Mothers Day Weekend fishing

This post is a few days in the works so I hope you enjoy.  It has been a Mothers Day tradition in my family as a young kid to go camping on Mothers Day weekend.  It usually signified the start of the camping season for us.  For the last 7 or so years my tradition broke and I was not able to tag along with my parents and brother on the trip and this year looked to be much of the same.  My son just had his Adenoids removed and tubes in his ears and all I heard was how miserable it’s going to be for the next 10 days after his surgery…  This was not the case for my son though.  He is a trooper and the energy change in him and his attitude seemed to change dramatically for the better!  So when Friday came we had pretty much decided that we were alright to go.

We arrived about 6:30 pm.  Went into my parents trailer to find only my mom.  My dad and brother were out fishing.  About a half hour later they noticed my truck was there and came over to the camp to see us.  They had caught some decent sized bass, a northern pike or 2, and a walleye.  The wind had put a damper on the fishing as it was blowing pretty strong and hard to keep the boat positioned right with the electric motors so we talked for a bit and had dinner of Chicken and potato salad.  I came up to the lake with a particular goal in mind.  I wanted to catch fish on my fly rod.  Trout are fun but I have a new bucket list of my fly rod.  I want to check as many species off as I can.

My dad and brother were ready to fish again after dinner.  Daylight was fading quick so I grabbed my gear, camera, lenses, and jumped in and took off.  Right away my brother caught a decent bass on a spinner bait.  I was too lazy to get my fly rod set up so I just did the same and chucked spinner baits out and finally netted a smaller bass.  We fished this spot for another half hour or so and caught a few more small bass and was treated to a great Montana sunset.

Sunset

Morning arrived and it was just a nice as the sunset the night before.  It’s amazing how the colors or the morning and evening differ and its one reason I love camping.  I have no issue rising before dawn when on the lake.  It’s just re-energizing.  I snapped a few pictures to stitch together into a panoramic and went back inside to have breakfast.  It was a quick one as the water was smooth as glass and its one thing we do not mess around on.  Not much is better than being on the water in the calm morning before the wind picks up.

Sunrise

We drove on up the lake to try our luck and see what we could come up with as the tips we got were to head that direction for the walleye and northern bite.  Needless to say we must have been lied to or used the wrong lures cause jigging, rapalas, spinner baits, and flies only yielded two walleye landed by my dad and brother in a couple of hours.

We came back in as the weather was warming and I wanted to get my son and wife on the boat before it got to hot for them.  We took off down the lake towards the dam to see if we could find a better spot.  We came upon a boat with a couple guys trying to get an anchor off the bottom that had gotten stuck on something.  They gave us a tip about the crappie being right there and since they were leaving we stayed and tried out luck.  We did not catch anything of any size but managed to catch about 30 or so crappie.  I even managed to catch one with my son.

It started to get pretty hot so we took my mom, wife, and son back to camp and had lunch and were off again.  This time I had pretty much decided if i’m to catch anything on my fly rod I better start so I tied on a brown and white clouser minnow and went to work.  Over and over I casted the fly into the timber and stripped it back.  I amazed myself after a few casts just how much better I was getting at casting and was able to thread cast after cast into some pretty tight spots.  It seemed like make I just was wasting my time.  Nobody had had much luck and as we drifted I gave it one more shot as I just could not give up.  The fly hit the water and I have it a short strip.  I gave a stripped in in a couple more times, the fly just under the surface, and SLAM!  I watched as a Northern Pike darted from out of the trees and slammed the fly, a huge explosion of water, and back down.  The fight was on!

Drag screaming

I had no steel leader on and was worried that I would lose the fly and the fish.  It looked like a good spot from what I could see but the teeth on pike are sharper than just about anything I can think of.  I never believed it myself so one time I had a 10 lb pike in the livewell and when I grabbed it out to take care of it after we got to camp and it had died I did the unthinkable.  I stuck my thumb in and just lightly touched the teeth and instant sharp pain and blood covered my hand from the mini incisions left on the pad of my hand.  Curiosity killed the cat this time and I am much more careful when I handle these fish.  Run after run, the line sped off my reel.  I would get the fish to the top of the water just in time for him to about face and take off.  Finally he tired and I was able to get him close enough to net.  With one swoop of the net the fish had one last burst of energy and my dad missed!  I thought for sure it was gone but I managed to get it back up again and this time was a success!  Just as we lifted the net the fish twisted and cut the line with its teeth.  I was so excited to catch my first pike on a fly I completely forgot to take a proper picture so I apologize for the way I am handling it in the picture.  I was keeping him for dinner and was taught that if you hold them with the eyes covered they calm down but I was keeping it for dinner.

