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Farm Bill -- Stand Up and Protect America's Prairie

Single Digit Lows Have Waterfowl Going, Going, Gone?

These geese were flying out to feed this morning.

The lakes in Minnesota are pretty much locked up in ice due to a recent cold front.  Most of the ducks have left the state save for hardy northern mallards, common mergansers, and goldeneyes that overwinter on the river.  In Minnesota, we are fortunate to have a large Canada Goose population willing to stick around during the winter months.  These geese will roost on the larger rivers and lakes receiving warm water discharges; and, offer field hunting opportunities in the morning and evening hours when they journey to cornfields to stuff their crops with spillage.

Click the following to learn more about goose hunting.

• Minnesota Goose Hunting Locations
• Minnesota Goose Hunting Tips
• Minnesota Goose Hunting Regulations
• Ducks Unlimited Goose Hunting Tips & Tactics
• Back to the Basics for Geese

Pheasant Tracks

A Break from Fishing... Sea Ducks and Grouse

I have been away from the fishing blog for a few weeks now.  The lure of fall muskies gave way to the arrival of sea ducks here in the Northland.  And, I couldn't wait to get the canoe into some of our wilderness lakes to see what would show.  A few days off from the office and a couple of dedicated hunting weekends resulted in some decent shooting for late season waterfowl.  Also, there were plenty of grouse in the uplands to make things interesting when not in the duck blind.

Bufflehead action.

A mixed two-man bag of ruffed grouse and spruce grouse. 

Not Quite Turnover... Yet

Trolling muskies through October snow squalls.

I continue to monitor the fall trolling season on a local muskie lake.  The lake has some very large muskies that "turn on" after turnover.  But, the water temperatures are still in the low 50s and muskies are set up in the shallows and better targeted casting.  But, I am content to troll and see what I can run into.  So, we spent another day pulling a 10-inch Believer 50 feet out on one rod and a 10-inch Jake "30 pulls out" on another (the one without the line counter).  Our typical trolling run included main lake points, steep shorelines, islands, offshore reefs, saddles, neck downs, and open water.

It ended up being another long and cold day on the lake.  But, between snow squalls we managed to hook-up a nice 38-inch pike in open water.  Not a muskie, but a fine local speciman.  And, no doubt a cisco-eater.

Grab-n-grin fall pike.

Breathe.

Twitch in the tail... and goin' back!

The muskie bite definitely was NOT on yet.  And, the weather wasn't much better. After putting in an honest day on the water we motored back to the landing into falling ice pellets stinging our already cold faces.  It was a fall fisherman's acupuncture session and it felt good (I swear my back felt better from it).      A flock of fresh divers got up in front of us and bursted into the northwest.  They must have just came down because we haven't seen ducks all fall.  It warmed us with anticipation.  The migration is starting and we'll be carrying shotguns tomorrow.  Soon the lakes will be turning over and muskies big enough to eat ducks will chomp anything they can get their mouths around before ice-up.

A post-trolling grouse hunt.

Ahhh, the beer and smoked ciscos tasted good at the end of this day.

Fall Transition Muskies on the Shield

The fall muskie trolling pattern hasn't set up yet.  Water temps were in the upper 50s and the lake was far from turning over.  But, I decided to test the tricky fall transition period myself this past weekend.  And, in 25-30 mph southwest winds (that's a muskie wind) I trolled main lake points, steep rocky shorelines near deep water, island shorelines, saddles, open water, and offshore reefs.  The 10" Believer that produced in past November trolls basically went untouched.  The 10 inch Jake ran really well but only scored small to mid-sized northern pike.  The graph revealed some bait balls (most likely ciscoes) suspended deep near islands and saddles; and, in some rare cases nice hooks on the graph just below them indicating my quarry.  The whitefish however were still scattered along the bottom in the main lake basin like in summer.  

