2/2

I am just going to take a minute and circle back on a successful Spring Turkey season; yes, I am aware it is late June, haha!

Over a long weekend Ryan and I were able to fill our spring tags in back-to-back days. The turkey numbers were way up in the river bottoms. It may have been a by-product of a spring snow storm that pushed the birds down from the hills. Trudging through waist deep snow for a turkey season was a rare occasion for me, but it beat picking off wood ticks afterwards. Either way, we were crawling in birds. In fact the morning I shot my bird we counted over 40 Turkeys, and 30 of them were Jakes or Toms!

 

It was one of those odd situations though, there were actually too many birds. Although it is a good problem to have, getting responses to calls or setting up near roosting areas was next to impossible. But, we adapted our strategy and it paid off in spades.

We located a couple pinch points that the flocks had clearly been using and set up shop. We hunted the birds like they were deer and waited for their daily routines to put them into our shotgun range. Although the birds we tagged were not 20 pound swingers, it doesn’t tarnish the hunt or memories one bit. It was a fantastic hunt with a satisfying outcome.

River Time

Sorry for the gap in posts, I started an new/old job and have been swamped. But, it is a good thing!

This time of year has a touch of limbo to it. It precedes stand preparation and trail camera hanging that July typically brings and precludes the Turkey and Shed hunting seasons.

This is the time of year that I enjoy getting some fishing in. My cup of fishing tea is murky and muddy; The Red River of the North.

It is one of the best Catfishing river systems North of the Mason Dixon and is home to some very large Channel Cats.

My new Friday night ritual paid off with my biggest cat to date, 31” and 15lbs (sorry for the poor quality pictures, I was rolling solo)

Another Kind of Hunting

I cannot say that I have ever attempted to 'hunt' Morel Mushrooms, but I certainly know people who do. To be honest, if I did try it would be more for the exercise and fresh air

; I am not the biggest mushroom fan on the planet.
I ran across this very informative blog post and know it gave me some tips if I ever do decide to go 'schrooming. Enjoy!

http://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/hunting/2013/04/finding-cooking-morel-mushrooms

Talkin' Turkey

Talking Turkey
Author Note: This article can be found in the most recent issue of the Leisure Outdoors Adventures newsletter and you can also subscribe to that newsletter here: http://leisureoutdooradventures.com/signup.php


Spring brings many different things into our lives. For me, it is birthday celebrations for my two daughters, nail-biting March Madness basketball, fresh hope for the Minnesota Twins, the promise of another impending Red River flood, and dreams of fanned-out, gobbling Boss Tom Turkey’s. Out of that list, guess which one I don't care for all that much...
The Minnesota and North Dakota turkey seasons fire up around the same dates each year, and like most other lucky hunters who drew a tag this year, we have been impatiently crossing days off the calendar until the season opens up. I will admit one thing right off the bat; we are nowhere near being Turkey hunting experts! But each Turkey hunt is a learning experience, and over the past 5 years we have formulated some thoughts that might help out those of you getting ready to chase gobblers for the first time.

Choke Up
For those hunters who are in their comfort zone carrying a rifle instead of a shotgun, you are not alone. Hunting with a shotgun is a completely different animal. It is easy to be overconfident that your rifle marksmanship will translate to shotgunning. If there is one piece of advice that is not optional to follow, practice with your shotgun, choke, and shot shell combination! Getting familiar with how the trio performs together will be the difference between tagging a bird and missing it altogether.
There are multiple manufactures of Choke Tubes and all the models have catchy names that vary in price and looks. The thing to remember is they all work on the exact same principle: They are meant to tighten (choke down) your pellet pattern as it leaves the end of your shotgun making the pattern more accurate at increased distances. Now, your next question might be are all chokes created equal? No, they are not. Some will tighten up your pattern more than other, some have venting that will reduce muzzle last, the list goes on. But almost any choke on the market is going to improve the accuracy and lethalness of your shotgun. A choke in the price range of $30 is a terrific starting point. If you have access to try out multiple chokes before you purchase one, even better! The same choke out of the package will perform differently depending on the shotgun it is screwed into and the ammunition used.
Speaking of ammunition, there are a ton of choices in that area too. You can help yourself out by letting your choke decision guide you. Some chokes take steel or heavy shot, other will not. Pellet size and velocity is also a consideration. Most Turkey loads will be in the 4, 5 and 6 shot range and vary a far amount in velocity. If you ask an expert you will get strong opinion on which size and speed is the best. Our philosophy, no matter what shot size you choose, knowing how it will pattern with your choke and shotgun is far more important. Do not feel like you need to be super aggressive and throw the tightest pattern in the fastest 4 shot you can find at a bird. Middle of the road 5 shot and a mid-priced choke will get the job done in any Turkey scenario.

