PAGE 4B OUTDOORSUPDATE Nebraska Man Bags Record Turkey...
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Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan ■ Saturday, February 13, 2010 PAGE 4B www.yankton.net OUTDOORSUPDATE OF THE OUTDOORS: Nebraska Man Bags Record Turkey OUTDOOR REPORT Scheels Walleye University Visits Sioux Falls March 6 SIOUX FALLS — On Saturday, March 6, professional angler Johnnie Candle will present an all new Walleye University in Sioux Falls. The seminar will be held at the Westmall Theatres, located at 2101 West 41st Street in Sioux Falls. It begins at 8:30 a.m. and will run until 5 p.m. Every person in attendance will receive a pack- age that includes a printed version of Walleye University and a $10 gift card from Scheels. Candle is coming off a great season that highlights a 15-year career as a professional fisher- man. Last season, he placed fourth overall in the MWC Western Division and qualified for the World Walleye Championship, as well as the National Team Championship. The 8-hour class will deal with fine poitns of jig fishing, live bait rigging, spinners and crank baits all before lunch. After a lunch break, marine electronics and tar- geting trophy walleye will be dis- cussed. The day will end with talk of what’s new and exciting in wall- eye catching tackle. Walleye University was first introduced in Bismarck, N.D., dur- ing the spring of 2000. Since that first year, the seminar has been presented to hundreds of walleye anglers in eight different states. Stops in 2010 include Omaha, Neb.; St. Cloud, Minn.; Mankato, Minn.; Fargo, N.D.; Billings, Mont. and Rapid City. Those interested are asked to pre-register as seating is limited. Register at Scheels Customer Service in Sioux Falls or by calling 605-334-7767. GFP Works To Connect Children With Nature PIERRE — Thanks to a new partnership involving the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department and child-care providers, there will be a lot more kids playing outside this year. The department recently awarded nature backpacks, filled with items to encourage outdoor exploration, to 180 child-care providers across the state. “The nature backpack program is a perfect opportunity to partner with child-care providers in getting kids outside more,” said GFP Secretary Jeff Vonk. The program is part of the Game, Fish and Parks’ participa- tion in the nationwide Children in Nature initiative. The initiative seeks to make nature a part of children’s everyday lives, some- thing Vonk says the department feels very strongly about. The department hopes to con- tinue the grant program with future installments for pre-school, after-school, libraries and other groups. More information on other opportunities provided by GFP can be found at GFP's Children in Nature webpage. Cottontail Season Continues Through February LINCOLN, Neb. – Mentors still have an opportunity this month to help novices gain some hunting experience by going on a rabbit hunt. The cottontail season runs through Feb. 28, according to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Nebraska has plenty of rab- bits, and their meat makes good table fare. Plus, the cover of snow may be used as an advantage to the hunter. Tracking rabbits in the snow is a good way to learn how many cottontails use an area and what types of cover they prefer. Overgrown weedy fence lines are good places to find rabbits, especially those located next to fields of corn stubble. When pass- ing a brush pile, kick at it and wait for a rabbit to come running out from beneath it. Walk in a slow, erratic pattern through a weed patch or grass waterway between harvested crop fields, stopping after a few steps and waiting for a rabbit to appear. The daily bag limit is seven cottontails, and the possession limit is 28. Shooting hours are 30 minutes before sunrise to sunset. The reward for the hunt is a tasty meal. The NEBRASKAland Magazine Wild Game Cookbook, available at the Commission for $2, includes a number of rabbit recipes. Call toll-free at (800) 742- 0056 or order at NebraskalandGifts.com. GARY HOWEY Hartington, Neb. When Duane Filsinger of Butte, Neb., and his son headed out on their spring turkey hunt last spring, the farthest thing from their mind was taking the highest scoring Merriam ever taken with a firearm that was recorded by the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF). Well that’s just what they did, putting Duane’s name at the top of the NWTF list for Merriam turkeys. Like most of the state, Northeast Nebraska has as excel- lent turkey population, with the majority of the birds found in the area being Merriam. Merriam turkeys are similar in many ways to the other species of turkeys such as the Eastern, Rio Grande and Osceola, which, all can