The corn is shoulder high, farmers are harvesting their wheat crop already, tomorrow it is supposed to be ninety degrees, and yet all I can think about is fall.

It’s always interesting to see what triggers the senses and summons that primal hunting urge within.  The corn stalks glistening in the morning sun caught my eye this morning, as well as the morning sun’s reflection on the tractor as it slowly made its way through the field, cutting this year’s wheat harvest.

I immediately began to drift away for a moment – the car on autopilot – and thought about the number of deer that could be using that corn as safe harbor.   I thought about how it would look as the majestic buck stepped out of the field edge and into the newly cut wheat field, his antlers glistening against the morning sun. For a split second, I could feel the crisp, fall air pressing against my face; the warmth of the sun as it rose to start the new day; the call of the geese as they moved overhead in their yearly migration; a pheasant cackling from its grassy home; a crane breaking the morning silence; the snap of a twig signaling an animal’s approach; and the smell of fall wetting the hunting instincts within.

I was in a hunter’s heaven.

Then, unfortunately, reality settled back in and I began to focus again on the road visible through the windshield, and realized that hunting would have to wait.

While I love fishing, and don’t mind the summer whatsoever, there is still something very different about hunting season, especially when it’s in the fall.

Nature will always call me to fish, to camp, and to play outside with little Abby.  But hunting stirs something deep within.  It’s different – and it beckons me, even on these hot, humid, dog days of summer.

It’s primal.

It’s perfect.

And, though hunting is only around for a few months out of the year, it lives with us always.  It’s part of who we are, no matter what time of the year it is.

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After stumbling across this picture, I’m starting to get a little concerned.  I know that bears inhabit many of the woods around us, and while their population may be small in my area of Michigan, if they are starting to get this smart I might need to be careful when scouting, hunting, or simply heading to my treestand.

And, Mike, my fellow Michigan hunting blog friend and bear hunter, you and your brothers might want to look out; it appears that the bears are learning!:):)

If you want to see another pic of this bear in a treestand, head on over to Tom Remington’s Black Bear Blog, and read this post.  Too crazy!

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New fishing spots are always difficult to fish, and Houghton Lake was no exception.  Okay, so maybe this was the second time we had fished this particular lake, but, considering the first time only lasted about an hour, and since ice fishing the lake back in February doesn’t count, this still felt like fishing the lake for the first time; it was difficult to say the least.

Early on the fishing was very slow, and picking our way through the multitude of “fishing spots” was a task in itself.  Houghton is approximately 7 ½ miles long and 4 ½ miles wide, so trying to find the “spot” on this gargantuan of a lake was a crap shoot at best – even my pre-fish “scouting” didn’t seem to help.  And with the beautiful sunset that greeted us that morning a thing of the past, frustration was starting to set in.

Houghton is very shallow and has the grand daddy of all weed beds.  I seriously don’t think I’ve ever seen a weed bed that dense, that thick, that shallow, or that big; it was quite a monstrosity and definitely threw all of us for a loop.   We tried our luck at fishing the drop-offs on the edge of it, but after they only produced one small pike and one huge lost fish, which we can only dream as to how big it really was, we were seriously thinking of throwing in the towel.

Thankfully we all have cell phones.

After 3 hours of slow, slow, slow fishing, Jeff finally dialed us up on the cell phone and let us in on a little secret he had found.  Apparently, after talking with a local old timer who was fishing on the lake, Jeff, along with his son, Tyler, had found a honey hole for walleye.  And, though it was another family fishing tournament, Jeff was still nice enough to share this information and let us in on the secret.

We sped across the choppy water – I’m still sore from a couple of the “bumps” we hit – and headed for the walleye Holy Grail.  Though Jeff and Tyler were using soft tail jigs, I dug through the tackle box and located the rig I sought:  one of the walleye rigs that we used when we were fishing on Lake Erie.  Now, normally, these rigs call for a real night crawler, but not having any of those in the boat, it was time to get crafty – and that is when I remembered that I had some Gulp brand night crawlers in the tackle box, and it was about time they actually caught something.

With the boat positioned parallel to the “run” we wanted to fish, I dropped the rig over the side of the boat, letting it hit bottom before jigging it up and down in the hopes of a strike; it didn’t take two casts before I had a decent little walleye on board; my first fish of the day.  Sweet!  If at first you don’t succeed, keep trying.

