Jul29

Stacking time in the deer woods

by daverichey on 2012/07/29 at 8:12 PM
Posted In: The Daily, The Field, The Woods, Thoughts
DRO_stack-time-in-woods
Whitetail bucks have a way of keeping a hunter honest
photo courtesy Dave Richey Outdoors ©2012

This doesn’t mean my valued readers are dishonest. It simply means that deer have the ability to make hunters learn new things on a regular basis.

They also can make those hunters who think they know everything about deer a pretty humble group of sportsmen. Hunters who feel superior often learn a humbling lesson at the hands of a savvy buck.

There’s not much a hunter can’t learn if he pays attention to deer

One thing I’ve learned over many years is to watch other hunters. It doesn’t take long to determine who the great sportsmen are, and who are braggarts. I’ve hunted in a good many camps over the last 60 years, and the loudest and most aggressive hunters are usually the ones who make the dumbest mistakes.

An old saying goes like this: it’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. The best rule is to keep the mouth closed and pay attention those who really know what they are doing.

Picking people’s brains, and learning what they know, is fun and can provide valuable information. Savvy hunters never venture an opinion unless they know what they are talking about. That is especially true when talking about hunting whitetail deer.

Southern folk have some great sayings. They’ve been distilled from years of hard work and minding their manners. One saying that has a whole bunch of learning in it is “My momma didn’t raise no fools.”

Don’t belong to the foolish group. Learn by studying deer

Folks who gather around savvy hunters should keep that thought in mind. That means do less talking and a lot more listening.

Last year a man brought his son up for a hunt. The boy would come up to the house, make a dumb remark about deer hunting while several of us planned our evening hunts. We were tossing about ideas, and discussing where everyone would sit, and discussing the present wind conditions.

The boy kept nattering on and on. He was taking up precious planning time by constantly interrupting.

One of my friends eventually spoke up rather bluntly and loudly, and said: “Boy, you better learn more about deer hunting before speaking your mind. You want to learn about hunting, sit down, shut up and listen. You’ll learn more that way than you will talking nonsense about a topic you know nothing about.”

When intelligent and good hunters talk, others should pay attention

The boy sat and listened for a minute, spoke up, and my buddy looked hard at him, and the kid went running out the door. His daddy had money, and it’s almost certain that no one had ever talked that way to him before.

I’ve been around whitetails all my life, and spent many years hunting and studying the critters, but there are many others who know many things I don’t know. I listen intently to them and learn.

There are countless ways to learn things but in-the-field experience is the best teacher when it comes time to learn about whitetails. Hunting the animals, and studying them as you hunt, and during the off-season, is the best way to accumulate knowledge. Reading about it, and absorbing that knowledge and putting it to good use, is another way.

What is most important is the hunter can convert that knowledge into an action plan that works in the woods.

Experience will put a fine point on your acquired knowledge. Some of my early deer-hunting knowledge came from talking to old-time hunters and guides, and using some of that information on my personal hunts.

The more days spent afield each year will continue to add to a solid foundation, and one day after learning a great deal about deer hunting, you’ll know you’ve come a long ways in your gathering of deer-hunting knowledge.

That will be the day when you can honestly look yourself in the morning mirror, and confess: “I don’t know as much about deer hunting as I thought I did.

It’s called stacking time. And then you go out and stockpile another dozen years of in-the-field experience. No matter how much you think you know, deer always have a way of teaching us a new trick or two.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

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Jul27

Max, the smallmouth bass

by daverichey on 2012/07/27 at 8:12 PM
Posted In: The Daily, The Water, Thoughts
DRO-MaxBass-Dave
Me and Max years ago;  I no longer lip-lift or gill-lift fish to avoid possible injury
photo courtesy Dave Richey Outdoors ©2012

TUSCOLA, Mich. – Tucked down deep in a smooth run near a tangle of tree roots on the Cass River was a smallmouth bass – a special fish, because he was an old friend.

Mind you, when we first met, the fish was just a feisty one-pounder. He was all a’glitter with greenish-brown scales, a hint of red in his eye and the built-in temperament of a barroom bully with a belly full of bad brew.

He liked to scrap, and, like some fighters, he always seemed to lose. After two years of striking a variety of lures that hung from his lip when belly-lifted from the water, I named him Max, which seemed the proper name for a born fighter.

We had numerous dust-ups over a few years.

We were buddies years ago, and it’s been a long time since I thought about him.  This year’s bass opener brought him to mind, the same way we recall other old friends.

Max had a split in his dorsal fin, and was easily recognized/ He would come out and play each time I floated the Cass River, and once we finished our little fight, I would release him back to his favorite haunt. A little tired, perhaps, but losing a fight never seemed to bother the bronze-back – he’d be there, ready and eager to scrap each tune I  came into his life.

