on the North Shore of Pine Lake in northeastern Minnesota. I did not kill myself getting here. No arduous portages. Mosquitoes? Non-existent. Paddling easily at two miles per hour with a nicely loaded canoe made for a leisurely pace.
At 2:56 am, Saturday morning, I had made two pots of coffee and started a fire in the fireplace, filled the wood boiler and finished loading my blazer by three am. I’m pretty sure by 4:30 that morning i had put the finishing touches on two dozen blueberry and two dozen cranberry warm from the oven mouth popping muffins.
Hey you want more than a cooked fish fillet try unwrapping some of this fish paper. …it is from a variety of sources. Fish, and not one type, just fish, was sacred to the Greco-Roman mythology, check this in the myth of Aphrodite and Heros- when they turned themselves into fish- in order to escape from the ferocious Typhon. In Christianity, the fish, again no specific specie- is a symbol of abundance and faith.
Continue reading "Rendering an ancient fish" »
Say hello into a canyon and you get the echo. Hello, hello, hello, generally comes back to your ears. The word echo means repetition of sound….from reflection of sound waves. So by vocalizing a single word, a single time, in the canyon, the sound is recreated.
Continue reading "Fishing echo’s" »
You ever catch yourself sniffing empty shotgun shells? In the heat of battle most of my spent twelve gauges hit the bottom of the duck boat. Exceptions to the rule occur, and those are the three inch mags that I tuck in my pocket after poking at Canadian honkers. My hands shake so bad after honkers I always slowly unload the tubes and vibrate the empties into my bulging shell pockets.
Continue reading "Sniffin empty shotgun shells" »
Putting a file to the blade of an axe with slow strokes will let you develop the sharpness. If the steel to steel is done correctly you will remove the dullness. Strong measured filing will generate shavings glinting as they fall to the floor.
Continue reading "On the Edge" »
So lets say its 1823 and you’re strolling into Oneida county, New York, and you have this brain child of an idea. You were hatching this plan while walking for days. The first blacksmith or forge you come to is getting a visit. The wood shingle outside sez, Lars' forge.
Continue reading "A Link in the Chain" »
This is the time of year we, as outdoors people, lose some members. All the headlines, or radio broadcasts will air or print the hunting fatalities and deer hunter heart attacks, tree stand tip over casualties and drowning duck hunters to mention just a few. We as a group have some hard to digest statistics. One thing even worse is the fatal number.
Continue reading "Outdoor obits" »
I have a very good canoeing buddy. I trap and he traps, we both hunt and fish but the only thing we end up doing together most years is canoeing. I might add these are not cute little paddle around the quiet lakeshore canoe trips.
Continue reading "Long liners –vs.-part timers" »
You know what I want for Christmas? I want a nine year old boy. Do not bother wrapping or putting in a box, I want the no batteries required, I want the no assembly required. I want a nine year old full of energy and questions boy.
Continue reading "How to trap a 9 year old boy" »
There’s a place if you get the chance next Saturday I would really like some of you outdoors folks to spend some time. Not that there entirely disguised, but it could be called the local vets hospital, senior center, senior adult retirement facility, or perhaps nursing home, but I bet if you can find a remote lake you may be able to find one of these places.
Continue reading "My Outdoors of the Future" »
I opened the medicine chest and took out my bottle of aspirin. For a split second, I thought about taking them all, instead of the two, as advised on the label. I think my earlobes aren’t sore, but that’s about it on my entire carcass.
The cabin sits on a hilltop with a benched elevation of 1665 ft. Lake Superior, depending on what map I look at shows an ordinary high between 550 and 610 ft above sea level. We have assembled on high. From this amazing vantage point we can gaze on a clear day and see the Wisconsin shoreline, and if were lucky the ore boats in season headed up or down lake, depending.
