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6940A HIGHWAY 59 | GULF SHORES, AL 36542 HWY 59 @ COUNTY RD. 8 Gimme Six Extended Protection promo is applicable to new Suzuki Outboard Motors from 25 to 350 HP in inventory which are sold and delivered to buyer between 07/01/19 and 09/30/19 in accordance with the promotion by a Participating Authorized Suzuki Marine dealer in the continental US and Alaska to a purchasing customer who resides in the continental US or Alaska. Customer should expect to receive an acknowledgement letter and full copy of contract including terms, conditions and wallet card from Suzuki Extended Protection within 90 days of purchase. If an acknowledgement letter is not received in time period stated, contact Suzuki Motor of America, Inc. – Marine Marketing via email: marinepromo@suz.com. The Gimme Six Promotion is available for pleasure use only, and is not redeemable for cash. Instant Savings apply to qualifying purchases of select Suzuki Outboard Motors made between 07/01/19 and 09/30/19. For list of designated models, see participating Dealer or visit www.suzukimarine.com. Instant Savings must be applied against the agreed-upon selling price of the outboard motor and reflected in the bill of sale. (Suzuki will, in turn, credit Dealer’s parts account.) There are no model substitutions, benefit substitutions, rain checks, or extensions. Suzuki reserves the right to change or cancel these promotions at any time without notice or obligation. * Financing offers available through Synchrony Retail Finance. As low as 5.99% APR financing for 60 months on new and unregistered Suzuki Outboard Motors. Subject to credit approval. Not all buyers will qualify. Approval, and any rates and terms provided, are based on credit worthiness. $19.99/month per $1,000 financed for 60 months is based on 5.99% APR. Hypothetical figures used in calculation; your actual monthly payment may differ based on financing terms, credit tier qualification, accessories or other factors such as down payment and fees. Offer effective on new, unregistered Suzuki Outboard Motors purchased from a participating authorized Suzuki dealer between 07/01/19 and 09/30/19. “Gimme Six”, the Suzuki “S” and model names are Suzuki trademarks or ®. Don’t drink and drive. Always wear a USCG-approved life jacket and read your owner’s manual. © 2019 Suzuki Motor of America, Inc.
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35 YEARS EXPERIENCE
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HUNTING & FISHING IN ALABAMA & THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE
FEATURES 8 14
8
14
20
26
CLOSE TO HOME BASS FISHING TIPS FOR FALL By John E Phillips HOW SATELLITE ALTIMETRY CHARTS IMPROVE OFFSHORE FISHING By Ed Mashburn
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TIMBER STAND IMPROVEMENTS TO INCREASE WILDLIFE AND LAND VALUE By John E. Phillips
26
DEER TRAIL CAMERA SETUP FOR ANY HUNTING LOCATION By Charles Johnson
30
DEER SEASON OPENS WITH NEW ANNUAL BAG LIMIT AND HARVEST REPORTING REQUIREMENT By Tony Young
54
SELECTING THE BEST SPECKLED TROUT RIGS FOR FALL FISHING By Richard Rutland
IN EVERY ISSUE Bets 6 Best by William Kendy
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54
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New Gear for Outdoorsmen by Great Days Outdoors Staff From the Commissioner Bait Privilege License Offers Choice for Hunters
44
Hunting Heritage The Bait Debate - Widespread Conflict
46
From the Director A True Conservation Success Story
48
The Gun Rack Get Ready For Squirrels
50
Camphouse Kitchen by Hank Shaw
Fishing 58 Paddle October Kayak Fishing;
Long Weekend Vacations by Ed Mashburn
4 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
FISHING OUTLOOKS 60
Pier and Shore by David Thornton
62
Gulf Coast by Mike Thompson
64
Regional Freshwater by Alex Granpere
68
Prime Feeding Times, Moon, Sun, and Tide Charts
72
Pensacola Motorsports Trophy Room
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Great Days Kids Corner
78
Pondering Deer Stuff by Jim Mize
Classifieds & Fishin' Guides Fishing Tips by Captain Johnathan Willis
PROPERTY PHOTO HERE
PROPERTY PHOTO HERE
The Boligee Tombigbee River Timber & Hunting Investment
Alabama River Waterfront Hunting Tract
This income producing timber, hunting, & recreational investment w/frontage on the Tombigbee River is a rare find. Located near Boligee, minutes from the interstate, w/ easy access from its county road frontage & utilitiesHERE are available nearby. Multiple PROPERTY TEXT scenic camp & lg potential fishing lake sites available throughout the property & the deer, turkey, duck, & dove hunting is outstanding, aided by numerous strategically placed food plots, extremely well improved road system, majestic stands of 70+ year old hardwood, & the Bar & Cook Branch bottoms that traverse the center of the tract. Enjoy long term cash flows provided by the well managed timber that includes 36+ year old pine & mature hardwood. Diverse tract has also been inspected for use inside a Conservation Easement, & results indicated that the value of the easement could potentially pay for the property or at least a large portion of it. Results are available for review upon request and all related inspections results may transfer to Purchaser. Don’t miss your chance to own this riverfront tract that could quickly pay for itself.
This diverse waterfront hunting and timber investment with 3,067 feet of frontage on the Alabama River and Bailey’s Creek is a rare find. Located off CR 1 between Chrysler and TEXT HERE Perdue Hill, an area PROPERTY well known for quality deer, turkey, dove, and duck hunting, just over an hour from both Mobile and Spanish Fort. Enjoy easy access off Bailey’s Creek Road and an intricate internal road and trail system to access the multiple food plots, two duck ponds, and equipment shed on the property. Timber types include mature, unthinned hardwood, pine plantations that are almost ready for their first thinning, and recently converted pine plantation. Utilities are available at the offset camp site and there are multiple potential fishing lake sites and camp sites with hilltop views. Land of this quality is rarely available in this area, much less on the river.
Greene County, Alabama, 2291+/-Acres
Alabama Listings COUNTY
Autauga Autauga Autauga Autauga Autauga Baldwin Baldwin Baldwin Baldwin Baldwin Barbour Barbour Barbour Bibb Bibb Blount Blount Blount Blount Blount Bullock Bullock Bullock Butler Butler
ACRES 317.65 240 116 110 40 3636 1995 710 492 425 200 120 62 123 24 87 85 80 66 60 509 80 48.6 395 85.16
Butler Calhoun Calhoun Calhoun Calhoun Calhoun Chilton Choctaw Choctaw Choctaw Choctaw Clarke Clarke Clarke Clarke Clarke Clay Cleburne Coffee Colbert Colbert Colbert Colbert Colbert Conecuh Conecuh
77 147.3 102 100 25 22.5 65.4 216 38 25 20 526 520 234 220 26 80 377 254 40 36 36 25 2 40 10
COUNTY Conecuh Coosa Covington Covington Covington Covington Covington Crenshaw Cullman Cullman Cullman Cullman Dallas Dallas Dallas Dallas Dallas Elmore Elmore Elmore Elmore Elmore Escambia Escambia Escambia Etowah
ACRES 5 151 360 331 129 72 50 134 876.25 232 100 59 463.54 140 82.73 64 27 2000 450 342 264 213 671.6 68 27 275
Etowah Etowah Fayette Fayette Fayette Fayette Fayette Franklin Franklin Franklin Franklin Franklin Greene Greene Greene Greene Hale Hale Hale Hale Hale Henry Jefferson Jefferson Jefferson Jefferson
167.3 57 260 232 155 133 112 608 563 552 165 155 2291 30 1 0.72 575 186 150 96 92 200 400 330 245 125
COUNTY Jefferson Lamar Lamar Lamar Lamar Lamar Lauderdale Lawrence Limestone Lowndes Lowndes Lowndes Lowndes Lowndes Macon Macon Madison Marengo Marengo Marengo Marion Marion Marion Marion Marion Mobile
Monroe County, Alabama, 294+/-Acres
ACRES 120 192 160 136 103 92 60 80 1.36 1181 1013 790 783 656 930 60 100 772 404 264 387 325 250 215 110 1800
Mobile Mobile Mobile Mobile Monroe Monroe Monroe Monroe Monroe Montgomery Montgomery Montgomery Montgomery Montgomery Morgan Morgan Perry Perry Perry Perry Perry Pickens Pickens Pickens Pickens Pickens
299.1 260 192 173 790 378.49 294 268.11 129 858 697 623 500 469 150 76 604.33 386 240.75 200 189 837 761.64 450 430 217
COUNTY ACRES Pike 352.8 Pike 160 Pike 80 Pike 40 Saint Clair 100 Saint Clair 41.95 Saint Clair 29 Saint Clair 14.28 Saint Clair 10 Shelby 458 Shelby 253 Shelby 93 Shelby 80 Shelby 43.56 Sumter 740 Sumter 654 Sumter 350 Sumter 213 Sumter 188 Talladega 1314 Talladega 1015 Talladega 882 Talladega 723.5 Talladega 537 Tallapoosa 20.917 Tuscaloosa 153
Tuscaloosa Tuscaloosa Tuscaloosa Tuscaloosa Walker Washington Washington Washington
117 115 71 70 65 1261 480 313
COUNTY ACRES Washington 240 Washington 160 Wilcox 2365 Wilcox 1465 Wilcox 660 Wilcox 640 Wilcox 60 Winston 265
INNOVATIVE LAND PROFESSIONALS
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877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 5
BEST BETS
BEST BETS FOR OCTOBER These are our top targets for hunters and fishermen this month! BY WILLIAM KENDY
OCTOBER SPECKLED TROUT AND REDFISH IN MOBILE-TENSAW DELTA When the weather starts to get a little delightfully brisk, consider heading out to Mobile Bay for the speckled trout and redfish bite. Historically, when the fronts get active white shrimp start moving to the upper bay and trout and redfish follow them and that results in hot fishing. Floating a live shrimp or artificial under a standard popping cork is a productive option. Artificial lures including D.O.A. shrimp, Vudu shrimp, Sparkle Beetles in different colors including chartreuse, smoke and clear with glitter are popular. Jigs fished with the Slick Lure is effective. Topwater lures like the Zara Super Spook and the Rapala Skitter Walk, both fished in a “Walk the Dog” pattern are also productive
VOLUME 23, ISSUE 10 October 2019
PUBLISHED BY: Great Days Outdoors Media, L.L.C. PUBLISHER/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Joe Baya ASSISTANT EDITOR: Bill Kendy CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Wendy Johannesmann ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE: Samatha Hester
Captain Richard Rutland shares his fish catching expertise in his article “Selecting the Best Speckled Trout Rigs for Fall Fishing” in this issue. CONTRIBUTING FREELANCE WRITERS:
BACHELOR BUCKS AND BROADHEADS
October 15th marks the opening of the 2019 Alabama deer archery season. Now is the time to get treestands set and noise-proofed, clear shooting lanes and get out in the field to pattern whitetail buck’s movement and behavior. In October, bucks (even mature ones) are still running in “bachelor groups” and some of them may still be in velvet, so they are frisky in taking care of the itching antlers by rubbing and are less wary. Light hunting pressure means bucks will be moving during the day from bedding, to water and then to food sources. They aren’t in rut yet and acting stupid, so their movements are more predictable and regular. Once the hormones kick in and hunting pressure increases, they become nocturnal and their patterns are unpredictable. October isn’t too late to pattern and tune your bow for shooting broad-heads. If you have been practicing with field tips, heavier broad-heads can throw off your aim… and success.
