4th time to the big pond

 Finally had a buddy break away from the family for a fun filled day of fishing, and we filled all day with fishing. 

We got to Michigan City right on time and started setting up the boat, we got the lines in around 7ish? We didn't get a bump until 10? by the time the fury was over we had 4 fish in the boat. It was all I could do to grab a rod, hand it to Josh and have the net cleared before I had to land another one. After the may-lay we had all but 2 rods laying in the boat with line lures and fish everywhere.

It was pretty hectic and a total stroke of luck because of those 5-10 minutes we were almost halfway to limits. As you can imagine it slowed way down after that and we called it with enough hours in the day to get us home about sunset. All in all it was a really fun, really nice day to be on the water.

No, no limits but I gave all but one of the smaller coho Josh to take home, my freezer is full of salmon.

Hopefully next week I'll be able to get on Erie. 👍

Back up to the Big Pond this week.

 Got to the launch around sunrise, got the boat ready and launched on the way East. I trolled for only about 4 hours before I hit limit around noonish. I only missed 3 or 4 which is pretty good. I don't like letting any get away but that's fishing. The bait balls this trip were crazy, I haven't seen bait like this in years.

This guy shot up from the depths, checked out my offering..... and disappeared.

Let me know if you don't get this

 Well last week ended my Indiana turkey season, I say Indiana because I got a buddy in Wisconsin that has property and I'm thinking bout going up there for a week, and he found me another boat, Long story.

Anyway on with this week, just worked around the house and went mushroom hunting with a buddy from work. We found quite a few and had a great time, here's the pic.

It's better than I usually do but we hit all HIS spots and he's a serious mushroom hunter. Well, with the weather looking favorable next week I will either be fishing on Erie or headed to Wisconsin for more turkey. Not sure yet but either way looks like fun.
 Just be sure to let me know if you don't get this... thanks.

It took 6

 Today was the 6th day that I made the no-show draw drawing. That in and of itself is a feat, I never would've guessed that I could make all my no-show draws. The weather has been crappy rainy all week until yesterday when with a small glimmer of a nice day had the birds finally start talking. I heard no less than 5 different gobbles in the morning. Once they flew down they all dispersed to different areas of the section.... none tword me. 

Once I knew their game plan all I had to do was get in their way, and call them in. That was the easy part, first I had to get drawn again, then had to get to my spot and be the only one there. Well I was able to get drawn much to my surprise, now all I had to do was go to my spot and ... crap there's a car there. So I reverted to my backup plan. This section has 2 parking spots and is big enough for 2 people, I just won't be able to get in front of the birds if they do the same thing as yesterday. 

Knowing that I grabbed my gear and headed to the same spot I was in yesterday hoping to coax a bird my direction. Of the 7 different gobbles I heard the only one I had a shot with had a hen with him. When I called back to her she got scared slapped him across the face for gobbling at me and promptly lead him the other direction. 

So, that was my morning, once all the hoopla was over around 7am I decided I would stay put until 9:30 before I changed locations and went after a double dinger I saw yesterday when I was on the way home. When 9:30 rolled around I started picking up my gear and decoys and started the walk to the car. The whole way I make sure and check down every field and path for turkey's. I was about 100yards from the car when I saw some turkeys 50 yards down a path, with the sun to my back and a small bush between myself and them I looked through my monocular to see if they had seen me. When I was relatively sure they hadn't, I started backtracking looking for a decent tree to lean against.

I saw the turkeys at the star.

 When I was set I gave a couple soft yelps and moved the leaves to imitate turkey's scratching. Not knowing if they were coming was the worst part but it only took them 10 minutes or so to make it to the path. When they hit the edge of the path let me tell you they were looking for the hen. I was looking for a beard before I busted one. The grass was so long I couldn't get a good look to see if they were Jake's or Tom's so I waited. As I was watching the first one I saw the second and then a third and there might have even been a fourth.. Beard beard on the first bird... head up.... shoot... dead bird, 410 at 32 yards.

Even though he is a 2 year old he was kinda of a small bird at 18 pounds with 1" spurs and only an 8 1/2" beard.

Aghh he'll eat good.