Call Them, Maybe
Spring season coincides with Turkey breeding season. It would seem only logical that the best way to trick birds into range would be calling and using decoys. After all, we have all watched hunting shows and videos that show hunters calling in love starved Toms into decoy sets with a few strokes on the slate or box call. It looks easy enough. Plus, all of the calls you buy come with instructions for a reason, right? Well, take it from us; you should spend some time practicing.
There are way too many call options (mouth diaphragm, slate or glass, box, etc) and techniques to cover in this article. For my two cents, instead of learning via trial by fire, sometimes swallowing a little bit of pride is a better choice. A simple search on the internet will provide a wealth of instructional videos (both good and bad) that can be used to hone your calling skills (Listen and Learn). You can also do some research on the advantages and disadvantages that each type of call have to offer. Of course, even after serious practice, just because you can speak their language doesn’t mean they will want to listen.

Fan Out
As the Turkey season stretches on, birds get a fast education to our tricks. Heck, some of the Toms that have a few seasons under their wings are practically Rhodes Scholars, especially Public Land Turkeys. Pressured birds are cagey and will often not respond positively to calling. If you run into this situation, being the best caller in the world won’t even help you. But don’t throw in the towel. Get mobile.
I would classify our Turkey hunting style as a hybrid model of spot and stalk/run and gun, emphasis on stalk and run. Admittedly, this style of hunting will not be feasible for everyone. But, if you have a good amount of acreage at your disposal, it tends to be more productive to burn some boot leather, locate birds, and formulate a game plan. Turkeys are habitual and like to travel similar day to day routes. They especially like to revisit roost locations and strutting areas. If you can find their preferred roost locations, that is 75% of the battle. At that point you can use terrain to your advantage and pinpoint a few ambush locations. Pick a spot that will either work in the morning as the birds dump off the roost and get ready to strut, or that will put you between late afternoon feeding feeds and their bedtime roost.

Wrapping Up

Like us, I am sure you are eager to hit the woods, fields, and river bottoms in chase of a swinging Tom. Hunting this so called ‘dumb bird’ has left me personally humbled and eating tag soup many times in the past years. Hard lessons have been easier to come by than success, but every spring brings a clean slate for us to cutt, cluck, purr and yelp my new lessons on.

Getting Close To That Time of Year

I am edging closer to my yearly Turkey hunting trip to the Missouri River Bottoms south of Mandan, ND and my anticipation level is topping out!

Courtesy of outdoorlife.com

I will be posting my preseason Turkey article early next week but to curb everyone's appetite until then, I ran across this great article in Outdoor Life that is perfect for everyone getting ready to chase gobblers this spring.

Enjoy!
(http://www.outdoorlife.com/articles/hunting/2013/03/turkey-hunting-tips-how-hunt-smart-post-restoration-era)

Two Scoops of Vanilla

I snapped awake, ripped off the bed sheets, and grabbed my phone to check the time; just as I expected, an hour behind the agreed upon schedule. Sleep deprivation from my second child had knocked me out with an upper cut and I somehow drifted past my alarm clock.  At a panic level of about 7 out of 10 I called my hunting partner Ryan to explain my current location and why he was sitting in his driveway waiting for me. To his credit he had waited longer than I expected, I told him to leave ahead of me.