Chris Blankenship Daryl Bell Alex Granpere Craig Haney Charles Johnson Ed Mashburn Doug Max Greg McCain
John E. Phillips Corky Pugh Chuck Sykes Mike Thompson David Thornton Jim Barta Jim Mize Deneshia Larson
Patrick Garmeson Hank Shaw Joe Baya Don Green Babe Winkelman Bobby Abruscato J. Wayne Fears Nick Williams
Great Days Outdoors (USPS 17228; ISSN 1556-0147) is published monthly at P.O. Box 1253 Santa Rosa Beach, FL 32459 Subscription rate is $24 for one-year, $40 for two-years, and $55 for three-years. Periodicals Postage Paid at Stapleton, Ala. and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Great Days Outdoors Media, LLC PO Box 460248 Escondido, CA 92046 SUBSCRIBERS: All subscriptions begin the first issue for the month following receipt of payment, if payment is received by the 15th. Great Days Outdoors assumes no responsibility for delivery after magazines are mailed. All delivery complaints should be addressed to your local postmaster.
DON’T FORGET SQUIRRELS
CONTACT US: EDITORIAL | JoeBaya@greatdaysoutdoors.com ADVERTISING | SamHester@greatdaysoutdoors.com SUBSCRIPTIONS | greatdaysoutdoors@pcspublink.com
But squirrels are wary and elusive and challenging. Squirrel hunting requires patience. It requires attention to detail and movement. It teaches one how to quietly and slowly move in the woods and to look for sign.
Great Days Outdoors Media LLC PO Box 460248 Escondido, CA 92046 877. 314. 1237 info@greatdaysoutdoors.com www.greatdaysoutdoors.com
Ok, squirrel hunting isn’t as glamorous as hunting deer, or turkey, or quail, or ducks or even hogs.
Since the squirrel “bullseye” is so small, compared to larger game, it teaches one, if shooting a .22, how to concentrate, breathe and gently squeeze the trigger to hit that small target.
All rights reserved. Reproduction of contents is strictly prohibited without permission from Great Days Outdoors Media, LLC.
Craig Haney in this issues article “Don’t Forget Squirrels” shares his expertise on how to be a more successful, and happy, squirrel hunter. “It is challenging finding the squirrels, getting in position to shoot and making an accurate shot. Squirrel hunting also keeps me in the woods after deer season is over which is great,” Haney said. Any excuse I can get for being out in the woods makes me happy. 6 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
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Ocean City, MD 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 7
Close to Home Bass Fishing Tips for Fall BY JOHN E. PHILLIPS
8 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
HOG RUSH FISHING
Often fall bass are very aggressive and always fun to catch. As the weather cools down, bass will pack up and start moving shallow. Let’s look at where to find fall bass and how to catch them as well as learn about a new kayak fishing tactic that’s paying bass dividends when anglers fish close to home.
“THERE WILL BE BLOOD”
BASSING FROM KAYAKS Robby Stanford of Birmingham, Alabama, has always had a passion for kayaking and has loved to run white water, paddle over rapids and fight the current that pushes him and his small kayak through dangerous waters when rivers swell. However, as he’s become older, he’s opted for one of the newer, more stable fishing kayaks. WHERE TO FISH WITH WHAT “During October, I pray for rain because rain causes rivers and creeks to have current coming through them,” Stanford explained. “Usually some of the best current can be found below dams after three to four inches of rain have fallen upstream of a dam. One of my favorite places to fish besides the Cahaba River where I live is the Coosa River below the Lake Jordan dam in the Moccasin Gap area, just northeast of Wetumpka. This area homes some huge spotted bass. I love to fish top-water baits like the Whopper Plopper and the Zara Spook (https://bit.ly/2K82pqw) and a buzzbait in the fall.” Stanford primarily fishes shoal areas because of the moving water and has found the spotted bass seem to stack in the eddy pools. “With the Whopper Plopper and the Zara Spook, I like either a bream-colored or a shad-colored bait. However, a black buzzbait is my favorite color. I like to fish the size 90 Whopper Plopper on 12-pound-test monofilament and a medium-heavy 6’ 8” rod. My favorite Plopper is the size 110, and I fish it on 40-pound-test braided line, due to the giant spotted bass in this section of the Coosa,” Stanford added.
THERMAL NIGHT
HUNTS
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“Another of my favorite fall kayaking bass lures is a finesse jig like a 5/16-ounce ball head jig with a Smallie Beaver or a Speed Craw (www.zoombait.com). I’ll take a section off each of these lures to make them fit the jigs better and will fish them above and below the drop-offs, in ripples, small waterfalls and eddy holes, by casting the jig above the drop and letting it wash over the fall, so it looks natural. I particularly like to fish the seams where the water from the current collides with the calm water of the eddy pool.” The biggest spotted bass Stanford has caught kayaking weighed six pounds. “Spots are often holding below drop-offs. Each day you have to look for the places where they may be concentrating based on water clarity and how much sunlight and how much current there is. In the areas where I’m catching these spotted
334-430-8111
www.HOGRUSH.com 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 9
Close to Home Bass Fishing Tips for Fall
below Logan Martin Dam.
Bass will be moving from their summer homes in deep water to their fall homes in shallow water. You must identify the shad and the depths where they’re holding, bass, the water is generally shallow but sometimes 20 feet deep. In most of these spots, a fiberglass boat won’t work. But a group of fellows who have jet boats sometimes come into this area and fish. However, most of the time, kayaks are the only boats that venture into this skinny water,” Stanford noted. Several outfitters on Lake Jordan run shuttles for kayakers for a fee, and some of these outfitters offer kayaks, paddles, life preservers and everything you need, except for your rod, tackle box and camera. “A number of outfitters across the state will rent you equipment for kayak fishing and put you in and take you out for a 3-7 hour kayaking trip. The area I usually run is about 7 miles, which I can fish in about a half a day. However, I’ll fish very slowly, by picking each eddy area apart, and therefore spend all day running what’s a usual three hour trip,” Stanford pointed out. Other productive places to kayak for bass include putting in
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“I usually put in at Kelly Creek and fish out in the river around the islands,” Stanford said. “The waters below Neely Henry Dam on Logan Martin also provide good bass fishing around the islands out on the main river.” If central Alabama receives plenty of rain, Stanford suggests fishing the Mulberry Fork and the Locust Fork of the Warrior River. Terrapin Creek that flows into Neely Henry below Weiss is another small water that homes productive bass fishing for the kayak angler. An outfitter there rents equipment and provides a shuttle service for kayak bass fishermen. For Jefferson County and Shelby County residents, the Little Cahaba and the Big Cahaba are great streams to kayak bass fish, particularly if you fish there like Stanford does with baits like hellgrammites and live crawfish that he catches along the shoals on the river. BASS FISHING KAYAK TOURNAMENTS Stanford mentioned that at kayak bass fishing tournaments, anglers catch, photograph and release (CPR) any bass they catch. “Each angler has a ruler or a board like the Hawg Trough (https://bit.ly/2MtX3rp) to measure the caught bass and makes a photograph of the fish lying beside the ruler to determine the length of that bass. In most tournaments, you get to measure and enter your three biggest bass. Also national kayak tournaments sometimes come to Alabama, and
Close to Home Bass Fishing Tips for Fall
local tournaments are sponsored by local bass fishing clubs,” Stanford said. In tournaments, perhaps as few as 12 anglers may fish, but Stanford has fished in tournaments with 60 other kayak bass fishermen. CATCHING TRANSITIONING BASS WITH JIMMY HOUSTON (Writers Note: Jimmy Houston, long one of the most-wellknown fishermen and TV show hosts, tells where to find and catch bass as they adapt from warm to cooler weather). According to Houston fall is the best time of the year to find and catch bass, because they’re feeding-up for the winter, and they’re really aggressive. “Bass will be moving from their summer homes in deep water to their fall homes in shallow water. You must identify the shad and the depths where they’re holding,” Houston said. Houston mentions that since bass are ambush feeders, look for some type of cover or structure where the bass can hide, hold and attack baitfish “Due to the really-hot temperatures this past summer, bass may still be in their summer pattern through the end of October. I’ll move into the underwater bends and the backs of creek channels and fish small baits like a small plastic worm or a lead-headed tail spinner that I can fish deep,” Houston added. WHERE THE BASS GO IN A “COOL-DOWN” “Once the water temperature reaches 81 to 82 degrees and continues to get cooler, the shad will swim into moreshallow water in the creeks and pockets and closer to the bank, perhaps one to two foot deep areas, especially in the evenings,” Houston reported. “The bass will follow right behind the chuck wagon (the shad). Since the shad have spawned, they may be breaking on the surface or in schools known as shad balls. You can find them with your depth finder out in deeper water when you can’t see them on the surface. If you spot balls of shad in five to six-foot deep water, that’s where you can expect the bass to be.” HOUSTON’S TAKE ON HOW TO CATCH FALL BASS Houston likes crankbaits to fish the depth of water he needs to fish with the crankbaits that dive to those depths and cover plenty of water quickly.
Houston also emphasizes to not overlook top-water lures, since bass are moving shallower in the cooler weather. The buzzbait and other lures that splash on the surface will also attract those bass. “Later in the fall, the shad and baitfish usually will return to deeper water by the same routes they’ve travelled when they’ve moved from deep water to shallow water. Follow the shad and the bass then back out to that deep water, using many of the tactics that catch bass when they’re transitioning from deep water to shallow water as the season changes from summer to fall.”
Houston also enjoys fishing spinner baits in the fall.
BUZZING, POPPING AND WAKING UP LATE FALL AND EARLY WINTER BASS WITH DENNY BRAUER AND MARK DAVIS (Writer’s Note: When “GDO” asked two of the nation’s longtime top bass fishermen, Denny Brauer and Mark Davis, both of whom have won the titles of Bass Angler of the Year and Bassmaster Classic Champion, to give our readers the best information on how to catch bass in the fall, they somewhat surprised us when they both named the buzzbait, a top-water lure, as their number-one choice, although they also selected other baits).
“You can wake the spinner bait just under the surface in any depth of water or slow-roll it on the bottom. You can catch bass when the bait falls from the surface to the bottom, and you can tag the bottom and come-up off it with a yo-yo technique,” Houston said.
WHY AND HOW DENNY BRAUER FISHES THE BUZZBAIT When Brauer, who’s now semi-retired, goes to a lake, he doesn’t have any rules for the way he’ll be fishing that day. The only rule he follows is not to get stuck using only one
“Shad-colored lipless crankbaits will be the most productive,” Houston says. “You can fish them in 1-or-20 feet or more, you can reel them quickly or slowly, you can use a stop-start type of retrieve, you can fish them on the fall from the surface all the way down to the bottom, and/or you can bounce them off the bottom.” Houston pointed out.
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Close to Home Bass Fishing Tips for Fall
strikes you get which type of retrieve they prefer on the day you’re fishing.” A retrieve that works well for Brauer in the fall is to run the buzzbait fairly fast, until it reaches cover. Then he slows down the bait as he goes by the cover and speeds up the bait as he leaves the cover. “The Strike King buzzbait comes with a trailer hook on it, which helps in short strikes. I prefer 17-20 pound-test monofilament line. If you like to fish braided line, you can,” Brauer said. “However, I’ve found that braided line, since it doesn’t have any stretch, tends to cause me to pull the bait away from the bass more often than monofilament line does. I like to fish the buzzbait on a long rod, particularly the Ardent Denny Brauer 7-foot, 5-inch Flip-n-Pitch fishing rod (https:// ardentoutdoors.com/), and use an Ardent XS1000 6.3:1 fastcasting retrieve reel.” WHY BRAUER FISHES THE SPIT-N-KING Brauer likes the Strike King Spit-N-King, especially if the water’s extremely clear. “In clear water in the fall, I catch more bass on the Spit-NKing than the buzzbait. In clear water, you need a bait that’s more subtle than you’ll fish if the water’s stained, and the Spit-N-King is more-subtle than the buzzbait,”
type of retrieve. “You have to experiment with any bait, every day you’re on the water, and give the lure the chance to work for you,” Brauer advised. Brauer’s first lure choice for bass fishing in the late fall will be the Strike King Tour Grade Buzzbait (www.strikeking. com), since a large number of bass will be moving-up on the flats to feed on the creek channels and in the backs of coves. Brauer said,“The bass will be concentrated in those places, because they’re following the baitfish moving into shallow water. With the buzzbait, you can cover plenty of water and find bass more quickly than you can with slower-moving baits. The buzzbait mimics the shad as well as any-other bait. I prefer the sexy-shad-colored buzzbait.” “Later in the fall, if the water temperature reaches the midto-low 50s, consider switching to a black-colored Tour Grade Buzzbait. I’ll take a magic marker and darken the blades and the wire shaft that supports the blade to take the shine off the buzzbait when it comes out of the box,” Brauer pointed out. Although most people cast-out the buzzbait and reel it back in to the boat, Brauer emphasizes that to get the most strikes, you have to experiment with different types of retrieves. “You don’t want to get into that robotic mode where you just throw-out the bait and reel it back to the boat,” Brauer said. “Since the speed of retrieve is very important to success when fishing the buzzbait, let the bass tell you by the number of 12 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
“For my retrieve, I like a three-pop cadence. I pop the bait three times, then stop the bait and give it three-more-quick pops. Sometimes the bass want the lure retrieved faster than this, so I’ll speed-up the lure and barely stop it in-between pops. Then the bait will spit all the way back to the boat. “I fish the Spit-N-King in the fall around cover, like boat docks, stumps and logs. When the Spit-N-King reaches where you think the strike zone is located on that cover, stop the bait, and give the bass a chance to eat it. I often will stop the bait for three or four seconds, which may not seem like a long time. But if you’ll keep an eye on your watch for those three or four seconds, you’ll realize that the time that passes is much longer than most fishermen let their top-water lures sit on the water without moving them. “If the bass are feeding aggressively, I’ll speed-up my retrieve. If the day is cloudy or misty, and the bass are feeding aggressively, I’ll speed-up my retrieve. If I’m fishing later in the morning or on a bright day, I may slow-down my retrieve,” Brauer explained.
You don’t want to get into that robotic mode where you just throw-out the bait and reel it back to the boat, WHY MARK DAVIS LIKES THE WAKE SHAD Mark Davis is a very consistent fisherman. Although Davis likes a buzzbait, he fishes wake baits too, in cooler temperatures.
Close to Home Bass Fishing Tips for Fall
“A wake bait is any type of top-water lure that stays on top of the water when you start your retrieve, wobbles from sideto-side and creates a wake on top of the water, just like a boat does. This bait doesn’t pop, spit, bob or have any of the actions of other top-water lures. A wake bait swims on the surface like an addled or an injured shad that for some reason can’t seem to go down and swim underwater. “In the late fall or early winter and even the early spring when the water starts to warm-up, the first top-water bass bite you can get usually will be on a wake bait. Strike King’s Wake Shad makes a very-subtle, slow disturbance on top of the water. It’s not popping like a Pop-R (https://bit.ly/2LUy5BR), it’s not darting and diving like a walking bait, and it’s not sputtering and splashing like a prop bait,” Daivs said. Davis has caught bass on the Wake Shad when the water temperature is as cold as 42 or 43 degrees.
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FOUNDATION REPAIR
“One of the reasons the Wake Shad is such an effective winter and early-spring bait is because often in the early and late winter in the South, cold fronts will happen. Once a cold front hits the lake, the shad become addled and disoriented. These cold fronts even may kill the shad,” Davis pointed out. “As the shad start to die, they may come to the surface and slowly swim around on the surface, just like the Wake Shad does. The bass will be up near the surface looking for these dazed and dying shad.” When Davis is fishing the Wake Shad, he likes 14- or 15-pound-test monofilament line on a baitcasting rod or reel. “I prefer monofilament instead of fluorocarbon because the monofilament floats and helps keep the lure above the water. I like to make long casts to give the bait plenty of time to attract the bass before the bait arrives at the boat. To help me make those long casts, I use a 7-foot medium-action rod,”Davis concluded.
CONCRETE REPAIR
KAYAKING FOR BASS IN ALABAMA: INFORMATION FROM ROBBEY STANFORD Top Baits for Kayaking: Bone or shad-colored Whopper Plopper 90 and 110 and 1/4- and 3/8-ounce white or black with silver blades buzzbaits. OUTFITTERS AND BAITS: Coosa Outdoor Center http://www.coosaoutdoorcenter.com near the Lake Jordan dam and Wetumpka, Ala. Best baits –1/4- and 5/16-ounce in green pumpkin/orange finesse jig; 5” Bull Shad (www.bullshad. com); shaky head Robo 6” finesse worm (www. roboworm.com) in morning dawn color.
ENCAPSULATION
1. Terrapin Outdoor Center – Piedmont, Ala at Neely Henry Lake. http://www.canoeshop.net. 2. Warrior River – Lost Creek – Launch at G’s Landing Best baits include a 3/8-ounce finesse jig; a 3/8- or 1/2-ounce white buzzbait; a 90 or a 110 Whopper Plopper in bone or shad colors; a chrome with blue or black back Rat - L-Trap (https://bit.ly/2YuP7Zf). 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 13
How Satellite Altimetry Charts Improve Offshore Fishing BY ED MASHBURN
Smart captains use Hilton’s system to find the big ones.
14 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
FISHING
One of the first things that anglers who decide to get into the offshore fishing game discover is that this sort of fishing is not cheap. The boats are expensive, the gear is expensive and the fuel is expensive. However, the most expensive element of offshore big game fishing is simple: it’s time. Anglers who take the trouble to go offshore need to do everything possible to maximize their productive fishing time and eliminate the dead time of just driving and looking for fish. Let’s face it, there’s a lot of water out there, and most of it looks an awful lot alike. Up to fairly recently, offshore big game fishing involved a great deal of looking and riding time and much less actual fishing and catching time. But with the advent of certain advanced technologies and tools, offshore anglers can spend much less time and money on unproductive riding and more time on catching big fish. We went to the source, Thomas Hilton who is head of Hilton’s Fishing Charts, LLC., and asked him to respond to our questions about the satellite technology and services offshore anglers can use to make their fishing more successful. QDO: What is altimetry? Why does this provide important offshore fishing information? What sort of information does this service provide? How do you receive and produce this information?
Good guidance, good gear, good crew work brings in some really good fish.
Hilton: “Altimetry is the measurement of the ocean’s surface height using instruments shooting radar from satellites which create a contour chart of the ocean surface every day. The measurements are very subtle, as each isobar represents about two inches while each horizontal line of latitude represents 60 nautical miles - measurements of only a few inches in height differential spanning over sometimes hundreds of miles. The significance of this imagery is that it shows areas associated with downwelling and upwelling currents. The bulges (isobar measurements above mean sea level) indicate downwelling, nutrient-poor areas while the depressions (isobar measurements below mean sea level) indicate upwelling, nutrient-rich areas. The pelagics follow the food supply, and since downwelling currents push everything down, including nutrients, there is not much food to be had in these areas. Upwelling currents bring nutrients from the deep up to the surface where they interact with sunlight, creating the beginning of the food chain. Now, there is a caveat to altimetry; the big assumption here is the bait is swimming with the free-flowing currents, but with the introduction of the deep water oil structures such as spars, drill ships, and semi-submersibles, the bait is no longer flowing with the currents but instead staying within the refuge provided by these deep water oil structures. So, over the years we have gotten reports from subscribers detailing how they caught lots of tuna (and marlin) near rigs in really bad altimetry, if the bait is not leaving, the predators are not leaving and it really doesn’t matter what the altimetry is showing. 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 15
How Satellite Altimetry Charts Improve Offshore Fishing
It takes a team and good electronic guidance to catch big offshore fish.
16 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
How Satellite Altimetry Charts Improve Offshore Fishing
So, if you are open water rip fishing, you had better take heed to what the altimetry is showing, but if you are rig fishing, you can pretty much ignore it.” GDO: How does your service help offshore anglers find big fish? Hilton: “Each imagery in Hilton’s (sea temps, chlorophyll, altimetry, and currents) has favorable and unfavorable areas and by finding areas that have the most overlapping favorable conditions allows you to narrow down your target areas for the best chances of success. We also provide tools to help refine the data; tweak the sea temp shots to pop out where the weed lines are located, the Trip Planner tool allows you to create routes along dynamic structures such as temp breaks, color changes, etc. so that you can compare that route to all of the other imageries, OR to its own history. Let’s say you created a route on the latest SST shot of a well-defined temp break, you can compare this route to SST shots that are 2, 4, 8 hours older to determine which way it is drifting and how fast so that you can interpolate how to intercept it when your boat is actually out on the water. And, because you have so many more generations of SST shots, you can track those breaks associated with color changes and track them accordingly.”
Upwelling currents bring nutrients from the deep up to the surface where they interact with sunlight, creating the beginning of the food chain.
of South America, Bermuda, Bahamas, Windward Islands, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Dominican Republic, etc.” GDO: How can your service help anglers catch more big fish and also save money while doing it? Hilton: “Hilton’s has helped countless anglers over the years catch tournament-winning fish by giving them the tools to know where to go before you leave the dock. Additionally, you can push the time frame to download the absolute latest images right before you leave the dock so that you are navigating on images that are just a few hours old, or for those boats equipped with satellite communication packages, you can download whenever you wish while offshore outside of cell range. Since you know where you are going before you leave the dock, you will save hundreds of dollars in fuel costs by increasing your efficiencies fishing productive waters instead of wasting fuel aimlessly wandering/looking.” GDO: Anything else you’d like our readers to know about your products? Hilton: “Hilton’s has led the fish forecasting industry for many years now, but we cannot sit back on our laurels, we pride ourselves not only in staying on the forefront of technological advances, but answering the phone or emails when subscribers have questions/issues using the service or nav app. This year for instance, we added; 1) a new sea temp adjustment bar which streamlines the process of customizing the SST charts, 2) the ability to determine major/minor feeding times at any point on the earth, 3) we introduced “H.E.L.P.”,
GDO: Please describe your Real Time Navigator and how it can help offshore anglers. Hilton: “We launched the website 15-1/2 years ago which allows satellite images to download to our servers in a geo-referenced format with known waypoints overlaid and gives our subscribers the ability to access this data anytime and as often as they like. We give you the tools to analyze these shots, save them as historical logs as well as to tell the system which charts you want to download to our RT-NAV navigation app. You can monitor the conditions from your home, office, or boat in the days preceding your fishing trip and can download the shots into your smart device to navigate upon outside of cell range using our nav app. Once you have downloaded the shots into the app and are in navigation mode, your smart device becomes a satellite-based GPS chartplotter, just like the chartplotter on your helm except you are navigating on the dynamic Hilton’s imageries. You can create instantaneous routes to waypoints by just clicking on the name, or route to temp breaks and/or color changes. The Nav Bar in the upper left corner of the nav app screen shows your current lat/lon position as well as the distance/bearing to whatever you may be navigating to. Currently, we have 36 regions which cover the Gulf of Mexico, East Coast, West Coast, Central America and northern coast 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 17
How Satellite Altimetry Charts Improve Offshore Fishing
Hilton’s Electronic Logbook Program, which allows you to look back in time at selected tournaments or reverse-engineering your private fishing trips. We believe that H.E.L.P. will be a great learning tool by looking at areas where fish were caught in the past, determining trends, then looking at today’s shots right before you go fishing to look for similar trends. We are currently working on other improvements scheduled to come out at the Miami Boat Show in February.” For more information about Hilton’s services: Hilton’s Fishing Charts, LLC 5310 East Plantation Oaks Arcola, Texas 713-530-2267 www.realtime-navigtor.com Here’s What a Captain Who Makes his Living Fishing Offshore Tells Us Captain Patrick Ivie has fished offshore from Orange Beach, Alabama for a long time, and he is a believer in the Hilton’s System. “I have been using Hilton’s for around ten years or so. At first we also used a couple of other on-line sites as well, but Hilton’s is now the only site I use. Hilton’s gives the offshore angler the ability to look at real-time live data at any point throughout the day or night assuming you have internet or WiFi, which most big sport fishing boats do,” Ivie said. “We are constantly looking for any edge over our competitions where is hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars on the line.”
