daverichey August 31st, 2009

Outdoor ethics are like laws and rules that no one can enforce except each of us after examining all of the issues. Ethics are those hard-to-explain things that keep sportsmen from breaking fish or game laws if we believe someone might be watching our actions.

That’s fine, as far as it goes, but it’s a gross oversimplification of a very complex personal outdoor issue that all sportsmen should think about. And, frankly, these issues baffle many sportsmen.

Outdoor ethics are those complex but unquestionable rules that sportsmen must adhere to whether other sportsmen are watching or not. They are those things we must endorse if fishing and hunting is to survive this century.

Want a few examples? Chew on these:

• I had six chances to arrow a big 10-point buck last October. He always showed up five minutes after the legal shooting time had ended. No one was within 500 yards of me, and no one would have known if I had cheated by shooting that buck late.

  No one, that is, except me. It would have ate at me like a malignant tumor until the taking of that big 10-point would have been reduced to a humiliating experience. It would have ruined my hunt as well as my perception of myself as a law abiding sportsman.

• One night last fall I climbed into my bow stand, tried to remove my wallet from my back pocket, and it wasn’t there. My bow license was home on the dresser in my bill-fold. I had a valid deer-hunting license but it wasn’t in my immediate possession so my bow was stowed away in its case and lowered to the ground.

  That evening was spent watching deer through binoculars. It was a fun evening, even without a bow in my hands.

• A big problem with outdoor ethics is they are impossible to legislate and difficult for many people to understand. Only one person – you or me – can deal with these ethical situations whenever a potential problem arises.

• For instance: we shoot a rooster pheasant and it drifts across a fence on set wings and falls on posted land. Does shooting that bird give us the right to pursue it without landowner permission? Nope! The ethical sportsman would determine who owned the property, and make every attempt to gain permission to cross the property line.

  What happens when it’s virtually impossible to track down the owner? No one wants to see the game go to waste. The next decision would be to contact the closest conservation officer. If he says you can’t cross the line, it still remains an ethical question. Cross without permission means breaking the law. Do you go or stay? Laws and ethics. Right or wrong.

• We’re fishing flies-only water for native brown trout and a stiff breeze puts down the mayfly hatch. Is it ethical to fish worms here? The answer, both ethically and legally, is no.

• Or, as I mentioned earlier about the 10-point buck, could I have cheated in that instance and shot? Sure, but I would have had to deal with my emotions and my personal sense of right, wrong and/or my guilt.

• Mallards pinwheel down on a freshening breeze to spill into the bobbing decoys. It’s a perfect morning, and five minutes before legal shooting time, hunters in a nearby blind shoot and drop two hen mallards. Does that make it legal for other hunters to shoot early?

  The answer is an obvious “No” but some sportsmen would shoot any way, and be ticketed by a conservation officer. If they are not caught, they must still deal with their conscience.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Tags: dave richey, deer hunting, duck hunting, fishing or hunting, fishing or hunting rules & regulations, following the rules, good versus bad, Michigan, personal ethics, pheasant hunting, right versus wrong, trout fishing

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daverichey August 30th, 2009

Spending time with someone else, and watching them take a shot at a buck, is just as exciting for the watcher as for the shooter.

It’s long been said that turkey hunting is a one-man game, and that, for the most part, is true. Hunts can be shared by people who hunt alone but share the trip with someone else.

FAMILIES + CHILDREN

More families than ever before have come to share their hunts. My wife, Kay, once shared a successful bow hunt with three grandchildren. The youngest was still sucking on a bottle, and Kay had the kids all seated in an elevated coop.

“Look,” she whispered, “there is a nice buck. Sit real still, don’t move around and don’t make a sound. Grandma will see if she can shoot it.“

She eased the elevated coop window open, made sure all the kids could see without moving around, and waited for the buck to walk in. It stepped into her shooting area, and was slightly quartering-away, and Kay waited for the near-side front leg to move forward before drawing and shooting.

The buck ran off, and Eric who has eyes like an eagle at the ages of four, said: “You got him, Gram, you shot him right in the heart. Let’s go find him.“

She got all three kids safely to the ground, went back up, lowered her bow and quiver of arrows to the ground, and began following the Game Tracker string. She had to rein in the kids to keep them from running ahead and getting tangled in the line.

It was starting to get dark in the woods, and she took the kids back to the car. She knew the deer was dead, and soon her daughter Nancy, and son-in-law Roger, and I, arrived.

The kids were right into it. We  quickly found the dead buck, and set about field-dressing it. The girls stood and watched as the entrails came out, and when I held up the heart, Eric blurted: “I told you, Gram, right through the heart.“

The youngest of these kids was about two years old at the time, and it didn’t gross them out. They probably would have helped with the field dressing but we didn’t want them to get bloody for fear some well-meaning person might have thought we’d been beating them. They probably wouldn’t have understood taking the kids out hunting either.