You could mark up these unproductive trolling hours as simply "that's muskie fishing".  Or, you could ask yourself "so where are they?"  I chose the latter and looked at it all as collecting intel.  The only place I hadn't tried was shallow.  I had been focusing on the 12-25 foot depths near rocky structure.  But, what if I really got in there...  As the light levels lowered (there wasn't a sun to drop) I started moving in close.  Ten feet.  Bang, bang, the Jake bounced off the rocks.  Nothing.  Nine feet.  Eight feet.  Seven feet.  Snag.  My new 10" Jake looked like it wasn't going to survive its first day.  Agghhhh.  I gave the buoyant bait plenty of slack to float it out; but, it was really in there.  So, I circled the boat around the snag and pulled from the way it went in.  Out.  As the lure shot out of the rock a muskie broke the surface shortly after.  No doubt he swung on it and thought he was hooked.  A dozen casts in the general area produced nothing.  We trolled on.

10" Jake - Walleye Pattern

That was a sign the muskies were still in shallow.  The snag/muskie encounter occurred on a shallow saddle totally independent of the suspended cisco/whitie pattern.  I suspect they were keying in on walleyes on shallow rocks in that wind and were sitting right up on top munching.

I trolled down the steep island shoreline to a major point littered with shallow rock piles.  I cut the speed and tickled the rocks with the Jake.  The rod slammed.  Snag number two.  Great.   I lowered the rod instantly and the bait floated out.  Frustrated, I burned the bait in to check its action and make sure it was still running good.  It was and a mid-40 inch muskie thought so, too.  The brown shape came in hot on the bait right to the rod tip.  I went into a figure eight.  The fish turned on it.  The sharp red tail fin nearly sliced the surface during its turn.  It was a big fish.  It followed the figure eight a few times around before it lost interest or simply got too dizzy to do it anymore.  Bummer.  I really thought it was going to eat it.  I cast another dozen casts in the area and never raised it again.  

Daylight was about over.  It was 43 degrees and starting to rain.  I had more than a few miles to motor back to the landing in wind and rough water.  I reluctantly raised the rod tip, swinging the lure toward me, and with my left hand caught it and hooked it to my reel.  The day was over.  I got beat.  The fish had spoken.  They weren't in a fall pattern yet.  They were shallow with cranked up metabolisms.  They were chowing 'eyes in the wind.  And, that was a lesson in muskie fishing during the fall transition.

A chunky 48-incher of Novembers past.  Trolling a 10" Believer on main lake points.

Coiled tail and ready to put hooks into somebody.  Be careful charming the snakes.

Final Weekend of Lake Trout Season... Gale Warning

I have been monitoring a major weather system in the West all week.  Snowfall totals have reached 48 inches in Deadwood, South Dakota with winds approaching 70 miles per hour.  I can only imagine what that will do to the Big Pond when it hits.  Meanwhile, ahead of the storm a stubborn low pressure system is moving out slowly and intensifying on the eastern Great Lakes... just in time to play spoiler for the lake trout season ending weekend. Nor'east winds continue to blow and keep folks off the pond; and, going into the weekend it was apparent I wouldn't be on the water with the forecasted Small Craft Advisories... again.  But, today's sea conditions exceeded expectations and we entered a full out gale:

GALE WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM CDT THIS EVENING...

.TONIGHT...NE WIND TO 30 KT WITH GUSTS TO 40 KT DECREASING TO 20 TO 25 KT WITH GUSTS TO 30 KT LATE.  RAIN LIKELY EARLY IN THE EVENING.  A SLIGHT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS IN THE EVENING.  RAIN IN THE LATE EVENING AND OVERNIGHT.  AREAS OF FOG AFTER MIDNIGHT.  WAVES 12 TO 16 FT SUBSIDING TO 9 TO 11 FT LATE.

As much as I love them, lake trout just aren't worth losing a life over and the obvious choice was to find alternatives.  Fall weather systems like this remind me of a Hemingway short referencing the dreaded "Three Day Blow"... a period of time it takes for the typical Great Lakes fall Nor'easter to clear.   Hemingway's story described activities which occurred during a three day blow, most notably  woodcock hunting and heavy drinking (surprise).  The woodcock hunting I'm down with.  But, the heavy drinking... not so much-- although I am enjoying a glass of red wine while the gale force winds deform the walls of the house, changing it's shape ever so slightly shifting and twisting and breathing like a diaphragm. 