Sorry about the holding technique. He tasted good though.

We fished a little while longer with not much luck.  Occasional bass here and there so we took off back down the lake to try some other spots.  I did some sight fishing and caught a bluegill in the first spot with my fly rod.  Then continued on after landing a small smallmouth bass.  I changed it up and did some trolling with rapalas and did not catch a thing aside from a slight sunburn so I swapped to a spinnerbait again.  Casting into shore I had a couple hits but nothing hooked.  Then all the sudden as soon as it hit the water I had another pike lunge after it and it was gone.  I like steel leaders but it just seems I don’t get near as many bites with them on so I usually do not keep them on for long in case your wondering why I do not have one tied on.

We drifted into another pocket of trees that seemed to hold a large number of fish swimming around so I grabbed the fly rod again and made some casts and hooked into a lot of small bass.  These were large mouths!  My dad had a pike follow his lure in and spotted another  but had no luck in getting one enticed enough to bite.  I landed a couple more bass and we took off back towards camp to fish where we caught all the larger bass the day before.  I managed to land a few more smallmouth about 8″ long with the fly rod and it was getting hot enough and we had been out in the sun long enough we decided to call it and went in.  It was time for me and my family to leave, but my parents were staying till the next day.  I had a great trip and managed to check another 4 species off my fly rod bucket list.  But I think I might have to do it again and get some tasteful pictures and proof I actually did catch them.  Whatever gets me back out on the water, right!?

Bass

Sunset

Sunrise

Reflection

Walleye Dad

Starving Outdoorsman

Brother fight

Almost

success

Geese in flight

Drag screaming

Bent rod

Nothing but net!

Come on now don’t cut me

How the heck do you avoid the teeth?

Still trying to get his teeth off the net

Sorry about the holding technique. He tasted good though.

“Spring” into the outdoors

Spring to me means many things.  Warm weather equals shorts, time in the boat, camping, and possibly some hiking.  I started seeing things a little differently this year now that I have a camera.  I never paid much attention to much other than the weather, fishing from the boat, and the fact we put in for and find if we drew any hunting permits.  I drew the same archery elk permit as last year.  I’m fairly stoked for it.  I also put in for Bighorn Sheep, Mountain Goat, and Moose for the first time.  But the point of this post is not about hunting.  It’s about spring.  The life it brings.  The things that it means for sportsman and outdoorsman.

The bears are out and about now, birds are nesting and protection eggs, ducks can be seen in my back yard with the little ducklings following behind them.  The bugs are out which can be a good or bad thing.  Spring brings out the hatches and make for some good fly fishing.  But it also brings out my arch nemesis the tick.  I hate ticks with a passion.  I have rarely found any on me.  I have had one embedded in my back, found a couple from a day out turkey hunting, and found 6 on me in November last season I assume from deer we harvested.  Already I have heard of so many of those little buggers it is not even funny.  My friend pulled 18 or so from his dog and himself, another friend found plenty on his dog, and some other people I know from social media have had their share already.  Its just something you have to deal with in the outdoors, and thus I need to learn how to deal with it better.

Like I said above, I have been and seeing things in a different perspective the past couple of months and have been able to see a few things I may never have paid much attention to in the past.  I managed to find some turkeys and got a couple of photos of them.  I went down to the river and to my surprise a nest of Osprey were taking turns fishing and I managed to get a couple of shots of them.  Same with the baby ducks in my back yard.

