Outdoorsmen Adventures.com

A couple of times each year, we head north to do some fishing on Lake of the Woods, once during the summer and again during the winter.

If you’ve never been up north, it’s quite a treat as it’s big water where there are hundreds and hundreds of icehouses on the ice, every size, shape and variety.

As a matter of fact, this year, the Zippel Bay Igloo made its appearance on the ice.

Resembling a large igloo, this large icehouse/bar is a big attraction as it has a full bar, big screen TV, tables and benches where you can not only eat a pizza, you have an opportunity to wet a line while enjoying your favorite drink.

The largest fish taken by anglers in the Igloo is a 48” northern that Desire, the young lady that runs the establishment took the first week in February.

Ice fishing is extremely popular on Lake of the Woods, part of the reason being that in the winter you’re allowed to use two rods and the limit for walleye and sauger is raised to eight (4 walleyes and 4 sauger).

Walleyes are the larger cousin of the sauger, reaching over 10 pounds with the average size probably being in the 2 to 4 pound class.

Walleyes are identified by their greenish gold color along with the white tip on their lower tail fin.… Continue reading

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

Lake of the Woods features lots of eating-size

walleyes such as this one caught by Jon Thelen

Lindy/Little Joe representative. (Journal photo by Larry Myhre)

BAUDETTE, Minn. — The snow covered ice of massive Lake of the Woods stretched out before us like the surface of the moon.

The nicely manicured ice road was easy to negotiate. We were about five miles out from Zippel Bay to find the ice house where we would headquarter for our early morning fishing start.

Nick Painovich, owner with his wife Deanna of Zippel Bay Resort, guided us to the house which he said was located on a shallower rock rubble bar which had produced walleyes in the early and late hours of the day.

Jon Thelen, Lindy/Little Joe rep from Crystal, Minn., opened the ice house door and immediately took over the hole in the northeast corner of the shack.

I remembered then that Nick had told us last year that it always seemed the hole on the northeast produced the most fish.

Jon remembers details like that and after dropping the transducer of his Hummingbird flasher down the hole, he sent down a minnow-tipped Lindy Rattlin’ Flyer Spoon.

Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb, Nick and I were soon in operation as well.

But, we had lingered too long over breakfast at the resort and had missed the early bite. Nick soon had us on our way to another house in deeper water.

With Jon at the northeast hole, we began to jig and began to catch fish.

It was the little saugers that provided the first action. There is a huge year-class of 10-inch saugers coming on now that by next summer and winter will be in that nice keeper size. But, for now we sent them back.

Then the walleyes showed up. Jon scored first with a 15-incher on a Frostee jigging lure tipped with a minnow head.

It was a good way to break the ice (pardon the pun) and we were soon on the way to putting several eating-sized walleyes (known locally as “bucket fish”) in our bucket.

The hottest lure that day seemed to be the Frostee jig, but we also caught fish on the Flyin’ Rattlin Spoon, the the Genz worm in gold color. Minnow head or live minnow, it didn’t seem to matter.… 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

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

SELKIRK, Manitoba — It’s a magical place, this 30-mile stretch of the Red River from the Lockport Dam north to Lake Winnipeg.

From late September through ice-out, the Red hosts untold numbers of huge walleyes, fish which have spent the spring and summer feeding in the inland sea known as Lake Winnipeg.

October draws thousands of anglers hoping to cash in on the action at a place where an 8-pounder is “just another fish” and nobody gets excited until a 12 pounder comes to the net.

Then the river freezes over and everyone goes home.

But, the big fish are still there.

Stu McKay, longtime owner of Cats on the Red Resort just below the dam at Lockport, called me in late December.

“You better get up here,” he said. “Some awfully nice fish are coming through the ice.”

A couple of photos of 30-inchers sealed the deal, but it would be mid January before my schedule would fit. Also the prospect of photographing a snowy owl and northern hawk owls was added incentive.

So, we made the 550 mile trip north for three full days of fishing and photography.

“It’s underutilized in a lot of respects,” Stu remarked as we were preparing our gear for the day. “If this fishery, both the Red and Lake Winnipeg, were in the state of Minnesota, for instance, there would be armies of people out there. Right now it is mostly locals.”… Continue reading

The 31st annual Cork Thornton Memorial Ice Fishing Tournament which is sponsored by the Valentine Chamber of Commerce
was held January 24th on Merritt Resrvoir located south of Valentine, NE.

Thirty-six two man teams, representing three states entered in the event this year.