“How often I access the Hilton’s System depends on a lot of things. But I would say I access it three to five times a day at minimum. I’ll take pictures of what I like to see on Hilton’s and throughout the trip, I’ll pull up those photos and look at them to make sure I’m seeing what I want to see,” Ivey pointed out. According to Ivey, not only does Hilton’s provide him with the data and info he needs to get the job done but the customer support is top-notch. “Hilton’s has been instrumental in helping me put us on fish and is a major role in where we go. We never leave the dock to go fun fishing or tournament fishing without looking at Hilton’s. “During our peak tournament season, we are on Hilton’s every single day looking at what the water is doing,” Ivey stated. “Tom Hilton will go above and beyond to help you with his service. I’ve called Tom in the middle of the night and asked what it looks like out here when we lost internet service. He’ll answer the phone every time. Tom is also an avid fisherman and knows what to look for. He’s definitely not a desk jockey trying to make a quick dollar. Hilton’s is the only service I use now for my offshore fishing, and you’ll not find better customer service anywhere.” Captain Patrick Ivie Breathe Easy 251-747-1847
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18 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
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WMS alaBaMa BlenD is an 8 part mix that is comprised of selected wheat, oats, forage triticale, forage winter peas, diakon radishes, and annual Clovers. WMS Alabama Blend will provide attractive forage fast and will keep them coming season long. If your goal is to see more deer on your food plots, WMS Alabama Blend is the answer you’ve been waiting for!
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WMS MiSSiSSiPPi Mix This blend was developed to handle heavy deer pressure while providing a high sucrose forage. Forage wheat, black oats and triticale establish quickly to provide early grazing. The annual clovers, perennial clovers and winter peas establish in early fall to provide excellent forage from hunting season through the next summer. The brassicas provide a great late season draw that whitetails can’t resist.
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Page 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 19
5
Timber Stand Improvements to Increase Wildlife and Land Value BY JOHN E. PHILLIPS
20 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
LIFESTYLE
When discussing buying or selling timberlands for hunting and fishing, specific items and projects need to be considered that possibly may increase the value of those timberlands, particularly by expanding the amount of wildlife on them. Depending on the size of the land you want to buy, and the amount of ready cash you have designated to spend for the purchase of that land, most of us still will have to borrow the money to accomplish that project on a long-term loan. When you speak with a loan officer, tell him you’re proposing to improve the value of the land over a specific number of years. WHY BUY RAW TIMBERLANDS YOU CAN IMPROVE FOR WILDLIFE, HUNTING, FISHING, GARDENING AND A FAMILY AND FRIENDS RETREAT? To get a better idea of how to improve the value of timberlands by increasing the amount of wildlife and other projects on the property, we talked with Hunter McPherson of Timber Creek Habitat Management, a nationwide company that specializes in working with landowners and potential land buyers to evaluate, improve and increase the wildlife on any property. “Timber Creek Habitat Management is a one-stop place for anything that improves recreational properties, including building roads, food plots, lakes, ponds, duck marshes and lodges and creating wildlife openings and green fields,” McPherson explained. “Our management group can make it happen. Timber Creek Habitat Management also offers a consulting branch that can travel with you to look at any property you’re thinking about purchasing and tell you what you can do with that land to make it more suitable for wildlife and also give you a cost estimate for each project you’re considering. “Recreational property has different meanings for various outdoorsmen. Some individuals may want to buy 5-10 acres or 50 acres and make those a recreational property, while others may view a recreational property as being 1,000-2,000 acres or even more. Our company has worked with landowners on all sizes of land who want to develop that land for wildlife. “Timber Creek Habitat Management’s consulting service can help you identify projects and prioritize those projects with estimated costs and different timelines to improve the amount of timber, wildlife and fish you want on that property. Then you’ll have a well-thought-out plan on how to develop your land for wildlife and fish,” McPhearson said. McPheason suggested that shoppers should consider the following list of items before making a raw timberland purchase. •
“Determine where you can improve road access.
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“Decide where you can plant a green field(s) that’s relatively close to a deer-bedding site. Be sure to know how you’ll reach that green field during hunting season without spooking the game you’re trying to take. Always have a favorable wind when hunting. You don’t want to put a green field where you have to walk through or close to a deer’s bedding area to reach that green field, or where your approach to your stand will carry your human odor into the deer’s bedding area. “Does the land offer a site that’s appropriate for a duck pond, if you hope to build one? Does it have the soil type needed to hold water once the area’s flooded? Is there a way to release that water during the spring and summer to plant food for waterfowl in that pond? “Make sure that the land has roost trees, nesting areas and bugging places available to increase turkey populations on the land, not only for the hens and gobblers but also for the young poults. After being hatched in the spring, the poults need to be able to feed in enough cover to protect them from predators. “Learn what our consultants may recommend about the type of fish your region can grow the best, and how many approximate pounds of fish that pond can produce in a year - with and without feeders placed on the edges of a pond - if the water on the property is already contained in a pond or a lake. This information is important if you want to grow and catch trophy-sized fish, and/or if you want to offer a place where family and friends can fish for fun and have the best chances for success. “The advantage of having a consultant come in before the purchase of timberlands’ property is that he can point out exactly where any of these projects can be built that will increase the value of the property for wildlife and fish, what potential the land has for wildlife and fish, and what possible costs will be involved to increase the amount and the sizes of wildlife and fish on that property, if you buy it.”
Go to www.timbercreekhabitat.com, https://www.facebook. com/timbercreekhabitat/ and or email mcpherson42@hotmail. com.
If you’re playing in the dirt, we want to be in there with you, as long as you’re improving the value of the dirt, which is the collateral of the loan.”
HOW TO FINANCE YOUR RAW LAND’S IMPROVEMENTS Taylor Hart, the branch manager of First South Farm Credit in Opelika, explains that First South is a rural lender. “We lend money to people for anything they want to do in the dirt - whether that’s row cropping, timber farming, raising livestock and/or farming for wildlife. One of our marketing slogans has been, ‘What Does The Farm Mean to You?’ and as such, we do lend money to finance timber stand improve877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 21
Timber Stand Improvements to Increase Wildlife and Land Value
ments for wildlife on rural property,” Hart said. Hart points out that the collateral for First South’s loans is the land itself. “If a landowner wants to do anything to enhance the value of his or her land, including improving timber stands, clearing roads, planting green fields and/or cleaning up the property to make it more accessible for potential buyers, First South can help him or her do that,” Hart reported. “We can loan money to build ponds, thin timber, clear-cut timber and plant trees and shrubs to increase bedding areas for deer and/or turkey.”
wants to sit on his or her back porch and look at a pond, so First South makes loans for pond construction as well. First South can make loans for anything a landowner wants to do to develop his property or its habitat or the amount of wildlife there. If you’re playing in the dirt, we want to be in there with you, as long as you’re improving the value of the dirt, which is the collateral of the loan.” Some of the “out-of-the-box” type of loans that Hart mentions that First South has recently provided are lending money for a grass-fed dairy farm in Russell County, Alabama, which also increased food and habitat for wildlife.
Hart further expanded his points in saying, “First South can loan money for just about anything a landowner does to grow the value of his land. For example, conducting a controlled burn on the land and planting native grasses and small grain crops for quail, or designing green fields for wildlife after a timber harvest is complete. And, if you’re getting ready to sell your property, First South can lend money for putting in roads that enable potential buyers to see the entire property or for cleaning up some of the underbrush to better identify locations on the property where a new landowner can build a pond for fishing or duck hunting.”
“To meet the qualifications for a grass-fed dairy farm, there had to be proof of no chemicals being used on that land for the previous nine years. Also, there had to be some clearing of the timber on that property and planting different types of grasses for the landowner’s dairy cattle, which also improved habitat for deer, turkey and quail,” Hart explained.“We made a loan to a farmer who didn’t raise crops in the ground. He was a hydroponic farmer and raised his crops in water. Although this loan didn’t benefit wildlife, we could make this loan because he was improving the land. This loan once again fit into our slogan, ‘What Does The Farm Mean to You?’”
According to Hart if you decide to build a log home or hunting cabin on your property, that First South lends money for those types of improvements, too. “Absolutely, we can make construction loans and, if needed, can turn those loans into long-term loans. Some landowners are building secondary homes, hunting cabins or lodges, and others want to put their primary residences on 20 to 30 acres. Perhaps that person
So, for whatever The Farm means to you, First South can likely loan money for what you want to do on that farm, which includes farming for wildlife and improving raw timberlands,” Hart added. For additional information on financing your land improvements, contact Taylor Hart at 334-826-2563 or jhart@ DIVISION OF CLUTCH PRODUCTS INC.