be found in the United States. Adult Merriam males are easily distin- guished from these species, but closely resemble the Gould turkey of Mexico except that they have a blacker appear- ance with the lower back and tail margins on the Merriam are nearly white. The Merriam’s original territory was Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, but through stocking programs the birds were stocked out of their original Rocky Mountain terrain. Because of this successful stocking program, Merriam turkeys are now found in 15 western states. Merriams are now found from North Dakota south to Texas, (excluding Kansas) and west to Washington, Oregon, California as well as in four Canadian provinces. If anyone is looking for Merriam turkeys, Nebraska and South Dakota are a good bet as the top eight birds registered with the NWTF come from these two states. This is not the first record Merriams ever taken in Holt County as Michael Kluver took the number three bird, which scored 130.2500, in May of 2005. In the spring of 2009, the Filsingers were hunting in late May in Holt County and had located a Tom and his hens that looked like might be callable. As they glassed the bird through their binoculars, it didn’t seem to appear much different than other birds they’d seen except that the bird seemed taller than usual. They set up and tried calling the Tom; unfortunately, he was satisfied with the hens he had, refusing to wander too far from them. At one point, the hens moved off and Duane and his son were able to get in between the bird and his harem. They happened to be set up in the right place and were able to take the Tom as he made its way back towards the hens. The Filsinger Merriam became the Best Overall bird ever taken with a total score of 144.2050 points, which broke the old 2002 record of 136.0000 set by a North Carolina hunter in Meade, South Dakota. The bird wasn’t all that big, weighing in at 22.08 pounds, but other factors entered into the equation put the bird well ahead of other birds. It’s six beards totaling 45” and it’s spurs that measured 1.5625” and 1.5000 inches gave the bird more than enough points to put it on the top. For more information on the Nation al Wild Turkey Federation you can go to www.nwtf.org Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb., is the producer/Host of the Award winning Outdoorsmen Adventures television series that can be seen Saturday @ 6”30 am and Sunday @ 7:00 am on Fox KTTM/KTTW-TV Sioux Falls/Huron, SD. Gary Howey SUBMITTED PHOTO Duane Filsinger of Butte, Neb., took this Tom while hunting last spring in Holt Count, Nebraska. It’s the NWTF Highest Scoring Merriam Tom ever taken with a firearm. TROPHY SPOTLIGHT SUBMITTED PHOTO SUBMITTED PHOTO Sebastian Falkenberg, 10, shot this deer on Jan. 31. It was his first deer. Jacob Warriner, 11, shot this deer last month. BY RAY SASSER (c) 2010, The Dallas Morning News DALLAS — Casey Ryan is a dedicated fly fish- er from Dallas, who's caught numerous striped bass weighing 10 to 16 pounds in the last three years. He started fishing for stripers in the Red River below Lake Texoma when big rains in the spring of 2007 loaded the river with fish. "You could catch small stripers that spring on nearly every cast," recalled Ryan. "As the flood waters started to subside and cool, bigger fish started biting. I caught many double-digit stripers up to 14 pounds that fall and winter." Ryan mostly fishes with 7- to 9-weight fly rods, but one of his goals was catching a 10- pound-plus striper on a much lighter 5-weight rod. A 5-weight rod is a popular choice when trout fishing for rainbows and browns that weigh less than five pounds. "I started researching the best places to catch a 20-pounder on a fly, and I was looking into Arkansas, Tennessee and the northeast coast," Ryan said. In December, Texoma-Red River fishing guide Scott Bridgess saved Ryan some travel expens- es. Bridgess often fly fishes for stripers in the lake and the river. On a December day in the Red River, fishing was painfully slow. In fact, the two anglers had not caught a fish by 10 a.m. Ryan fishes almost exclusively with Clouser Minnow streamers in various colors and sizes. He had a smaller Clouser already rigged on his 5-weight rod, so he picked it up and started casting the small fly on the assumption that it might tempt a small fish, and catching any fish was better than catching none. Ryan fishes with a sinking line to get the slow-sinking fly into the strike zone. Ryan made a cast and waited for the fly to sink deep enough before starting his retrieve. A fish bit, and he knew it was a good one, but he was unsure of how good, or if the fish was even a striped bass. Ryan has caught freshwater drum as big as 17 pounds on a fly. "The fish ran into my backing