When big-water salmon disappear

These two anglers with a big salmon catch. A great fishing day!
photo courtesy Dave Richey Outdoors ©2012

These two anglers with a big salmon catch. A great fishing day!

It seems to happen almost every summer. There comes a period of a week or so when the salmon fishing slows down or seems to stop altogether.

Who knows why it happens. That part is not as important as knowing that it will occur. The major question is when it will happen. Salmon fishing has been hot up and down Lake Michigan.

Obviously, on any given day, a person or boat filled with people can get skunked or have a very poor showing. That part never bothers me now because fishing is just one more of many reasons to get outdoors and breathe some fresh air.

If the fish bite, that’s great. If they don’t, there will be no sad looks on my face. It is what it is, and we may not have any control over these things. Let’s not whine about it.

Forget about it, already!

However, I look at such days as an opportunity knocking on my door. It’s a day that suddenly is freed up. It allows us to change our plans.

Perhaps, weather permitting, we can arrange a fishing trip on an inland lake or stream. There are countless lakes in the Traverse City area where I can go to fish for bass, bluegills, crappies, northern pike, sunfish, trout or walleyes … just to name a few game fish species.

So what if these fish may not be as big as a lake trout or salmon? It doesn’t make any difference as long as I can find something out there that will pull my string, and make my heart do a flip-flop or two.

Mind you, years ago I would have been devastated by not catching some great huge salmon. The froth would be running from my mouth like saliva from a rabid skunk.

I’d kick the tackle box two or three times just for good measure. The problem is that outdoor writers need action and photos to produce magazine stories. No photos, no story, and no money. It’s that simple.

No unemployment for me. I could work my butt off, but hard work was no guarantee the weather would cooperate or the fish would bite or deer would move. Go for a week or two with no money coming in, and it’s enough to make a gent like me a bit testy.  I lived this life style for many years before taking a steady paying newspaper job.

Well, guess what; I’m retired now

I have been for more than nine years, and my fishing attitude has changed. There are no hard and fast rules. If I don’t get tonight’s blog done tonight, I’ll do it tomorrow and back-date it.

There was other work to be done. I was putzing around with an old Shakespeare bait-casting reel and took it in to get it  to get repaired. It needed a new handle, and the repair guy had one. Quick-like, it was done!

There is more stuff around my house that needs attention, and it’s time to find a home for some of it. I joined the Outdoor Writers Association of America in 1968, and they began sending me monthly newsletters. The paper edition continued until two years ago when OWAA went digital, and she has 34 years of the bulletin. Multiply both numbers by 12, and it amounts to lots of paper and the loss of more than a few trees.

I’ve still got them but need some room so two large plastic tubs were bought and it took both of them to handle the load. Now, they are so heavy I must partially empty them to move them into a storage unit. That would be almost a one-day operation, and my back is sore from tugging the heavy tubs around.

Someone with more time on his hands once came up with the saying: If life deals you lemons, make lemonade. There’s some sort of logic there.

To paraphrase that: If life robs you of a fishing day, find something else to do. Clean a reel, sharpen hooks until your eyes cross, put new line on reels that need it changed, and try to clean up things.

I may be insulting it by calling it a work-bench

I have what some might call a work-bench. That gives me too much credit for working or for needing a bench to work at. However, I start looking for something that often is on my work-bench, and in the process of looking, other things get placed there.

Eventually, it would take a small back-hoe to move stuff off my work-bench. So, when the opportunity presents itself with bad fishing or hunting days, I clean it off and put most of the stuff where it belongs.

Sadly, I think my home is infested with gremlins with nothing better to do than make a mess of all of my old fishing and hunting gear. I put lures back into the proper tackle boxes, strip old line off reels, and prepare them to have line added some other day.

Can’t do all of this at one time. Do that too often, and the meaning of having stuff to clean up and put away will be lost. We must be orderly, and remember what my first-grade teacher tried to pound into the minds of his six-year old students.

“There is a place for everything,” he lectured, “ and everything should be in its place.” Kind of sweeps over you, doesn’t it?

It didn’t make much sense back then, and still doesn’t. Being a pack rat means I enjoy a certain amount of clutter. It gives me something to do on rainy or windy days, and this should be things that are far more important that putting up screens or storm windows.

A wise man knows where his priorities lie.

Tags: Dave Richey, Michigan, outdoors, big-water, fishing, clean, gear, location, salmon, fish, success, skunked, Lake Michigan, away

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Clean up television shows & videos

Tony Knight with a bear shot on Vancouver Island with TV host Jim Shockey.

I'm not a big television fan, and would rather read a book than watch dumb television shows. Many people apparently agree with this philosophy.

OK, folks, want an example. Most television hunting shows focus on turkeys or whitetails. Most of the show hosts are from down south. Now, I mean no disrespect to any one, but I'm tired of hearing deer antlers being called "horns." Call ‘em what they are, not what they aren’t.

