My Biggest Walleye of the Day - around 22" (released)

I haven’t written for awhile…been real busy with family, snow goose hunting, work, fishing, etc. etc. but I’m getting caught up now.  While I’m still getting texted pictures of big piles of snows, my mind is on open water and jigging.

Devils Lake has been pumping out some nice fish the past couple weeks.  I’ve heard of many fish over 10 lbs., my buddy got one almost pushing 13.  On Saturday I did see a 28″ walleye taken although the fishing was slow after the cold night.

The Missouri River is where I’ll focus my attention for the next month.  Up until late last weekend, the fishing was downright horrible…but when the water starting to clear up in town and north, fishing turned on almost instantly.  The Big Muddy Tournament on Saturday boasted some big stringers, I did hear 4 fish came to the scales pushing 10 pounds (one over 13).  And LOTS of fish were taken.

I did manage to get out yesterday for the first time on the river.  I fished with Bill and Jon Mitzel, some great guys to fish with in town.  Some of the holes were thick with fish, we took around 25 fish out of one of them and some nice saugers to boot.  While this time of year we’re usually fishing shallow, we were pulling these out of 20 feet.  Very unusual, but then again, what has been usual about this last spring?

We caught all our fish with jigs and Gulp Alive.  Jig weights ranged from 1/8 oz to 3/8 oz with glow white being my favorite (as always).  Fishing should only get better in the upcoming weeks and I’m looking forward to the water clearing out south of Bismarck.  Currently, the tributaries are still mudding up the water and Apple Creek still appears to be the biggest problem.

I’ll post up more this month as fishing is picking up.

The forecast calls for highs in the 50’s and 60’s in Mitchell, SD this weekend with moderate to heavy south winds.

Lots of geese stacked on the Missouri River section from Lewis & Clark Lake to Lake Andes.  Look for a big migration over I-90 this weekend with birds hitting the sheetwater fields around the Highway 212 corridor.

I expect Sand Lake to see it’s first birds by Monday or Tuesday.

Good luck everyone and have a safe weekend!

It started a few days before as we prepared for the arrival of relatives to my family’s house. My brother hadn’t gotten much of a chance to waterfowl hunt this past fall, so I wanted to put him on a lot of birds. I scouted an area I’m quite familiar with and it was holding a good couple thousand canadas. After a call to the landowner, we were set to go for the weekend. The only real question was, would anyone want to go?

Well that didn’t last too long as my brother volunteered as well as my good friend Jon Mitzel from Bismarck, and his friend, Jason Fowler. So with 4 takers, it was going to happen.

We drove down the highway with the trailer packed, ready to setup. The birds weren’t moving until late morning or early afternoon, so we took our sweet time getting there. By the time we got to the field, there was a few flocks already starting to come off the roost. With the extreme weather, I think the birds wanted to get into the field and start melting and thrashing a meal before the snow cover got even harder. In the sky, some flocks were thinking otherwise as they migrated south for greener pastures.

We hoped out and setup a modest spread of only around 4-5 dozen fullbodies, laid on top of the snow without bases to simulate loafing geese in the snow. With just a couple shovels, we had our blinds dug into the snow in minutes. With snow covers and a shovel, we made our blinds literally disappear in the 1-2 foot snow cover. After all the gear was in the blinds, I pulled out of the field to the road to park the vehicle. By the time I got within 100 yards of the spread, there was already a pair of geese locked up and landing in the spread. With a couple shots, we were already on the board and I wasn’t in the spread yet. Given the cold temperatures, I don’t think anyone wanted to sit any longer then we had to. When I got to the blind, I looked at my brother and couldn’t believe what I saw. He was laughing because his eyelashes were freezing up, causing shooting to be difficult. If you’ve ever been out in really cold weather, you know how this feels.

For the next 20 minutes, flocks came off consistently. Almost every small flock locked up at a distance and dropped on down. There’s few things that beat watching large canadas glide into a spread. And if it weren’t for the weather, I would’ve stayed out there all day taking pictures. But in reality, neither my body nor my camera would allow that so we each took our 3 geese and I was up and out of the blind to get the vehicle. Thank goodness the hunt only took a half hour, not even enough time to feel the cold on my hands. But I had to walk against the wind on the 400-yard walk. The wind cut through my face mask like a fillet knife cutting into butter; you just have to take it.

After a quick pickup, we were back on the road home. My face felt hot as it was literally thawing out from the cold. My brother and I chuckled at the hunt and how ridiculous the elements were, but at the same time we both admitted we’d do it all over again (and I did the following morning). My wife was quick to remind me on the phone of how “nuts” we were for hunting in that weather, but at the same time she’s seen it all too often before. She married an avid waterfowler, so who’s really nuts?

Last feed of the year for us

The Last Open Water Mallards

The spring hatch reports first came in marginal. There was a lot of information thrown around by armchair biologists, and like all reports you have to take it with a grain of salt. Hundreds of pairs of eyes taking the field in September up by the Canadian treeline can often call a forecast better than any, and they were right. As September turned to October, more of these same phone calls and emails came in as hunters were boasting some of their best hunting ever; and for good reason. The juvy hatch this year in what appears to be most of the Central and Mississippi flyways looks to be one of the best in a long time. And I’m not speaking as a biologist, but from countless pictures and videos from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Even the front end of the migration has a good amount of juvies, which isn’t something you normally see.

So when mid-October came around, I loaded up the decoy trailer and packed my suitcase and I was off to meet my partners for our annual trip to Saskatchewan. I heard various reports from hunters the week prior to our departure, and overall it seemed to be a steady but overall slow migration. With another fall full of mild temperatures in the U.S. and Canada, they just didn’t have any urgency to migrate. In fact, when we arrived at our usual location in Canada, the bulk of the migration was still north of us. But we had enough in the area for good hunting, and the juvenile hatch had everything to do with it.

We had highs and lows during our snow goose hunting trip. We usually take a “gentleman’s hunt” approach to this trip, and this year was no different. I left most of the “trinkets” at home, and only brought up the essentials to our spread. I feel a lot of gadgets and tricks we use on adults aren’t really needed when there are a lot of juveniles in the area. Keep it manageable and simple, and choose your location wisely. A simple equation for good snow goose hunting during these conditions. Weather didn’t seem to matter. In fact, our best morning we didn’t have a cloud in the sky and light winds. But the flyway came early and was stacked full of juvies and ross. And when they came, it was with reckless abandonment that brough in the larger flocks as well. We were done by sunrise, it was some of the fastest hunting I’ve had in awhile.

One day, there was a large feed taking place right behind a farm. We had permission from the farmer and we sneaked in close to look for neck collars. I was able to crawl up to a weed edge and took hundreds of photos of the nearby flock. It clearly shows what everyone has been saying, and that the flock consisted of an enormously high volume of young birds. We even found 3 neck collars in this feed, although the guys never got a shot at any of them. I’m sure the guys at the USFWS I know are probably cringing that we were scoping collars (as it can affect research to some degree).

I’m going to make what I feel is an obvious prediction, and I expect the rest of this fall and next spring to produce a very high harvest. We’re all going to look like experts in the field. The good days of snow geese are still taking place today more then ever. Don’t pass up a chance to get afield this season, you won’t regret it.

Saskatchewan Waterfowl Outfitters

Most of my days afield are in some form of stubble field or shallow pothole, but every once in awhile I like to get deep and get some chance at some divers.  While many people I know grew up in MN and it was a way of life, it wasn’t something I did very often growing up.  Without a boat or a dog, most of the time it’s a failed attempt without there being an ethical option to retrieve the birds.  But when it all comes together with a good dog, it’s game on.

I was on my way home early Saturday morning from a good outing in a stubble field.  Myself and 3 of my friends got into the canadas pretty good and were out of the field early.  Since we had a lot of time before the cafe stopped serving breakfast, I took the backroads home.  I took a gander at one of my favorite diver lakes and sure enough, it was littered with ducks.  And not only did it have common divers such as bluebills, redheads, and buffle heads – it had a lot of canvasbacks.  We have a good, small lake in the backyard of the farm we stay at in Saskatchewan that we hunt every fall; but I don’t rarely get the opportunity in North Dakota.

I picked up my cell phone and phoned John Devney from Delta Waterfowl.  He was out scouting at the time and was finding some good options, but the word canvasback got his attention and he decided to head up to my hunting house.  After gearing up and a short drive, we were able to drive down to the lake, just 150 yards from the point we planned to hunt.  When we came over the hill, it erupted with various ducks and a few canadas.  We quickly setup and then they came.  I’ve never had that many canvasbacks in my face, ever.  I’d guess we had easily 20 flocks come right down the shoot and down the string of diver floats.  And mixed in was many redheads along with a handful of other species.  It reminded me of the video game for the PC, Browning Duck Hunter.  There was redheads and cans mixed together and we were very careful when we pulled.  With the Hunters Choice waterfowl management plan, we were only able to harvest one canvasback a piece, but that was okay with me.  I saw enough flocks in a 30-minute time period where I got my fill and was on the road to scout for the next day.

With colder temps coming upon us, including lows tonight to be down to 22 degrees in Bismarck, we’re only going to see more of this to come.

It was an interesting weekend to say the least.  Kent Hrbek Outdoors was in town doing some filming and we ran into them on Saturday night.  He’s a class act and my second time running into him in rural ND out hunting.

Saturday, my friend Taylor got his first ever duck band and it was long overdue.  He’s lost on drawing straws in the past and already has 4 goose bands, but this was his first official duck.  That was a highlight of the weekend for sure.

Sunday we had rain in the forecast.  We were hesitant about whether or not we should hunt a big canada goose feed we found the night before.  It was spitting some rain while setting up, but it did break come shooting time.  Since we knew more rain was soon to come, we opted to only put out silhouette decoys (8 dozen Real Geese Pro II’s) in case we had to pickup in a hurry.  It had been MANY years since I hunted canadas without full bodies, but I’m glad we went this route.  It was the quickest hunt of the season, and we were done and out of the field by 8:30.  We harvested both big and lesser canadas, and they all came right down the pike and into the landing zone, feet down.  Quite an enjoyable weekend, and easy hunting to boot.  Can’t beat that!

The FLW Walleye Tour just left town late last week and the vast majority of the fish came down south.  But overall the fish are starting to get bigger up the system and while the batifish are here in full force, it should still be another couple weeks before it starts to peak.

My buddy got in touch with a couple pounds of jumbo leeches, and I’m sure we were one of the only one’s on the lake using any leeches of any size. They took full advantage of them by using slip bobbers in some solid locations. Overall, the average size fish was up a couple inches from 2 weeks ago, but the weekend was still ruled by fish in the lower to middle teens (size in inches).

Since we had caught so many fish last trip, I really wanted to target bigger fish and felt I could find them with cranks. In talking to a few fishermen, most of the larger fish were in fact being taken on cranks so I wasn’t the only one with that in mind. Only 10 minutes into my initial troll did I land my first fish over 20”, so I kept on for the remainder of the weekend. I spent most of my time fishing between 10-15′. The fish weren’t in that magic depth of 8-9′ which has been so kind to me in the spring, but they were close. Wherever I found structure around 10-11′, I found fish. And if that location had a muddy bottom, the average size was larger.

I ran around a half dozen styles of lures but #4 Salmo Hornets and #5 Jointed Rapala’s worked the best. Each day a different color was hot. I don’t know why but I find this to be true almost every trip I take up to Devils Lake. The first day we really cleaned up on the #4 Salmo’s in Clown color. By the end of the trip it didn’t seem to matter as long as the lure was blue, although we did take the most on jointed Rapalas in that color. Whenever we ran shallow, it was the planer boards that produced the most fish.

Overall, it was another great trip out to Devils Lake. I ran into some familiar faces at the bar when we ate dinner, and that’s always a welcome sight when you’re on the road. Most of the people were catching fish, it was the nicer fish that were mostly hard to come by.