I know some people who may not understand me and why I am talking about this since I am a “bloodthirsty hunter” but that is fine.  Everyone has their own opinions.  I do hunt but I do not hunt in such a way that I think any person would consider unethical and am developing a much greater love for all of the creatures that I have seen.  I think this year will allow me to continue to see things I never have witnessed before.  I love seeing wild animals and the interactions with each other from the Osprey I saw this past weekend to the herds of elk I have seen grazing, playing, and even some sparring.  I hope to be able to take photos and video this year that are not like the types of things my readers have seen before while searching for something new inside myself.  And for that, I will strive to do things I had never done before but have always wanted to.

Non-typical day of fly fishing

It started off like any other morning.  And early wake up call awoke me up at 3 am.  I did not need to be up until 4:45 am but for some reason my internal alarm said it was time.  I hit my hit the proverbial snooze button and buried my face into the pillows to gather the remaining hour and a half of sleep I could get.  The real alarm sounded.  I stumbled across the room waking my wife, said im off, and loaded my stuff into the bed of my truck.  I headed left and got to my hometown about 15 miles from where I live now to drop of some things at my parents and got fuel before I went to pick up my friends.  We loaded their gear and coolers and were off to the Boulder River south of Big Timber, Montana.

We arrived in Big Timber and headed south along the river.  We ended up crossing some bridges that looked like they would fare decent but we had already been beat so we continued on up into the mountains to find a place to start the day.  Along the way we were greeted with the sight of a moose pretty close to the road.  We scrambled to get our cameras.  Already this was turning out to be a decent day.  The range looked great, the water spectacular, we seen a moose and had yet to even wet a line.  We got to our first stop right up from a nice bend in the river.  We suited up, cracked a beer, took a group pic and were off to the river.  We must have hit the honey hole in the first stop because within a few minutes I had already hooked my first fish of the day.  Not long after one of my friends had his, and then managed to get 3 more before I got my second.  This was turning out to be an awesome day and the only thing not going our way was the wind.  With a few guys not so good at fly fishing, sometimes you need to have an indicator on and the wind does not allow for the best casting for us.  Short casts work also though, you just need to be a bit sneakier.

We continued on down river a little ways with little luck.  So we headed back to the truck for a snack and decided to head farther up.  Not much farther up the road, we were greeted by a grouse walking down the road.  This was different though.  It seemed to have a death wish or something on its mind.  It played chicken with my truck and won.  I stopped to avoid having squished grouse.  I snapped some pictures of it and decided to get out and see what was wrong with it.  Maybe it was injured.  But either way, I have seen so many pictures in Facebook groups with grouse on the end of someones arrow while they are in a tree-stand I just thought “maybe something magical would happen”.  I sent the camera settings and handed it off to capture the moment.  I got down thinking that it was gonna run off and we could continue one.  It had other plans.  I was on the menu.  I lunged at my hand and clamped down with its beak hard enough for me to jerk it up with me as I was startled and it chased me up the road about 20 yards or so.  After avoiding any more beak marks on my hand, I got in the truck and though if I squished it, perhaps I would have a grouse hackle.  Im not even sure if grouse makes good flies, but I was ready to try it.  I drove on, and it started chasing us up the road.

We found a spot that looked awesome so we stopped again to try out luck.  You could see the fish in the pool that looked to be 5-8′ deep.  We tried for an hour or so to no avail.  Perhaps they just were not biting on what we had to offer or just not at all that far up the river or maybe we just ran out of luck.  We took the moment to snap some more pictures, fished some more, had lunch, and drove back down the road where the grouse met us almost head on again.  This time when it gave chase it actually flew at us.  I suppose this bird has a little bird ego since it chased a F-250 down the road.

We stopped at a few more access points at the edge of the mountains and didn’t see something we wanted to fish so we drove to the natural bridge, a formation were the water flows underground and out the other side in low water, but actually flows above the ground in high water but since we were in waders and not wanting to change out, we didn’t walk to far and did not get a picture of the water flowing out.