The rest of our first drift produced a fish for my cousin, Randy, but didn’t produce anymore fish for me.  After motoring back to the top of the drift, though, I meticulously jigged the rod up and down – slowly and easily – in the hopes of putting the first keeper of the day in the boat and increasing our odds of winning this “tournament”.

Finally, I felt a nice little tug on the line and set the hook.  It was quite a fight, because, not only did I have to fight the fish and the weeds, but I also had to fight the quick drift of the boat – the winds were horrible out on the water.  After a couple minutes of battle, I brought the 15 ½ inch walleye onto the boat – and, since there was only about 20 minutes left in the tournament, I figured this fish was the one that would take home the prize.

But, I forgot I was fishing against Jeff.

Right on cue, and not 5 minutes after landing my fish, I happen to glance over and notice Jeff’s rod bending like crazy.  I started to wish that he only had weeds, but after watching the 17 ½ inch, 2 ½lb largemouth make it to the net, I knew our chances of victory were over.  Obviously, Jeff was going to take home the money.

The trip was worth every penny we had to pay, though.  For one, it proved that you can teach an old dog new tricks – I caught my first walleye actually using a rig and method that is meant to do so, and Jeff caught his first walleye; it only took him 38 years to do it!

It was a great time after a work-filled week.  And, though I lost another tournament to the fish whisperer himself, I still have another walleye fillet to add to the grill.

Yum!

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I was sifting through our local fishing regulations the other night, hunting for a particular piece of information about bowfishing, and getting more irritated by the minute.  I’m not sure who designs the local fishing/hunting guides, but sometimes I feel as though you need a law degree in order to actually understand the laws and rules these guides contain (and that is if you can find what you’re looking for – but that’s for another post).  Thankfully, I enjoy bowfishing, and have already experienced it, so the time spent hunting and pecking for the particular law I was looking for was worth the effort.

But like a noose around a new hunter or fishermen’s neck, I fear all the laws and regulations contained within these guides have the potential to hinder a person’s willingness to start hunting and/or fishing.  Considering these new recruits already have a myriad of things to remember – when to shoot, what to shoot, what to wear, what bait to use, where to fish, etc. – expecting them to be able to pick through a bucket full of regulations and requirements certainly could be viewed as a very daunting task, and could send a possible new hunter/fisherman back from where he came from in a hurry.

Also, some of these laws not only have the potential to send a new recruit packing, but they also have the potential to send an established hunter searching for another activity as well.  With so many laws and regulations to remember, it doesn’t take much for a law-abiding person to overlook a minor infraction (don’t even get me started about Michigan’s law that you have to have your bow in a case), and get hit with a hefty fine or worse.

I’m a law-abiding kind of guy, and I will never purposely break any law (okay, maybe I speed), but I will definitely vocalize my opinion when I come across what I believe to be bogus law (did I mention that you have to have your bow in a case, yet?).  However, I do believe some laws and regulations are needed in order to protect our natural resources, and in order to help protect the actual animals we seek.  But more often than not these particular laws are put on the books because of an isolated incident involving a small subset of the hunting population – punishing the many, because of the few.   Or worse, these laws are put on the books because of pressure from many environmental and anti-hunting groups who are helping their agenda – eliminating hunting and fishing – by pressuring their local legislator to pass “common sense” regulations.

Hunting and fishing regulations have completely gotten out of control, and it doesn’t take much to find a law that simply doesn’t make sense – the Sunday hunting ban in many states, for instance.  With laws such as these on the books, and with these types of regulations getting more and more complicated, I fear many people will step away from the bureaucratic mess that is the majority of hunting/fishing regulations, and not even try to decipher them whatsoever.

In the last few years, there has been a steady decline in the number of people who hunt and fish, and all of us do what we can to get young people involved in the outdoors.  But, as important as that particular task is, I believe that the sheer  number and complexity of today’s hunting and fishing regulations are just as much a threat to our chosen lifestyles as video games and laziness.

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Between my actual job, and a home project we’ve been working on, I feel like there isn’t much time to do anything – especially write a well thought-out blog post.

In the meantime, I hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend, because we all deserve to celebrate our nation’s independence to the fullest.  I have a four day weekend, and to say I’m looking forward to it would be an understatement.  And, yes, we will be participating in some outdoor activities.

After a fun-filled weekend of activities, and considering our home project should be done this evening, I hope to be able to write a few more posts next week.

Until then…..

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