Some of you are lucky.....

 Yesterday I was made aware that my blog has been sending out random posts, 👍 I have not been doing this. I'm not sure why or how but apparently there is a glitch in the Matrix. If you have been getting these ghost posts.... enjoy. I will not be posting for a while but when I do start again it should be a good one.

Take care lots a love 

Another good week

 Monday I sent out the invitations for a fun filled day on Lake Michigan. I had no response until 4:00 pm when a buddy from work texted me wanting to know what time we are leaving. Game on, so I went out to the garage and put some more rods in the boat and prepared for the fish fest that was to come. We got to the lake in the wee am hours, the sun was just rising as we put our eyes on the water. The weatherman was wrong again it was suppose to be a North wind @ 4mph, what we got was a NNE wind @ 15mph. The rollers were already building but there were few caps. I hymned and hawed and figured out a plan of action after a quick team meeting we made the decision to give'er a go. 

We put the boat in and motored out to the gap in the break wall. With the wind and waves coming in from the NNE we decided to roll down to the state line to the East and set up there and troll back. If we only got one shot at catching we would have an hour or so troll back to try and put a couple in the box. The ride out kinda sucked but the troll back was pretty comfortable, the only bad thing was my spot from last week produced 0 fish. Since the invited "deckhand" was also out last week, I set this troll up so his spot was at the end of our troll. He fine tuned me for the proper path and we were back in the game, the really nice thing was the wind and waves seemed to be laying down.

Fish... is what I thought when the first flatline snapped back, I grabbed the rod took up the slack and handed it off to Ronnie. He was busy complaining about how the rods were so short and he really had to work to get the fish in. I told him he'll just have to learn to properly fight the fish, in due time he had a nice coho at the back of the boat ready for the net. I of course did an outstanding net job and we boxed our first fish. The second came alot quicker and larger than the first, he also hit a rigger set at 37 with an orange baby spin doctor with a green/blue fly. He was a really nice fish and also was the biggest of the trip. Anyway after a couple more hours of catching we started to have a strategic divide in where we should troll next. Ronnie wanted to keep running a doughnut in the path that we had already caught fish. That meant trolling against the waves and wind which is NO fun for me. I wanted to troll down the beach to the West with the wind and waves which was actually really comfortable so... fish on. 

Here's where the mutiny started as I was on my turn fighting my fish I began to notice the boat turning in a way that the boat didn't need to turn. As the fish was getting closer to the boat I asked Ronnie if he was turning us, all he did was laugh and said, "yeah". By the time we got that fish in, he had the boat turned to the East and we were heading into the waves. Since we only need about another limit I shook my head and kept on the current track. I hate so say it but that was the correct choice, because the fishing really lit up. For the next hour there was nothing but tangled lines, rods on the deck, nets with fish or lures in them and there was blood everywhere. It was a glorious ending to what turned out to be a really good day. What started out rough, calmed a little and let us fish, and when they decided to eat we were there to capitalize on it. 

The company was good, and the fish fought hard this was a really a good day.

This will probably be my last post until I get back from vacation in June. But don't worry if your jonesing for a good read just look back into the archives and pick something you haven't seen yet. That should hold you over until I get back.

Until then take care and be safe.

Busy week

 Monday was the only day I didn't have any type of an appointment. So I did my shopping and then.... nothing really, just relaxed. I'm kinda regretting that now, I should've mowed or something but I was just lazy all day. Tuesday I had a doctor appointment in Auburn and that didn't take too long. After that one of my buddies (mushroom guru) from work and I went mushroom hunting. Even thought we were pretty quiet, trying not to scare the mushrooms. We only found about a dozen or so which was OK with me, just enough for a meal or two. I plan on firing up the oil today and frying the mushrooms and chunk up a turkey breast I took out.

Wednesday I had an appointment with the furnace guy.... with the stable weather we have been forecast I had to reschedule that appointment. 

Time to hit the big pond and bring home some salmon. But before I even left the house I had to charge the truck battery. I went to start the truck and it was dead, I just bought that battery last year, gotta get that checked. I fished for a couple hours before I got the program down.... green.... that's what they wanted. Usually Coho are notorious orange eaters but yesterday they wanted green. 

