12-20-2015 130PM-530PM, Scott and myself walleye fishing below the Dresbach dam
Weather: S8, 44°, overcast, 29.74↓
Water: dirty, high, 9.2’ rising, 80kcfs, 34°
Caught: Scott: 2 small saugers, me: 1 small sauger and 2 small walleyes
Generally this is the time of year where I would not be walleye fishing from a boat. Instead I would either be ice fishing or rabbit hunting. Unfortunately with the mild weather pattern we have neither ice for ice fishing nor snow for rabbit hunting. So, I guess by default I went walleye fishing. I cannot remember any winter ever being this mild. When I was a kid I would say I am always ice fishing by Thanksgiving, but here we are just a few days from Christmas and is does not look like there will be fishable ice for at least a week or more!
Today I was more curious than anything to see if I could catch any walleyes. I figured with the high dirty water it would be tough and it was. We tried many areas below the dam with very poor results. I even tried live minnows some of the time with no results. The three fish I caught came off plastics. Generally if a person is able to get out in a boat and walleye fish this time of year the bite is pretty good, but with the high muddy water the bite was almost non existent today.
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
12-19-2015
Dec 19, 2015 11AM-3PM Cottontail rabbit hunting with my dogs Roxy and Zeta
Where: La Farge, WI
Weather: sunny, 28°, ½ inch of fresh snow cover
Bagged: two cottontail rabbits
It was my firs cottontail hunt of the year and Roxy’s first hunt this year period. We had gotten a dusting of snow last night, so my goal was to find a spot with some snow and rabbits. I figured since the north side of La Crosse was the northern most area of the fresh stuff, La Farge was my best bet.
Luckily when I got there the ground looked as if it had been sprinkled with powdered sugar. The conditions were good and so were the dogs. I was particularly impressed with Zeta’s perseverance and ability to figure out a lost track. She is no speed demon, but I don’t care she can sure follow a track! Roxy also did well today, but she is ten now and definitely slowing down. Unfortunately this may be her last year of hunting.
We had three really good runs that resulted in two cottontails. The third cottontail escaped by swimming a thirty-foot river that was both deep and fast.
Where: La Farge, WI
Weather: sunny, 28°, ½ inch of fresh snow cover
Bagged: two cottontail rabbits
It was my firs cottontail hunt of the year and Roxy’s first hunt this year period. We had gotten a dusting of snow last night, so my goal was to find a spot with some snow and rabbits. I figured since the north side of La Crosse was the northern most area of the fresh stuff, La Farge was my best bet.
Luckily when I got there the ground looked as if it had been sprinkled with powdered sugar. The conditions were good and so were the dogs. I was particularly impressed with Zeta’s perseverance and ability to figure out a lost track. She is no speed demon, but I don’t care she can sure follow a track! Roxy also did well today, but she is ten now and definitely slowing down. Unfortunately this may be her last year of hunting.
We had three really good runs that resulted in two cottontails. The third cottontail escaped by swimming a thirty-foot river that was both deep and fast.
12-12-2015
Dec 12, 2015 89M-2AM Scott, Steve Skauf and myself walleye fishing
Where: Pool 7 below the Trempealeau dam
Weather: calm, 32-35°, cloudy with rain after 1:30AM
Water: dirty, rising, 45kcfs, 36°
Caught: Approx. 80-100 walleyes and saugers, Steve kept took home about 3 walleyes and 9 sauger
It was a very good walleye and sauger bite tonight. It took us awhile to get onto the fish, but once we did the action was great and very consistent. The fish were relating to slack water far up by the dam.
I had great success with a BNT Paddle Tail. Scott was using a BNT Pulsar and Steve (Buck) was using a hair jig with a gulp minnow. No live bait was used tonight! We did not catch any giants, but I did catch a 21, 20 and 19-inch walleyes that were all released.
Where: Pool 7 below the Trempealeau dam
Weather: calm, 32-35°, cloudy with rain after 1:30AM
Water: dirty, rising, 45kcfs, 36°
Caught: Approx. 80-100 walleyes and saugers, Steve kept took home about 3 walleyes and 9 sauger
It was a very good walleye and sauger bite tonight. It took us awhile to get onto the fish, but once we did the action was great and very consistent. The fish were relating to slack water far up by the dam.
I had great success with a BNT Paddle Tail. Scott was using a BNT Pulsar and Steve (Buck) was using a hair jig with a gulp minnow. No live bait was used tonight! We did not catch any giants, but I did catch a 21, 20 and 19-inch walleyes that were all released.
12-6-2015
Dec 6, 2015 9AM-4PM Scott and myself walleye fishing
Where: Pool 9 below the Genoa dam
Weather: calm, 42°, cloudy
Water: fairly dirty, rising, 32kcfs, 36°
Caught: Approx. 25 walleyes and saugers, kept 5 saugers
Today I did something I normally do not do, walleye fishing in December. Scott had his boat and was the Captain this day. We tried various late fall and early winter spots up by the dam, but the flow was just too fast for them. We did catch a few fish on the Minnesota side of the river about 300 yards below the dam, but this area was fairly crowded with other anglers.
We moved downstream after about an hour and fished the series of wing dams down by the Y. This is where we caught the majority of the fish. They were not out close to the main channel, but were between the wing dams staying out of the high river flows.
Where: Pool 9 below the Genoa dam
Weather: calm, 42°, cloudy
Water: fairly dirty, rising, 32kcfs, 36°
Caught: Approx. 25 walleyes and saugers, kept 5 saugers
Today I did something I normally do not do, walleye fishing in December. Scott had his boat and was the Captain this day. We tried various late fall and early winter spots up by the dam, but the flow was just too fast for them. We did catch a few fish on the Minnesota side of the river about 300 yards below the dam, but this area was fairly crowded with other anglers.
We moved downstream after about an hour and fished the series of wing dams down by the Y. This is where we caught the majority of the fish. They were not out close to the main channel, but were between the wing dams staying out of the high river flows.
12-1 thru 12-5 2015
12-1 thru 5 -2015 Up to the cabin Muzzleloader hunting and hare hunting with Jake and his friend Cory and Dick and my beagle Zeta.
Weather: The weather was decent, we had about one inch of snow cover and the highs were around 30 degrees
Location: Moose Junction, WI
Bagged: one grouse and two snow shoe hares
It was suppose to be a muzzleloader and hare-hunting trip with Jake, but to my disdain it didn’t turn out that way. It was Jakes idea to come up muzzleloader hunting and hare hunting and I thought that sounded like a good idea. I did have some spare vacation to burn and why not use it on hunting trip. Well when I get there on Tuesday I find out Jake and his buddy Cory are hard- core trapping. With them spending most of their free time trapping it does not leave much if any time for us to muzzle load hunt and hare hunt together. If Dick would not have come up I would not have even gotten a chance to muzzle load hunt.
I did get some grouse and hare hunting in. We all hunted hares on Friday and it did not go too good. Jakes dog Lucky acquired a nose for deer last year and he continued on with the deer chasing this year. In a half-day of hare hunting we had two deer chases and at least one of the chases but probably both could be attributed to Lucky.
I never really blame a dog for bad behavior; it is mostly the owners’ responsibility to correct bad or mis-guided behavior in their dog. I had done some deer breaking on Zeta this fall, but of course Jake had done none with his dog Lucky. I am thinking Jake and I are not too compatible as hunting partners and anyway I usually prefer to do most of my hunting alone.
Weather: The weather was decent, we had about one inch of snow cover and the highs were around 30 degrees
Location: Moose Junction, WI
Bagged: one grouse and two snow shoe hares
It was suppose to be a muzzleloader and hare-hunting trip with Jake, but to my disdain it didn’t turn out that way. It was Jakes idea to come up muzzleloader hunting and hare hunting and I thought that sounded like a good idea. I did have some spare vacation to burn and why not use it on hunting trip. Well when I get there on Tuesday I find out Jake and his buddy Cory are hard- core trapping. With them spending most of their free time trapping it does not leave much if any time for us to muzzle load hunt and hare hunt together. If Dick would not have come up I would not have even gotten a chance to muzzle load hunt.
I did get some grouse and hare hunting in. We all hunted hares on Friday and it did not go too good. Jakes dog Lucky acquired a nose for deer last year and he continued on with the deer chasing this year. In a half-day of hare hunting we had two deer chases and at least one of the chases but probably both could be attributed to Lucky.
I never really blame a dog for bad behavior; it is mostly the owners’ responsibility to correct bad or mis-guided behavior in their dog. I had done some deer breaking on Zeta this fall, but of course Jake had done none with his dog Lucky. I am thinking Jake and I are not too compatible as hunting partners and anyway I usually prefer to do most of my hunting alone.
11-21 thru 11-25 2015
11-21 thru 24 -2015 Gun deer hunting at the cabin with Jake, Mark Sr., Mark Jr., and Cole Tupper and Donny (jakes’ father in law).
