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.

Sauger on the other hand are much more streamlined and more aggressive than walleyes. Primarily a river fish, the average size for sauger would be 1 to 2 pounds with a fish over 3-pounds being a real trophy.

Getting on Lake of the Woods out of Zippel Bay is easy as ice roads are plowed out onto the 30” of ice, allowing fishermen easy access to their houses.  Streets are all marked with street signs such as Perch, Big Fish and Walleye, making it easy for anglers to get to the right spot.

On this trip, we were filming with Nick and Deanna at Zippel Bay Resort. Joining us were Team Outdoorsmen Adventures members Larry Myhre, Sioux City, IA. and Jon Thelen, Crystal, MN.… Continue reading

Late season pheasant hunting is a great sport; sometimes, one requiring a real love for the sport.

During the late season, the weather can be down right nasty as I found out last week on a hunt we filmed near Watertown, S.D.

Over the last several years, a group of us back home in Watertown, S.D.  try to get together to do a pheasant hunt and this year; we just happened to pick a day where the weatherman predicted a temperature of -12 with a wind chill, a brisk  –21 degrees.

Well needless to say, because of the many things going on during this time of the year and the colder weather, we ended up with just 3 hunters on the first day of the hunt and four on the second.

Chuck Stone & John Wilson joined us on the first day with Chuck Stone, my cousin Joe Jipp and Larry Munger joining us on the second day.

With the cold temperatures, we didn’t get too excited about going out, hoping that it would warm up a bit, waiting until one o’clock before hunting our first field.

With the smaller group we were hunting with, we’d have to change our hunting tactics, hunting smaller patches then we had the year before when we hunted with a larger group.

We’d be hunting smaller grass strips, sloughs along with a few rows of unpicked corn.

On the first drive, since Chuck and I had dogs, we’d push through a slough towards a stock dam where John would be strategically waiting for those birds that ran ahead of us or flushed out the end.

As it often happens this time of the year, several birds blew out of the cover well out of range as we worked our way through the slough.… Continue reading

As I sat on the porch at Big Blue Lodge, a full moon appeared on the horizon adding it’s  illumination to the light being dispersed by the millions of stars in the sky that night.

It was a stargazers dream, one that’s quite common in Nebraska and one that few people living in the large cities on either coast had ever had the opportunity to gaze upon.

As daybreak finally arrived and the sun popped up over the horizon, we were greeted by 50-degree temperatures with an afternoon forecast predicted to reach up into the 70’s.

And what’s so great about that? Well, we were about to head into the field to hunt pheasants at the Nebraska Governor’s Hunt in November, the time of the year when folks up north are usually wearing stocking caps, gloves and long johns were in order, not the short sleeve shirts and tee shirts that we were wearing.

It was a beautiful day to be outdoors, and the hunting only made it better. It was one of those perfect days in the outdoors, one of those days you’ve always dreamed about.

The Governor’s Pheasant Hunt is a team event with five members on a team.  It’s a one-box hunt, which means that each team receives 25 shells in order to bag their 15-bird limit.

Shells can be divided up amongst the team members any way that they wish and the team that checks in with the most birds shot using the least shells is declared the winner.

Teams are assigned a guide, scorer and are allowed to have two dogs on the ground at one time.… Continue reading

No doubt, you’ve heard of the Bermuda Triangle, strange things happen there and it’s one of those places you really don’t want to be.

Well there’s one “Triangle” that all outdoorsmen and women would love to be and that’s the Pheasant Triangle in South Dakota.

Located in South Central South Dakota, this area has the habitat and crops that make it a Mecca for not only pheasants, but also for deer, grouse and turkey.

Hamill, South Dakota is located right in the middle of the triangle where Steve and Donna Kubik own and operate Antler Ridge Lodge.

Several years ago, I had the pleasure of hunting pheasants with the Kubik’s during the South Dakota Governor’s hunt and was really impressed by not only the pheasant hunting, but also the facilities and the area itself.

Last Spring, Team Outdoorsmen Adventures member Tom Mitchell and I had the privilege of hunting and filming a spring turkey hunt at Antler Ridge.

When we drove into the place, there were antelope along the road, pheasants everywhere as well as deer and turkeys, I just knew that this was a place that I wanted to be.… Continue reading

Looking out of the window at the buttes above the ranch, I found it hard to believe that we were in the heart of pheasant country in south central South Dakota.

The scenery was breathtaking as were the facilities and the pheasant hunting that we were about to experience.

