My first fishing experience didn’t happen until I was 11. I was introduced on my first overnight camping trip as a boy scout. We went camping near a mountain lake in the Rocky Mountains west of Denver.

We got up early, got to the lakes edge around sunrise and were fishing away. Being young scouts, most of us didn’t have any of our own gear so our scout leader broke open is tackle box and identified the lures we could use (obviously they were the “its’ okay if I never see them again” lures). A quick instruction about knots and casting and we were off.

Me and another scout, now a Major in the Air Force, had to share one of our leaders old rods. I began. After several casts with nothing to show for it, my leader informed me that one of the reasons he let us use that lure is because it was the one lure in the box he had never caught anything with.

I almost immediately gave up and handed the rod to my buddy, Ty, who was eager to prove to the leader that it’s the fisherman, not the lure that makes the difference. He is so naive, I thought.

Not expecting much, we all turned our attention to other people. But shortly after his first cast, he is jumping around trying to get help with the fish on his line. Unbelievable. One cast and he caught something with a useless lure. Turns our, the lure truly was useless. He had in fact caught a nice lake trout by hooking the gill. Dumb luck.

He was so excited about his success that he quickly got the fish off the hook and onto the stringer and was ready for another cast. He apparently didn’t hear me when I told him to wait. I was standing right behind him.

At first, I just thought some large insect had bounced off my cheek. It wasn’t until Ty started wildly waving the rod around to try and see his line in the water that I realized that it was his lure, still covered with fish guts, and it was connected to my face about 1/2″ below my right eye.

At first it didn’t hurt much, but before long it was throbbing. I don’t know if it was the velocity of the cast, or the waving of the rod, but 2 of the tri-hook prongs were deeply set in my cheek and we were hours away from professional medical help.

My leader and I decided that the best course of action was to have him take the hooks out there at camp and then I could get to a doctor later that evening when the trip was over. No big deal, he thought.

With the barbs and how deep the hooks were implanted, he couldn’t quite figure out a good way to pull the hooks out backwards so he decided to clip the individual hooks off with wire cutters and push the hooks through. I knew I was in trouble when the pain from him just trying to cut the hooks ripped through my face.

Well, after many tears, screaming and some blood, I had 4 nice holes in my face. For about a year and a half afterwords, those four holes served as a reminder every time I looked into the mirror, don’t stand behind the guy with the rod.

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I was standing a good trail that led from the swamp below up through some oak trees into planted pines. We were a small group: My Dad, his buddy and my brother. Oh, and Homer, the beagle. Homer was a crack deer dog, only he didn’t bark much, so you really had to pay attention. I took a spot behind a low oak, but as the sun came up I was facing directly into it, peering down the trail. About thirty minutes after good sunrise, Homer barked twice down below, his yelps echoing in the thick cypress. I squinted against the sun for a while, then relaxed and looked to my right for several seconds, then swung my head back to the trail. My movement caught the deer’s attention, and it dropped its head to get a better look at me. I froze. The rack on this deer was enormous! It had to be 10 points or more and the thick body was amazing, probably the largest deer I had seen up to that point in my young life. The deer looked left and right and snorted, then Homer barked again. When the deer swung its head around to view the back trail, I raised my Remington 870 Wingmaster in 12 gauge and sent 1 load of #1 Buck to the target, just 10 yards away. The deer went down immediately. I shucked another round and held ready, but the damage was done. I had just killed the biggest deer anybody in my family had ever seen! Imagine the shock and disbelief when I walked up on the biggest doe anybody in my family had ever seen! What? I ran my hand over the smooth head again and again. Yes, it was a doe. We finally figured out that when she dropped her head to see me better, she had lowered it beneath a woody bush with no leaves. The rack and tines I saw were wood limbs and twigs, now hanging in shreds where my buckshot had ripped through!! I had killed the deer, but I killed the bush too!

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Well… I’m not sure that this would qualify as a great hunting story, but it was funny as hell and told, much to my dismay, at my wedding by my best man.

He and I were hunting ducks one cold morning. There were a number of drainage canals that crisscrossed the land we hunted on (private). We knew that we would always stand a good chance of spooking up some ducks from these drainage ditches.

Anyway, I’m walking by the ditch and I spot a duck awhile down the canal. I signal my buddy, and we proceed to walk as far away from the ditch as possible in order to sneak up on the duck. I’m making my way back to the canal where I believe the duck is hanging out, crouching down so as to not cast a shadow toward it, almost in a crawl – through the snow. I get within about five feet of the canal and am very proud of how well I’ve done when I stand up, point my shotgun at the canal, and am shocked that the duck hasn’t taken off.

Meanwhile, my buddy is laying down in the snow, pointing at me, and laughing himself to tears.

I look over and I apparently stalked a decoy he left behind earlier that week.

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My 11 year old son, Cameron, and I are turkey hunting partners. Of my three sons, he’s the one that will roll out of bed early to hunt and fish. The other two are ‘afternoon’ hunters, preferring the comfort of the pillow in the morning. We live in northeast Nebraska where a thriving Eastern turkey population provides wonderful spring and fall opportunities to bag a trophy long tom. He’s killed three turkeys over the last two years, with one sporting three beards. Our typical modus of operandi is to pre-scout an area locating the birds, then set up strategically the next morning well before daylight close enough to get their attention with a little calling.

Earlier this season we followed our usual protocol and found a perfect setup along a power line right of way underneath the low hanging bows of a large red cedar tree in some dark shadows. In full camo felt like we would be invisible. Just before dawn, when the eastern sky is beginning to turn just ever so slightly yellow and orange, the gobblers, just as we had hoped, started rattling the tree tops with their throaty gobbles. About 6 am they flew down and with a mouthy lead hen, started making their way in our direction. Within 30 minutes we had the lead hen, who had a beard, and three long toms in full view headed our way. The lead hen was a full 30 yrds ahead of the long toms and fed to within a mere 15 feet of my son. I whispered to him “Cameron, don’t move. Don’t move a muscle son.” As she fed closer on our left, he lost focus on her and had his eye on one of the gobblers plotting to drop him with his 20g Benelli. Next thing I know he shifted his weight to get better aim, the hen, about 10 ft away now noticed the movement and sounded the alarm,….’putt, putt, putt’ and flew for her life. The gobblers spooked he shot three times and I fired twice,…all misses with tight choked turkey tubes at short range.

No turkey,…just blanks stares at each other,…then alot of laughing at our rookie mistakes. We gathered up the empty shells, took a photo of him holding them and headed to the truck with another memory and bewilderment at what one minute looked like the perfect setup to bag a trophy gobbler and then a few seconds later,…nothing but misses. Guess that’s why they call it hunting and not shooting. We still laugh about it.

A few days later he bagged a 9-1/2″ beard, 1-1/2″ spur tom with one shot at a different location. A week later in the same area where we had the ‘shooting fiasco’ I bagged a 9-1/2″ beard gobbler. Stay with it guys.

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It was the weekend following Labor Day every year at Steve’s Resort in Lake Benton, MN. I had been to this specific tournament a few times with my dad. It had been running for years, and by this time it had turned into more of a father-son tournament with people from all over the area.

The year was 1997; I was seventeen and already had quite a few years fishing under my belt. The tournament had three classes; walleye, pan fish, and northern. Dad and I were in it for the Walleye (of course). Shotgun start at 8am Saturday morning we all sped off on our boats to our favorite spot. It started out as a nice morning… but unfortunately it turned windy, cold and rainy by noon. We fished until we could no longer feel our fingertips, went back to warm up, and then back out for more. Not a single fish was caught on Saturday.

Sunday morning we went back out on the lake… same weather, I was still frozen from the day before, not to mention my clothes were still a little damp. FINALLY a little luck… I caught about a 1-1/2lb walleye. That fish helped me warm up for about 45-50 seconds! We trolled for what seemed like hours, spotting fish on the hummingbird but not catching squat. Around 11:00am we trolled near another team and asked them how they did. They said they had their limit, and the biggest one was around 5lbs… we were baffled and continued changing lures as much as possible to find what they were biting on. I was frozen stiff and asked my dad if we could go in on several occasions. He said “give it another half hour, I know there’s fish down there, if we could just catch a couple we can go in.” Another five minutes passed and BAMM… I got slammed with a great hit. I fought the fish for what seemed like hours (more than likely a couple minutes) and dad finally netted my 8lb 12oz walleye.

I warmed up quickly after that, and although we found out what they were biting on, didn’t catch anything else before we came in for the end of the tournament.

At the ‘awards ceremony’ we asked the other team how much they really had… the one guy said “we didn’t have squat… that teaches me to lie”

We won the tournament with 2 walleyes, but I’d have to say that’s my greatest memory of any fishing trip with my dad!

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I grew up in south MS and my father was a hunter. Years ago we used hounds to run deer. It was the way to hunt in the old South,…accepted, legal and exiciting for the hunter and from memory, quite stimulating for the deer too. The strategy was to select a section of timber bound by logging roads and “stand it off”, placing hunters far enough apart and strategically where they didn’t pose a risk to each other. When the hunters were in position, which could take 30-40 minutes, then the dog man would release a set of hounds. Ok, ok,…hounds might be a generous description of the canines we used. Some hounds, some ‘yard dogs’, some strays we picked up,…all they had to do was bark and run the deer.
One particular hunt remains etched in my memory. I was the dog man. After releasing the dogs I fought my way through saw briers and pine tree tops in a logged out area. My dogs jumped a deer and took off hammering him over the hills and hollows. I continued on walking and with the sun high in the sky I got hot wearing a layer of insulated clothes. When I got too hot to walk, I decided to take off a layer and sat down on a big pine stump to strip down. When I got my pants and insulated underwear off I looked up to see a small buck running straight at me. Standing there in only my Hanes Whitey Tighties, I reached back and picked up my Winchester .30-.30 to take a shot. When I picked him up in the sights he stopped behind a 2 foot diameter pine tree and I lost sight of him. As I leaned to the right to see him he stuck his head around the tree and looked straight at me as if to say “What???” At that point he didn’t hesitate long, deciding those bright white legs just weren’t his cup of tea, wheeled and headed back into a thicket. I fired a shot, but cleanly missed. Afterwards, I lost it laughing out loud, trying to imagine what that deer thought he had seen.

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The fifteen year run of fishing Ottertail Lake with the boyz at the Humann cabin has come to an end. Due to a dual holiday for my wife, birthday on Saturday and mom’s day on Sunday, I was unable to attend the walleye opener. The state was without one of its top anglers, in my own mind, this opener. The boyz kept up the tradition for me and didn’t catch a fish in honor of my absence! Thanks boyz, that’s what friends are for.

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