pretty quickly," Ryan said. "I started getting line back, but the fish fought deep. The fight only lasted five or six minutes. When the fish first came to the surface, I thought it was eight or nine pounds. As it got closer, I thought it might weigh 13 or 14 pounds." Only when the tired striper was in the boat did Ryan realize that his goal of catching a 20- pounder had been achieved. The fish weighed 21 pounds on a Boga Grip, a device that's accu- rate enough to be accepted by the International Game Fish Association (IGFA). "Catching a 21-pound striper on a 5-weight rod is quite an accomplishment in my book," Bridgess said. It's not such a big deal to the IGFA, which rec- ognizes fly-rod catches according to tippet strength rather than the size of the rod. And the Red River is Oklahoma water, and that state has no fly-rod records. Had Ryan caught his 21-pounder in Texas waters, it would have been the third-largest striped bass ever reported in Texas on a fly — but a still long way from a state record. That mark was set in 2006 by John Erskine. While fly fishing in the Guadalupe River, he caught a 36.65-pounder. Bridgess has caught fly-rod stripers from Lake Texoma as big as 15 pounds, but the big ones have come from the Oklahoma side of the lake. The Texoma fly-rod record, as recognized by Texas Parks and Wildlife, weighed 5.03 pounds and was caught by Robert Maindelle in 2002. "One of my clients caught an 11.25-pounder in Texas waters but did not apply for the record," Bridgess said. "I've caught many fish bigger than the current fly-rod lake record, but I don't want to enter a striper as a lake record unless it weighs 10 pounds or more." Fly-Rod Angler Is Gaining Weight For Stripped Fish P&D: Your Area News & Sports Source Lake Trout Lure Anglers To Wilderness Ice BY SAM COOK (c) 2010, Duluth News Tribune (Duluth, Minn.) ON KNIFE LAKE NEAR ELY, Minn. — The raven called gloop, gloop. He came flying over the island on Knife Lake and looked down upon the three of us. Nobody knows for sure what a particular raven call means, but this raven had to be optimistic. Already, a couple of lake trout were lying on the ice near our fishing holes. Each of them was in the 3-pound range, one by the hole of Al Schroeter, the other alongside Kelly Murphy's. Both anglers are from Ely, and they had driven two teams of Murphy's Alaskan huskies 12 miles on this January morning to get here. They were fishing one of their favorite spots on Knife. The dogs were staked out on the ice along shore, resting in the balmy 30- degree air, sleeping until it was time for the late-afternoon run home. We were giving the trout plenty of options, all of which involved dead ciscoes. Murphy, 54, jigged a Smoothie jigging spoon, silver and blue, and Schroeter, 48, was using a Trout Teaser Jr., an airplane jig that resembled a sil- ver Stealth bomber. Schroeter tipped his with a small piece of cisco, and Murphy was using all but the head of a cisco on his Smoothie. Murphy had harvested a winter's supply of ciscoes from Basswood Lake last November. Our second lines were all tip-ups, each dangling a whole cisco somewhere near the bottom in about 40 feet of water. We were a day ahead of a forecast snow- storm, and the barometer was dropping. "I think fish are like people," Murphy said as we jigged. "Before a storm, they all go to the grocery store and stock up. I'm hoping they come to my grocery store and eat my Basswood ciscoes." In a few minutes, he was cackling a fiendish cackle, and his stiff ice-fishing rod was wearing a nice bend. Schroeter and I went running to his hole, as ice anglers always do, just to watch Murphy's fish come up. This was another laker from the 3-pound mold. Murphy leaned back and hauled it flipping and twisting into daylight it had never seen before. It was darker than Murphy's first lake trout, almost black between its creamy spots, and this one had a blush of orange on its fins. Handsome. Another raven flew over, gargling a guttur- al bra-awk, bra-awk. None of us knew what that meant, either. What we knew was that it was excellent to be the only ones in sight on Knife Lake, which stretches for seven miles along the Minnesota- Ontario border. No motors are permitted on the Minnesota side of the lake, which is in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The north side is in Ontario's Quetico Provincial Park, also a non-motorized area. You can find lake trout in some drive-to lakes in the Ely area, but the fishing is espe- cially dependable on wilderness lakes, where fishing pressure is light. It's well worth the two-hour dogsled ride to Knife, where we hand-augered holes through 18 inches of ice and fished without shelters. Lots Of History Even when the lake trout are biting, the fishing is just one more pleasant