The teams not only had to compete with each other, they also had to contend with 50 MPH wind gusts.

The North Platte, NE. team, Drew Armstrong and Andy Young took 13.84 lbs. of fish from the 40′ depths on the Snake Arm using jigs tipped with minnows.

The 2nd place team also fished in the Snake Arm. Dan Priel, Cambridge, NE. and his partner Ken Priel came in with 10.11 lbs

In third place was the father/son team of Ted & Nathan Lindstedt from Cozad, NE. who caught 8.23 lbs of fish.

Finishing in 4th place were last years championship team of Scott & Monte Mares, Lincoln, NE. with 8:01 lbs.

In fifth place was a team from Thedford, NE. Russ and Rich Reiser took fifth place with 5.84 lbs.… Continue reading

Years ago, when my brother A.J. and I first started ice fishing, the gear was pretty basic and mainly homemade, but we thought that we had  the cutting edge when it came to equipment.h

We “redesigned” our Flexible Flyer sled into a real ice fishing machine by wiring a peach crate to the top of it, rods were made from broken broom handles and a couple of nails.

To get through the ice, we borrowed a spud bar from our neighbor.  A spud bar isn’t exactly a high tech piece of equipment as it’s just a “real” heavy metal bar with one of the ends sharpened.

Add to that long handle underwear, four buckle overshoes, a stocking cap, brown jersey gloves and we were ready to hit the ice.

Well, it’s been forty some years since that time and things have come a long way.

Every year, there are more and more advancements in ice fishing gear, making it easier to punch holes through the ice and less exhausting for the fishermen when he’s hauling his gear out on the ice.

You don’t have to look far to find new and updated locators that help you to get on the fish quickly, new lures that helping us to catch then fish as well as clothing helping to us to stay warm in the harshest of conditions.

This year is no exception as I recently found out when I recently attended an Ice Fishing Expo.

Gone are the old days when you either had to spud your way through the ice or chip your way through the ice with a spoon auger as the ice augers now days, make it quick and easy to get a hole dug

Feldmann Manufacturing out of Wisconsin, (www.jiffyonice.com) the manufacturers of the Jiffy augers were the first to manufacture ice augers and each year they come out with new improvements.… 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

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

SISSETON, S.D. — The bite was so subtle that the spring bobber barely moved downward.

But, it stayed down so I picked up the rod until I felt the tension and then set the hook into my first perch of the day.

That was the key to catching perch from Lake Jesse at that time on that day.

I picked up on that by watching Jim McDonnell land three perch in a row while I caught nothing even though my hole was barely four feet away.

You see, the Royal, Iowa, fisherman had all of his rods in rod holders and only picked them up when the spring bobber tipped.

You don’t see perch this finicky very often, but when you do it is usually late February. If you want to get a bite, you can’t be holding the rod. The perch want the lure dead still.

It is very similar to the way bluegills bite when the going is tough.… Continue reading

It’s happened to me numerous times over the years and I’m sure it will happen again, where I’ve spent a lot of time running from one old hot spot to another looking for fish.

And just about the time I was beginning to think that there wasn’t a walleye in the lake and was about to call it a day, I finally located some active fish with my locator.

My eyes were glued to my locator and I was working my way back and forth over this one particular area several times when suddenly, I spotted them in 15 foot of water, those big lazy arcs that indicate the presence of fish and by the size of the marks on the locator, these were good ones!

Since they were located right on or just a foot or so off of the bottom, I guessed that they were active walleyes and immediately marked the spot.

Grabbing a couple rods set up with live bait rigs, I probed the 15’ along the drop off where my locator indicated the fish were feeding.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that these fish were in a negative mood and weren’t interested in what I was offering.

I switched baits several times, going with my old standards, a spinner with a crawler, leech and even a minnow and then to a Lindy rig with a crawler and finally throwing a jig and leech, all to no avail.

These fish weren’t in the mood and no matter what I was shoving in front of them they just weren’t interested.… Continue reading

The recently released Hippy’s Bleeder Chain line of fishing lures is attracting a lot of attention, both from the angler and the fish!

The products have been used and tested by Team Outdoorsmen Adventures member and Pro Guide Joel Vasek on the Missouri River Reservoirs to take numerous species of fish under all types of fishing conditions.

The wide variety of baits available from Hippy’s Bleeder Chain will help anglers to catch and land more fish.

The key to this success is the bleeder chain designed into all of their products.

The red bleeder chain makes the bait look as if it’s injured and bleeding, enticing fish into striking at the bait thinking that the injured bait will be… Continue reading