Hemingway's Three-Day-Blow-migratory-bird-hunting-penalty-kill got me thinking.  We have had mostly south winds this fall which have been holding up migratory birds.  No real nasty weather yet either.  Migration reports from duck hunters across the state have been spotty.  Ringbills haven't even come down yet...  So, I figure this weather system combined with lower temps will get birds moving south.  Then, I remembered a little beaver pond I discovered a decade ago while grouse hunting with my dear and late german shorthair, Boone.  This is a little pond on the backside of a great grouse and woodcock covert.   And, on occasion, I have been fortunate enough to jump small flocks of black ducks from it.  Now black ducks are considered mainly an Atlantic Flyway bird... so to have them here is something special.  They're quite rare with only 1000 or so harvested in the state per year.  The daily limit is one, testimony of its rarity.  

The alarm clock today rang at 4:30 am.  It was raining, cold and dark.  My father and I filled up with coffee, loaded the guns, hip boots, and a half-dozen hen mallard decoys into the truck and headed out to the beaver pond.  We got there just in time, before it got light out.  With headlamps, and in the rain, we hoofed into the backwoods beaver pond--a dark, wet hike of 20 minutes to a half hour.  We set up and waited.  The rain came down.  The wind howled.  the temperatures hovered just above 40 degrees.  We adjusted our blind occasionally but mainly tried to stay still and watch the skies.  Grossbeaks, sparrows and various types of woodpeckers began to wake up and fly across the pond.  A beaver swam through a squall crossing the pond and disappearing into flooded vegetation.  The pond was ringed by beaver highways which could almost pass for downscaled versions of crocodile slides on the Nile.  A timber jay playfully flitted from branch to branch near our set up.  No ducks.  An eagle soared in the distance.  Then, a look to the left skies, three Canada Geese quietly flew in the direction of the pond, just above the jackpine and spruce.  They checked it out and flew on.  And then we waited some more.  But no ducks came.  It rained.  The wind blew fiercely out of the Northeast.  We shivered.  And that's when we decided to go for a walk through the familiar woods.  

We headed southwest from the duck blind, into a stretch of alders between the pond and the jackpine upland.  We have shot many grouse and woodcock in there over the last decade.  We would walk through the cover this time without a dog.  It was different.  We were duck hunting today and there was little pressure to bag a grouse.  We wanted to warm up.  80 yards into the hike the blood began to circulate.  Toes warmed.  Fingers warmed.  Shivering stopped.  Human sensory was returning.  Then a woodcock got up.  I raised the gun but realized I had No. 2 steel in the chamber.  I passed.  This would happen two more times walking through the alders.  Those three flushes would be our only acquaintance with the woodcock today.  This was a covert that would normally produce 20-30 woodcock flushes when the flights were in.  Today, only three.  No whitewashes marked the forest floor, a typical sign when the woodcock are in.  The three birds we saw were most likely locals. The flights haven't started yet.  Yellow-rumped warblers were still around and flew from aspens to alders to jackpines--scolding all the time.

We kept walking to complete the loop through the covert which would bring us back to the duck blind. A grouse got up 10 yards in front of me.  I tracked it with the 12 gage.  I shot it.  It fell to the ground dead and flapped its wings uncontrollably--similar to a chicken which has had its head cut off.  I recalled a story my father told me when I was younger... his grandfather from the old country raised chickens for the household.  One day he asked my father, who was a young boy, to come over here and "watch this".  His grandfather laid the chicken on the chopping block, raised his ax, and then proceeded to cut off its head.  The chicken then proceeded to run around the yard with no head.  I picked the grouse up gently from the forest floor, stroked the feathers smooth and mostly back into place.  I admired it.  I felt the sharp breastbone.  It was a young bird but large.  It was a nice bird.  The grey phase tail was finished off with a complete black band.  I will keep a wing and some of the philoplume located under the tail for fly-tying.  