After a quick decision on whether or not I should scrap my wife-approved hunting day, I figured my effort would be still be worth it. After all, as long as you are sitting in a tree stand, anything can happen. Now, I have not called Guinness to make this official, but I was able to shower up, throw clothes on, load equipment in my rig and drive about 40 miles in under an hour. Ryan claims that he did not hear a sonic boom, but he will admit to scratching his head in disbelief when he checked his watch as he saw me bombing down the road to our property. At some point I do intend on researching this phenomenon further; I either have unknowingly set a land speed record or found some type of rift in the space time continuum, but that can be address later by a theoretical physicist.

I quietly scurried to my stand and settled in right as the sun broke the horizon. The exact words I muttered in my head were ‘At least it is a beautiful sunrise’. No sooner than I completed that thought is when I heard a commotion at the edge of the slough behind me. Cows, potential hunt killers throughout the farmland. Overnight cows decided they were thirsty and bedded on the edge of the water hole. The glowing horizon had stirred thirst in their belly and now it was time to water up for the day. As I watched and listened to them 150 yards away lumber towards the water, I chuckled and watched a few of the younger herd members inspect the recently installed and charged electric fence. Movement much closer to my stand popped into my peripheral. I felt the punch to the gut; two bucks were 40 yards away and picking their way right past me! This time the cows were on my side and bumped the bucks out of the slough where they were bedded. I quickly recognized the lead buck as a shooter and did not waste time in counting points. Smooth and measured I stood and readied myself. If they kept the same trail they would be in my 22 yard shooting lane in short order. As I clipped the release onto the D Loop, the lead buck stopped to plot his course. As he surveyed the trail ahead of him, he twisted his ears towards a new sound and snapped his head to the right and took the electric fence right off of his nose!

I can’t type the exact phrase that streaked through mind as I watched him sprint in a half moon behind my perch, but I was convinced the last thing I would see was a cloud of dust headed in the opposite direction from that fence. But, that was not the case. He came to a complete stop 40 yards behind me and stared back directly at the fence that just zapped him. I am not sure who won the 5 minute stare down, but the buck decided to let the injustice go. During that stare down I was able to determine two things: I knew this buck and he could not smell me, win/win.

This was a buck I named Vanilla and I had missed this deer the previous season (a story and hard lesson learned for another time). Where he decided to stop was now directly downwind from me, but he was still clueless that I was there. I will never know if the electric current to the snout numbed his sense of smell or if my normal routine of scent prevention was good enough to give his senses the green light, but either way, this second chance was happening. He started walking on a new trail that would give me a shot right around 30 yards. I waited for him to clear a fence then I came to full draw, and as my 30 pin settled behind his shoulder, the arrow was loose.

As the arrow sailed towards its destination, Vanilla, probably still on alert from the fence punch, dropped faster than the temperature on Mars. My arrow drove home with a bone crunching schmaack and lodged into his spine dropping him like a sack of rocks. Starting to shake as the adrenaline coursed into my veins, I followed up with a killing shot to the heart and he quickly expired. Every hunter needs a little bit of luck because in most cases the odds are against us. Success or failure, especially in bow hunting, can literally breakdown to inches. On this day, luck was severely tilted to my side. As I checked for a horseshoe, I sat down on my stand and collected myself…

Everything happens fast in these situations and it is easy to lose details in that amount of time, so I was not 100% convinced that this buck was Vanilla. When I finally climbed down and wrapped my hands around his antlers is when I knew my story with him was over. At right around 150” gross it was my biggest bow deer to date. A barrage of text messages, emails, and congratulations filtered in, but having three years of trail camera history with the buck and overcoming a missed opportunity from the year before was the most gratifying aspect of it all. 

Yearly Quotas

I met my yearly quota on two items over the past month and a half: I made two ice fishing trips and caught a Burbot (Eel Pout).

I have pointed out in previous blog posts that Eel Pout are my favorite fish to catch on the ice. To me Lake of the Woods is the best place to target these misunderstood fish, so I always try to get there at least once during the ice fishing season. Long Point and Chad Skeim's fish house was home for the first long weekend fishing trip of the year. On the last morning of the expedition a Burbot beauty finally read the script and latched onto a line. By rights, the hefty lady actually swallowed two lines...