Max would come out to play whenever I canoed that section of river. I returned him each time he was landed, knowing he’d be there again whenever I returned. Few people ever fished that stretch of river because of all the uprooted trees across the river. One had to work hard to get through that section of river, but I always returned for another fight and he was most accommodating.

Max lived under a submerged root-wad in the Cass River

An old weathered maple had toppled into the river where he lived. The submerged root-wad offered him the security any fish needed to survive. The river poured over the roots, and the bass grabbed any lure, minnow or other morsel.

His only failing was that he was too easy. I never caught another smallie in that location, just my old buddy.

Three summers passed, and with two or three trips each summer on the river. I guess he was whipped by me a dozen times. Each time we tested the others’ mettle, and Max was getting bigger and more pugnacious.

I soon gave up lip-lifting him because I was concerned that such a method may break his mouth, and prevent him from eating, even though he could easily swim away. (See drawing.)

It was during the fourth season that I felt Max had become a solid four-pounder, but I couldn’t find him.. The canoe was eased into a small back-eddy of moving water, and I arched a cast into the new spot and the Beetle Spin came back without a strike.

The lure was changed, and several more casts were made without a strike.. He just wasn’t there.

It came time to analyze the situation. The area where Max had called home had changed during spring’s high water. Sand and silt had built up in the spot he’d called home, and either he left for another location or he had been caught and kept.

My spirits soared as the canoe was eased downstream 20 yards to another hole that was not sand and silted in. The canoe was tethered again to an overhanging tree limb. Ah, just right for an easy cast to his suspected new home.

The lure twinkled downstream with the current, bumping against some bottom debris, and stopped with a sudden jolt. A fish had sucker punched the lure, and I snapped the rod tip up to set the hook. A bundle of fishy dynamite known as a smallmouth bass, brook the river current with an explosive leap.

The bass cleared four feet of water in a head-to-tail jump

The split dorsal fin was easily seen, and Max now was red-eyed and wild as he surged downstream before skippering into the air again with another jump. He dove for bottom and tried to drive his way back into the submerged debris.

The six-pound monofilament hummed under the strain, and judging from his appearance, he had wintered well. He was a robust four pounds, and any stream smallie that size is a genuine trophy.

We settled into a bare-knuckle scrap. I’d give a bit; Max would take line and then falter slightly, and I’d press the advantage.

It was give-and-take as the battle seesawed for five minutes before Max began fining slowly, just out of reach. He was tired, and he knew he was whipped as I belly lifted him from the water.

He seemed to glare balefully as the hook was worried from his jaw. I held him for an instant, and briefly admired his sleek form. Then planted a smooch on his nose before lowering him into the river.

“Goodbye, old friend, and good luck,” I said as I gave him his freedom.  He whirled in the water, splashed a final salute with his tail and was gone.

I never saw Max again. I heard later that summer that a local kid had caught a five-pound smallie from the river. Was it Max? Who knows, but I never saw that bass with the split dorsal fin again.

I floated the river again a few years ago, and caught a two-pounder, which was belly-lifted while supported in the water and released. I named him Max, Jr.

Maybe I’ll try for him again this summer. He may like to come out and play.

—–

Read: Lip Grip is OUT! , an informative article from the O’fieldstream Journal about the dangers of the old-time Lip Grip. Plus, O’fieldstream provides solid advice to insure the bass you release has a far greater chance of surviving to live and fight again.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

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Jul23

Unraveling some bow-hunting myths

by daverichey on 2012/07/23 at 8:12 PM
Posted In: The Daily, The Field, The Woods, Thoughts
The author with a nice buck
photo courtesy Dave Richey Outdoors ©2012

You know what a myth is? It’s something that is commonly accepted as fact, but it really isn’t. You know what I mean: pick up a toad, and you’ll get warts and other stuff like that.

There are many myths about bow hunting. Some have been steeped in public acceptance for so long it’s difficult to dislodge the thought. Here are a few that bow hunters seem to accept as fact.

*Rutting bucks are stupid. This one has been around so long that it should have long gray whiskers. It’s simply not true.

Some myths are repeated so often that many consider them true

Bucks do run during the day and chase does, and occasionally they will do something that humans might think stupid, but they probably make perfect sense to the deer. Don’t look for them to run up to a human, and stand idly by while someone shoots at them.

If bucks make any mistake it is chasing does during the mid-day hours. A bow hunter can turn that knowledge to good use by hunting from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

*Deer always travel into the wind. That too has been proven wrong so many times each year one would think it would fall out of fashion. Gran’pappy tells his son that two or three dozen times when the kid is young and impressionable, and he believes it. So he tells it to his son, and these old wives’ tales get passed down from one generation to the next.

The truth is deer often travel downwind, cross-wind, and quartering into or away from the wind. Deer have always headed west in the morning and east in the evening, and it makes no difference which way the wind is blowing. They will travel upwind, downwind, or quartering into or with the wind.