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22 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
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Timber Stand Improvements to Increase Wildlife and Land Value
firstsouthland.com. HOW TO SELL RAW TIMBERLANDS If you have raw land to sell, here are some projects to do that will help you promote selling your land. Clint Flowers, a broker on the Gulf Coast with National Land Realty, a nationwide concern that specializes in buying and selling farms, ranches, timberlands and recreational lands, emphasizes, “If you improve timberlands aesthetically and provide more-abundant wildlife, the value of that land grows more than its value will be if you don’t improve the aesthetics of that land and make it more wildlife friendly. The most important developments for raw timberlands that you can do that raises the value of the property are to: a) “Put in roads, so that all parts of the property can be accessed. b) “Manage the understory of the property beneath the trees by cleaning up the brush there, so a buyer can see the potential of the land he wants to buy. c) “Make wildlife openings, and plant trees and shrubs that offer soft mast for wildlife. d) “Improve the water features on a property. If a creek, a stream or a river runs through the land, make sure that the stream banks are cleaned off and/or don’t have any litter on them. If a lake or pond is on the property, cut the grass around the edge of the land and along the dam, and even
the backside of the dam. Then the potential buyer can see there’s plenty of access to that pond. e) “Develop wildlife habitat and food and water availability for wildlife.” “Preparing raw land to sell is similar to getting your house ready to sell. You need to clean up the house, remove all the junk, possibly improve the landscaping, enable the buyer to be able to see all the different rooms of the house, have easy access to each of the rooms and be able to show off what the potential of the house.” For other recommendations and additional information Flowers can be reached at 855-657-5263, or write info@ nationalland.com. If you own raw land, a timber property, a large farm, a big ranch, swamp lands or arid desert land you want to sell, here is a list of upgrades from Timber Creek Habitat Management’s McPherson to consider before you offer that property for sale. “Having a good road system allows a potential buyer to see the entire property, which will help to sell a property. Buyers can’t see that property quickly and easily on a sideby-side four-wheeler without good roads available in all sections of the property. A good road system definitely adds to the selling price of the land and shows off how-many acres of land the landowner wants to sell – whether that’s 5 or 5,000 acres. 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 23
Timber Stand Improvements to Increase Wildlife and Land Value
“Cleaning up the undergrowth, thickets and brush will help the potential buyer visualize the potential of the property he’s thinking of purchasing. Timber Creek Habitat Management will suggest you leave some thickets for possible bedding areas for deer, plant some field edges with native grasses and shrubs for turkey hens’ dusting and bugging areas and provide wildlife openings where turkeys can strut, bug and breed, and/ or where quail can roost and hide from predators.
“Ponds that are overgrown with weeds, bushes and even trees may cause the potential buyer not to purchase a property. So, use a weed eater, a lawn mower or a bushhog to keep the pond’s edges clean, and mow the back side of the dam. Our company often does initial clearings around ponds and stream edges to make maintaining those waterways easier for the landowner.
“We recommend that the seller be able to show on the property also where food plots can be planted, where duck ponds can be created, where lakes can be built, where gardens can be planted, and where pastures can be created and fenced for livestock. The land doesn’t have to have all these amenities before it’s offered for purchase. However, if a seller can show a buyer the potential of the property, depending on how the buyer wants to use the property, this information can have a major bearing on the selling price of the property and how quickly the property will sell. If a potential buyer can visualize what he can do with the land, then that property becomes more appealing to that purchaser.
“Remember that another advantage to having water on the property you’re hoping to sell is that often you can use the overflow from a dam or divert some of the water from a stream to create a duck pond, depending on the land’s topography and soil type. Many times, you don’t have to have water running through your property to build a duck pond. If you’re on the downhill side of a pond or a stream, Timber Creek Habitat Management can build a berm that allows the area to be flooded and hold water. We may even be able to let that property dry up in the spring and summer, so that the landowner can plant corn, millet and/or milo before reflooding the region just before waterfowl season arrives. Then the waterfowl will have food standing in the water on which they can feed.
“Improving the access to any water already available, if the property has water running through it, or a lake already is built on it is vital. Any water available on a property is a huge selling point, especially for recreational use. For instance, if a pond is on the property, we will recommend you clean up the edge of the pond to enable the potential buyer to see the pond better, and so he can determine where to put fish feeders or a duck blind for harvesting ducks. Then if the pond’s big enough, we’ll recommend places for a pier and a boathouse.
“Pointing out the places where a buyer can make wildlife improvements, and where a buyer can increase the amount of wildlife and the fishing potential on the property will increase the value of the land. If the timberland buyer doesn’t fully understand the value of hunting and fishing and isn’t interested in making some or all of the suggested improvements for wildlife, then these potential developments may not increase the value of the land for that purchaser,” concluded McPherson.
24 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
Timber Stand Improvements to Increase Wildlife and Land Value
Many times, you don’t have to have water running through your property to build a duck pond.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS 1. Cleaning up timberlands to sell or to make more suitable for wildlife may include removing a large number of non-valuable trees, so the ground can receive more sunlight, and a buyer or a seller can see more of the property. 2. If the property has some extremely thick areas, or an abundance of litter is present under pine stands, you may want to do a controlled burn, which may be financed by your lender. 3. Before you start plowing and planting, you need to have a soil test and to know the reasons that this site is best for attracting deer, turkeys and other wildlife. 4. Having a sanctuary for deer on the land you want to purchase may be a critical factor to attracting more deer to your lands and being able to harvest more deer each year. 5. After the first timber thinning, pine plantations are opened up where deer not only may travel and bed but also can be harvested. 6. Fertilize what native plants you have on the land to increase the property’s value for wildlife. 7. Building a pond or clearing the vegetation around an existing pond, so that the buyer can have more access to the pond is an improvement you may want to consider making. 8. Wildlife corridors provide critical access to and from fields and food plots on your property. 9. Regardless of how small the property is that you’re considering buying or selling, having green fields or places where green fields can be planted definitely will improve the property and its value. 10. Planting green fields on the firebreaks between timber stands not only improves food for wildlife but also provides bedding areas and travel corridors. 11. If the property you’re considering buying has long leaf pine stands, there’s generally enough diffused sunlight to plant green fields under those pine stands. 12. If you don’t have enough thick cover for bedding areas, you may want to consider “hinge cutting” non-commercial trees to create thick-cover sites where deer can bed. 13. You may have some wild plums on the property you’re considering buying that will attract deer for early-season bowhunting food sites for deer. 14. If you live in a state that permits the use of feeders, you may want to put out feeders to distribute feed where they’ll be most effective during daylight hours to show a buyer. 15. Make sure when you’re considering clearing-up timberlands for wildlife that the company you’re contracting with to do this work has the heavy equipment needed and also has set with you before beginning the work priorities of what needs to be done first and the costs involved. 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 25
Deer Trail Camera Setup for Any Hunting Location BY CHARLES JOHNSON
Special mounts allow game cameras to be mounted on any type of tree and adjusted to optimal position.
26 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
HUNTING
There’s more to setting up a game camera than strapping it to a tree.
A good rule-of-thumb is to set trail cameras around waist to chest high for the best coverage.
Specialty tools are available to perform a specific task. Craftsmen and women utilize certain tools designed to complete a job meeting specific standards. Their tools are important in the performance of their job. Without tools the task could not be completed in an efficient manner. Hunters also have tools to assist them in their tasks. Bows, rifles, tree stands, binoculars and other items are all tools hunters use in the pursuit of game. Each tool has a specific function to assist the hunter and hunters practice with their tools to achieve top performance. One tool that often gets overlooked by hunters is the game or trail camera. Yes, game cameras, when used effectively become a prime tool for the hunter. Recent advancements in the use of technology in game cameras have pushed them to the top of the hunter’s toolbox. LIGHTS, CAMERA AND ACTION There are several quality models of game cameras available that provide easy setup and clear photos or videos day or night. Moultrie, Cuddeback, Wildgame Innovations, Spy Point and Covert are a few of the more popular and affordable models. Most camera models offer various features like, infrared photos for night, fast trigger speed and video mode. “We use the DLC Covert camera primarily in video mode,” mentions Dennis Holcomb of Oxford, Ala. “The video mode lets us see more than what is on a still photo.”
cameras are connected to a cell phone service provider. The cell service is inexpensive. Some plans are as cheap as $10 a month.
Holcomb has set up digital game cameras in different areas on his hunting lease. The cameras are set for a 25 second video with a five-minute delay between recordings. He scouts areas to place the cameras to see what type and size deer are coming through the area. Holcomb says he gets about 350 videos a week on some cameras.
The camera and service can be activated to send photos over the cell network either by text, email or both. The pics can go directly to your smartphone, tablet or computer. Software applications can be used to categorize the photos for easy retrieval and hunt planning.
“We will check the cameras at least once a week,” Holcomb reports. “You really can learn a lot about the deer on your property using the cameras.” The trail cams will record anything that triggers the sensor, including other types of wildlife and trespassers. Although designed for capturing wildlife, game cams have also caught criminals in the act around homes, garages and barns. The units are compact, quiet and the infrared does not spook animals at night. Later models have a longer battery life and can support large capacity memory cards. The cards make it easy to swap out on the cameras and minimize the time in the deer zone. The Covert camera models uses AA size batteries that can last up to four months. CAMERAS CALLING THE HUNTER ABOUT A DEER Many trail camera manufacturers offer cellular models that allow hunters to receive photos almost immediately. The
“Our SC 410 camera utilizes multi-carriers with 4G LTE,” mentions Marc Cavanaugh of Intelligent Surveillance Corporation (ISC). “This allows users to use the best technology available switching between cellular carriers for the best coverage.” The camera also has a true Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking feature that can access the camera’s location and is not contingent on cell service. A glass lens and a machined aluminum frame allows for clear pictures and is rated for IP68 waterproof specifications. Cuddeback offers a cellular camera that will allow up to 16 other cameras to connect to the one main camera. The other game cameras must be Cuddeback brand, but this limits the need to only one cell plan. The Cuddelink camera can placed in the center of the property with the satellite cameras scattered around other sectors for complete coverage of hunting area. There are several other brands of cellular game cameras that 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 27
Deer Trail Camera Setup for Any Hunting Location
Make notes on the locations of where you have placed trail cameras on your hunting property.
offer automatic photo sending and remote operation. Most also offer a picture storage or categorizing of photos you want to keep. With the digital cell cameras sending pictures to hunters, there is less intrusion and disturbance in the deer woods. TRACKING THE DEER’S MOVEMENT By early autumn bucks begin to disperse. Holcomb knows the bucks are around and he has photo evidence to prove it. Holcomb uses his series of game cameras throughout his hunting lease property. He keeps the cameras up in service throughout the year.
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“We had the cameras up near a ladder stand,” Holcomb said.. “We were seeing a good size buck on a regular basis about the same time of day before hunting season.” Holcomb pointed out that once the stand was hunted a few times the deer changed their patterns. It was almost like they knew it was hunting season. Still, the cameras kept rolling and captured the deer coming through from a different direction at a different time. The hunters approached from another direction and remained on stand longer to kill that buck. “The deer may change their travel routes a few hundred yards when under pressure,” Holcomb commented. “If we are not getting any deer on one camera location, we will move the camera down to another area about 100 yards.” Holcomb moves the cameras around the property in order 28 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
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Deer Trail Camera Setup for Any Hunting Location
Mounting trail cameras higher puts them out of the line-of-sight of deer and other hunters.
to cover as much area as possible to get an inventory of the deer. The result is thaqt Holcomb and his hunting partners really get to know the deer, their markings and most importantly their comings and goings. STEALTHY CAMERA SET UP Most hunters will place a trail game camera near a food plot or feeder. This usually captures some photos of does and smaller bucks. However, hunters will want to know where the big bucks are and their movements. Older bucks can be become wise to trail camera placement from scent, lights and frequent visits by hunters checking data cards. Even the soft infra-red glow of some game cameras can alert bucks. Placement is key. “Place the camera about 15 yards off a main deer trail,” Cavanaugh advised. “We like the camera to face northeast to northwest to avoid direct sunlight.” Game cameras should be mounted at a 45-degree angle to a trail for wider coverage of the trail. Hunters should wipe down the camera with scent killer wipes and wear gloves when placing the camera in service. Most hunters will strap the camera to a tree around waist high. However, this can put the camera at eye level to deer. Mounting the trail cam at around six feet or higher puts the unit out of sight of deer and other hunters. Do make certain the camera lens and sensor have an unobstructed view of the trail. SpyHigh makes a camera mounting system that makes it simple to place trail cameras higher in trees. The mounts allow the camera to be tilted downward over the trail. With a single camera on a food plot or field, deer may enter from any direction without triggering the camera. Savvy hunters will use two or more cameras for better coverage especially on larger plots and fields.