Most of the credit of the catch should go to my brother Mike. He was still awake at 4:30 am was kind enough to wake me up with a comforting "Jeremy, Get the gaff!!". Firing off a Roman Candle in the fish house would have probably elicited the same reaction from me.
But Team Swanson was able to wrestle her out of the hole. To date it is the biggest Pout I have been involved in catching. We did not have a scale but I would guess she was right around 8 pounds and right about 30" long. A great fish to end the long weekend on.
Besides that Burbot, we also caught and released probably 50-60 fish throughout the weekend, so overall it was a steady weekend of fishing and laughs with my brother and great friend Skeimer.

My second trip of the year actually allowed me to cross something off my bucket list.Yes, stop the presses, Eel Pout Festival in Walker, MN was something I wanted to do before I kicked the can.
A good friend of mine Chuck Hasse, who currently guides on Leech Lake through Leisure Outdoor Adventures, had been asking me to come down ice fishing for a few years. So I sweet talked my best friend Big Dave into tagging along and we hit the road like kids busting out of the door summer vacation. Chuck set us up in The Green Hornet, one of his favorite skid houses that sits on an elevated sand bar in Walker Bay. Arriving at about 9:30pm on Thursday night, we had 3 fish through the holes by midnight. I thought it was going to be another busy fish catching weekend, but that is when the holes figuratively froze over.

Hasse holding the 2013 Eel Pout Champ

We caught less that double digit numbers in fish, and zero of my beloved Pout. It certainly wasn't for lack of fish under the ice, or effort. We graphed fish all weekend and had a lot of house time. But no matter what presentation or lure combination we tried, nothing triggered a bite. That's the way ice fishing goes though.
Dave and I were able to take a few breaks throughout the weekend to check out the circus that is Eel Pout Fest. The easiest way to describe this event is 'WeFest on Ice'. We weren't in all out party mode so we did not spend a ton of time away from the fish house. Although we did go check out the 13.3lb Pout that was the biggest fish of the weekend. It was a spectacular fish that I would have been doing back-flips if I would have caught. It would have ended up on my wall for sure!

Bad luck aside, it was a good trip with a great friend and I am happy to have it crossed off my bucket list.

Somehow I did negotiate out one more ice fishing trip for next weekend. I plan on fishing a small lake not too from Fargo. It will be my first ND trip so who knows, anything could happen! Be sure to check back for an update post, it could be the trip I reel in the elusive 30" Walleye or 20 lb. Northern that swim in my dreams.

America's Deer Rifle

My Remington Model 700 BDL 30.06 is part of my birthright, handed down to me from my Father. Twenty-One years later it is still by my side. Sunrise to sunset, as I cut downwind through draws or stalk through a swamp, it is ready to perform. I know that the sub-inch groups on the rifle range are carried with me to the deer stand. It is my reliable hunting companion season after season. It allows me to never second guess hunting in rain, sleet, snow, or sub-zero temperatures; it always delivers.

No matter if it is long range, close quarter, instinctive or a focused shot, my finger marries the trigger and with a squeeze my shot is always true. With a report that is music to my ears, it makes my decisions a reality and treasured memory.

Wiping it down after a day at the range or after a hunt, I notice the few scratches, nicks, and dings it has collected over the years. I can look at them and smile, because I remember where they came from and that they are not scars from neglect or abuse. They are badges of honor it carries with it that were earned in the field from being used and depended upon.

That is why the Remington Model 700 is America’s Deer Rifle, and why I hunt with it.

Back in the Saddle Again

To me, there is something about Ice Fishing that just keeps me coming back year after year. Keep in mind that I am a self-proclaimed member of Eel Pout Anonymous and that winter is the prime to to wrestle a nice pout to the surface. But much like an ice berg, there is so much more under what you can see.
I plan on writing more about that in the near future but for now duty calls!