     

The smell of the spent shell was good.  The smell of the yellow and red leaves rotting on the forest floor was good.  We carried the grouse and walked on through the woods.  We came across fresh moose tracks in the mud.  They were very large and we felt hope that the moose were not all gone.  There is at least one left and it made us happy.  We arrived back at the duck blind near the beaver pond 40 minutes later.  No ducks were there.  We were warm.  Almost sweating.  No longer cold.  We needed to sit and relax.  We looked out upon the beaver pond and relaxed.  A small flock of grossbeaks headed toward us from across the pond.  I was thrown off by their flight pattern as they darted erratically back and forth like a flock of ducks ready to set down on the decoys.  But they were only grossbeaks and I gathered myself.  Then moments later in the exact spot in the sky I saw fast wingbeats.  Three black ducks riding a tailwind shot down the creek valley.  They were well out of range and moving fast.  I high-balled on the duck call.  They turned.  I called again.  They went back on course and disappeared over the boreal forest horizon.  Maybe they heard the call.  Maybe they glanced at the beaver pond.  Maybe they even saw the decoys.  But, they were gone as fast as they came.  We sat and waited.  A flock of geese flew over unseen but not unheard.  It was a large flock.  And loud.  Then, there was no more waterfowl.  We packed up and left.

On the hike out we found the pruning saw which had fallen out of one of the back packs.  We brought this along so we could cut branches in order to build a blind.  We were happy to recover it from the trail.  The rain stopped. We removed our wet outerwear, started the truck, turned on the heater, and poured coffee from the thermos into our travel cups.  We warmed up.  Then we headed out and scouted some areas.  

The drive back was mostly uneventful.  We saw some ruffed grouse along the gravel road picking grit.  We stopped at some lakes and rivers but saw no ducks.... just some dressed out spruce grouse someone had left next to one of the boat landing docks.  There were no ducks anywhere.  The flights had not started yet.  The water in all the rivers and beaver ponds was extremely low.  We needed the rain today.   The cold weather will eventually come.  And so will the birds: woodcock, ducks, and snow bunting.

While driving back on the dirt road we groused about the quantity of "for sale" signs.  The economy sucks and the county chooses to jack up property taxes to unsustainable levels--forcing many people to abandon their dream cabins in the woods.  Our discussion turned especially negative toward the county when we approached a "for sale" sign in front of a rather extravagant lone cabin in the woods perched on a small lake.  As we rounded a sharp bend in the gravel road just past it a large animal crossed left to right in front of us.  I thought it was a small deer at first.  It was tall and grayish brown.  Then I realized it might be a small wolf or coyote.  It was bigger than a coyote.  But, wasn't quite the size of a wolf.  Then it stopped just before going into the woods.  It stopped dead in its tracks.  Still.  And turned its head slowly toward us like an owl.  Cat eyes stared back at us.  Glowing tannish green cat eyes.  Its tail was short and black.  Its nose was pink.  Its face marked with black vertical lines.  It had large and staunch hind quarters and was eating well.  The cat held its gaze at us through the truck windshield.  It stood its ground just 10 yards in front of us holding its pose--as if to say to us "get a good look boys".  Then, the Canada Lynx turned its head forward and slowly but deliberately walked into the woods and disappeared.  It was the first time I had ever seen an elusive wildcat.  And that moment was worth more than any lake trout or black duck this day.  

This Wind Really...Blows

...SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY IN EFFECT THROUGH LATE TONIGHT...

.TODAY... SW WIND 20 TO 25 KT DECREASING TO 10 TO 15 KT.  A CHANCE OF SHOWERS IN THE EVENING.  WAVES 6 TO 8 FT SUBSIDING TO 2 TO 4 FT.  SUNDAY... SW WIND 5 TO 10 KT.  MOSLTY SUNNY.  WAVES 2 TO 4 FEET.

Small Craft Advisories Cleared, Back on The Pond

Late season fishing on the pond has been good.  It's a time of year I look forward to each year.  Outings have been productive and each time on the water we see big fish come into the boat.  And, that's why missing two weekends ago was so tough.  The lake let us know who's boss by whipping up some steep seas and forcing the National Weather Service to issue a small craft advisory.  No point in beating up the boat and risking our lives in that.  So, the boat sat in dry dock and got a good weekend's worth of waxing and cleaning.  That needs to get done, too.  A clean boat is a happy boat and happy boats catch fish... it's good fishing karma.

Deep water king in the low teens.

This past weekend the weather cooperated and fishing was decent.  Two anglers managed to catch 6 wild lake trout between 23 and 33 inches.  There was even a double-header on lakers.  A couple nice wild kings up to 32 inches were also boated.  No humpies were caught as most of them are in the rivers spawning.  Cohos and steelhead have had a lack-luster showing this fall; but, reports were good earlier in the year.    

Double-header... 24" and 33" wild lakers. 