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877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 29
Florida deer season opens with new annual bag limit and harvest reporting requirement BY TONY YOUNG
30 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
HUNTING
The 2019-2020 archery and crossbow seasons are already underway in south Florida’s Zone A and will soon be opening in the other three hunting zones. This season, there are new statewide rule changes that hunters need to understand, especially when it comes to hunting deer. NEW ANNUAL BAG LIMIT FOR DEER “There is now a five-deer annual bag limit, of which no more than two may be antlerless. This applies to all hunters and is the maximum number of deer that any one hunter may take in the state throughout the entire deer hunting season,” said Cory Morea, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) biologist and deer management program coordinator. Deer harvested on licensed game farms/hunting preserves and those taken through the deer depredation program, private lands deer management program, and antlerless deer program permits do not count as part of a hunter’s five-deer annual bag limit. However, antlerless deer taken on wildlife management areas using antlerless deer quota permits/tags do count toward a hunter’s five deer (of which two may be antlerless) annual bag limit. “This annual bag limit was developed through extensive collaboration with staff and stakeholders and aligns with the goals and objectives outlined in our Commission approved strategic plan for deer management,” Morea said. “It is intended to improve hunting opportunities by encouraging harvest among more hunters as well as greater selectivity while helping maintain a healthy and reasonably balanced deer herd.” Until now, Florida was the only state in the Southeast without a specified annual bag limit. NEW HARVEST REPORTING REQUIREMENT FOR DEER HUNTERS All hunters, regardless of age or license requirement, must now log their harvested deer prior to moving the deer from the point where the hunter located it. They can do so using the new FWC Deer Harvest Reporting App or a paper deer harvest log. The app is called “Survey123 for ArcGIS” and can be downloaded for free onto a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet, from the Apple App Store, Google Play Store or Amazon AppStore. At MyFWC.com/HarvestReport, hunters can learn how to find and download the app and install the FWC Deer Harvest Report Form. In addition, there’s a separate set of instructions for using the app. Once a hunter inputs the required data in the
app and successfully submits the harvest record, a confirmation number will be saved in the hunter’s “sent” folder within the app, and the log/reporting process is complete. If no cell service or Wi-fi is available, the harvest record will be saved in the “outbox” folder and the hunter may send the report once service is available. If hunters do not have a mobile device or, if hunters prefer, they may choose to log their harvest on a paper deer harvest log. The FWC provides a courtesy deer harvest log that hunters can print from MyFWC.com/ HarvestReport. If hunters use a paper harvest log, they will need to report their harvest by either calling the tollfree Deer Harvest Reporting Hotline at 844-392-DEER (3337) between 8 a.m. – 8 p.m. ET or by using the FWC Deer Harvest Reporting App. A confirmation number will be given once successful submission is completed, and hunters must write that number on their paper harvest log to complete the harvest reporting process. The reporting step must be done within 24 hours of harvest, before final processing of the deer, before any of the deer is transferred to a meat processor or taxidermist, or before leaving the state with the deer. Deer harvested on licensed game farms/hunting preserves or those possessed that were killed by motor vehicles do not have to be reported. “When hunting deer, hunters are encouraged to keep their harvest log or mobile device with them to avoid delays in moving their harvested deer,” Morea said.
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Florida Deer Season Opens With New Annual Bag Limit And Harvest Reporting Requirement
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For more info on the events or CCA Alabama www.ccaalabama.org 251-478-3474 32 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
Florida Deer Season Opens With New Annual Bag Limit And Harvest Reporting Requirement
Having an FWC customer ID number is helpful when reporting a harvested deer. Hunters exempt from license requirements who do not have a customer ID number can obtain one by going to GoOutdoorsFlorida.com and clicking “Create Customer Account” before going hunting. “The harvest reporting system will foster bag-limit compliance and give us another source of deer harvest data,” Morea said. “In addition, we will continue conducting our annual hunter phone survey after the end of each season.” CHANGE TO YOUTH APR EXEMPTION Youth age 15 and younger are now limited to harvesting only one antlered deer annually that does not meet deer management unit antler point regulations, so long as it has an antler that is at least 5 inches in length. “Our deer hunting stakeholders believe limiting youth to one antlered deer annually that doesn’t meet antler point regulations will allow more youth to be able to see and harvest antlered deer, while developing a better understanding of DMU antler regulations,” Morea said. WMAS THAT DON’T REQUIRE A QUOTA PERMIT Florida has one of the largest WMA systems in the country at nearly 6 million acres and offers a wide range of hunting opportunities from quota/limited entry hunts, special-opportunity hunts and walk-on areas. There are nearly 60 public hunting areas statewide where hunt-
ers don’t need a quota permit to hunt some or all of the archery season. If you didn’t apply or get drawn for an archery quota hunt, you can still find hunting opportunities at WMAs that don’t require a quota permit by visiting MyFWC.com/WMAbrochures. SEASON DATES BY ZONE Archery and crossbow seasons in Zone A opened Aug. 3 and run through Sept. 1 and Sept. 6, respectively. In Zone C, archery and crossbow seasons open Sept. 14. Archery and crossbow seasons in Zone B start Oct. 19. And in Zone D, archery and crossbow seasons begin Oct. 26. LEGAL TO TAKE During the archery season and that part of crossbow season that runs concurrent with archery, you may harvest legal-to-take antlered deer (as defined by the regulations for the DMU in which you’re hunting) and antlerless deer, which are deer with less than 5-inch antlers. However, no antlerless deer may be taken in DMU A1, and antlerless deer may only be taken during archery and crossbows seasons Aug. 3-11 in DMU A2 and Aug. 3-18 in DMU A3. Beginning this year, a new rule requires all antlerless deer taken on private lands receiving antlerless deer tags must be tagged, even if they are harvested during days when antlerless deer are legal during the season. After archery ends, during the remaining portion of the crossbow season, you may only harvest legal-to-take antlered deer according to the specific DMU antler rules.
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877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 33
Florida Deer Season Opens With New Annual Bag Limit And Harvest Reporting Requirement
The daily bag limit for deer is two, and bag limits for deer on WMAs can differ, so check the specifics of the area before you hunt. You may hunt wild hogs on private lands year-round with no bag or size limits. On most WMAs, there’s also no bag or size limits, and hogs are legal to take during most hunting seasons except spring turkey. But on a few WMAs, bag and size limits do apply, so to be certain, check the brochure for the specific area. In addition to hunting big game, it’s also legal to shoot gobblers and bearded turkeys during archery and crossbow seasons. You may take two turkeys in a single day on private lands, but the two-bird combined fall-season limit still applies. The daily bag is one on WMAs, however, on many of them, you may take hen turkeys during the archery season. It’s against the law to shoot turkeys while they’re on the roost, when you’re within 100 yards of a game-feeding station when bait is present or with the aid of recorded turkey calls. It’s also unlawful to hunt turkeys in Holmes County in the fall. ADDITIONAL REGULATIONS YOU NEED TO KNOW All bows must have a minimum draw weight of 35 pounds, and hand-held releases are permitted. For hunting deer, hogs and turkeys, broadheads must have at least two sharpened edges with a minimum width of 7/8 inch. New this year, bows equipped with electronic computational (rangefinders) or light projection (laser) sights are allowed during archery season.
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34 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
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Florida Deer Season Opens With New Annual Bag Limit And Harvest Reporting Requirement
877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 35
Florida Deer Season Opens With New Annual Bag Limit And Harvest Reporting Requirement
As far as legal shooting hours, you’re allowed to let your arrow fly between a half-hour before sunrise and a halfhour after sunset. Except for turkeys, you’re permitted to take resident game over feeding stations on private property. It’s against the law to feed or use bait on WMAs.
$26.50. And don’t forget to study up on the rules and regulations for the area you wish to hunt. You can download these brochures at MyFWC.com/WMAbrochures.
You can obtain all the licenses and permits you’ll need online at GoOutdoorsFlorida.com or at a county tax collector’s office, retail outlets that sell hunting and fishing You may not use dogs to hunt deer or turkeys during archery season, but you may use bird dogs if you’re quail supplies, or by calling 888-HUNT-FLORIDA. hunting. However, you may use a dog on a leash to help RESOURCES TO HELP YOU GET READY FOR HUNTyou trail any wounded game. ING SEASONS The FWC manages archery and shooting ranges across LICENSE AND PERMIT REQUIREMENTS Before you go, make sure your license and required per- the state where you can practice for upcoming hunting seasons. Information about these public ranges is at mits are up to date. To hunt during archery season, you MyFWC.com/Ranges. Also, the FWC offers a bowhunter may hunt only with a bow and you must have a Florida hunting license and an archery permit. During crossbow education course and information on treestand safety. You can register and get more information at MyFWC.com/ season, you may use either a crossbow or bow, but you HunterSafety. must have a crossbow permit along with your hunting license. On WMAs, only hunters with a persons-with-disFor those new to hunting, learn how to get started at Myabilities crossbow permit are allowed to use crossbows FWC.com/NewHunter. Another great resource for teens during archery season. and young adults is Bowhunting360.com. This website features articles and videos on how to shoot, hunting If you’re a Florida resident, an annual hunting license costs $17. Nonresidents have the choice of paying $46.50 basics, scouting, shot placement and field dressing. It also has a bowhunting 101 checklist. for a 10-day license or $151.50 for 12 months. Archery and crossbow permits are $5 each, deer hunters must have Stay informed about Florida hunting opportunities and the $5 deer permit and, if you’re hunting turkeys, you need a turkey permit ($10 for residents, $125 for nonres- regulation changes by following the “HuntFlorida” social media pages at Facebook.com/HGM.FWC and YouTube. idents). com/HuntFloridaTV, and sign up to receive the monthly Hunting Hot Sheet. As always, have fun, hunt safely and Anyone planning on hunting one of Florida’s many responsibly, and we’ll see you in the woods! WMAs must purchase a management area permit for
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36 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
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Wildlife Research Center® and Tink’s®, manufacturers of quality hunting scents, partnered to fund a study with CWD Evolution, LLC. that has now led to a CWD testing protocol known as the RT-QuIC test process, that is specifically designed for testing deer urine for CWD contamination. This allows manufacturers of deer and elk scents to test and verify that no CWD is detected in the urine used in their products. While the risk of urine-based scents spreading CWD is virtually zero, there is a lot of false and misleading information driving policy and regulations regarding urine-based scents and CWD. Some states have acted on this bad information and actually banned the use of urine-based scents. The RT-QuIC test verifies that no detectable levels of CWD are found and provides a final confirmation that the products are safe for use and without risk of spreading CWD. “We sought out the most recognized authorities regarding CWD transmission via urine to get their opinion,” says Phil Robinson of Tink’s. These scientists also happen to be the lead authors of the most commonly misinterpreted studies cited when a urine ban has been put in effect. We are 100% confident that our products pose no risk of spreading CWD. This test is just a confirmation of that fact.” “Our industry is committed to the health of wild cervids and the sport of hunting. This is a break-through for our industry and for all the loyal hunters that use our products. This test confirms what we already know and provides a clear and simple tool to keep rule makers from taking this important tradition and tool away from hunters.” says Sam Burgeson of Wildlife Research Center®. Tink’s® and Wildlife Research Center® have already begun testing their urine in 2019 and others will be soon to follow. Beginning in 2020, bottles will carry the “RT-QuIC Tested” logo on their labels for easy identification.