BOW HUNTING: TEACHING LIFE LESSONS

Children must learn to have patience, and it is a necessary part of a bow hunt. Most kids, especially those who do not hunt, have a patience level of seven or eight minutes — the time between television commercials. That type of patience won’t work in a deer stand.

Kids must learn to sit still, and to remain silent. They can learn what an adrenalin rush feels like when Dad, Mom or Gram takes a shot. They learn, first-hand, that hunters always try to kill cleanly and quickly, and utilize the flesh of this animal for the nourishment of their body.

SIX POINTS OF LEARNING THROUGH BOW HUNTING

• Adults can get their children into shooting a bow. Never give a kid a hand-me-down adult bow that is too long for them. Shop around to find a short-draw bow that will work fine for two or three years. Make certain the draw-weight isn’t too much for the child to pull.
• Teach them how and when to shoot, and how to read deer sign in the sand, snow or mud. Show then how to determine wind direction, and why it is so important to be downwind of deer.
• Show children what a broadside and quartering-away shot looks like and coach them that these are high-percentage shots. Show them which shots should not be taken and why they seldom Sproduce a killing shot.
• Teach them respect for the animals we hunt and the property of others. Allow them to learn to read the body language of a deer, and how the animals will react when danger threatens.
• Take them out when preseason scouting during the next month, and take them out once the season opens. Teach them tree stand safety, how to use a full-body safety harness, and how to stay safe in an elevated stand or tree stand.
• Most of all, talk to them afterward. Listen to their stories, and share yours with them, and give up your time to sit with them if they are not 17 years of age. Be supportive of their efforts, and install a sense of needing to practice to avoid having to make a long trailing job on a poorly hit deer.

Take children hunting this fall or winter. Show them. Teach them, laugh with them and be proud of them and hold them if they cry over their first deer kill. Give of yourself, and that giving will be returned ten-fold in the years to come.

Tags: Dave Richey, outdoors, Michigan, hunt, hunting, bow hunting, bows, deer, deer hunting, autumn, teaching, outdoor learning, wilderness learning, elevated stand,

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Tags: autumn, bow, bows, dave richey, deer, gun, hunt, hunting, learning, Michigan, outdoor, outdoors, stand, teaching, wilderness

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daverichey August 29th, 2009

Falling from a tree while hunting is caused by one or more things:

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Tags: bow hunting, causes of tree stand accidents, dave richey, elevated hunting stands, firearm hunting, full-body harnesses, hunt, hunting, Michigan, outdoors, safety devices, tree stand safety, tree stands

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daverichey August 28th, 2009

A goose is a goose, but a giant Canada honker is one big black-and-white bird. They come, on occasion, to the call or a flock of decoys on the ground but it's nothing you can ever make book on. Of course, much depends on where you live.

Most of Michigan's giant Canada geese live in the metropolitan Detroit areaand across the southern two tiers of counties. They are the birds that cottage owners always thought were soooo cool to have around, but few people share that attitude these days. If there is anything a goose does well, it's poop. Copious amounts.

They cover lawns, golf courses and farm fields with the slimy excrement, and once birds start using a corn or oat field to feed, the only way to drive them away is to shoot them. Try firecrackers, and the birds take off, cock their wings, circle back around and start feeding where they were before being so rudely interrupted.

These birds look like flying boxcars when bearing down on your blind. Things can be a bit messy if you hunt out in the open, covered from head to toe in camouflage, and getting spattered occasionally is part of the outdoor experience, although it's one most people would not wish to experience on a regular basis.

The early goose season opens on Sept. 1 in certain state areas. Consult maps and detailed information from  the 2009 waterfowl season information or from local DNR offices.

These can be very big birds and a 12-pounder looks mighty large as it comes honking through the air, head craning back and forth as they circle a potential feeding area, muttering and honking to other geese in the air or on the ground, and if they are satisfied, in they come like a horde of B-52 bombers. Get one of these birds within 20 yards, and they look immense.

Early Goose season starts September 1

Much of the hunting takes place on dry land. If you intend to hunt, keep these thoughts in mind:

• Unless you are an excellent goose caller, leave the calls home and depend on the standing crops and decoys to toll the birds within shooting range. Many goose hunters blow calls that sound like a ruptured crow, and all the toodling they do only educates the geese.
• Scour the nearby ground area and make certain there are no candy wrappers or Thermos bottles laying around. Shiny brass bases on shotgun shells or other shiny objects glint in the sunlight, and if geese spot them, they will fly away.
• Only one person should be watching the circling geese. They often make two or three circles before deciding it is all clear. The other hunters should wear camo face masks and gloves, and keep their head down. The person who is calling and watching the circling birds should say "Now," and the geese's position should be given to alert the hunters where to look before shooting.
• The bag limit is five birds, and state hunters have had five-bird limits often since the early goose season was established nearly 30 years ago.

This is one sport where the supply of Canada geese far outnumber the people who hunt them. Taking two or three limits of geese from a farmer's field will win you a stout pat on the back and a heart-felt "attaboy."