Diamond A Ranch is located just down the road from Gregory and the habitat on the ranch is ideal not only pheasants, but also deer and turkey.

On this hunt Gary Kubicek and Bill McPherson from Consumer Supply, Sioux City, IA, joined us.

Consumer Supply is the manufacturers of the Country Vet Dog food a balanced nutritional dog food that we’ve been using for years.

Also joining us on this hunt would be my brother-in-law Tom Janssen and Dr. Ken Bird from Omaha.

Our first walk would be a milo field just down the road from the ranch and any one who’s ever hunted knows: milo is an excellent food source for pheasants.

Since it’s a short crop it’s easy to hunt, work dogs and since it produces such thick heavy over head cover it’s a great place for birds to feed and loaf while and not have to be concerned with the eagles and hawks flying over head searching for an easy meal.… Continue reading

GREGORY, S.D. – Rows of milo and corn seem somehow out of place in the foothills below the Butte Mountains.

But try to tell that to the thousands of ring-necked pheasants that call this mixture of native grasslands and farm crops home.

Several were taking to the air right now and, with camera in one hand and gun in the other, I was at a loss for what to do.

As usual, I didn’t get the best effort from either.

“Who cares,” I thought. I’m just going to soak up the beauty of this land on an October afternoon on the Diamond A Ranch 14 miles north of Gregory.

A 2,000-acre hunting preserve owned by Jim and Andrea Olson, the Diamond A is not a diamond in the rough. It is a splendid, well-appointed preserve awash in wild pheasants, turkeys and deer.

Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb., and I met Gary Kubicek and Bill McPherson, both with Country Vet pet foods out of Sioux City, Gary’s brother-in-law Tom Jansen and his friend Kenneth Bird, both of Omaha, for a couple days of bird shooting.

We never did get more than a half mile from the lodge. We walked milo strips mostly and the birds were there.

It was the second visit to the Diamond A by Howey and me. We had hunted here last year, the first year of operation for Jim and Andrea, who farm near Homer, Neb.… 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

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

WEBSTER, S.D. — A heavy overcast threatened rain and an occasional sprinkle emphasized that fact.

But when Tim Chandler, Watertown, S.D., guided his boat around the north side of Duck Island the graph lit up with arches signalling lots of fish below, thoughts of rain were forgotten. We attached number five Salmo Hornets to our trolling rods and began the search for walleyes.

We were on sprawling Waubay Lake, a walleye factory for the past several years.

It was once a duck slough but an infusion of water throughout northeast South Dakota in the early 90s turned it into a 16,000-acre fishing paradise

The lake more than quadrupled its size in the past decade and swallowed up many smaller lakes to create a massive fishery nine miles long and five miles wide.

It has receded somewhat from its high levels set in July of 1999. It has a maximum depth of 35 feet.… Continue reading

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

Fords Hunting
Guide Service

Chris Ford, has been guiding bear hunters since 1995. Today he also guides for deer and fish on Lake of the Woods as well as offering island transport and tours.

He typically puts out 110 to 120 bear baits and narrows that down to only the best ones come hunting season.

The first week of this year’s season he had 11 clients and nine of them took bears with 18 opportunities. The second week five hunters had five opportunities and killed three bears.

For more information about his hunts, go to www.fordshuntingguideservice.com

BAUDETTE, Minn. —  The forest had gone dead quiet. The camp robber jays had disappeared. The red squirrel which had been prancing back and forth in front of our ground blind for the past hour was no where to be seen.

I thought I saw movement in the brush behind our bait pile, a hole filled with donuts and pastries covered by logs.
And then it was there. A black bear and it was a shooter.

I nudged Gary and pointed, turning on the video camera at the same time.
He brought his Escort .270 mounted with a 3 X 9 scope to his shoulder and waited.

The camera was running and the bear stepped into view broadside a mere 25 yards away.
I heard Gary slide the safety off…and so did the bear. He was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

We were disappointed but it was only 5:30 p.m. There was plenty of time for another chance.h

We were hunting with Ford’s Guide Service out of Williams,  Minn. Our headquarters was Zippel Bay Resort where Chris Ford pus up his bear hunters.

Chris had said we were on a good bait so we were confident there would be another bear that evening.
But the real story happened in another ground blind a few miles away.

There Terry Ubben, Ankony, Iowa, was sitting alone watching his bait when there was a noise behind him.
He turned and saw a big bear poking his nose into the back window. He also noticed the bear’s paw  under the blind.
Then the bear tried stick his head under the blind.
Twice.… Continue reading