aspect of being on Knife Lake. It is good to study the Norway pines on the island where the late Dorothy Molter once sold her root beer. It is good to think about what it must have been like to live here year-around, with prospector Benny Ambrose your nearest neighbor up on Ottertrack. It is good to put your trust in Murphy's huskies Juanita and Boro and Bone and all the rest whose entire souls are bound up in pulling sleds. It is good listening to the stories that Schroeter and Murphy tell about other days, other lake trout and other sled dogs. One senses that Murphy and Schroeter live a very good life here, close to the land. They know how to read overflow on the ice and when to harvest ciscoes in the fall. They know that it's best to replace the treble hooks that come on trout lures with single hooks. They know silence. A raven called gloop, gloop. The call sounded like the resonant dripping of water. "One time, I had a raven follow me all the way across Ensign Lake," Murphy said. "Right at eye-level. He was flying into a strong wind." Nobody knew what that meant, either. But it's been reported that ravens will follow a pack of wolves, knowing that if a kill is made, they will eat when the wolves are finished. It is not far-fetched to think that Knife Lake's ravens have come to associate dogsleds with lake trout carcasses. Trout Keep Coming We hauled up another lake trout from a wildly spinning tip-up line. Gleaming. Powerful. Lovely. Then Schroeter hooked one on his Trout Teaser, and Murphy simultane- ously coaxed another from a tip-up line. That made six, a three-person limit, all of them on one side of 3 pounds or the other. Enough. At 3 p.m., Murphy and Schroeter hitched dogs. The huskies raised a din along the shoreline, mad to run. The mushers pulled their snow hooks from the ice, freeing the teams. All barking ceased, replaced by soft panting. "Haw, haw," Murphy growled. Boro and Juanita understood the universal North American dogsled command. They veered left, hauling the other eight dogs with them. They intersected the well-packed trail on which we had come in.
Transcript of PAGE 4B OUTDOORSUPDATE Nebraska Man Bags Record Turkey...
Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan ■ Saturday, February 13, 2010PAGE 4B www.yankton.net
OUTDOORSUPDATEOF THE OUTDOORS:
Nebraska Man Bags Record TurkeyOUTDOOR
REPORTScheels WalleyeUniversity Visits
Sioux Falls March 6SIOUX FALLS — On Saturday,
March 6, professional anglerJohnnie Candle will present an allnew Walleye University in SiouxFalls.
The seminar will be held at theWestmall Theatres, located at2101 West 41st Street in SiouxFalls. It begins at 8:30 a.m. andwill run until 5 p.m. Every personin attendance will receive a pack-age that includes a printed versionof Walleye University and a $10gift card from Scheels.
Candle is coming off a greatseason that highlights a 15-yearcareer as a professional fisher-man. Last season, he placedfourth overall in the MWC WesternDivision and qualified for theWorld Walleye Championship, aswell as the National TeamChampionship.
The 8-hour class will deal withfine poitns of jig fishing, live baitrigging, spinners and crank baitsall before lunch. After a lunchbreak, marine electronics and tar-geting trophy walleye will be dis-cussed. The day will end with talkof what’s new and exciting in wall-eye catching tackle.
Walleye University was firstintroduced in Bismarck, N.D., dur-ing the spring of 2000. Since thatfirst year, the seminar has beenpresented to hundreds of walleyeanglers in eight different states.Stops in 2010 include Omaha,Neb.; St. Cloud, Minn.; Mankato,Minn.; Fargo, N.D.; Billings, Mont.and Rapid City.
Those interested are asked topre-register as seating is limited.Register at Scheels CustomerService in Sioux Falls or by calling605-334-7767.
GFP Works ToConnect Children
With NaturePIERRE — Thanks to a new
partnership involving the SouthDakota Game, Fish and ParksDepartment and child-careproviders, there will be a lot morekids playing outside this year.
The department recentlyawarded nature backpacks, filledwith items to encourage outdoorexploration, to 180 child-careproviders across the state.
“The nature backpack programis a perfect opportunity to partnerwith child-care providers in gettingkids outside more,” said GFPSecretary Jeff Vonk.
The program is part of theGame, Fish and Parks’ participa-tion in the nationwide Children inNature initiative. The initiativeseeks to make nature a part ofchildren’s everyday lives, some-thing Vonk says the departmentfeels very strongly about.
The department hopes to con-tinue the grant program withfuture installments for pre-school,after-school, libraries and othergroups. More information on otheropportunities provided by GFPcan be found at GFP's Children inNature webpage.
Cottontail SeasonContinues Through
February LINCOLN, Neb. – Mentors still
have an opportunity this month tohelp novices gain some huntingexperience by going on a rabbithunt. The cottontail season runsthrough Feb. 28, according to theNebraska Game and ParksCommission.
Nebraska has plenty of rab-bits, and their meat makes goodtable fare. Plus, the cover of snowmay be used as an advantage tothe hunter.
Tracking rabbits in the snow isa good way to learn how manycottontails use an area and whattypes of cover they prefer.
Overgrown weedy fence linesare good places to find rabbits,especially those located next tofields of corn stubble. When pass-ing a brush pile, kick at it and waitfor a rabbit to come running outfrom beneath it. Walk in a slow,erratic pattern through a weedpatch or grass waterway betweenharvested crop fields, stoppingafter a few steps and waiting for arabbit to appear.
The daily bag limit is sevencottontails, and the possessionlimit is 28. Shooting hours are 30minutes before sunrise to sunset.
The reward for the hunt is atasty meal. The NEBRASKAlandMagazine Wild Game Cookbook,available at the Commission for$2, includes a number of rabbitrecipes. Call toll-free at (800) 742-0056 or order atNebraskalandGifts.com.
GARY HOWEYHartington, Neb.
When Duane Filsinger of Butte, Neb.,and his son headed out on their springturkey hunt last spring, the farthest thingfrom their mind was taking the highestscoring Merriam ever taken with a firearmthat was recorded by the National WildTurkey Federation (NWTF).
Well that’s just what they did, puttingDuane’s name at the top of the NWTF listfor Merriam turkeys.
Like most of thestate, NortheastNebraska has as excel-lent turkey population,with the majority of thebirds found in the areabeing Merriam.
Merriam turkeys aresimilar in many ways tothe other species ofturkeys such as theEastern, Rio Grande andOsceola, which, all canbe found in the UnitedStates.
Adult Merriam males are easily distin-guished from these species, but closelyresemble the Gould turkey of Mexicoexcept that they have a blacker appear-ance with the lower back and tail marginson the Merriam are nearly white.
The Merriam’s original territory wasArizona, New Mexico and Colorado, butthrough stocking programs the birds werestocked out of their original RockyMountain terrain.
Because of this successful stockingprogram, Merriam turkeys are now foundin 15 western states.
Merriams are now found from North
Dakota south to Texas, (excludingKansas) and west to Washington, Oregon,California as well as in four Canadianprovinces.
If anyone is looking for Merriamturkeys, Nebraska and South Dakota are a
good bet as the top eight birds registeredwith the NWTF come from these twostates.
This is not the first record Merriamsever taken in Holt County as MichaelKluver took the number three bird, which
scored 130.2500, in May of 2005.In the spring of 2009, the Filsingers
were hunting in late May in Holt Countyand had located a Tom and his hens thatlooked like might be callable.
As they glassed the bird through theirbinoculars, it didn’t seem to appear muchdifferent than other birds they’d seenexcept that the bird seemed taller thanusual.
They set up and tried calling the Tom;unfortunately, he was satisfied with thehens he had, refusing to wander too farfrom them.
At one point, the hens moved off andDuane and his son were able to get inbetween the bird and his harem.
They happened to be set up in the rightplace and were able to take the Tom as hemade its way back towards the hens.
The Filsinger Merriam became the BestOverall bird ever taken with a total scoreof 144.2050 points, which broke the old2002 record of 136.0000 set by a NorthCarolina hunter in Meade, South Dakota.
The bird wasn’t all that big, weighing inat 22.08 pounds, but other factors enteredinto the equation put the bird well aheadof other birds.
It’s six beards totaling 45” and it’s spursthat measured 1.5625” and 1.5000 inchesgave the bird more than enough points toput it on the top.
For more information on the Nation alWild Turkey Federation you can go towww.nwtf.org
Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb., is theproducer/Host of the Award winningOutdoorsmen Adventures television seriesthat can be seen Saturday @ 6”30 am andSunday @ 7:00 am on Fox KTTM/KTTW-TVSioux Falls/Huron, SD.
GaryHowey
SUBMITTED PHOTODuane Filsinger of Butte, Neb., took this Tom while hunting last spring in HoltCount, Nebraska. It’s the NWTF Highest Scoring Merriam Tom ever taken with afirearm.