One thing is certain. Move or make a faint noise, and a curious deer may turn around and come upwind to determine what and where you are. The trick is to give deer no reason to circle into the wind.

*The deer jumped the string. This means a bow hunter comes to full draw, releases an arrow and the deer jumps up or goes down to “duck” the arrow. What nonsense is this? That gives deer human-like intelligence that tells them an arrow is coming.

This can be a problem if deer have been alerted to human presence

Deer will move up, down or sideways if they have been alerted. Deer that travel head-up are alert, cautious and a walking bundle of raw nerve endings. Give them a reason to be alert by being caught moving, making some small noise or being winded, and an alert deer may move to avoid danger.

However, if an arrow is traveling 180 feet per second, and a deer is within 20 yards of the hunter, the arrow will impact the animal before the buck or doe can react to the bowstring launching an arrow. Most arrows are traveling from 220 to 280 feet per second, and sometimes more than 300 fps. This precludes a relaxed deer from “jumping the string.” Some muscle-bound people who can pull 100 pounds and shoot an arrow in excess of 300 feet per second will have little trouble hitting a relaxed deer.

*The higher the treestand the less chance there is a deer winding you. OK, I’ve hunted a few times at 30 to 35 feet and dislike it intensely. I know of people who hunt 40 feet in the air, and a friend swears he saw some fool stand on what looked like a tree stand the size of a postage stamp at 50 feet in the air.

What being that high does, if the wind is blowing down toward the ground, is transfer your scent farther from your hunting area. If a deer gets downwind of you at 200 yards, he may still smell you. Knowing which way the wind is blowing, and using milkweed seeds to see where the scent travels, makes far more sense.

I prefer more tree cover than being too high in the air

My tree stand preference is 15-16 feet. I depend on my being downwind of the deer, being able to sit still, not make any noise, and being able to shoot accurately from an elevated position. It works exceptionally well for me.

The higher a tree stand the more acute the angle when shooting down at a deer. That angle becomes even more acute the closer the deer is to the stand. Lose your anchor point while aiming, or be a fraction of an inch off at higher elevations, the greater the chance is of missing or wounding a deer.

There are many other bow hunting myths kicking around, and one day soon, we look at some other ones.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

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Jul21

What kind of fishing makes me tick?

by daverichey on 2012/07/21 at 8:12 PM
Posted In: The Daily, The Water, Thoughts

Dave and his fishing tick .. love the fish
The author with a nice King salmon from Lake Michigan
photo courtesy Dave Richey Outdoors ©2012

We have a Lake Michigan salmon trip planned for early tomorrow morning, and it makes me wonder why any sane person would get up at 4 a.m. to drive to Frankfort to get an early start.

Even I know the answer to that. That early morning period is almost always the most productive time of day for Chinook salmon. I go because I love seeing the sun come up over the sand dunes near Point Betsie, and I love feeling the strong surge of a big fish taking line.

It’s excitement that rouses my wife and I from a warm bed to greet the dawn on the water. It’s something I’m addicted to, and can’t seem to shake the habit.

Thoughts of fish, and a pleasant day, make for great fishing

A month from now there will be some early king salmon in the Betsie River, and even after 10 years of guiding salmon fishermen on that and other rivers, there is a certain attraction. It’s fun teasing big males on the spawning redds, and it’s a hoot casting spinners into deep holes and runs or fishing chunk spawn under a bobber.

It’s like holding a lit stick of dynamite and watching the fuse sputter. One always wonders how long it will be before the explosive strike of a big river salmon is felt.

I fish because I love to. Given the choice, I prefer river fishing. I like moving water, feeling the pressure of water against my wader-clad legs, and delight in the gurgle of rushing water over a gravel bar and the hiss of water running under a half-submerged log.

Fishing offers me so many different options. I can use spinning gear, baitcasting gear and fly tackle. I can fish heavy line for muskellunge or the light tippet for summer trout and enjoy the downstream voyage of a dry fly drifting on the surface.

There are bluegills and sunfish to catch, and it matters little to me whether the fish are large or small. A fish is a fish, and my favorite fish of all happens to be the one I’m fishing for at that particular point in time.

Fishing offers me the feel of a strong fish taking line, gives me pleasure when a great fish makes a head-to-tail leap that clears the water with droplets of sparkling spray. It gives me great pleasure to accept the challenge of meeting and possibly beating a fish in a challenging and difficult spot.

For the most part I enjoy the people I meet on the water. Some are not very smart, take chances, show little respect for the rights of others, and those I do not like at all.

I like to help fellow anglers while on the water

One thing that gives me great enjoyment is helping other people catch fish. Do I need to catch another king salmon? Not hardly because I caught thousands during my 10-year guiding career.

