An Outdoorsman’s Journal – 2-15-2017
Hello friends,
As I have written a great many times, I am blessed with many good friends.
My 16-year-old daughter, Selina, is as well and two people that are really good to Selina and myself are Gary and Joan Howe of Prairie du Chien. The Howe’s are publishers of The Courier Press and Gary is an active outdoorsman who has taken part in several suicide trips with me.
Almost every February, Selina and I stay at their house for a long weekend and spend three-days with Gary ice fishing on the Mississippi River.
Friday, February 3rd
High 18, low 9
You know the young bird is not that far from flying away from the nest when you have to buy her, her first fishing license and that is what I did for Selina today.
Here is the plan; Gary has been fishing at the dam at Lynxville on the ice for much of the winter. Gary Howe has also been fishing out of his boat at Guttenberg a lot this winter. Last Sunday I received a text with a photo and my river rat buddy had caught some really nice perch at Lynxville and for much of the winter, Gary or people that he was observing were icing 8-14 inch perch.
The last time that Selina fished here she caught a 9 and a 12-pound northern pike so we were very excited for this three day trip. Reality for this trip came in the form of a 48-hour cold spell just before our arrival with highs in the single digits and the mighty Misississippi flowing four-feet above normal.
We would be fishing the inside wall of the dam and when we arrived there, there were three other fishermen and though they had caught a few perch at first light, we were told the bite was not happening.
While I was putting out tip ups with Selina, three more fishermen arrived that had limited out here earlier in the week and had the photos to prove it.
Long story short, we fished hard for 7-hours and did not catch a thing or have a flag. We did get a tip that some big perch and crappie were being caught on the “Horseshoe” near Prairie du Chien and Gary said it was a walk to get to, but known for good fish so the Horseshoe would be on our Saturday agenda.
Saturday, February 4th
High 27, low 8
Three weeks ago today I was hunting deer and hogs on the flooded backwaters of the Mississippi River near Natchez, Mississippi. Today, the three of us were trekking through the flooded and frozen backwaters of the Mississippi a thousand miles upstream.
When we reached the Horseshoe after a rather physical and sometimes challenging trek at sunrise this morning, there was maybe a dozen other fishermen on the ice, we saw two gills caught and, with a beautiful forecast, we were pretty excited about our day.
Once again reality set in when after 4-hours, we had not caught a fish. Now when Gary, Selina and I are together that really does not matter because we are always joking around and Gary is always trying to convince Selina of how much better life would be if she came and lived with him and Joan.
About noon we were hanging out in our portable “Eskimo” ice shack and holy moly Gary caught a bluegill. Then the bite was over, we all fell a sleep, than when we were sleeping Gary got a bite and caught another gill.
Selina and I made snow angels and created some new songs, which we do quite often and the end of the day we had maybe 9 gills and a really cool trek back to the truck.
The following day we returned to the dam at Lynxville and the bite was still literally, non-existent except for when 4-year old Gentry Gimpel of Boscobel, non-challanty iced a walleye with his jig pole that was just shy of 15-inches. Gentry is from Boscobel and his father, Chance Zimpel was pretty proud to speak about how Gentry can sit in a deer stand or a turkey blind all day long and loves it.
Chance, about all I have to say on that matter is enjoy the moment because the bird will grow feathers and then the nest will be empty. Sunset
THIS WEEK’S COLUMN IS SPONSORED BY: Hiawatha National Bank