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Tags: bag limits, blind, Branta canadesis, camouflage, Canada goose, control, dave richey, Detroit, DNR, geese, goose, hunt, hunting, limits, mess, metropolitan, Michigan, outdoors, populations, problems, September, waterfowl

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daverichey August 28th, 2009

"Trying for the big brown trout of yesteryear…" 

The night was dark, the moon almost non-existent, as three of us stood quietly talking alongside the river. The water chuckled and gurgled as it swept under a big sweeper that formed a hole where my late twin brother George and I learned to trout fish back in the 1950s.

We listened for the slurp, splash, and sizzle of a broad-bodied trout trout hazing minnows in the shallows. A few small fish fed the first night but none of them were the big brown trout that nearby Burt Lake used to hold. These fish move up-river in July and early August, and hold in deep holes before spawning in October and November. For me, this trip was a reunion of sorts.

It's been said that a person can never go home. That's not true because I returned to my Home Stream — the Sturgeon River in Michigan's Cheboygan County– for two days. Well .. really it was for two nights of after-dark fishing for the brown trout I caught 55 years ago as a 15-year-old and hope to catch now..

I was joined by two Hoosiers — Les Booth and Ed Hauser — on this trip back to yesteryear when I caught brown trout to 11 pounds here, but the stream has changed, and Private Property signs are more common. Fortunately, a number of years ago, I was befriended by a sweet lady, the daughter of the late Russ Bengel, who was the last Michigan waterfowl market hunter of ducks and geese. This late and wonderful man also befriended me more than 25 years ago, and now his daughter has granted me permission to fish what is now her Home Water. Russ was a kind and generous man as well, and donated large sums of money to Ducks Unlimited, paying back what he felt was a debt for the waterfowl he killed as a youthful market hunter.

The first night of fishing meant more listening for moving fish than fishing but fly rods and spinning rods stood at ready. We just needed to hear some fish moving, and we'd start fishing. A few small trout splish-splashed around but not a big fish moved.

The next night was somewhat different. A cloudy sky blanked out the stars, and we began hearing a few fish working the tail-out of several pools. We used big flies that more resembled mice, huge moths or injured fish. We'd time their rises, and one whist-whist of a back cast and forward cast, and the fly landed like a small bird hitting the water. Les had three strikes, Ed had three and I had three hits that memorable evening.

My vision problems prevent me from seeing well at dark, and I pitched a seven-inch Jointed Rapala in silver-black and a chartreuse-orange Rebel that also measured seven inches. I worked the tail-out of each hole with determination, and one big fish (it may have been a husky brown trout) slammed the lure so hard it nearly pulled the rod from my hands. Bing-bang, and it was gone, leaving me breathless. There's something about strikes from big fish once the sun goes down that takes your breath away for a few moments. The other two strikes were complete misses.

Ed, fishing a downstream pool from the bridge, hooked a big and powerful fish, and had him on for several long seconds before it too shook free. Les, like me. had three hits but no hook-ups. One might ask if any of us did anything wrong, and the answer would be no. Big trout trout don't hit flies or lures if the anglers makes a mistake with his presentation.

For me, this was a return home. It's where I sprinkled George's ashes in the river after his 2003 death from cancer. I spent hours both nights thinking of my brother, remembering his first steelhead from one of the holes we fished, and drifted back to yesteryear when life was much different than it is now. Most of all, it was a return to the river of my youth. Perhaps next time the fish will lose and we may win a round

One can always dream.

If you decide to go:

• The Sturgeon River flows north into Burt Lake. Try fishing the downstream end closest to Burt Lake. I prefer fishing from White Road ( the end closest to M-68) and on downstream. Much of the land along this water is private. Be courteous to landowners, and pick up your trash and that of others. The summer brown fishery is about over for this year based on my more than 55 years of experience on this stream.
• This river is extremely swift, and anglers should wade downstream through a likely spot during daylight hours to determine where they can and cannot wade. Some holes are line with clay, and an angler who gets caught on a clay ledge will go swimming. There are a great amount of stumps, sweepers and other debris in the river.
• A few big brown trout from Burt Lake move into the Sturgeon River in mid-summer. They are not easy to catch, as our two-night fishing trip would indicate. The fish move upstream in small schools and often can be heard splashing as they move up. Don't slosh around, make noise or shine a light on the water. A light flashing across your fishing spot will put the fish down.
• If a fog starts rising off the water, head for the sack. The browns stop hitting when a fog comes off.
• Fish safe, and avoid the river during daylight hours if you wish to maintain your sanity. You may be upset by hordes of canoers, kayakers and tubers, most of whom are out-of-control once they start downstream. If local legends are true, there is one spot on the river where the current flows at 22 miles per hour. The current is swift and heavy, and log jams and sweepers are common. Use special care when fishing, and pay attention to where you wade.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Tags: brown trout, Burt Lake, Cheboygan County, current, dave richey, fishing, home-waters, Indian River, Michigan, night, outdoors, Sturgeon River, swift, Wolverine

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