Outdoorsmen Adventures.com

Reprinted from South Dakota Walleyes Unlimited January 2010 Newsletter.

South Dakota Walleyes Unlimited have their 13th Annual Lake Francis Case Walleye Tournament planned for Saturday April 17th.

The rules’ meeting is scheduled for the evening before April 16th at 7:00 pm at the Americinn in Chamberlain.

Prizes will be awarded for 1st through 20th place with 1st place paying (based on 100 teams) paying $3,000.00.

There will be will be $17,700 in prizes awarded during the tournament (based on 100 teams).Entry fee is $225.00 per two-man team.

For more information on South Dakota Walleyes Unlimited, tournament entry forms and rules go to www.sdwalleyesunlimited.org… Continue reading

Holly Chow, Winnipeg, a full-time guide for Cats

on the Red at Lockport, Manitoba, nets a catfish for a client. (Submitted photo)

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

LOCKPORT, Manitoba — When Holly Chow steps into her guide boat, she has to catch fish.

After all, anyone with the nickname, “Mama Cat” has to live up to her reputation.

And she does. A lifetime of experience in waters throughout the country sees to that.

But she didn’t really begin to fish for catfish until last spring. That’s when she began guiding full time for Stu McKay’s “Cats on the Red” resort.

“A typical day would be eight guys standing at the dock and they’d see two boats there and they’d see the girl and they’d go, ‘Oh, god, somebody’s got to fish with the girl,’” she said. “Then we’d come in with 24 fish and they’d go, “We were with ‘Mama Cat!’”

The Red River below the Lockport dam is recognized worldwide as a premier big catfish river in the summertime.

“The average size channel cat is about 20 pounds,” Holly said. “I would be ashamed if I took you out and we didn’t get three over 36 inches weighing between 24 and 26 pounds.”… Continue reading

It was a nice warm spring day as we launched my boat on Lewis & Clark Lake, near Yankton.

On a previous trip, we’d caught fish in an area where the river channel rose up onto a “slight” hump.

When I say slight, I mean slight as one minute my locator read 15’ then up to 8’ and a few seconds later, back into deeper water.

As our baits started coming out of the deep water, banging into the upstream side of the hump, one of our trolling rods went crazy!

It was obvious by the way the rod was bent that we had a good fish on and after a short battle, a fat 5-pound walleye came into the boat.

Back then, the only way to get back to that Sweet Spot was to pick out a couple of landmarks on each shore and use them to attempt to come back to that spot again.

I’d lined my two landmarks up and then searched vainly for that hump, needless to say, I couldn’t find it, we were close, but when you’re fishing close doesn’t cut it!

I knew it was there, but after trolling through the area a dozen times, we gave up and headed for a spot that was a lot easier to locate, one where the channel ran along the shoreline.

That was the day that I decided that I had to have a locator/GPS unit, so I could find that sweet spot again and again without guessing.

On my next trip to Cabela’s, I picked up a Lowrance Locator/GPS and a LakeMaster Pro Master series Digital GPS Fishing Maps Chip.… Continue reading

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal.

For the past 12 years, I have spent most winter evenings and a lot of weekends planing bamboo in my basement workshop.

I make split bamboo fly rods.

I begin with a culm (pole) of cane 12 feet long and cut in half. From that I split out sections roughly 1/4 to 5/8ths inches wide.

Roughly 60 to 80 hours later, I have a finished fly rod.

I began making bamboo fly rods because I couldn’t afford to buy one. Now, as I like to say, $10,000 later, I have all the bamboo rods I could want.

With borrowed tools and cane, back in 1977 I made my first rod. I worked at it for two years and then had to give the equipment back. In those days there were probably less than a dozen bamboo fly rod makers in the country and practically no published information on how to build one.

Because of a trade embargo with China, none of the cane suitable for fly rod building was imported. The cane I initially used was purchased before the embargo from Herters by Jim Stone, a friend and great fisherman who made split bamboo spinning rods as a hobby. For the next several years, my rod making ambitions languished for want of a proper planing form and other materials needed to make rods.

The trade embargo was lifted in 1975 and in 1977 a book was published which would rekindle the interest in bamboo rod making.