The weather on Saturday was brisk.  Air temperatures started out in the upper 30's and peaked just shy of 50 degrees F.  Strong winds blew out of the north making boat control challenging in a strong broadside wind.  Recreational trollers that didn't keep their bows in blew off trolling runs and hosed up other boats.  With the strong offshore wind comes nearshore upwellings... and one was beginning to set up along the coast.  Surface temperatures dipped a couple degrees closer to shore where the upwelling was developing.  A one mile per hour lake current had lures dancing.  But, the fish didn't like the nearshore upwelling much and moved offshore suspending deep off the first big drop-off.  Not many boats figured that pattern out Saturday.  Some of the fish boated were stuffed with lake herring, which was great to see. 

33-incher.  C&R 

31-incher.  C&R

Offshore Lakers Moving In

Superior Labor Day Weekend

It was a great day on the pond.  The water was smooth like mercury with a nice onshore swell.  Surface water temperatures ranged from 58-63 degrees F... perfect for surface action on shallow swung out dipsies.  The day started with overcast conditions and occasional light sprinkles.  Then changed to clear skies, high sun, and calm conditions.  We adapted to the weather and dropped lines deeper in the water column as the fish sunk during the day.  The boat scored a "Superior Salmon Slam" catching humpies, kings and a coho...  supplemented with some nice wild native lakers.  

Kings...

King on the deck...

Unusual gill plate dimples... a mutation for improved aero?

Dipsy king...

Lakers...

Shark fins.

33-inch laker going back.

A beautiful 29-inch wild laker.  C&R.

Humpies...

A little buck getting his humpback.

Leopard spots.

The sandflies offshore were pretty bad.  But, it was one of those days you just didn't want to bring her in.

Riding mercury swells.

Coffee and tying tinsel fly rigs between fish.

Ricky Splake

It was one of those days where we just wanted to go exploring... with the float tubes and fly rods of course.  The morning consisted of lots of coffee, maps, DNR lake reports, and idle talk without reaching any conclusions.  The clock was ticking and if we wanted to have time for anything this day we needed to make a decision on which lake and what species.  After reviewing half a dozen small lakes on the map I finally said to my father, "Get your stuff together we're going for splake."  Not an obvious choice for early August flyrodding.  Maybe even slightly insane.  Splake are crosses between brook trout and lake trout; and, as a result like very cold well oxygenated water.  Ah, but I found a little lake.  One of those manageably sized lakes that are spring fed and not so deep that even a fast sinking fly line can't get to them.  In fact, this was a little lake with lots of splake, few fisherman, and far from anything.  A lake I'll call Ricky Splake... and I hear it's nice this time of year.

Hiking in to Ricky Splake.

After much driving we finally arrived at the trailhead.  We had bounced around on narrow, rocky, two tracks for what seemed like forever.  During the drive, our eyes were peeled for grouse and oncoming vehicles.  We passed the time talking about the disappearing moose--reminiscing on how much moose sign we would have seen here just a few years ago.  Today there was none; and, so we shifted our focus to mentally noting pull-offs in case we met any head-on traffic.  Fortunately, we didn't.

Once at the trailhead we unloaded our Fish Cats and put on their accessory back-pack straps.   Then, all the items we needed:  waders, fins, nets, etc. got lashed into the float tube void spaces and secured for the hike.  After a couple splashes of bug dope we put on our float tubes, grabbed our fly rods, and started the rough hike in.  The hike was quite nice taking us over exposed canadian shield rock outcrops and through northern white cedar and pine forests.  The wind was absolutely still and the conifers steamed in the sun emitting a wonderful pine scent.

Before long, we descended a steep rocky hill to the lake.  And there it was... Ricky Splake.  Like little kids we struggled against time getting our gear unpacked and on us. We'd rather be fishing than putting on waders and fins.  But, first things first... we'll get there.  With everything donned we found a nice flat rock outcrop gradually sinking into the lake.  This would be a good spot to launch.  From here, we carefully put in--the rock was slippery--and we kicked our float tubes out to prospect for splake.

The old man got hits right away as he entered the middle of the lake.  This was encouraging.  Then, to my amazement, large trout were surfacing everywhere:  in the shallow weeds, in the middle, a few feet from the tube.  Mind you, it's early August... and these are splake.  Previously, I have only caught splake on fly in the very early spring when they become gulpers on chironomids.  To see splake rising all around us was fantastic!  So we shortened up our sinking lines to 30 feet or so and began trolling our wooly buggers and damselfly nymphs along the drop offs.  It didn't take long.

The first fish was a rambunctious 13-incher.  It was just loosing its parr markings and had beautiful white edges to its fins.  The fish was pure char.  And, this brings me to my issue with the name splake.  Really?  Can we not do better naming such a beautiful fish of savory parentage?  The origin of splake is derived from the Canadien name for brook trout, "Speckled Trout" or "Specs"; which is then "crossed" with the "lake" in lake trout to get splake.  Seriously, we can do better.  The fish is beautiful and reminds me of the Dolly Varden trout I used to catch in Southeast Alaska.  Now, that's a fish that received a name for it's appearance; and the story of it's origin goes as follows written by Valerie Masson Gomez in 1974:

My grandmother's family operated a summer resort at Upper Soda Springs on the Sacramento River just north of the present town of Dunsmuir, California.  She lived there all her life and related to us in her later years her story about the naming of the Dolly Varden trout.  She said that some fisherman were standing on the lawn at Upper Soda Springs looking at a catch of the large trout from the McCloud River that were called "Calico Trout" because of their spotted, colorful markings.  They were saying that the trout should have a better name.  My grandmother, then a young girl of 15 or 16, had been reading Charles Dickens' Barnaby Rudge in which there appears a character named Dolly Varden; also the vogue in fashion for women at that time (middle 1870s) was called "Dolly Varden", a dress of sheer figured muslin worn over bright-colored petticoat.  My grandmother had just gotten a new dress in that style and the red-spotted trout reminded her of her printed dress.  She suggested to the men looking down at the trout, "Why not call them 'Dolly Varden'?" They thought it a very appropriate name and the guests that summer returned to their homes (many in the San Francisco Bay area) calling the trout by this new name. (Dolly Varden Trout from Wikipedia).  

Okay, so like a contemporary version of the fisherman in the 1870s looking at the "calico trout" I too think this fish, the splake, should have a better name.  Perhaps something like the "Minnesota Char"... but Michigan and Wisconsin also are big fans of this man-made char.   The fish is rather dark... so maybe the "Black Char"?  Or, the "Minnigansin Char"?  Names anyone??  I like calling it a char rather than a trout... at least we should get this right--unlike our predecessors who erroneously named the brook trout and lake trout, which are really char.  And, I do like the geographic association started by the naming of the "Arctic Char" and "Arctic Grayling".  So, perhaps, we just go with the "Michigan Char" and call it a day.  The name generally places the fish species in the Upper Midwest slash Great Lakes Region.  And, the fact that overfishing, poor land management, and pollution sent the Michigan Grayling the way of the... well, the Michigan Grayling, we can fill a void created by previous human greed and stupidity and Michigan gets to yet again have a fish named after it.  Michigan Char it is; unless anyone can do better.

Okay, back to fishing.  Despite all the rising splake... ahhh, I mean Michigan Char,  there really wasn't much hatch activity.  I observed some caddis, sulphurs, callibaetis spinners, and terrestrials (like bees and such).  But, the one stand out were damselflies.  Lots of them.  Small bright blue ones.  So, this steered me to a damselfy nymph pattern and they really liked it... until I lost it on a big spla... Michigan Char.  But, my father didn't have such bad luck and managed to bring in a real nice deep bodied 18-incher.

And, then my camera died.  I could go on telling more of the story but really it only includes catching more 14-inch and up splake (Michigan Char) on fly rod in the middle of the dog days.  Size 6 black Wooly Buggers really did the trick.  So, I'll end here.  Except one more thing... the name of the lake.  I really didn't like that either.  So, we'll just stick with calling it Ricky Splake.  I hear it's nice there this time of year.

I'm a Michigan Char from Ricky Splake... unless you got a better name for me.

Float Tube Smallies...

Whitlock's Softshell Crayfish pattern and a full sinking line did the trick on backcountry smallies.

Pardon the neascus.

15-incher with an attitude.

Thanks for the water spots on my camera lens...

Plenty of 11-12" smallies...