Deer do not have  horns. They have antlers. Bison, goats, muskoxen and sheep around the world have horns. Horns on big-game animals continue to grow while antlers are shed every year. I even hear a few people from Michigan call a deer's rack "horns." Guess again, fella, and try to get the show terminology correct. It will give you and your television show a lot more credibility, at least North of the Mason-Dixon Line.

This is just one of the things that trouble me.

On occasion, and I mean that both figuratively and literally, I'll watch a television hunting show. I shy away from some because I have a major problem viewing many bloody, brain-dead, poorly-thought-out shows. I hate watching shows with the host walking around in his underwear. Not only is it stupid, but it’s rude to the viewing audience, regardless of age or gender.

Many hunts are filmed on a game ranch. I don't care if the deer they shoot are raised behind a fence as long as the host informs the viewing audience. Too many people view these shows, and consider the host a superb one-of-a-kind hunter. How many hunters do you personally know who kill a big buck every week and everywhere they go?

Some of these folks probably are excellent hunters, and great shots, and some may not be but the viewer is left out of touch with what is real and what is not. Most people think if they see it on television, this is reality. Guess again.

I won't name names, and I'm not out to bad-mouth anyone. But I see things on some shows that fly in the face of what I consider good form and good hunting ethics. Some set poor examples for their viewers. Some hunting shows are good, show vivid detail, and they are watching masters of the hunting art in action. Jim Shockey, who I’ve hunted with, falls in this category. He is the real deal.

Here is an example. A guy was sitting 25-30 feet up a tree, and along comes a buck walking directly at him. The bow comes back to full draw, the deer catches the movement and stops to look up, and our hero shoots the animal in front of the front shoulder near the brisket.

The deer was shot in full daylight, and suddenly it has turned extremely dark, and they find the deer pm;u 75 yards away after a perfect shot, or so they say. Does this mean that taking whatever shot the deer offers will make the viewer a better hunter? Not hardly, because they may assume that this was a good shot when in fact it was a horrible shot placement.

There are two high-percentage shots that hunters should take: broadside and quartering-away, and the latter is the best. The showing of this deer being shot in front of the front shoulder, coupled with the fact that it had apparently taken hours and perhaps more than one day to find the animal, is never explained. Again, a poor example is set for novice hunters. Sportsmen who know better won't watch these shows more than once because they have a great deal of respect for the game they hunt and shoot.

The hunt for most longtime sportsmen is much more important than the kill.

Another show I recently watched saw an arrow hit a deer in the front shoulder blade. There was hardly any penetration, and the animal ran off with the arrow dangling down. They later found a deer, and it shows the animal with a round hole behind the front shoulder. It appeared to be a different deer, one that may have been shot with a rifle to provide a dead animal for the show. Folks, you were suckered on that one.

Right, wrong, I'm not the hunting-show police. It's not up to me to act as an unpaid overseer of how they produce their shows. I made a vow to my readers many years ago that I wouldn't fib, lie, prevaricate or tell something which was not true. For 44 years I've kept that promise, and I’m very proud of the fact.

I write books, magazine articles, newspaper articles and columns, and now write for my personal daily website. I write a daily blog, and one must have countless experiences to continue to write a story every day, but what I write is what I've done. There's no need for exaggeration. I've hunted on a professional level for most of my life, and I want my professsional image to be squeaky clean.

Granted, this is just a personal observation about some television hunting shows. Each person has his or her own sense of personal ethics, but when I see someone shoot a buck in the shoulder, and when they "recover" the deer and it looks different, I have a problem accepting such things. It's just flat wrong! I just saw one show where a bear was shot in the water. That's not legal in the any of the places I hunt.

Image is all-important for television hosts or writers. Project a good one.

Many years ago, a hunter who had numerous whitetail bucks in the  record books (before they were disqualified) got into making videos. I bumped into him on a hunt, and he wanted me to watch his latest video.

I almost walked out before the video ended. He was proud of the live "kill" and "pass-through" shots. In one scene he shot a buck, it ran off, stumbled and fell in a tiny stream. The camera zeroed in on the downed buck, blood spurting into the air and turning the creek water red, and he asked what I thought of his latest masterpiece.

"That is the most disgusting video I've ever seen!" I said. "It makes me want to puke. How many "pass-through" shots are needed? I believe your sales will fall if you leave the buck-in-the-creek and spurting blood in that video. We all know an arrow-shot deer bleeds and dies, but is it necessary to video such a scene? It would be like videotaping one of your children or a parent dying. Some women will ask their husband not to view it when the children are around. Some women will just make the video disappear."

He left in the spurting blood portion of the buck kicking and thrashing in the creek, and the video didn't sell well. Then, other video producers started an attempt to clean up some of the gorier hunting videos.