“A Master’s Guide to Building a Bamboo Fly Rod,” by Everett Garrison with Hoagy B. Carmichael was the book which was to become known as “The Bible” among bamboo rod makers.… Continue reading

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

It was a quiet, late November afternoon when Ron Peterson, publisher of the Journal walked into my office in the newsroom.

He sat in the chair across from my desk where, as editor of the newspaper, I was scanning our news budget before heading up the meeting with the floor editors to decide what the next day’s paper would look like.

“What would you think of producing an outdoor tabloid which we distribute free throughout our area?” he asked.

As the paper’s outdoor writer since 1973, it didn’t take long for me to answer.

“I think it would be a great idea,” I said.

And so it started, a free tabloid devoted to teaching Siouxlanders more about hunting and fishing in our area and throughout the upper Midwest.

The first issue, one of six to be published each year, hit the streets in late January of 2004.

The cover photo was of Dave Genz, known as the father of modern day ice fishing. He was on the ice holding a walleye. I had taken that photo a year earlier on Devil’s Lake in North Dakota.

The whole issue was devoted to ice fishing .… Continue reading

The Big O crankbait is a fishing lure with a storied past going back nearly 45 years. It’s still my first choice of smallmouth crankbaits on the channelized Missouri and elsewhere. (Journal photo by Larry Myhre) Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

I’d like to have a penny for every time I’ve cast out a Big O crankbait.

Oh, I’d still be sittin’ here writin’ fishing stories, but the view would be a lot better. West Okoboji lakefront is what I’m thinking.

But, back to reality. Back to the Big O, one fine fish catching machine.

I first used the Big O back in the mid 1970s. In those days I opened the bass fishing season on Lake Geneva in Minnesota every year.

The Big O was my go-to crankbait then and, I’m here to tell you, it still is today.

The Big O has a long and proud history.

The lure, which is made of plastic today, was originally carved of Balsa wood. Fred Young carved the first Big O lure in 1967.

Fred’s brother Odis field tested the lures. He was six feet, six inches tall so it is easy to see how the lure got its name.… Continue reading

Dan Rowe, holds a 31-inch walleye. (Submitted photo)

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

SELKIRK, Manitoba — The mighty Red River spills out of the Lockport Dam and rushes north to massive Lake Winnipeg, about 14 miles away.

Below this dam exists a fishery unlike any, anywhere in the world.

The stretch of river from the dam to the north is called “The Miracle Mile.”

It is along this stretch that miraculous catches of big fish have long been routine.

The area draws hundreds, if not thousands of fishermen each fall in pursuit of massive walleyes which come in from Lake Winnipeg and mill below the dam.… Continue reading

We are finally getting that Indian summer I’ve always heard of.  If you want to get into some excellent fishing, you best get out and do it as the mild temperatures won’t last long and winter will be on it’s way.

Late season, just before freeze up is the time you need to be on the water fishing for walleyes because they are putting on the feed bag in preparation for winter.

One question that’s always asked this time of year is where can I find the walleyes?

Look for them in the same areas you found them this spring, and perhaps a little deeper as they are in that transition period where they will soon be moving out of these areas into their wintering areas.

Where they can find baitfish or any other time of nutrients is where they’ll be located, so look for them on humps, just off drop offs and as it gets closer to freeze up, they’ll move into the deeper holes.

The preferred bait during the late season would be jigs and since the bait your tipping them with is generally larger than you’d use at other times of the year, a jig with a larger hook is not a bad idea.

Lindy Rigs will also work well during the late season as long as you add a larger hook at the end of your snell.… Continue reading

It had finally arrived, the day that my daughter Mieke Slaba, Wagner, SD and I had set aside for our “not so annual” snagging trip.
I ‘d filmed a Mieke snagging three years ago, but we’d never had the opportunity to fish together as she hadn’t had the best of luck drawing a tag.

Since the border for South Dakota and Nebraska is the river, both states have a limited number of tags available with a drawing being held for those permits

Well this year would be different as we’d both received tags. I had my resident Nebraska as well a South Dakota non-resident paddlefish tag and she had a non-resident Nebraska tag.