We drove on to a bridge close to McLeod and used the Montana stream access law to get down to the water.  I managed to hook another but a poor set allowed the fly to escape.  This was a great spot.  Boulders littered the river with nice pools just hiding trout willing to take our flies but again, we were not having as much luck.  As my friends continued on, I decided to hang out and see about catching some fish close to the bridge.  I managed to snap a wonderful landscape that I might just have to get framed and even managed to hook yet another trout.  I think this one must have been a nice brook trout from its dark color but it got caught in the current and I didn’t think about chasing it down river to net and the fly flew out of its mouth as well just as some people were on the bridge watching.  I never put on a good show it seems when people are watching unless it involves a grouse…  Anyways, we had a pretty eventful day with 7 trout and one whitefish that ate my fly in 3″ of water as I was walking to another spot to cast and I lost another 6.  Probably not the absolute best fishing day most have had but given our experience as fly anglers, it turned out to be a decent day aside from one of my friends ending up being skunked.  We can not wait to head back out again!

To short of time

My last blog post involved my newest pup Sawyer.  He is a German Short-haired Pointer.  Unfortunately, we had to give him up as he was not suited for the lifestyle we have.  Our place is just to small and not yard.  We live in a condo.  Basically the apartment setting with no yard and no room for him to run.  I came home last week to let him out to do his doggy business, but when I got home he was howling.  Apparently he has done this off and on for the past couple months and I just never heard it.  Our upstairs neighbor works nights, and we had a note on the door asking to rectify the situation.  I’m super bummed over this.  I went from not wanting him to not wanting to get rid of him in 2 months.  We only had him about 3.  His new home will be in Idaho.  I am awaiting info on his arrival as I type this.  He should be united with his new owners very shortly as his plane should have already landed.  Anyways.  My posts about training will not be.  I know I am not the best pet owner.  I had big plans for bird season and was doing everything I could to get him to learn the commands and he seemed to be doing decent in my mind.  However, maybe not to someone who had been around bird dogs would agree.  He already will have a better opportunity to do what he is meant to do this coming weekend.  Sounds like his new owner has plans of taking him on the river in the jet boat and letting him run around.  Not something I was ever able to do in the city I live in.  I hope he has a blast.  A tear was certainly shed the past few days.  I can’t lie.  He really turned out to be my favorite dog I ever had.

Sawyer my German Shorthaired pointer

I have always wanted to bird dog.  But the cost of getting one has always hindered me.  I never could see myself spending that much money on a dog.  And the lack of me hunting birds the past few years has not really made it a need for me to have a pup that I could train and go hunting with.  Around late November my wife came home one day talking about getting me a hunting dog.  Interesting enough being that I have to literally chew my leg off to get out of the house anymore and when it comes to hunting, my wife understands a need and enjoys the meat it provides, but wishes I was more of a gatherer than a hunter.  I knew immediately even though I told her we do not need another pet as we try to sell our small condo (keep in mind that we have no yard…  GSP and no yard is not a great combo).  The dog was FREE (Yes, a free 4 month old GSP purebred and papered) to us and I was just awaiting the day I would want to pull my hair out having such an energetic dog in the house.  A week or so went by and then one day my wife meets me at the door.   I know when she does this, something is different and her smile made me even more curious.  I walked in to this pup the size of my wife’s full-grown poodle on the couch.

He was a great looking dog in my eyes.  But given we are in the middle of a lot of things, the last thing I wanted to try to tackle was training a dog to do anything.  The constant cleaning with my 19 month old son was enough.  This pup was waaaaaaay harder to keep up after.  My friend saw one the other day and said he was laughing at how he was peeing on everything.  To say they can magically conjure up some pee as often as they wish is an understatement.  This guy can make it rain.  Anyways, after about a month of straight up cleaning and pretty much nothing else, I decided I better embrace it before its to late.  He has been a pretty good dog not that he is a little bigger and can hold his bladder longer than 20 minutes.  We have gone for walks and looked for animals.  He does not seem to like birds though.  Bit rabbits are another story.  He can find a rabbit better than any dog I have seen.  I’m not much for eating rabbits though, and nor do I feel my wife would be.  So I hope I can change his mind and get him to start finding some birds.  The ducks he first pointed at around where I live scared him half to death, so I think we have a little work to do!  I look forward to hopefully posting more about Sawyer, my first GSP.

An evening on ice… A Burbot adventure.