Last Friday Tim wanted to know if we limited out. I said we did. Could he go with? Yup. Do you think I can get my limit too he asked? Sure. What should he bring? Just make sure you get a trout stamp. Where do I meet you and what time. All the guys meet up out on the pack ice, but Iʼll meet you by the access, say, five am. When we left the public access the next Saturday Tim asked me how thick I thought the ice was. I stopped, turned around and asked him, you mean right
Continue reading "What's the Limit" »
My throat is layered up with a turtle neck and fleece camo muffler. Atop my noggin is a gray wool knitted cap. This configuration is scrunched into the collar of a very fine water proof hunting coat. The wind is cutting through all of it. November winds are slashing at all angles causing my eyes to water and my gloved backhand is smearing the tear drops across my face as I try to keep my vision from being blurred. Lake surface and sky are melded out in front of me by a silver gray rolling wind whipped putty.. You’re just
Continue reading "Cold Ducks" »
My hands are in the kitchen sink, so are a few memories, I grab a thawing pheasant. I start with real images of my pheasant pen behind my pole shed where I raise them, and then I flip through mental crib notes on past hunting trips, still further, like a stack of moving watercolor 3-d slides, great shots reverb inside me. I’m mentally floating out the kitchen window, entering the dream field. The ruckus calls from the roosters throat’s echoing in my hearing and the wing’s beating with tails pumping and long tailed roosters trying to get back to china,
Continue reading "Mind over why it matters..." »
The opening weekend of deer season we were lucky at our hunting shack. The wind blew pretty hard and I think it set the bucks sailing into our shooting lanes. So with the deer tags full and two weeks of hunting I no longer needed to pursue, I thought I’d hang up the rifle. The guys wanted to fill some doe tags for a second weekend but I got a phone call from a lady who was interested in some fall salmon fishing. Hunt with the boys or cash a check guiding made this an easy decision, and its not
Continue reading "It may be Deer Season, but I'm going Fishing..." »
I drop the truck into four wheel drive and start to tip toe off the county road and follow an ancient logging trail. Last fall, when I was here, I don’t recall the logging trail so rough. I meander about and come to the sharp corner and here is a brand new county forest gate with a lock that’s locked tight. Oh for the love of progress. Man whose going to steal trees back here. Stupid gate. Now I can’t carry my kayak and decoys and shotguns for two miles in and then back out. I grab my scattergun, duck
Continue reading "Duck Blind" »
It's meat eating season for me. A time of year I get to feast on beef, elk and venison. I cook better with some onions carrots and rutabagas. These vegetables grow better at the grocery store than my house so it works out well for me. I'm wandering down the dry packaged aisle at the grocery store looking for a gravy packet, this is one thing bachelors do. Its one of those items I never remember to put on my shopping list. We also have to put on our glasses to read the fine print so we don’t mix up
Continue reading "Hunting in the Grocery Store" »
I think during these colder winter days some of you could help me solve a northern Minnesota boreal forest mystery. I want to prove once and for all that (1) Bigfoot really exists. Ever notice how some very large pine trees one day are doin fine all stood up straight and tall, then the very next day wham, all I see is a giant black root ball. Must be something mighty strong to be able to pull a tree over all by itself and the olden loggers were very scared of the (3) agropelter. I think it’s a clue to
Continue reading "Bigfoot, Sasquatch, watch yer step..." »
Today is the day after deer season. I can’t sleep and I can’t stay awake. Your standard issue case of deer lag. Pretty fuzzy this morning watching the sun come up. I have a cup of coffee and I’m watching the chickadees in my bird feeder. They are all abuzz with activity. For the past 16 days I was, and now it’s all over. It feels like it was sixteen minutes. My daughter got a real nice doe on the opening weekend and the weekend following I got a buck. We hunted with friend’s at our new deer shack and
Continue reading "In the Blink of the Season" »
When I load the over under I think to myself that the shell prices have gone sky high. Every time I pull the trigger today it’s gonna be a bill, for a bill. A dollar a duck if I connect. It’s still worth it, but shells are almost hunting pockets full of steel currency. If I add in the federal stamp and state license fees I yearn for days of old. From the eastern lakeshore twelve black specs materialize and grow larger by the milli-second. I don’t move my neck or eyes off the incomers. A dozen dark darts in
Continue reading "Today's Ducks at Yesteryear Prices" »
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