TT RR OO PP HH YY SS PP OO TT LL II GG HH TT
SUBMITTED PHOTOSUBMITTED PHOTOSebastian Falkenberg, 10, shot this deer on Jan.
31. It was his first deer. Jacob Warriner, 11, shot this deer last month.
BY RAY SASSER(c) 2010, The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS — Casey Ryan is a dedicated fly fish-er from Dallas, who's caught numerous stripedbass weighing 10 to 16 pounds in the last threeyears.
He started fishing for stripers in the RedRiver below Lake Texoma when big rains in thespring of 2007 loaded the river with fish.
"You could catch small stripers that springon nearly every cast," recalled Ryan. "As theflood waters started to subside and cool, biggerfish started biting. I caught many double-digitstripers up to 14 pounds that fall and winter."
Ryan mostly fishes with 7- to 9-weight flyrods, but one of his goals was catching a 10-pound-plus striper on a much lighter 5-weightrod. A 5-weight rod is a popular choice whentrout fishing for rainbows and browns thatweigh less than five pounds.
"I started researching the best places tocatch a 20-pounder on a fly, and I was lookinginto Arkansas, Tennessee and the northeastcoast," Ryan said.
In December, Texoma-Red River fishing guideScott Bridgess saved Ryan some travel expens-es. Bridgess often fly fishes for stripers in thelake and the river.
On a December day in the Red River, fishingwas painfully slow. In fact, the two anglers hadnot caught a fish by 10 a.m. Ryan fishes almostexclusively with Clouser Minnow streamers invarious colors and sizes.
He had a smaller Clouser already rigged onhis 5-weight rod, so he picked it up and startedcasting the small fly on the assumption that itmight tempt a small fish, and catching any fishwas better than catching none.
Ryan fishes with a sinking line to get theslow-sinking fly into the strike zone. Ryan madea cast and waited for the fly to sink deep enoughbefore starting his retrieve. A fish bit, and heknew it was a good one, but he was unsure ofhow good, or if the fish was even a striped bass.Ryan has caught freshwater drum as big as 17pounds on a fly.
"The fish ran into my backing pretty quickly,"Ryan said. "I started getting line back, but thefish fought deep. The fight only lasted five or sixminutes. When the fish first came to the surface,I thought it was eight or nine pounds. As it gotcloser, I thought it might weigh 13 or 14pounds."
Only when the tired striper was in the boatdid Ryan realize that his goal of catching a 20-pounder had been achieved. The fish weighed21 pounds on a Boga Grip, a device that's accu-rate enough to be accepted by the InternationalGame Fish Association (IGFA).
"Catching a 21-pound striper on a 5-weightrod is quite an accomplishment in my book,"Bridgess said.
It's not such a big deal to the IGFA, which rec-ognizes fly-rod catches according to tippetstrength rather than the size of the rod. And theRed River is Oklahoma water, and that state hasno fly-rod records.
Had Ryan caught his 21-pounder in Texaswaters, it would have been the third-largeststriped bass ever reported in Texas on a fly —but a still long way from a state record. Thatmark was set in 2006 by John Erskine. While flyfishing in the Guadalupe River, he caught a36.65-pounder.
Bridgess has caught fly-rod stripers fromLake Texoma as big as 15 pounds, but the bigones have come from the Oklahoma side of thelake. The Texoma fly-rod record, as recognizedby Texas Parks and Wildlife, weighed 5.03pounds and was caught by Robert Maindelle in2002.
"One of my clients caught an 11.25-pounderin Texas waters but did not apply for therecord," Bridgess said. "I've caught many fishbigger than the current fly-rod lake record, but Idon't want to enter a striper as a lake recordunless it weighs 10 pounds or more."
Fly-Rod Angler IsGaining WeightFor Stripped Fish
P&D:Your AreaNews &SportsSource
Lake Trout Lure Anglers To Wilderness IceBY SAM COOK
(c) 2010, Duluth News Tribune (Duluth, Minn.)
ON KNIFE LAKE NEAR ELY, Minn. — Theraven called gloop, gloop. He came flying overthe island on Knife Lake and looked downupon the three of us.
Nobody knows for sure what a particularraven call means, but this raven had to beoptimistic. Already, a couple of lake trout werelying on the ice near our fishing holes. Each ofthem was in the 3-pound range, one by thehole of Al Schroeter, the other alongside KellyMurphy's. Both anglers are from Ely, and theyhad driven two teams of Murphy's Alaskanhuskies 12 miles on this January morning toget here.
They were fishing one of their favoritespots on Knife. The dogs were staked out onthe ice along shore, resting in the balmy 30-degree air, sleeping until it was time for thelate-afternoon run home.
We were giving the trout plenty of options,all of which involved dead ciscoes. Murphy,54, jigged a Smoothie jigging spoon, silver andblue, and Schroeter, 48, was using a TroutTeaser Jr., an airplane jig that resembled a sil-ver Stealth bomber. Schroeter tipped his witha small piece of cisco, and Murphy was usingall but the head of a cisco on his Smoothie.Murphy had harvested a winter's supply ofciscoes from Basswood Lake last November.
Our second lines were all tip-ups, eachdangling a whole cisco somewhere near thebottom in about 40 feet of water.
We were a day ahead of a forecast snow-storm, and the barometer was dropping.
"I think fish are like people," Murphy saidas we jigged. "Before a storm, they all go to thegrocery store and stock up. I'm hoping theycome to my grocery store and eat myBasswood ciscoes."
In a few minutes, he was cackling a
fiendish cackle, and his stiff ice-fishing rodwas wearing a nice bend. Schroeter and I wentrunning to his hole, as ice anglers always do,just to watch Murphy's fish come up. This wasanother laker from the 3-pound mold.
Murphy leaned back and hauled it flippingand twisting into daylight it had never seenbefore. It was darker than Murphy's first laketrout, almost black between its creamy spots,and this one had a blush of orange on its fins.Handsome.
Another raven flew over, gargling a guttur-al bra-awk, bra-awk. None of us knew whatthat meant, either.
What we knew was that it was excellent tobe the only ones in sight on Knife Lake, whichstretches for seven miles along the Minnesota-Ontario border. No motors are permitted onthe Minnesota side of the lake, which is in theBoundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Thenorth side is in Ontario's Quetico ProvincialPark, also a non-motorized area.
You can find lake trout in some drive-tolakes in the Ely area, but the fishing is espe-cially dependable on wilderness lakes, wherefishing pressure is light. It's well worth thetwo-hour dogsled ride to Knife, where wehand-augered holes through 18 inches of iceand fished without shelters.
Lots Of HistoryEven when the lake trout are biting, the
fishing is just one more pleasant aspect ofbeing on Knife Lake. It is good to study theNorway pines on the island where the lateDorothy Molter once sold her root beer. It isgood to think about what it must have beenlike to live here year-around, with prospectorBenny Ambrose your nearest neighbor up onOttertrack.
It is good to put your trust in Murphy'shuskies Juanita and Boro and Bone and all therest whose entire souls are bound up in
pulling sleds. It is good listening to the storiesthat Schroeter and Murphy tell about otherdays, other lake trout and other sled dogs.
One senses that Murphy and Schroeterlive a very good life here, close to the land.They know how to read overflow on the iceand when to harvest ciscoes in the fall. Theyknow that it's best to replace the treble hooksthat come on trout lures with single hooks.They know silence.
A raven called gloop, gloop. The callsounded like the resonant dripping of water.
"One time, I had a raven follow me all theway across Ensign Lake," Murphy said. "Rightat eye-level. He was flying into a strong wind."
Nobody knew what that meant, either. Butit's been reported that ravens will follow apack of wolves, knowing that if a kill is made,they will eat when the wolves are finished. It isnot far-fetched to think that Knife Lake'sravens have come to associate dogsleds withlake trout carcasses.
Trout Keep ComingWe hauled up another lake trout from a
wildly spinning tip-up line. Gleaming.Powerful. Lovely. Then Schroeter hooked oneon his Trout Teaser, and Murphy simultane-ously coaxed another from a tip-up line. Thatmade six, a three-person limit, all of them onone side of 3 pounds or the other. Enough.
At 3 p.m., Murphy and Schroeter hitcheddogs. The huskies raised a din along theshoreline, mad to run. The mushers pulledtheir snow hooks from the ice, freeing theteams. All barking ceased, replaced by softpanting.
"Haw, haw," Murphy growled.Boro and Juanita understood the universal
North American dogsled command. Theyveered left, hauling the other eight dogs withthem. They intersected the well-packed trailon which we had come in.