Living on Montana, unless you wait until summer or live next to rivers or streams that do not freeze, your likely to fish on the ice if you do any winter fishing at all.  That is just what we did this past weekend.  Like a scene almost straight from one of my all time favorite movies, Grumpy Old Men, we set out on the ice with shacks, augers, chairs, and a custom-made box my dad made a few years ago to better haul his stuff from the truck to the ice and back a little easier.  I remember when I was little being so scared of the ice.  My dad would trudge out on the ice with the manual auger and sometimes drill a hole at least part way to see if it was thick enough to fish.  Those manual ones are a little hard to use for yours truly.  I just do not have the umph required to drill a hole in 6″ of ice, let alone 18.

My dad just bought a new gas-powered auger, which was nice.  He is just excited to be able to drill 10 holes in the time it takes to drill one manually and it showed, as he drilled 10 holes to check depths to find a shelf we knew existed in the area.  We found it.  A flat 50′ depth and then all the sudden seemingly rose at a pretty steep angle to 30′ or so.  We could fish the 35-50′ just inside the pop up ice house which was excellent.  We were after ling this trip and if a walleye or trout happened to come along,those also.

We settled in for the evening.  I fished the 2 holes at 50′ while my dad spent some time outside of the shack closer to shore.  We had not been able to get any bites.  Seemed like it was going to be another slow day on this lake I try to avoid like the plague when it comes to ice fishing.  Another friend of my dads showed up and almost as soon as he dropped his line in the water had a fish on.  Figures, “his son owns a bait shop” I thought.    He even caught one out of the hole my dad just stopped fishing in right after he moved to another, so my point was sticking on that thought.  Finally my dad hooked one, and I still had not even had any action on my fishing rod.  I had a bite, but just could not hook anything, to which my dad said “that rod has no backbone, probably wont hook anything with it”.  Well, it sure seemed that way.  I finally hooked one and as soon as it was there, it was gone.

It was not even time for the good bite yet, the sun was setting, and it was time to cook BBQ elk burgers before the fish were supposed to really begin to bite.  So we lit the BBQ inside the shack to allow us to stay warmer.  It did get a little smokey but man did it smell good.  We opened both doors to allow for the smoke to get pushed out since the vents were not keeping up.  And I had to go out and see what could be done with the magnificent Montana sunset unfolding before my eyes.

The fish bite never really happened to fast.  It seemed to be pretty consistent until it was about an hour before we left.  Everything slowed down.  I made two trips to the truck hauling some things up and came back.  Within 5 minutes of tearing down the pop up shack, I saw my fishing rod tip moving.  I went over and gave it a little slack and removed it from the holder.  The fish was still there, but this time felt more solid.  I set the hook, and to my amazement, still had a fish!  Ling and I do not get along.  I can never seem to get it right and set the hook before they decide to eat the entire bait and usually end up with nothing.  This just happened to be my first Ling in probably 12 or so years.  Not a dandy, but a Ling.  I removed the hook and let him back down the hole to grow up a bit more.

A new year… A new me!

The past few years I have noticed something.  I am getting slower and slower when it comes to doing just about anything.  I used to be able to keep up with just about anyone I hunted with or just about anything for that matter.  For about the last 3 or 4 years, I have told myself I am going to start training long before the hunting season gets here.  It has been my new years resolution for the past 3 years.  Yet it never seems to happen and pretty sure September rolls around and I have packed on another roll or 2…  This year I am determined.  I have found Motivation and inspiration to finally better myself.  It came in what I think for the most part is an unlikely place.  Granted, I have reasons and home, I found a good portion of this on Facebook and Twitter.  Some people I know personally have changed their life for the better, why can’t I?  And then there are the people I actually have never met such as Cameron Hanes and a few other people I have had the opportunity to have met on this blogs twitter account and even my own personal Facebook account   I have not been going to the gym near as much as I should have been until the past week.  My membership again is months old, with only one time being used right when we got the membership cards.  I hate going by myself.  I hated working out in general.  I never looked forward to it, yet this time around, I am sensing a change.  I got for an hour, come home, and within a couple of hours am ready to go back even though I am sore, and worked up a good sweat already.  I am definitely feeling better, that is for sure and I think as long as I can keep it up, I will be in the best shape I have been in since High School 10 years ago.  It is TIME for a change.  I WILL do it.  I WILL be able to go hiking with my friends and do a Solo backpack hunt this season.  NO EXCUSES!

