An Outdoorsman’s Journal – 9-25-2013

An Outdoorsman’s Journal – 9-25-2013

by Mark Walters

South Dakota/The Perfect Trip

Hello friends,

Some of my outdoor adventures go really well and some do not. This past week, I headed out to the Glacial Lakes area of northeast South Dakota for three days of really good fishing.

Thursday, September 12th
High 71, low 52

Here is the scoop, my buddies Paul Bucher and Tony Ficoccelo, who are both from the Cumberland area, and I are being set up by Paul’s good buddy Jason Viessman.

Jason used to live in Rice Lake and is a good friend of Paul’s. Luckily for all of us Jason moved out to Watertown, South Dakota to work in the family trucking business.

I fished on Mille lacs with Viessman several years ago and the guy likes to have fun and from the get go, told me that we would wrestle on this trip. The boy has 70-pounds on me and is 15 years younger, but I figure ya gotta give a guy a handy cap.

First, we arrive at Pickeral Lake Lodge, which is one very fun and comfortable place to hang your hat.

Second, we meet Jason and his cousin Cody Hufby at a lake 50 miles from our lodging.

Many of these lakes were farm ponds or marshes that grew into fertile fish factories, swallowed up entire farms, and in some cases, the farmers do not appreciate people fishing what used to be their pasture.

Third, we are given an incredible fishing report and hope it is true, as we do not exactly have a whole ton of daylight left.

Fourth, the three of us are in a boat and our pals from South Dakota are in another.

Fifth, within five minutes of tossing jointed Rapala’s and jigs with swim baits hooked onto them, we are experiencing the most intense walleye catching action I have ever witnessed in the lower 48.

Sixth, we are the only boats on the water and 45 minutes after landing our rigs all five of us has a four fish limit of 18-21 walleye.

Seventh, back at the fort we have a first-rate fish fry and social experience.

Friday, September 13th
High 74, low 44

I just put it together, we had a ton of bad luck today cuz it was Friday the 13th!

Our buddy, Tony Fico, something is banging pans and causing the smoke alarms to go off before first light as he burns, I mean cooks breakfast.

We head to our lake, well aware that we are gonna limit out real quick. The farmer that owns this land has blocked the landing with a fence that was obviously just put up and an unpleasant sign.

There is lots of dust, and my buddy Paul’s fancy Chevy pickup, and extremely pretty/brand new AlumaCraft Competitor that is powered by a 75 horse Yamaha “tiller”, do not look so good anymore.

We head to a lake where we are told there are large crappie, no landing, we create one. No fish, we move on. Meanwhile we are using more gasoline than a 747 as we search for another honey hole.

With information from Mr Viessman, we head to beautiful body of water, that like everywhere else in this area, is surrounded by water and I wanna come back here and duck hunt.

We land the boat in a rather difficult situation and go fish, hunting. At first, only one 16-inch walleye, then a long dry spell. Then we figure them out by vertical jigging, we limit out.

Approaching the landing, we notice that one of the yahoo’s left the truck window open, I might be the yahoo, there may be a million flies in our very dusty Chevy.

We eat steaks, then Viessman, Boog, and Fico-something get in a wrestling match, I take pictures.

Next I wrestle my buddy from SD, for 15.5 seconds I am winning, and then I am not. We both are injured.

The next day we limited out on walleye and then tried vertical jigging for perch, we found them and limited out, no one wants to go home.

I want to put a camper on a lake and fish and hunt.

I love South Dakota! The end.  Sunset

THIS WEEK’S COLUMN IS SPONSORED BY: Ormson’s SuperValu