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877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 37
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38 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
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MID STATE STOCKYARD 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 39
NEW GEAR BY WILLIAM KENDY
New Tenzing Tree Stand Fanny Pack The 500 cubic inch, Tenzing Cinch fanny pack is built of soft and quiet durable tricot fabric and designed as a tree stand companion. It features two main compartments, two side pockets, five organizational pockets, a cell phone sleeve and a “built in” hand muff with side zipper access. The padded waist belt is ergonomic and fully adjustable while the back pad is channeled for air-cooled comfort. Suggested Retail Price: $79.99 www.tenzing.com
Pachmayr Launches New Line of Knives
With a wide range of styles and sizes, the new Pachmayr Every Day Carry line of knives are designed to withstand the rigors of everyday use while remaining compact and comfortable. The six knives in the line include both fixed blade and folders, drop point and cleaver blade styles and a variety of handle materials. Overall knife lengths run from 6.75” up to 8.5 inches. Suggested Retail Price: $23.98 - $99.98 www.lymanproducts.com
Federal Introduces New Upland Steel Loads
Federal’s New Upland Steel Loads are designed for high volume upland hunters and are perfect for doves and other light upland game especially in areas that require the use of non-lead shot. These 2 ¾ inch shells are available in both 12 and 20 gauge, in 6 and 7 size shot, are priced reasonably and consistently and reliably deliver the payload at a high velocity. Suggested Retail Price: $8.95 - $9.95 www.federalpremium.com.
40 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
NEW GEAR FOR OUTDOORSMEN
Viper Archery Products Offers Sidewinder Bow Sight Series
The single pin Sidewinder series bow sights feature fast, easy, precise and tool-less elevation adjustments. Available in two models the Sidewinder comes in three fiber-optic diameter options and incorporates a thin and low profile competition style up-pin that insures minimal target blockings. Hard-coat anodized aluminum construction with stainless steel hardware and stainless steel up-pin insures durability. Comes with a limited lifetime warranty. Suggested Retail Price: $169.99 and $219.99 www.viperarcheryproducts.com
Berkley® “Lights the Night” with Illuminated Glowstik Fishing Rods
Berkley® introduces its Glowstik, an illuminated fishing rod designed for anglers fishing in low light or dark conditions. These battery powered rods feature a fiberglass blank construction with a LED Core illuminating a fiber optic cable running the length of the rod. Sporting stainless steel guides with titanium oxide inserts and rubberized handle, the Glowstik is available in spinning and casting models. Suggested Retail Rod Price: $79.99 to $89.99 www.purefishing.com
Mossberg® Offers Patriot™ Predator 6.5 PRC Bolt Action Rifles
The 6.5 PRC is the newest addition to the Mossberg™ Patriot Predator rifle family. The Patriot Predator features a twin-lug, push-feed machined steel action, a 24 inch free floating, fluted and suppressor ready threaded carbon steel barrel complete with a top-mounted Picatinny rail. It features the Mossberg™ Lightning Bolt Action user-adjustable trigger, two stock and metal finish options, oversize bolt handle and other features. Suggested Retail Price: $441-$524 www.mossberg.com.
Angler’s Best Livewell Buddy® Enables Easy, Pain-Free Fish Retrieval
The Livewell Buddy® is a flexible, floating circular silicone net that allows fish to move freely through circulated water and easily fits in any standard livewell. It can also be attached alongside a boat, canoe or kayak and even tethered to a wading fisherman. It eliminates “fish splash” and “finning” injuries and makes retrieving your catch or baitfish, even the elusive pinfish, easy and safe. Suggested Retail Price: $39.99 www.anglersbest.com
877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 41
Bait Privilege License Offers Choice for Hunters
All hunters who hunt with the aid of bait must have privilege license
With deer season approaching, I want to make sure Alabama hunters know they have a new tool available for hunting white-tailed deer and feral hogs. The Alabama Legislature passed legislation earlier this year that allows hunters on privately owned or leased land to purchase a bait privilege license that makes it legal to hunt with the aid of bait for feral pigs year-round and white-tailed deer during the deer-hunting season only. The Legislature conducted polling and received overwhelming approval from the public in favor of the baiting bill. Since the baiting privilege license became available earlier this year, a good many people who are dealing with the feral-pig scourge have purchased the license to help with this difficult situation.
BY CHRIS BLANKENSHIP Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Conservation & Natural Resources
The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) is issuing the bait privilege license ($15 for resident individual hunters and $51 for non-residents) through any outlet that sells hunting licenses and online at www. outdooralabama.com. Please know that anyone who hunts with the aid of bait must have his or her own license. There are no exceptions. This includes hunters 65 years old and older and hunters under 16 when hunting with the aid of bait. People hunting on their own property and lifetime license holders also must have the bait privilege license to hunt
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with the aid of bait. Baiting any wildlife, deer and feral pigs included, remains illegal on any public lands, including wildlife management areas (WMAs). During discussions with members of the Alabama Legislature, the ADCNR requested language be included that would give the Department the express ability to suspend the use of the bait privilege license on a county, regional or statewide basis to prevent the spread of diseases. The law specifically states the ADCNR Commissioner can suspend the feeding of wild game in areas where chronic wasting disease (CWD) or other disease might be present. This gives us methods to ensure that we can protect the deer herd in our state. I have received a lot of positive feedback about the legislation and that it delivers a great deal more clarity to those who hunt with the aid of bait than in other states, like Georgia and Texas. Of course, I’ve also heard from people who don’t think pursuing game with the aid of bait is the way we should hunt. Please remember, it is not a requirement that people hunt with the use of bait. It is simply a tool that people can use if they prefer. If you are totally opposed to that type of hunting, then you can hunt the way
FROM THE COMMISSIONER you always have. This legislation just provides an option. If you choose not to purchase a bait privilege license, the Area Definition Regulation remains in effect. The Area Definition Regulation allows for supplemental feeding as long as the feed is more than 100 yards away and out of the line of sight of the hunter because of natural vegetation or naturally occurring terrain features. I do know hunters and landowners who are dealing with feral pigs should be able to benefit from the bait privilege license with the provision that feral hogs can be taken year-round with the aid of bait. Farmers have especially felt the impact of feral swine from the damage done to row crops, pastures and farm roads. A 2009 study conducted by Auburn University concluded that more than $74 million in damage was caused annually by feral hogs in Alabama alone. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), in addition to the agricultural losses, feral swine also cause major damage to native species and ecosystems that promote the stability of native wildlife species. The USDA estimates this invasive species costs the nation $1.5 billion each year in damages and control costs. The USDA also warns that feral swine threaten the health of people, pets and other domestic animals. As far as the use of bait to hunt white-tailed deer is concerned, the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries (WFF) Division will closely monitor the harvest rate trends of whitetails that might be associated with the use of bait.
A Must Read for Turkey Hunters. “Any information that came from outside was highly suspect. Anything that came from inside, even from members of your own family was, in many cases, tarred with the same brush. Nobody and by that I mean nobody, gave away a thing. The “boy” in this story is blessed with an honest and benevolent grandfather who learned the hard way. Alan covers very well what has come to be called “The bad old days” when you mostly made it on your own or you didn’t make it at all.” TOM KELLY
The Department will make sure this is not a detriment to the wildlife and that the deer population in our state continues to thrive. Our deer management practices that have been in effect for years promote the well-being of Alabama’s deer herd with the threebuck limit and other seasons and bag limits. The scrutiny of the harvest records under the first year of the bait privilege is just another factor in evaluating the health of the deer population. Hunting is big business in Alabama as well as a treasured way of life to our people. Hunting generates an economic impact of more than $1.8 billion annually in Alabama. The recreational value for Alabama’s hunting heritage is immeasurable. Obviously, it takes funds to ensure Alabama’s wildlife continues to be a source of enjoyment for all hunters. Funds derived from the sale of the new bait privilege license will be eligible for federal matching funds to support conservation efforts in the state. The number of licenses sold is part of the equation that determines how much federal money the state receives. Exempt hunters are not counted in those numbers. However, if those exempted hunters don’t buy a hunting license but do buy a bait privilege license, they will be eligible to be counted for federal matching funds. As I said before, it’s your choice. Just please make sure you have purchased your bait privilege license before you hunt with the aid of bait.
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877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 43
The Bait Debate
Widespread Conflict
Hunting clubs, leaseholders, landowners, and individual hunters across Alabama are in conflict over the question about whether to hunt deer over bait or not. Some longstanding friendships have eroded because of the debate between those committed to traditional values and those attracted to the perception of heretofore forbidden fruit.
BY CORKY PUGH Executive Director, Hunting Heritage Foundation
WHAT’S CHANGED? After decades of failure, Alfa lobbyists and the purveyors of feeders and bait finally overcame opposition from the mainstream hunting and wildlife conservation community, and succeeded in passing a bill in the Alabama legislature legalizing hunting deer over bait. Officials of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources did not take a position on the bill, clearing the way for passage. The new law, arguably one of the worst pieces of public policy ever passed, allows the hunting of deer (and feral
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pigs) over bait upon payment of a $15 fee for a license to do so. This sterling example of gerrymandered legalese evolved over time to attempt to overcome legitimate concerns and objections, and includes a host of provisions aimed at getting around each of them piece by piece. Those with enough money to buy feeders and feed and a permit can hunt over bait. Those without the money or time to keep feeders full, cannot. At the very root, a law that allows someone to pay a fee to do something that is otherwise wrong or illegal smells to high heaven. What’s next? You can drive 125 miles per hour the wrong way on the interstate for a fee? Or maybe, for a $15 permit, you can keep all the undersized Speckled Trout, Redfish, or Red Snapper you want, while those who cannot afford the permit must abide by the regulations?
HUNTING HERITAGE LEGISLATIVE TACTICS AND MANEUVERS The vast majority of members of the legislature do not hunt. Even if they represent the percentage of the overall population, only 7% would be hunters. There is a vacuum of knowledge on hunting and fishing issues in the legislature. So elected representatives and senators look to constituents, organizations of various kinds, and the state agency for information. In the absence of objections from DCNR, and implicit, if not explicit approval, passage became more attainable. In a thinly-veiled attempt to tie the bill to the looming threat of Chronic Wasting Disease, now on the Mississippi border, the bill gives the Conservation Commissioner authority to close an area to baiting or feeding if there is a disease outbreak—something he already had clear authority to do. Shutting down baiting and feeding as a proactive approach aimed at preventing the disease in the first place had been requested by the Alabama Wildlife Federation, Hunting Heritage Foundation, and others, but fell on deaf ears. There was even the misleading claim that DCNR could double-count the bait hunting permits somehow as part of the number of hunting licenses sold, for the purpose of determining Alabama’s apportionment of federal aid dollars. And then the humdinger of all humdingers: that Alabama had to pass the bill in order to be eligible for Congressionally appropriated funds to deal with Chronic Wasting Disease. WHAT REMAINS THE SAME? None of the other realities have changed. Not biological concerns. Not socio-political concerns. Nada. Nothing. Not anything at all. • Baiting and feeding still increase the risk of disease transmission by artificially congregating animals. The Wildlife Society, the professional organization of wildlife biologists, is on record opposing baiting and feeding. The TWS position statement on the subject sets out the substantive body of science that is the basis for this opposition. • Baiting and feeding still increase the nutritional plane and reproductive level of feral pigs, raccoons, opossums, and other non-target animals. No matter what the method of dispensing bait or feed, much of it is consumed by non-target animals. And the higher the nutritional plane, the more the reproductive rate goes up and up. • Baiting and feeding still stacks the deck in favor of predators, making them much more efficient, especially in picking off young turkeys. There is growing concern among wildlife professionals about the ill effects of bait and feed placed for deer in the fall on survivability of young turkeys. • Moldy bait and feed, laced with aflatoxins, is still poisonous to wild turkeys. The mold still reduces reproductive capability, and is still lethal in even small doses to young turkeys. • Hunting over bait still violates the principles of fair chase, dramatically eroding public support for hunting. According to the Alabama Wildlife Federation, survey research shows that 80% of the Alabama general public objects to hunting when bait is involved; without bait, public support for hunting is overwhelmingly positive.