I don’t need to catch another one, but I shall enjoy doing so. And often, when on a boat or on shore, and a fish strikes I will give the fishing rod to someone who has caught far fewer big fish than me.

I fished muskies on Lake St. Clair on one glorious day years ago, and had a friend along who had never caught a muskie. We were trolling with planer boards, and it was a banner day with many strikes.

He landed each of the 18 fish that were boated. Some were sub-legal muskies and several were in the 25 to 28-pound class, and I let him battle every fish.

Does that make me generous, stupid or a nice guy?

I’d prefer the latter, and although he protested mightily at being the only one of four people aboard to land a muskie that day, he slowly came to accept the fact that it was his job and no one else was going to help him.

He thanked me and the other guys at least a dozen times, and for all of us, his thanks was all we needed. I fish because it makes me feel good to do so, and it’s certainly far more fun than pecking out a story on this computer or going to work.

I’m sure all of you would agree with that statement.

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Jul20

A bear on the prowl

by daverichey on 2012/07/20 at 8:12 PM
Posted In: The Daily, The Woods

black bear
A bear in the water can swim, one this size can be ornery.
photo courtesy Dave Richey Outdoors ©2012

A retired friend was doing some river fishing on the Manistee River between Mesick and M-66 a number of years ago. He was knee-deep in the river, and was working a big streamer fast through a deep hole, when a black bear stepped out of the brush on the other side of the river.

The animal studied the solitary angler, and the man looked at the  bruin, and sized him up as a 250-pound adult boar. The animal glared at him, and walked back and forth along the far shoreline. It seemed he wanted to cross so my friend waded downstream 100 yards, and the bruin matched him, step for step.

He was trying to give the animal some room, and the bear seemed more interested in him. There was no huffing and puffing, or growling or clicking teeth. Just a determination by the animal to keep up with the angler.

Bear paralleling a trout fisherman

He was a little leery about the bear’s presence for several minutes and finally decided to start fishing again. He cast his streamer near a brushy tangle on the opposite side of the river, and the bear became upset by the nearby splash.

The animal began walking back and forth a bit in what he felt was a determined effort to chase the man away. He decided that it might be best to wade back downstream to his take-out point and his car.

It was a quarter-mile down the river, and he fished a bit as he waded along. He stopped two or three times along the way to work his fly through a deep hole, and the bruin again stepped out of the brush and made a big show of pacing around on the far bank.

The bruin continue to keep pace with the angler, and at one point it stepped down to the water in what he interpreted as another attempt to scare him by wading in the shallows. The animal waded out far enough to feel the strength of the current and backed up to shore.

He said the bruin’s ears then went back, and he knew the animal was getting upset. The angler picked up his pace, and the bear did the same. He was parked on a dirt road near a bridge but his car was parked on the other side of the river.

A black bear looked as if he was getting angry

He reached the path that went up the bank and would take him across the bridge, and he looked for the bear but couldn’t see him. He stopped atop the bridge looking down the other bank, and soon spotted the animal.

It was 50 yards from his car, and as the angler explained it, he began walking toward the parked vehicle. The bear had the angle on him, and began walking back and forth in an agitated manner. He said he knew better than to run, but was fearful the animal would come up the bank after him.

He began talking to the bruin. They were nothing words, but human talk so the animal would know he was a human. As he walked slowly, and talked in a moderate tone of voice, he took apart his fly rod and dug in his pocked for his keys.

He said he didn’t feel unduly threatened by the bear but admitted it was a troubling experience. He was 20 yards from the car and the bear was down from the road about 10 yards, watching him.

He began talking to the animal as he walked to the car

The man kept talking and walking, and soon he was at the car. He unlocked the door, tossed in his fly rod on the back seat, and took another look down the hill. The bear was still intently watching him.

He slipped off his waders, put on his street shoes, and still the animal looked up the hill toward him. He slammed the trunk lid down, and the bruin didn’t move.

He said it was as if the bear had escorted him from his domain. He never snarled nor growled, and his neck hairs never went up.

His only sign of agitation was the back and forth pacing along the river bank. The angler sat down in his car, backed his car around, and drove up to a point where he was just above the animal.

It looked up at him, the angler looked down at the bruin, and the bear turned and walked off through the brush, possibly to a waiting sow. The angler drove off, and felt relieved that it was nothing more that a slightly scary incident.

There used to be a bruin that lived along the Laughing Whitefish River in Alger County, and anyone who ventured into his domain was escorted off the river and back to their vehicle. Mind you, that was at least 30 years ago, and this animal behaved in much the same manner.

It’s obvious that in both cases, the bear seemed to be protecting his own turf against intrudes. Anyone in the proper frame of mind wouldn’t argue with the bruin.

They would do as my friend did, and walk away while under the escort of a bear on the other side of the river. To do otherwise would be to court an up-close encounter, and a man would be foolish to do so.

 

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