“Keep Hammering” ~ Cameron Hanes

Whats next?

The days are short.  The hunting seasons are all but over for where I live.  I have not had a chance to hit the ice and see what I might pull through that tiny 8″ hole.  Chances are generally nothing when it comes to ice fishing and me.  I have yet to make plans to try out snowshoeing.  So I thought I might reach out to anyone who might read this blog post as to what you would like to have me write about.  I am up for just about anything as long as its outdoors related.  Feel free to send me an email at starvingoutdoorsman@gmail.com if you have any ideas.  This is not meant to be purely a hunting blog but really anything that I can do within a reasonable budget.  Thanks!

Birthday in the Blind

The start of the new year always brings with it questions of what to do.  I always want to better myself and fix the things I did not do the year before.  Generally I am left wishing I had gone fishing, hunting, hiking, and just any various outdoor activity more than I had and for quite a few years I have spent part of New Years day on the ice in hopes of starting the year off with a bang.  Ice fishing generally does not have much of a bang (unless the ice cracks and makes your heart skip a beat).  This year there was definitely some loud bangs.  But these bangs were from 3″ 12 gauge shot shells going off from a blind of round bails pushed into a circle.  I spent the morning not really sure what I was going to do.  After all I am also a New Years baby so I really just felt like either being lazy…  But then the call came in.  My dad said he was heading out with one of our family friends to go see a field about some waterfowl.  The weather was slighting cool.  It was only about 30 degrees but snowy and windy when I was on the way.  I was a little later than they were and met them in the blind.  I was informed on my way out I would need to basically James Bond it from bale to bale in case the birds were in the air.  Thank goodness they were not at that time as I’m so out of shape…  Anyways, it was pretty nice inside the blind.  We had a pretty nice setup as long as the wind did not swirl in the blind, which at times it did but that really did not matter.  The birds were coming.  Lots of them in the air drifting in the air currents.  The winds were so strong up high that at times it seemed as if they were flying sideways.  The birds almost seemed a bit educated.  The geese just really did not want to commit to landing.  The ducks on the other had acted like they wanted to but man are they faster than I remembered.  12 years or so of no bird hunting will do that to you.  It was a pretty awesome day.  We ended up with 5 geese and 7 ducks.  There was quite a bit of shooting with the wind and distance of the birds possibly being a factor.  We got to watch as a hawk swooped in to try to grab a duck that just fell to the ground to no avail as the duck must have just been too heavy to carry off.  Just proves to me the wild is just that, the wild.  No matter where you are, things need to eat.  It was truly a great day.

Feel free to check out the pictures and video from my new Pentax K5 DSLR camera below and let me know what you think.

Fresh goose

goose down

chasing goose

goose victory

Blind happiness

The Blind

Goose blind birthday spankings…

Geese

watching

bale in the way

Mojo brings em in

dad

Shotgun misfire pic

duck success 1

duck success 2

Ducks in flight

MT round bale blind sunset

 

GEESE! Finally!

So I recently went goose hunting for the first time in longer than I can remember.  I am guessing a good 10 years or so.  To be honest I was not sure what to expect as I pretty much quit as I was young and did not care to sit in a cold blind hoping for something to fly over and commit to landing.  The past few times were very uneventful for me and about 5 times I had gone, I only had come home with 1 goose.  This trip seemed to be turning into the same thing except I was not freezing.  The weather has been pretty mild in Montana to say the least.  We had set up and were sitting in the blind and were talking when we finally saw some geese flying over.  A couple quick blows of the calls and they were turned around and flying circles around the field acting like they wanted to land.  Already it was a good trip in my mind.  We finally had them commit to land and when they got within range we let them have it.  I was a bit out of practice.  I shot 3 times and I am pretty sure none of mine hit its mark.  There was a goose on the ground though so I loaded back up and walked out to get it.  Just about then it got up and flew off.  Again, I could not hit it.  That practice thing again…  Anyways, the day was just getting warmed up.  We had more come in and plenty of shooting for a slightly warm day of goose hunting.  We ended up with seven total for the day.  The wind picked up and started blowing the decoys over so we figured it was time to go.  What a great day considering we had just got my little brother his deer