I have been deer hunting 4 times in my hunting career. The last time I was out, it was the second day of the season, mid afternoon and warm and sunny. I had lost interest at least an hour earlier and was killing time texting my daughter at home. As I’m sitting in my tree stand texting her, I suddenly heard a snap near me and turned to see an 8 point buck looking at me! I froze and waited and he finally looked back at the ground and seemed to have forgotten about me. So I’m sitting there trying to turn to my right very slowly and bring my rifle up…. now remember, I’m still holding my phone in my left hand which I’m also cradling my rifle with the same hand…. and I’m just praying that my daughter doesn’t text me back right then which would certainly not only alert me that a text had come in, but the deer also! Luckily I was able to turn and get the shot off just before she texted me asking “why didn’t you reply?”. I promptly got out of my stand, snapped a picture of the buck on the ground and sent it to her phone with the comment “This is why”.

Share/Bookmark

For a period of time I was a youth leader for young men in our local church congregation. One of our favorite activities was camping and getting into the outdoors. So, as often as was possible, we would pack up kids and cars and head up into the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

On one particular trip we had 4 adult leaders and several kids crammed into 2 Suburbans and we were headed up the mountains to do a little spelunking. Like on most trips, a few of the kids, and one particular leader, had brought their fishing rods in the hopes of catching that nights dinner.

I was driving the trailing vehicle as we wound up a narrow, dirt, mountain road that had a cascading creek running beside it. After driving on this road for about 45 minutes, the truck in front suddenly came to a stop on the side of the road, our adult angler jumped out, grabbed is rod from the back and hopped down the bank to the creek.

Confused, I stopped the car, and went to talk to the driver of the first vehicle. As it turns out, for the previous hour our fishing buddy had been talking up his fishing skills with outlandish claims. No one in the car was buying his stories and were giving him a hard time. Finally, in frustration, our friend told the driver to “stop right now, and I will catch a brook trout in that stream running along the road in 5 casts or less.” So, without any hesitation, they stopped.

We looked down into the creek in time to see him make his first cast. To our amazement, he reeled in what was probably about an 8″ brooky. Thankfully, as he lifted it out of the water, it fell off the line. We insisted that it didn’t count and he had 4 casts left. On his fifth cast he brought in a slightly smaller, but good looking brook trout. He let it go, threw his rod in the truck, and continued to boast all the way to the campsite without anyone else saying another word.

Share/Bookmark

During the summer, we drive up to Seattle and visit my parents on Whidbey Island. We usually stay for a week or so, enjoying their beach house.

My wife and kids (two boys 10 and 13) wanted to go Salmon fishing, as there was a Coho window open in front of the beach. My dad came and we took the boat north, around Bush Point, then close to the beach and anchored up.

It was a late afternoon trip, more to enjoy the scenery than anything else. We had two salmon rods and two trout rods fishing with “buzz bombs” aka Pt. townsend darts. Nice. Sunny. Warm. Took the trout rods ’cause they were in the boat, and figuring they would be a nice match for the small resident coho.

Well, a school of Chinook swam through the darts, inhaling two of them. My wife had one on a Salmon rod, and my 10 year old had one on a trout rod. I didn’t know who to help first…..wife who had never caught anything larger than a trout in her life, or my son, who loves to fish.

My son reeled the Chinook to the boat….a lot of times these fish swim up to the boat, take a look, then take off….and this is exactly what happened. He was holding the rod up, had the drag cranked down, but the fish was swimming away like a train. I tried to apply additional pressure to the fish by pinching the line between my fingers, but as soon as I had done that, and was starting to mention to my dad that we better chase this fish, the line reached the bottom of the spool and “PINK” (this was the sound of the line breaking at the knot attaching the line to the spool). My son had this shocked look on his face, and I thought he was going to cry. I said “I’ll be right back….

Went over to my wife that was fighting the Chinook salmon on the salmon rod, she was doing a great job with my did helping with instructions. Several time she said “it’s gone…” but you could see the line getting closer to the boat, and we’d shout “reel! reel faster!”. After a bit, my wife was getting tired, but she brought the fish to the boat and my dad netted it. The fish was about 18 lbs, a nice fish, but the season for Chinooks was closed, so we couldn’t keep it. I looked at my dad….and we read each others minds….should we keep it? Is anyone looking?…but then made the decision to let the fish go. I gently removed the hook from the mouth of the fish, kept it in the net for a minute, took the picture in my mind, and let the fish go. She (it was a hen) swam away healthy.

Gave my wife a hug and said congratulations on her first salmon, then remembered I still had a job to do with my son. I went over to him, and said that it was a privelige to hook one of these fish, and an honor to be spooled by one. There will be more.

To this day, we still laugh about the fish that got away.

Share/Bookmark

Every year a group of my old college buds get together for the rifle opener in MN. We all show up Friday afternoon at camp and usually spend the night catching up. This past year we decided to not go to sleep at all Friday night, that way we would be wide awake and out in the stands early enough to catch the deer still in the field at dawn.

During the day we set up stands out of straw bales on the various fields we hunted. The hay field, a 1000yard long, 400 yard wide field would usually support 2 stands, with another 2 in the woods to the north and south of the field. To try something new, we put a stand right on the wood line looking west, across the shorter length of the field. It was positioned so that there would be a shot straight out as well as to the north or south. We also figured that at dawn, it would offer an advantage, as the sun would come up behind us, giving us the best perspective to look out on the field, while also covering the hunter in the stand.

Well, as it turns out, being “wide awake” was negotiable… I bet I lasted a full 20 minutes in the stand before falling sound asleep. With the combination of the cold, lack of sleep and the plentiful beverages from the night before, I didn’t stand a chance. I don’t know how long I was asleep, but shortly after the sun poked out above the woods, i was jostled awake. It took a second to get my bearings, I realized I was in the bales with gun in hand. I sat up, and nearly fell back over. Looking at me wide eyed about 3 feet out from my bales is a large doe. I froze, forgot I had the gun in my hand. At the same moment, the tail goes up and the deer snorts. I was close enough to get the mist in the face…

Whats worse, the deer snorted and immediately ran to the side and into the woods, I didn’t even get the safety off on the gun. Not only did I catch hell back at camp for falling asleep and letting the deer wake me up, I didn’t even get a shot off when it was at barrel length away. Needless to say, I’ll be staying awake in the stand from here on out.

Share/Bookmark

When I was about 8 years old some family friends offered to take my father and I on a fishing trip to Mirror Lake. They talked a lot about this renown lake and for several years, I thought it was the ONLY Mirror Lake (I’ve since come to learn that there are thousands of “Mirror Lake”).

Mirror Lake was a mountain lake in the High Uintas of Utah. After what seemed like a couple of days of drive (probably no more than an couple of hours), we arrived at the location. Mirror Lake was a relatively small lake surrounded by pines and quaking aspen. There was evidence of beaver activity.

Fairly early on, I cast out and apparently hooked the big one. It was fighting. Another member of our party on the opposite side of this small lake cast out and also hooked something.

While we were both fighting, the “big one” surfaced. The beaver. I had hooked it’s tail, and the other guy had hooked something on it’s head. He wasn’t very happy. He thrashed around a bit and the lines broke.

But Mr. Beaver got even. That day we had caught several fish and left them on a line in the cold lake. We walked to another near by lake planning to come back and clean the fish before heading home. By the time we got there, the fish and line were gone. Since there weren’t any other people up there, we’re pretty sure Mr. Beaver had himself a nice fish dinner of rainbow trout.

Share/Bookmark

Three of us were on Leech Lake to do some duck hunting, we had hoped to take a small boat across the lake to another spot. Unfortunately its was very cold and windy, so cold we couldn’t keep the motor going and we kept blowing into the shore. It was so cold Dave, who was seated in front of me, spit out the side of the boat, the wind caught it and when it hit the barrel of my gun it froze instantly. Well, we decided we should not try to motor across the lake as the conditions were extreme. So we opted to make room and join others on the little pennisula we were parked near. We got in a few shots throughout the day. The ducks were low coming across the lake but as they got to the pennisula they would swope up high to try and avoid us. Well, we about froze to death, we would take turns going up and warming up in the truck. As the day wore on, it got colder and colder. When we arrived there wasn’t any ice on the lake, but it was beginning to form before our very eyes, first forming on the shore as the water lapped up on the edge, then it started spreading out into open water. Dylan French shot a duck which landed about 25 feet out on the ice without breaking through. Soon thereafter when it was time to go, he gingerly walked out on the ice to the duck and picked it up, all the while the ice was bowing under his weight. But he successfully retrieved it without getting wet. Now that is cold, and also why we love Minnesota. Hey, where else are people so proud of and brag about the cold.

Share/Bookmark

When growing up in Sobieski, MN my parents would take my two brothers and I fishing. We typically would fish for sunnies and crappies (pan fish). I had never experienced catching any “big lunkers”. My husband and I went fishing and camping with some friends over the 4th of July a couple years back. Our friends brought their boat along so we could fish. They rigged my line with some fancy lure , I casted and was hoping to catch a big walleye. Not more than 15 minutes into our excursion the big one bit! I have never reeled anything bigger than a sunny, so I thought it was quite the fighter. I could barely get it in the boat! My husband grabs the net and we successfully netted the walleye into the boat. I am screaming with excitement that I caught this monster walleye and the first one of the day. Everyone in the boat is telling me to hush because people on the lake are going to come fish the spot that we our at after they hear a lady screaming with excitement. We measure the fish and it’s 20 inches long and in my mind I am thinking “holy cow”! Still on cloud 9 I ask, “Is that a good size fish?” Their response: that’s a good size, but I through back anything smaller than a 23 inch long walleye. Oh well, it’s still the biggest fish I ever caught!

Share/Bookmark