He didn't speak to me again for several years, but later admitted that he and the video producer made an error in judgement. I am not the guy to say such things mustn't be shown. I'm just a guy who feels that some things don't deserve to be shown in all their blood-and-guts glory.

Some things are better left alone. The outdoor magazines long ago avoided bloody abdomens, blood around the nose and mouth, tongues sticking out and most outdoor writers take time to clean up the animal and stick its tongue back in before shooting photos. A live deer is majestic to look at but a dead deer just looks dead, even if it has been cleaned up. You can put lipstick on a pig to make it look better, but in the end, it is still a pig that has been tramped up a bit.

Sorry to natter on so long on such tasteless topics. I just saw one of the shows a few days ago, and felt I had to write about it. Journalists should report only that which is honest and true, and if it doesn't cause other people to get wild-eyed with horror when they see it.

Frankly, I'm tired of the fist pumps, the knuckle bumps, the thumb-grip handshakes, and the phoniness of some of these shows. The laughing and giggling when something dies leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.

Class will carry a television hunting show. A few television shows have class and many do not. It's my choice to choose which few outdoor shows I watch, and we never linger on the bad ones.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

10/29/09_droblog_Wounded Deer Do Not Always Die

Many years ago I was hunting a local area, and I kept seeing a really nice buck. I had a strong feeling that something was wrong with the animal but had no visible clues.

I glassed it with binoculars and even a spotting scope, studied it from all angles, and didn't want to waste my tag on it if the buck had been wounded. There was no noticeable limp, no legs dragging, and no apparent sign the buck was hurt in any way.

Still, a niggling thought kept coming back to me: this buck is hurt. Should I shoot it?

A tough question to answer

There were too many questions and no logical answers. The next day I sat in a tree stand overlooking a nearby trail. I'd seen the buck travel both ways on this trail, and the only thing that I hung my suspicions on, was the fact that this buck seemed to move too slowly to be in good health.

I'd been in my tree stand for an hour when I saw him walk out of a marsh. Tall marsh grass covered  most of his body but beautiful points stood high above his head. He moved very slowly, and didn't appear to favor either leg, but the more I watched him, they greater my feelings that this buck was in pain. The noticeable hump on the right front shoulder was difficult to see back inn heavy cover.

He approached my stand, and the wind was in my favor. He hung back, and two or three does and fawns, squirted past my stand, and he stood motionless for 10 minutes. The other deer were out of sight when he decided to step out into the open.

Each step was slow and methodical, a study in caution. He stayed screened by brush for long minutes as he took a step or two, stopped and studied the terrain all around him. He acted as if he had been shot at before by a bow hunter, and wasn't taking any chances of it happening again.

Apparently satisfied, he took two or three more steps, and exposed his vitals to a broadside shot. I waited, and he turned his head in the direction that the does and fawns had traveled, and I eased back to full draw and made a smooth release.

Taking the shot

The Carbon Express arrow sliced in low behind his front shoulder, hitting the heart and lungs, and his back legs kicked backward as it appeared to hump up slightly, and off he ran out of sight. I heard the buck go down, and it was a simple trailing job. I followed the Game Tracker line, and found the buck dead 70 yards away.

I field dressed the animal, and the meat near his shoulder was green. I kept skinning him out on that side, and the more hide I removed, the more green tissue I found.

This deer had gangrene all through its body, and even though there was no reason to suspect it was ill, a further autopsy proved the cause. The buck had been hit high in the shoulder, and the three-blade replaceable-blade broadhead had broken apart on impact.

The hunter who had originally shot the buck had been hunting from a tree stand, and the broadhead had penetrated until the replaceable blades impacted on the top of the shoulder blade. I kept skinning, and eventually found the tip and three bladess buried under the hide.

Gangrene had set in

The buck had been hit several days before, and it was in a spot where the animal couldn't lick the wound, and it just kept getting sicker by the day. The hunter couldn't recover the buck because the arrow wound wasn't that bad, but as time went on, a major infection set in.

This buck walked normally, didn't favor the leg on that side, and it wasn't the broadhead that would have eventually killed that buck if I hadn't shot it, but it was slowly dying from a nasty infection.

The buck was useless to me or anyone else, and I informed the DNR about the animal, and they said to leave it to the coyotes. I took photos of the broken broadhead, and two days later the coyotes had reduced the carcass to bones and hair and saved that animal from being eaten alive.

A deer, hit in a non-vital area that it can lick and keep clean, will almost always survive. It's such animals as this that become almost impossible to hunt. I've killed many deer that have been wounded by other people, and in many cases the deer would have survived.

A wounded deer doesn't always die. In fact, studies have shown that if blood loss is kept to a minimum, and no internal organs or major blood vessels are cut, the chances of a successful recovery are good. However, minor flesh wounds will heal quickly and often within a week or less, the animal will be up and moving around.

Know this, though A deer that recovers from an arrow wound is one savvy animal. Shooting and killing that deer can be a supreme hunting challenges of all.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors