Outdoorsmen Adventures.com

Before heading out onto Mille Lacs, our guide Mike Christensen of Hunter Winfield’s Resort www.hunterwinfields.com had shown us a spot on his GPS where the LakeMaster chip in the unit indicated an area that smallmouth bass had been feeding.

As we approached the buoy, the huge boulders and rocks deposited there by the glaciers started to appear below the surface.

Many were larger than our boat, extending out from a point into the lake at a depth of 12 foot, giving the smallmouth excellent hiding spots from which to ambush bait fish.

Team member Larry Myhre and I have been frequent visitors to Mille Lacs as it is an excellent fishery with good numbers of trophy size walleye, smallmouth, musky as well as numerous other species of fish.

We’d arrived the day before, hoping to have the opportunity to film a couple of our Outdoorsmen Adventures segments, if the weather didn’t force us to change our plans.

Mike strategically maneuvered the boat through the shallow water, positioning us within casting distance of many of the larger submerged boulders.

We were on the water early, trying to take advantage of nice weather hoping to beat the many fronts that would be coming through the area during the next couple of days.

Since we weren’t sure what the fish would want this morning, all three of us in the boat were rigged with different baits, allowing the fish to tell us which bait they preferred, once they did, we’d all switch to that bait and hammer on them.As we worked our way around and through the submerged rocks, a smallmouth smacked something floating on the surface off to our right.

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

ISLE, Minn. — It was a 14-mile run from our resort to the sand bar where Brett King had found the walleyes the day before.

As Lindy Pro Jon Thelen guided his Deep V Ranger across Mille Lacs choppy surface at 50 miles an hour we laughed about how many thousands of walleyes we were passing over to get to the “honey hole.”

Gary Howey and his cameraman Kyle Nickolite, King and I were hanging on as Jon, a former PWT pro wasted no time getting us to the north end of the lake.

Howey and I, among others, were guests of the Lindy Tackle company, LakeMaster fishing maps and Offshore Tackle for two days of fishing on the big lake. We were headquartered at Hunter Winfields Resort at Isle on the southeast corner of the lake.

King, a walleye tournament fisherman from Claremont, Minn., was guiding for the writer’s event, but his boat was on the trailer today.

He had found the fish the day before and we were on our way to reap the rewards of his efforts.

It didn’t take long.

We tied on new Lindy Spinners behind two-ounce bottom bouncers and began trolling with the bow-mounted electric motor.

Thelen showed us the bar on his Humminbird depth finder which held a LakeMaster chip containing a map of the lake.

“Here’s a rock pile we never knew was here before LakeMaster mapped the lake,” Thelen, who has guided many years here, said. “We’ll follow the top of the bar, go alongside the rock pile and then motor back for another pass.” … Continue reading

Jennie Lake Enhancement will improve waterfowl habitat – Ducks Unlimited

To enhance the 316-acre lake, DU engineered and is installing a water-control structure and electric pump which will allow the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to better manage water levels and improve lake conditions.

“With the warm weather and removal of weight limits on the roads, our contractor, Duininck Brothers Inc., of Willmar, was able to begin work, and we should be able to complete the project ahead of schedule,” said Matt Olson, DU construction manager. “We’ll be working with Runestone Electric in May to run power to the site for the pump, so we should have it running later this summer.”

Additional funding for the Jennie Lake project came from a federal grant from the North American Wetlands Conservation Council, the Chippewa River Watershed Improvement Project, Viking Sportsmen and the Pioneer Heritage Conservation Trust.… Continue reading

The 7th annual Northeast Nebraska Whitetails Unlimited banquet was held Friday March 19th at the Wausa Fire Hall.

Whitetails Unlimited (www.whitetailsunlimited.com) is a national conservation organization promoting deer hunting and other outdoor activities, which headquartered out of Sturgeon Bay, WI. established in 1982 with over 100,000 members.

Approximately 425 people attended this year’s event where attendees had the opportunity to win numerous prizes including 40 guns and bows.

WTU banquets are family orientated events aimed at involving the entire family.

Our youth are very important to WTU, as they are the future of deer hunting and all outdoor sports.

Because of this, there are special promotions and contest held at the banquet designed especially for the youth.

WTU offers its members an avenue to raise funds to support common interests such as preserving the hunting tradition and educating the public on the importance of conserving our natural resources

At this years event, $48,000.00 was raised, much of which will remain in the area, being used for conservation and youth programs.

Funds raised from these WTU events, one half of which stays locally, is donated to numerous area activities.

In 2009 the Northeast Nebraska WTU donated  $20,906.00 to conservation related activities. Included in these were; donations to area schools, 4-H groups, hunter’s education, handicap hunters programs, archery clubs, area communities, conservation organizations and for state game & park projects.… Continue reading

To be successful at turkey hunting there are several to things that need to come together.

The most important of these is knowing the area the birds are using.

In order to find out this information, it will require pre season scouting as this allows you to have a plan put together ahead of time, so you’ll know the who, what, when and where before opening day.

By doing your pre-season scouting you’ll be able to figure out the bird patterns, where they’re roosting, where they’re coming out of the roost, their travel routes to and from feeding areas and how they get back to their roost just before dark.

Don’t make the mistake that some spring hunters do and use a turkey call while doing your scouting.

Once a bird hears the hen call, he may come running in and catch you out in the open, which is a good way to educate the bird.

When scouting, use a call that makes the Tom gobble, but not come your direction.

You’ll want to use a call that will cause the bird to shock gobble as these loud calls startle or shock the bird causing it to gobble.

Good shock calls can be a predator, owl or crow call as these are sounds that the birds have heard before that won’t make them come running in your direction.

These calls can be used during pre-season scouting and during the regular season.

Locating the tree the birds are using as a roost will be a big help, giving you a place to start on opening morning.

Roost trees are generally some of the tallest trees in the woods.  Look for trees with an accumulation of droppings and feathers under them, which is a pretty good indicator that the birds have used the trees as a roost.… Continue reading

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

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