Weather: For the first two and a half days we had about an inch of snow and it was pretty cold opening day. Then after Monday night the temperatures were above normal
Location: Moose Junction, WI
Bagged: 11 point 180 pound buck
The weather conditions for the first day of the season were ideal: one inch of snow, calm, sunny and a high of twenty degrees. I sat down by the otter crossing all day on opening day. I saw two groups of antlerless deer before noon. This year was our second year of bucks only on account of the depleted deer population after our nasty winter in 2013, so I was unable to shoot a doe. For lunch I had planned to cook myself some Rome Noodles up in my tree stand; both to pass some time and to get something warm to eat. Well, it did not work out so well. I cold not get the water to boil. I was using a can of Sterno and it kept going out and just was not getting very hot. After about an hour of fooling around trying to get the water to boil I decided the heck with it. I added my noodles and flavor packet to the luke warm water. It was not what I had expected, but it was a little bit of warmth and the somewhat crunchy noodles partially filled my stomach. Both the Tupper kids shot antlerless deer the first morning; it is permitted for kids 16 and under to shoot an antlerless deer.
On Monday we made a couple of drives. The first two were unsuccessful, but on the third my luck changed. I was one of two drivers on the third drive and on our way to start the drive I spotted a very fresh large track in the remnants of what snow we had left. I figured this deer had eluded us on the previous drive and probably was not too far away. Fortunately for me there was just enough snow to follow the tracks, although with some difficulty. Mark Tupper Jr. and I were the drivers, so I sent him ahead and around what I thought would be the travel path of the deer. I was hoping to put him into a position to get a shot at the buck if it was still in the area and tried to escape. With some difficulty I was able to follow the tracks along the edge of a large dried up swamp. After about stealthily following the tracks for about 300 yards I heard the deer get up between myself and Mark and crash through the brush. I sprinted a couple yards out to the edge of the swamp hoping to get a glimpse of the escaping deer. Luckily for me the deer decided to run the open area along the swamp edge. One quick glimpse was all it took for me to identify the whitetail as a very large and mature buck. After three quick shots from My Ambush 300 Blackout AR rifle the buck was down!
It was a very exciting moment for me. My new rifle had performed just as I had hoped it would: a rapid-fire rate with good accuracy. In all honesty I do not know if I would have hit that deer with my old and slower bolt-action rifle. I also credit Mark with helping me get that buck. That deer was only bedded about forty yards from where Mark was standing and I don’t think it would have ran out to the swamp unless Mark was there blocking its other escape route.
Mark Sr. got a spike the following day. Success wise it was a good season, but the cabin was way to crowded and after a couple days I started to get a little frazzled with all the chaos.
Weather: For the first two and a half days we had about an inch of snow and it was pretty cold opening day. Then after Monday night the temperatures were above normal
Location: Moose Junction, WI
Bagged: 11 point 180 pound buck
The weather conditions for the first day of the season were ideal: one inch of snow, calm, sunny and a high of twenty degrees. I sat down by the otter crossing all day on opening day. I saw two groups of antlerless deer before noon. This year was our second year of bucks only on account of the depleted deer population after our nasty winter in 2013, so I was unable to shoot a doe. For lunch I had planned to cook myself some Rome Noodles up in my tree stand; both to pass some time and to get something warm to eat. Well, it did not work out so well. I cold not get the water to boil. I was using a can of Sterno and it kept going out and just was not getting very hot. After about an hour of fooling around trying to get the water to boil I decided the heck with it. I added my noodles and flavor packet to the luke warm water. It was not what I had expected, but it was a little bit of warmth and the somewhat crunchy noodles partially filled my stomach. Both the Tupper kids shot antlerless deer the first morning; it is permitted for kids 16 and under to shoot an antlerless deer.
On Monday we made a couple of drives. The first two were unsuccessful, but on the third my luck changed. I was one of two drivers on the third drive and on our way to start the drive I spotted a very fresh large track in the remnants of what snow we had left. I figured this deer had eluded us on the previous drive and probably was not too far away. Fortunately for me there was just enough snow to follow the tracks, although with some difficulty. Mark Tupper Jr. and I were the drivers, so I sent him ahead and around what I thought would be the travel path of the deer. I was hoping to put him into a position to get a shot at the buck if it was still in the area and tried to escape. With some difficulty I was able to follow the tracks along the edge of a large dried up swamp. After about stealthily following the tracks for about 300 yards I heard the deer get up between myself and Mark and crash through the brush. I sprinted a couple yards out to the edge of the swamp hoping to get a glimpse of the escaping deer. Luckily for me the deer decided to run the open area along the swamp edge. One quick glimpse was all it took for me to identify the whitetail as a very large and mature buck. After three quick shots from My Ambush 300 Blackout AR rifle the buck was down!
It was a very exciting moment for me. My new rifle had performed just as I had hoped it would: a rapid-fire rate with good accuracy. In all honesty I do not know if I would have hit that deer with my old and slower bolt-action rifle. I also credit Mark with helping me get that buck. That deer was only bedded about forty yards from where Mark was standing and I don’t think it would have ran out to the swamp unless Mark was there blocking its other escape route.
Mark Sr. got a spike the following day. Success wise it was a good season, but the cabin was way to crowded and after a couple days I started to get a little frazzled with all the chaos.
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