When I headed out the door that morning, I couldn’t believe my eyes it was only October 12th and everything was covered with a heavy wet snow and it was still coming down.

Being the optimist that I am, I just knew it would quit shortly and gone before I knew it.

The snow was already disappearing as Larry Myhre, Sioux City, IA. and I headed north to meet our guide Marlyn Wiebelhaus, Wynot, NE and Mieke.

Arriving at the boat launch, it was good to see that Mieke had made the trip down, as she was all ready to go.

Marlyn arrived shortly there after and we launched the boat, preparing for another great day on the water.

As we pulled up below the dam at Yankton, there was only one boat there and he was already fighting a fish

Since the season is only open in October, we knew that it wouldn’t be long before more boats would be showing up.

Since Paddlefish are plankton feeders, the only way to catch them is by snagging, which is a much different method than most fishermen are used to.

Marlyn snags a little bit differently that a lot of folks, those that cast out yanking and cranking their line, heavy sinker and hook back in.

Marlyn’s method is more of a gentleman’s sport as he simply has the snaggers in his boat drop off line until they feel that they have enough line out and their weight is on the bottom at which time, he slowly trolls through the area that holds the fish. The anglers keep yanking on their rods until a hook up is made.

Since fish generally face into the current, our best luck came as we trolled across the current, giving us a larger target to try and hook with our small treble hook.

Just as the boat started to move, I gave a yank on the rod and was immediately pulled up from my seat by a solid fish.

I fought the fish in to the boat and it measured out 34” just below the 35”-45” slot where the fish need to be released.

Marlyn indicated that that was a pretty decent fish to tag, but since we were filming a show I didn’t want to quit after one fish, so we decided to release it.

We hadn’t gone too far after my fish when just as Mieke pulled on her rod, lifting the weight off the bottom her rod bent over hard.

For a minute or so, we weren’t sure if Mieke had the fish or if it had her as she wasn’t gaining a whole lot on the fish.

It didn’t take her long to start gaining on the fish and when she did, a nice fish came on board, another just below the slot, which also went back in the water.

It seemed like every pass, one of us would hook up and bring a fish into the boat, several were small hammer handles while others we’re larger 40”-41” fish, those in the slot.

There’s some big fish out there as one that weighed 67 pounds had been weighed in at Captain Norms.

Mieke tied into one fish that she could hardly move and after a short battle, the fish decided that he had enough of this and broke her 40-pound line.

Looking around at the 8 boats that were now below the dam, it appeared as if everyone was doing well as it wasn’t uncommon to see one or even two anglers in a boat hooked up and fighting a fish.

Along both shorelines, there were numerous people fishing from shore and they too were having very good luck.

Throughout the year the paddlefish stack up below the dam and will stay there until there until boat pressure forces them down stream or over into the closed area in the fast water below the turbines.

We were finished in a couple of hours snagging a total of 14 fish; with the fish we tagged being just over 30” from the eye to the fork o the tail.

They’ll both be excellent eaters as once cleaned properly, and with no bones in their body, they are one of the finest eating fish around.

Snagging may be a little work, but once you tie into one of these powerful prehistoric fish, you won’t be disappointed as they are one unbelievable fish. Continue reading

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

YANKTON, S.D. – The allure of holding a prehistoric fish which swam 50 million years before the dinosaurs ruled the world is hard to resist for Mieke Slaba, Wagner, S.D.

Each year she looks forward to pursuing paddlefish below the Gavin’s Point Dam with her father Gary Howey of Hartington, Neb.

Of course they have to be lucky enough to draw one of the 1,600 paddlefish tags issued annually by Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks. This year they were.

Mieke is not alone in her quest for paddlefish. Snagging is so popular that special regulations had to be put in place years ago to protect this valuable resource.

Although the chance to catch a really big fish, Nebraska’s state record paddlefish weighs 93 pounds and was caught from the Gavin’s Point Dam tailwaters in 1998 by Kathy Reiman of Yankton, is undoubtedly one of the reasons. Another is that this fish is incredibly tasty, if you remove all the red meat from the fillets.

And in late fall, paddlefish congregate by the thousands below the dam, jammed up here during a prespawn migration urge eons old.… Continue reading