 After I landed my first Coho it took a while before I had my second, and then something I always feared happened.

While I was fighting the second Coho I almost had it in the net and my downrigger rod fired. I got the fish in the net and grabbed my rigger rod, that fish got off. I set my rigger rod back and was tending to my first rod and fish when my other flat line rod fired. By the time I got to it I fought the fish for a couple seconds and he got off. Finally got both flat line rods set and the rigger fired again, another fish missed. That was 4 fish in a matter of minutes and I only landed one. That would've been the end of my day.... luckily I was able to spend a couple more hours to fill out my limit.

 All in all it was a super first outing on Lake Michigan... by the time I got home the house was 83 and I only had an hour or so to cool it down while I was cooking a fillet.

Steamy sweaty house, no A/C, late day and meal, battery worries.....

Totally worth it.....

The post that saved my blog....

 After a whole month of rain, wind, clouds, no fish and just bad luck in general I finally made something happen.

Monday I awoke with dreams of turkeys racing through my head. I had some coffee and headed over to get in on the no show draw on Mongo (public prop) it's only a 17 minute ride from the house. On the way I drew out my game plan in my head.

 

First I would owl hoot 2 spots on the way to the sign in, just in case I did get drawn.

Second if I didn't get drawn I would head to the house, owl hooting at a very small public spot on the way.

Third if nothing gobbles at the 2nd spot I would go home and head to the magic 5 acres after 10am or so. I've learned that spot is one that comes alive later in the day since no birds roost there in the spring.

On the way to sign in I hooted up 3 birds so if I get drawn I felt confident I would have a spot to go to. Well, when it was time to do the no show draw it turns out there was 22 dudes and a chic vying for 9 no show spots.

 

I didn't get drawn, as soon as I realized my number didn't get drawn I headed out the door and flew to #2 in the plan.

It was getting kinda late in the day the sun wasn't to far from rising and I had my doubts but I forced myself to stop and give'er a try. When I hooted I had 2 birds fire off, one 400 yards away give or take and one a couple hundred yards across the road. When I hooted again I had 4 birds fire off, the birds I was interested in were the 400 yard bird to the south and one 300 yards to the west. Well, that settles it I ran the car down the road, grabbed my gear and made the half mile hike down the road to the spot I was going to cut into the woods. 

I made my way back to a spot I sat at last week and started getting set up, when the south bird gobbled on his own. When I finished getting everything ready this bird had gobbled at least 15 times. I started with some yelps and cuts just to let him know there's a new lady in town. He hit the ground around 6:20 and kept gobbling so I got a little more aggressive with my calling hoping to turn him and bring him my way.

An hour went by and he had cut the distance from the 400 where he started to under a hundred and just over the little hill I was hunting behind. The whole time I was calling him in I kept thinking,"this is going to happen". I couldn't see him yet but I sure could hear him, when he was gobbling that close it felt like he was in my lap. As I was calling to him and straining to see over the hill I was looking at my decoys when "it" happened, my feeder hen just fell over and was laying on her side on the trail. It was now I started hearing some putts from a hen, also over the hill, so there was no way for me to get up and fix the decoy. All I could do was hope that decoy on it's side didn't screw up this hunt. This was the first time I thought,"dammit" she could see the decoy and bounce or she could drag him off. Either way she could be gone and he would follow, so I started calling to her to keep her calm and have her drag him into the set. Well, it worked she calmed down and it wasn't too long after I heard her she popped her head up over the hill and started making her way down the deer trail I had the decoys set up on.

This was the first time I saw the Tom in full strut just over the rise I only saw him for a couple seconds but man was he stunning. While she decided to make her way into the decoys he finally popped out into a little shooting lane that I had cleared previously. As soon as he came out of strut and picked his head up to look around I put the red dot on his head and squeezed the trigger. 

He dropped out of sight, I scrambled to my feet and ran over to him while reloading just in case. 

Turns out I didn't need the second shot.

410 @ 35 yards 25# birds with 10 1/2" beard and 1 1/4" spurs

Next week I have appts all but Monday so I'm hoping to be on some big water somewhere Monday. Then I'll only have 2 more weeks before vacation, which I am in desperate need of.