Hunt Number 2 – Brought To You By Gore-Tex

All I can say about this hunt is thank God for Gore-Tex. If you read my last blog entry you know that I hunted in the rain. Well this hunt was no different. My alarm went off at 4 am and again I could hear rain hitting the skylights in our house. All I could think was man you have got to be kidding me, not again. Well I got up, got dressed, loaded the truck and was on my way by 5. On the drive there, which is about an hour, the rain was teasing me. First it was raining then it wasn't. Well when I got there it wasn't raining but I got on my cell phone and check the weather radar to see what I was in for. Man it wasn't pretty because there was rain everywhere on the radar. I got dressed and while I was getting dressed it started to rain again, of course. This time I actually put on my rain gear because I knew I was going to get wet. I was standing there half thinking do I really want to hunt in this weather but then I figured that I couldn't get a deer if I wasn't out in the woods so I grabbed my gear and headed out. By the time I got out to my tree it was starting to rain pretty good out. I was up in my tree before day break hoping that I would see something. As it started to get daylight it started to rain more and more. As the time went on I all I saw was rain and I kept thinking what a great invention that Gore-Tex was. By now it was raining so hard that I could hardly see the other side of the bean field that I was hunting and just too top things off the wind had started pick up a lot. I also found out that my gloves that I was wearing that I thought were Gore-Tex were not. Thank goodness that it wasn't that cold out or my hand would have been frozen. Finally I had enough and called it quits for the day. I climbed down out of my tree, packed my stuff up, wringed out my gloves and head back to my truck. I am heading back out in a few days and I am hoping that it doesn't rain but as the weather reports looks at the moment they are calling for freezing rain. I sure am hoping that it changes between now and then and it either doesn't rain or it snows. So far this season is not working out how I had planned but then again when do they. If you want to know when not to hunt just ask me when I am hunting and you will know to stay home in your warm bed.

Finally… My First Bow Hunt of The Year

Well it is just about halfway thru the Michigan deer archery season and I finally got out in the woods to hunt yesterday. I have been really struggling to find time to get out hunting with all of the activities that my kids are involved in. It has seemed like almost every weekend there were soccer games on both Saturday and Sunday. I really don't have the option of hunting after work because where I hunt is an hour drive from my house. My saving grace was that I had 5 vacation left at work that I had to use up before the end of the year. So I decided that I was going to use them for deer hunting but I wanted to wait until closer to the rut to take them. So my first vacation day that I took was yesterday. I had planned ahead and gotten all of my clothes washed with Dead Down Wind scent free laundry detergent the weekend before. After that they went into the dryer will an earth scent dryer sheet. Then straight from the dryer to a huge Ziploc bay which is then backed into an air tight plastic tote. I am very conscious of my scent when deer hunting and since I don't have any ScentLok clothing I take it extremes and over the years I have been very successfully in get deer to come in close and not even know I was there. I had also repacked my backpack as it was still loaded with my stuff from turkey hunting in the spring. Then I sprayed it down with Dead Down Wind scent eliminator spray, let it dry and packed it into an air tight plastic tote. I also had all of my stuff in one spot in my garage so that all I had to do was grab my totes, bow and go. I was ready.

Tuesday night came along I had wanted to go to bed early but as usual that never happened so it ended up being 12:30 before I finally got to bed and I had set the alarm for 4:30 am to get up. Now I like to get out in the woods early and since I had an hour drive to where I hunt I needed to up that much earlier. Then for whatever reason I couldn't get to sleep and it ended up being 1:30 am before I finally fell asleep. After what seemed like 5 minutes my alarm was going off at 4:30. As I rolled over to turn the alarm off I could hear rain hitting the skylights in our house. My first thought was, "You have got to be kidding me." With the rain and the lack of sleep I was having a very hard time getting motivated to get out of the house. Finally I got out of the house, about 25 minutes later than I had planned, and was on my way to my hunting spot.

I was finally at my hunting spot and now I was about 35 minutes later that what I wanted to be so I knew I better get moving to get out there before daylight. Now since I take scent control so serious I never wear the clothes that I am going to be hunting in on the drive there. I change everything but my tidy whites before I go out. Since I was at my buddy's house I was changing inside my truck. Once I had my clothes change I got out and put on my fleece camo suite, sprayed myself down with some more Dead Down Wind, strapped on my backpack and my tree saddle, grabbed my bow and was on my way. For those you that don't know I don't use the conventional tree stand but use a tree saddle to hunt out of. If you don't know what one is you can check it out at www.trophylineusa.com. It had stopped raining and since the rain was suppose to stop in the morning and when I check the radar before I left home the area I was hunting had no rain. Therefore I left my rain gear in the truck figuring I wouldn't need it. Now I am hunting in farm country and my stand is between two fields. This year the field behind me was planted in clover and the one in front of me, that I am actually hunting, is a bean field. On my walk there I notice that just a little ways from my buddies' house was several sumac trees that were all rubbed upped. This was good sign but still a ways away from where I was hunting but at least that meant there were bucks in the area. My walk to my stand consisted of a walk thru a sunflower field to the fence row then to follow the fence row along thru the clover field to my tree in the fence row that I would be hunting out of.

Once I was there I sprayed down with some more Dead Down Wind spray and it was only a matter of minutes till I was ready to hunt because I already had my steps in my tree. By this time it was already starting to get daylight. Did I mention that I was behind schedule as always? I don't know exactly what the temp was, I would guess mid 50's, but it was a little warmer than what I would have preferred, and the sky was overcast. It was also a little foggy out so I couldn't see the far end of the bean field very well. The woods were very quite that morning. The only thing moving were some birds. After about an hour or so it started to rain. Figures since I had decided to leave my rain gear in the truck. Obviously though I stayed out hunting in the rain. After all rain has never stopped me before, I just wish I would have brought my rain gear. Oh well… Other than the rain the woods were still quite. Finally at about 10 I saw a flock turkey out in the field but still no deer. I could hear what sounded like combine on a field the other side of the woods to the east of me so I would hoping that maybe they were picking a corn field and would push some deer my way. But as luck would have it I didn't see anything. Finally about 11:00 or so I was soak all the way thru and was getting cold so I decided call it quits and head back to my truck. Well I didn't see any deer but it was still a great day in the woods. My plan is to take next Friday off from work and go back out there hunting again.

UNJ Fishing Trip – Part 2

UNJ Fishing Trip – Part 2

Wow! I can't believe how time has flown since my last blog. Finally after a long wait here is part 2 of the UNJ fishing trip. After lunch we decided to take a nap and then head out to a small lake close to Mike's cottage. This lake was a pretty shallow lake that had lots of reeds. It looked really good for pike and one of the reasons we decided to go there was because there were suppose to be a lot of pike in the lake and there was no size limit on them. Again it was Mikey, Chuck and I in my boat. Mike was in his boat with his daughter. I again started fishing with a weedless Johnson Silver Minnow but I wasn't having much luck. Chuck was casting a white top water frog and as luck would have it he landed a bass. Next thing we know he caught another bass. At was at this time that Mikey and I decided it was time to start fishing for bass instead of pike. I switched to a Zoom watermelon Lizard and Mikey put on a Zoom white Horny Toad. I had rigged my lizard using a 2/0 1/16 oz. Mustad Power Lock Plus hook so that it would be weedless. I just started using these hooks last year and they have become my favorite way to Texas rig my bait. It wasn't long and Mikey caught a nice bass. We continued to catch a bass here and there for a little while and as the night went on the fishing picked up. Chuck had switched to a white Horny Toad also and I was sticking with my lizard. I'm guessing but I believe at this point we had probably caught 6 or 7 bass between all of us. Then Mikey hooked into a really nice bass that was about 17 inches or so if I remember correctly. It was as this point in time that Mikey started to school Chuck and I. Chuck and I were catching fish but Mikey was catching all of the big ones. Finally I switched to a white Horny Toad myself to see if I could catch a big bass but luck wasn't on my side. I was fishing exactly the same setup as Mikey and he was catching the big ones and I wasn't. I was catching fish but just not the big ones. By this time the sun was setting a Mike had decided to head back since he didn't have any lights on his boat. Well of course we were not going to head in because I did have lights on my boat. I don't care how dark it gets if the fish are biting I am staying. The water was perfectly calm right now so I decided to try one of my favorite ways to fish for bass and that is topwater fishing. I tied on a Rapala Skitter Pop and proceeded to see what I could catch. It wasn't too long and I had a bass smash my Skitter Pop. To me there is nothing better than seeing a bass explode at the surface at your bait with the sun setting. This particular night is was even better because I was with good friends and in the background I could see the Mackinaw Bridge with all of its lights on. Those of you that don't know the Mackinaw Bridge is a 5 mile long suspension bridge that connects the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. To me it is an amazing piece of engineering and very beautiful to look at. I continued to use my Skitter Pop for at little bit more and caught one or two more fish on it before I switched back to my Zoom Lizard. Finally we decided to call it a night as we were all starting to get hungry. I have to say that was one of the best nights fishing I've had in a long time. I think all total we caught 16 or 17 fish and I believe that Mikey's biggest was about 19 inches.

The next morning we decided to go back to the same lake and see if the fish were still biting. It was another beautiful warm sunny morning. The night before I pretty much drifted across the lake to the other side and this morning we decided that we would use the trolling motor and go along the near side of lake and work our way over to where we caught a lot of the fish night before. Again it was us three stooges, Mikey, Chuck and I, in my boat and Chuck and I were determined that we were not going to be showed up by Mikey again. Mike was also there in his boat with his son Jake. I can't remember for sure but I believe it was Mikey that caught the first fish and he again proceeded to out fish Chuck and I. Chuck and I were catching fish but not as many as Mikey. We were all pretty much using the same lures that we were using the night before. After a while it was time to leave and get ready to head home.

I have to say that this was one of the best fishing trips that I have had in a while and I want to thank Mike for putting up with us all weekend. Hmm… I wonder what our next UNJ group adventure will be. If you would like to hear more about our fishing trip you can listen to the podcast where we recap out fishing adventure at http://upnorthjournal.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=502582. Until next time I hope everyone has a chance to get outdoors.

UNJ Mackinaw Fishing Trip - Part 1

Some of the Up North Journal team had the opportunity to go on a salmon fishing charter out of Drummond Island which is located in the far eastern end of the upper peninsula of Michigan. The plan was that Mike Adams, Mikey Adams, Chuck Parr, and myself would go on the trip with the hopes of number one catching some nice fish on the big water and number two getting some video footage that could be used for an upcoming episode of Beyond The Wild. For those of you that don’t know Beyond the Wild is a video podcast that the Up North Journal has started to produce and you can view it at http://www.upnorthjournal.com/. Man was I excited. Number one I have always wanted to go on a charter fishing trip on the great lakes but have never had the opportunity and number two was that I was going to get to go up to the UP of Michigan, one of my most favorite places on earth. In Michigan it is referred to as God’s country and believe me there is a reason for that.

So the plan was that we would meet at Mike’s cottage in Mackinaw City on Friday and then head to the UP to go on the charter both Saturday and Sunday assuming the weather cooperated. Just in case the weather didn’t cooperate we did have a backup plan. The backup plan was that Mike would bring his boat up and I would bring mine. That way if we got blown off of the big lake we could still fish the inland lakes.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the weekend of the fishing trip had arrived. I got out of work on Friday at 5:00 pm and went home to finish backing the last few things that I needed for the trip and to hook the boat up. I kissed my wife and kids good bye and was on the road by about 6:30 pm or so. My biggest worry at this point was traffic because here in Michigan I-75 heading into northern Michigan gets very busy with everyone heading north for the weekend. Well my worries were not unfounded in that just a little before Saginaw the traffic on the expressway came to a halt. So I did what I always do when that happens and this is to bail on the expressway and take a different route. I would rather been moving than setting still even if it took longer in the long run. While on my detour I got a call from Chuck telling me that both of the charter captian’s boats were broken and in the maraina for repair. Therefore we would not be going on the charter trip. Oh well at least we still had boats to use on the inland lakes. After my little detour I was back on I-75 and from that point on it was pretty uneventful and after a couple of hours I finally saw one of the most beautiful sights in a northern Michigan night. That is the towers of the Mackinaw Bridge appearing over the horizon with all of their lights. If I remember correctly I believe it was about 11:00 pm or so when I pulled in.

When I got there everyone was waiting for me watching Escanaba in the Moonlight. I also got to meet a fellow Talk Hunting member Dan Block who lives in Escanaba in the UP of Michigan. We finished watching the movie, talked a little bit and then went to bed so that we could get up early and go fishing.

The alarm went off at something like 6:30 or so and we all got up and head out to the UP of Michigan. We had decided that we were going to fish a lake in UP that we had heard was pretty good for walleyes. We launched our boats and headed out. It was Mike, Dan, and Mike’s son Jake in Mike’s boat and Chuck Parr, Mikey and myself were in my boat. We were in a bay that looked really good to me for pike. It had a lot of weeds about 2 feet under the service so I decided that I was going to try for pike. I tied on a weedless Johnson Silver Minnow and started casting. It wasn’t too long before I caught small pike. After awhile we got separated from Mike and we headed out into the main lake. The wind was pretty strong but I tie on a bottom bouncer anyways with a Gulp crawler on it and tried trolling for some walleyes. We probably went about half way across the lake but didn’t catch a thing. The wind was making it pretty hard to control the boat so we headed back to the bay where Mike was. We fishing for several hours but really didn’t catch that much. I caught 2 small pike, I know Dan caught a few pike, Chuck caught a smallmouth and I believe Mikey caught a small pike also. We then decided to go back to Mike’s cottage and have some lunch. It was at this point that Dan had to head back home so we parted ways with him. In my next blog I will write about how Mikey schooled us all catching big bass on Lake Imnotgonatellya when we went out after lunch and a nap.

Tim + Mike + Fishing = Bad Luck

I don't know why but for some reason when Mike Adams and I try to plan a fishing trip we have bad luck. For example we tried to go ice fishing together for almost a year and the weather just didn't want to cooperate. When we finally did it was really warm and the ice had a ton of water on top if. The one that takes the cake, so far, is the trip that we planned to tape a video bio for me for The Up North Journal web site. We setup a time one Sunday afternoon and decided that we were going to use Mike's boat since I hadn't even put mine in the water yet. The plan was to meet at his house at something like 1:30 pm and head out to Seven Lakes State Park, tape my bio and then do some fishing together since we hadn't been able to ever to that. Sounds like a great plan doesn't it. Well I got there at 1:30 pm and we loaded up his boat to head out to the lake. Fortunately the lake was close to his house, which as you will find out was a good thing. When we arrived at the boat launch and got the boat ready to launch. I held on to the rope as Mike backed the boat down into the water to launch it. As he was backing it down I noticed that the one wheel was wobbling pretty bad and I was going to tell Mike about it once he parked the truck and trailer. Well I didn't have to tell him because as he was pulling the trailer out of the water I heard a loud clunk and look up to see the trailer sitting on the ground with the wheel about 2 feet away from it. I told Mike, "I think we have a problem." Mike and I couldn't believe it. The whole bearing and race where completely shot so there was no just putting back on and getting it home. So now we had to figure out how to get both the boat and the trailer back to Mike's house. Believe it or not though Mike was actually lucky because the weekend before he and son had taken the boat all the way to Wisconsin and back. Thank God the wheel didn't fall off then. Well we decided that we would park the trailer, tape my bio and worry about the trailer after that. After we were done taping it was then time to decided what we were going to do with the trailer. Luckily Mike's son boat and trailer was back at his house so we decided that he would go back and get it then we would load the broken trailer on to his son's trailer. Then Mike would take it home and come back to get the boat. Since we couldn't just leave the boat there unattended Mike told me to just go ahead and use the boat to fish while he went back to get the other trailer and he would call me when he was entering the park so I could help him load the broken trailer. Hey, who was I to argue with him. So I stayed and fished. I caught a couple of small bass while I waited. Once Mike got back I helped him load the broken trailer on to the trailer and off he went to take it back to his house. So with nothing else to do I went fishing again. Hey, somebody had to watch after the boat. This time I didn't catch anything but I did make a note to myself that I want to come back and try fishing the lake again. Well Mike called me and said that he was back at the park again so I made my way to the boat launch and waited for him to back the trailer down into the water. While waiting for Mike to back the trailer down there was another boat at the launch and I was wondering what was taking them so long, then I realized that they had forgotten to put the plug in their boat when they launched it. So I guess we weren't the only ones that were having bad luck that day. They moved their boat over a little bit and Mike backed down. We loaded the boat and headed back to his house. We had a good laugh about how we seem to always have bad luck. Luckily the damage to the trailer wasn't that bad and Mike was able to get it fixed. I sure hope that our luck in the future changes. Just goes to show that you have to be prepared for anything.

Wow has time flown since I last wrote in my blog. There has been a lot that has gone on since my last post on ice fishing with my kids. Let’s see there has been fishing all summer with my kids. Then there was the UNJ fishing trip up in northern Michigan and another fishing trip with fellow UNJ pro staffer Chuck Parr. Then there was also the boat trailer fiasco when Mike Adams and I were going to tape my bio video for the UNJ web site. I will try and fill everyone in about those trips at some point but what I want to blog about today is the Talking Hunting campout. If anyone reading this blog has been listening to the UNJ podcast, and I suspect that most of you do, then you have heard about the Talk Hunting campout. Well I have been a member of the talkhunting.com family, and I do mean family, now since February and I have meet a lot of really cool people on there and if you haven’t been to Talking Hunting I suggest you check it out. You won’t be disappointed. Well I wasn’t able to be there for the whole campout due to the fact that I was on vacation with my family camping but I was able to make it Saturday night for the cookout. I arrived home about little before 5:00 pm Saturday and proceeded to unhook the trailer, unload the truck and go get my dog from parents so that I could head out to the TH cookout. I was finally able to load the kids up and head to the cookout at 6:00. I was so excited to actually me some of the people that I have meet on the forum and put a face with the name. Well I wasn’t disappointed at all. When I arrived they had a ton of food either on the grill or already cook, and when I say a ton I am not kidding and I felt like I was right at home even though most the people I had never meet before. My kids were off and running right way. My boys proceeded to find a blow gun and had a ball with that all night. I don’t know who brought it but I sure want to thank them. My daughter, who is 5, found a little baby and some dogs to keep her busy, she loves babies and dogs. What can I say about the food other that it was awesome. There was a bunch of wild game there and the winner of the cook off was the turtle soup. Man was that good. Then for desert there was a Talk Hunting cake that was very good. After dinner it was time to mingle and get to know everyone. I honestly felt like I had known everyone forever. Then unfortunately it was time to head home. I could have stayed there forever swapping hunting and fishing stories. I want send out a big thanks to everyone that organized and put on the campout and for the great food. Here is a picture of all of the Talk Hunting members that were there.

Ice Fishing with the Kids

Finally all of the stars aligned, everything worked out so that Mike Adam’s and I finally got to go ice fishing together. We have tried in the past to go ice fishing together and for one reason or another it never worked out. We made our plans to go out on Saturday 2/7. I knew it was going to be warm so I figure it was a perfect time to take my kids with me. I have taken my boys with me before ice fishing because they are older but my daughter, who is 4, has never gone ice fishing with me. She had been bugging me like crazy to take her so I figured since it was going to be a warm day it would be the perfect opportunity to take her and not have to worry about her getting too cold.
Well on Friday night Mike called me and asked me where I wanted to go and we decided that we would meet at 7 Lakes state park Saturday morning. So Saturday morning came around I and got the kids out of bed and got them breakfast. While they were eating I proceeded to finish packing the truck with everything that we would need for the day. When they were done eating I had them get dressed and we were on our way. We made one stop at the local gas station to fill the thermos with hot chocolate. I didn’t need to worry about bait because Mike said that he was going to pick some up. So after the gas station the next stop would be the lake.
We ended up getting to the lake at about 9:30 and Mike and fellow Up North Journal pro staffer Jim Stephan were already there on the lake fishing. So I unloaded the kids out of the truck and loaded up my pack mules, I mean my boys with stuff to carry down to the lake while I help Katherine, my daughter trudge thru the snow. I wasn’t that far of walk before we were with Mike and Jim and so far they hadn’t caught anything. I proceeded to start drilling holes in the ice with my hand auger for the kids and getting them rigged up and fishing. Then I got some bait from Mike and went to pay him for it and realized I had left my money home. Now honestly that wasn’t on purpose so I had to tell him that I would catch him tomorrow since we were going to be at a bow shoot together. Then I proceeded to drill a hole for me next to Katherine’s hole and rig my pole. Now it was time to show Katherine what to do and hope that we could get into some fish.
Well unfortunately getting into some fish wasn’t to be this day since none of us had even gotten a bite and we didn’t see anyone else catching anything either. After about probably 45 minutes or so we started talking about moving over to the big lake and after another 15 minutes or so we decided to pack up our stuff and move. So it was time to load up my pack mules, I mean boys, and make our way back to the truck. When we got to the truck we loaded up our stuff and drove to the boat launch on the big lake. When I got out and looked at the lake I immediately knew that it wouldn’t be long before we would be going home because there was a lot of slush and water on top of the ice. Now that was a problem for me because my boots are water proof but the kids boots were not. Anyway I loaded up the boys and we skated our way out to join Jim and Mike who got out there before us.
When we got out to them Mike said that they had talked to a couple of guys coming of the lake and they had done pretty well. The told Mike and Jim where they were fishing and that is where they went. Mike helped me drill some hole for the kids and get them started fishing. By now there was at least an inch of water on the ice and I knew that the kid’s feet had to be getting wet but they weren’t complaining so I hoping that we could get some fish before they got cold and we had to leave. Well things were looking up because Mike put his line in the water after he got done helping me and pulled out a small crappie. Then a little bit later Jim pulled out a nice bass but since it wasn’t bass season it had to go back. Now I am thinking that we had a good chance of catching some fishing. I especially wanted to get Katherine a fish thru the ice. But my fishing bad luck didn’t stay at home and we didn’t catch a thing. Then the kid’s feet started getting cold so we decided to leave. Mike and Jim stayed while we back up and headed back to the truck. By the time we got back to the truck there was a lot of water on the ice that we had to walk thru and the kids were soaked. When I pulled their boots off there was water running out of them. So I got them in the truck and turned on the heat while I packed everything up. On the way home all three kids said that even though they got cold they had fun and wanted to go again.
Later that day I called Mike to see how him and Jim had done after we left and he said that they moved over to our holes and started catching fish. Go figure, just my luck. Oh well we had fun and that is all that matters.