•
Among hunters, opposition and support for bait are split, with slightly more opposed than in support, but when advised of disease risks, support drops 23%. Widespread baiting and feeding still reduce the movement of deer, dramatically reducing hunter success. Extensive research in South Carolina, where bait was legal in part of the state and illegal in the remainder, clearly shows that hunter sightings of deer are lower where bait is legal. And the hunter effort required to harvest a deer is far higher where bait is legal. The deer do not move during the day in search of food.
To quote the State of Alabama Director of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries, “The choice to hunt over bait is a personal one that every hunter will have to make this fall.” Or maybe…not to.
The Hunting Heritage Foundation is an Alabama non-profit organization established in 2011. To see what HHF stands for go to the website at www.huntingheritagefoundation.com. You can write to us at: P. O. Box 242064, Montgomery, AL 36124, or corkypugh@mindspring.com. * The opinions expressed in this column are solely that of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the staff and management of Great Days Outdoors Media, LLC.
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4500 Hwy. 77 · Southside, AL 35907 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 45
A True Conservation Success Story
From the brink of extinction to huntable populations, gators in Alabama have experienced it all.
BY CHARLES “CHUCK” SYKES Director of the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries (WFF)
Restoration of the American alligator represents a national conservation success story in which Alabama played a leading role. Unregulated alligator harvest throughout the South in the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s threatened the species with extinction. In 1938, Alabama took action and became the first state to protect them. Other states followed our lead and, in 1967, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service placed the American alligator on the Endangered Species List. Two decades of protection enabled the species to rebound. By 1987, it was removed from the Endangered Species List but was retained as a federally protected species. By 2005, Alabama’s alligator population had grown to the extent that they were becoming a nuisance in some areas. Therefore, implementing a regulated alligator hunting season on a small scale was an important step toward mitigating human/alligator conflicts and managing this unique reptile. On August 18, 2006, Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries (WFF) opened the first regulated alligator hunting season in its history. This hunt was seven consecutive nights concluding on
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August 24 at midnight. Registration for the hunt was performed online through the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources at www.outdooralabama.com. With 50 alligator harvest tags available, 991 Alabama residents applied. These 50 hunters were required to attend a mandatory training class prior to being issued a temporary alligator harvest tag. Of the 50 eligible, 46 attended the mandatory class on the day the season began. During the class, hunters were encouraged to consider safety above all. Running around in the Delta during daylight hours is hazardous enough; doing it in the dark can be even more dangerous. In addition to the safety topics, instruction was given on laws and regulations, harvest techniques, dispatching methods, and caring for the trophy after harvest. At the end of the class each hunter was provided an information packet containing a list of regulations and his/her temporary alligator harvest tag that had to be attached to the tail of the alligator as soon as the animal was harvested. The first alligator to be harvested was taken by a young lady from south Baldwin County within two hours of
FROM THE DIRECTOR the opening of the season. This was the first of 40 alligators to be taken during the week-long hunt, with the last one being brought in just before the midnight closing of the season. The alligators ranged in size from 7’ 2”, 80 pounds to 12’ 4”, 461 pounds. This figures out to be an 87% success rate. Our goals for this hunt were to have a safe hunt, to perfect our hunting methods, and to harvest a few gators. In all respects, this was a successful hunt that laid the foundation for what we have today. Since that time, the number of tags issued and areas hunted have increased (see sidebar 1). In addition, the registration process has been refined. At the request of our hunters, WFF instituted a preference point system in 2014 to keep the process as equitable as possible for all who wished to hunt gators. The number of registrants has remained constant at approximately 5,500 each year since 2014. One more major change to the process occurred this year, when tag holders were allowed to complete an online training course instead of physically going to one. All of these modifications to the gator hunting season were instituted to make the entire process easier and fairer for participants. Now, let’s really get into this whole discussion about fairness. We’ve seen all the Facebook rants and heard all the complaining about the “rigged” system for years. No one, not even me, is guaranteed a tag. What part of a random selection process don’t people understand? With only 260 tags being issued each year and an average of 5,500 people applying for those tags, that’s about a 4.5% chance of receiving one. If you apply each year and accumulate preference points, your chances go up significantly. However, it will still take an average of 6-7 years before many will be drawn, but there is still no guarantee (see side bar 2). So, after looking at the table showing the number of years that individuals have been selected as a tag holder or alternate, it’s obvious that it’s not a rigged system. The overwhelming majority of people have only been selected once. Other than taking the word of our IT section and looking at the overall numbers that are handed to me each year, how do I know the process isn’t “rigged”? Because, I have been applying for a tag every year since 2014 to test the system. Believe it or not, I pay my money and register for all of the zones each year to test the system. To take it one step further, for the past two years, a group (10) of us has applied, and each year only one in the group has been selected as a tag holder, proving once again that this system is working just fine. This year was my sixth year to apply and I drew a tag. I debated for several days about what to do. Should I accept or decline the tag? Why shouldn’t I take the tag? I registered each year just like everyone else. I paid the same amount for registration just like everyone else. After all, I am a life-long hunter, so why shouldn’t I enjoy the alligator hunting season just like any other hunter in Alabama? The answer is simple if you think about it. So, I took the online course and accepted my tag.
to comic relief. It was a true social event and combined effort. Despite what many conspiracy theorists may believe, this had nothing to do with the fact that I am the Director of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries. It did, however, have everything to do with the fact that I am a hunter, and I truly enjoy spending time with my friends in the woods and on the water. None of us will ever forget that night and the memories made along the banks of the Alabama River pursuing a prehistoric creature. Unlike the rest of the crew members who only have photos and memories of the hunt, I can’t wait to get a wallet and belt made to serve as physical reminders of a great night! SIDE BAR ONE 2006 Southwest Zone, 50 available tags 2007 Southwest Zone, 100 available tags Lake Eufaula Zone, 40 available tags 2008 - 2010 Southwest Zone, 125 available tags Lake Eufaula Zone, 40 available tags 2011 Southwest Zone, 150 available tags Lake Eufaula Zone, 75 available tags West Central Zone, 50 available tags 2012 Southwest Zone, 150 available tags Lake Eufaula Zone, 75 available tags West Central Zone, 50 available tags 2013 Southwest Zone, 150 available tags Lake Eufaula Zone, 75 available tags West Central Zone, 50 available tags 2014 Southwest Zone, 150 available tags Lake Eufaula Zone, 40 available tags West Central Zone, 50 available tags (preference point system initiated) 2015-2018 Southwest Zone, 150 available tags Lake Eufaula Zone, 20 available tags West Central Zone, 50 available tags Southeast Zone, 40 available tags 2019 Southwest Zone, 100 available tags Coastal Zone, 50 available tags Lake Eufaula Zone, 20 available tags West Central Zone, 50 available tags Southeast Zone, 40 available tags SIDE BAR TWO
On Friday night, August 9, nine friends and I (we had two boats) took to the waters of the Alabama River near Camden and within two hours had successfully harvested an alligator. Everyone in each boat had their hunting licenses and a specific task to accomplish from navigation, to spotlighting, to casting, 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 47
Get Ready For
SQUIRRELS
I was taking a lot of abuse. I had met some friends at our favorite BBQ joint for lunch and the talk had turned to the upcoming hunting season. When I mentioned how much I enjoy squirrel hunting, my three friends decided to give me a hard time about hunting the “cute little critters.”
BY CRAIG HANEY Photo submitted by Craig Haney
Once your rifle is sighted in: practice, practice, practice.
Finally my buddies decided to change the conversation when Greg said ‘Ok, why do you like to hunt squirrels?” I explained that I had squirrel hunted since age 11 and it was a lot of fun. It is challenging finding the squirrels, getting in position to shoot and making an accurate shot, all of which I enjoy. Squirrel hunting also keeps me in the woods after deer season is over which is great.
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Whether you are a veteran squirrel hunter or new to the sport, following are some tips to help you prepare for squirrel season. THE RANGE There are different ideas about what distance a squirrel hunter should sight in his .22 Long Rifle rifle. I have always sighted in to be deadon at 50 yards. It works for me so I haven’t tried different distances for sighting-in my scoped .22LR. Once past 50 yards, the bullet drops quickly, hitting approximately two inches low at 75 yards. When I hunted strictly with iron sights, I sighted in at 35 yards which gives little difference in bullet drop from 25 to 40 yards.
THE GUN RACK Once your rifle is sighted in: practice, practice, practice. Head shots on squirrels are a tough target, the more you practice, the better you shoot. Practice shooting in simulated hunting conditions; standing freehand, leaning against a tree, or sitting and you will increase the size of your game bag. I prefer using a .22LR rather than a shotgun because the louder shotgun will spook more squirrels. I have taken quite a few squirrels over the years with a single shot .410 shotgun which is light and easy to carry. CLEAN OPTICS “Clean optics” may sound silly but on an early season hunt a few years ago, I set up on a squirrel feeding on acorns and when I looked through my scope all I saw was a thumb print that had somehow gotten on the lens. The squirrel had disappeared before I cleaned the lens where I could see through it. Always check your scope and binocular lens to make sure they are clean before you start your hunt. SQUIRREL CALLS Make sure you have your squirrel calls with the rest of your gear before you leave for your hunt. A lot of times you may not need them, but quite often a bellows or whistle call will save the day. Squirrel calling is not the “exact science” that turkey calling is but you still want to have your calls with you to hopefully bring in the curious or reluctant squirrel. GLOVES AND HEAD NET Most squirrel hunters I know don’t use camo gloves and facemask but if the sun hits your face or hands just right you are much more visible to the squirrels. BE QUIET Learn to be quiet. It starts when you leave your vehicle by easing the door shut. Get your gear together with a minimum of talking with your hunting buddy and as y’all enter the woods to start your hunt. BE PATIENT Slowly enter the woods and wait 10-15 minutes to get a feel for what is happening around you. Move 15 or so steps every 10-15 minutes, then stop, look and listen for 15-20 minutes. Once you learn this kind of patience, your success squirrel hunting will increase greatly. Hunters can develop patience at home by sitting in a chair and not moving for five minutes. Once you can sit still and quiet for five minutes, work up to 30 minutes in five minute intervals. This patience training will also help you become a better deer hunter. THEY ARE TOUGH These aren’t the same squirrels that are getting fat and lazy feeding from the feeder hanging on your deck at home. They are alert, quick to hide and stay in hiding
when spooked by hunters. They are as difficult to hunt successfully as any wild game. Do not underestimate them. COOK ‘EM UP When I was a young squirrel hunter and brought home squirrels for the table, my mother did an awesome job of quartering the squirrels, frying them and making a skillet of gravy that while a simple dish was outstanding on the plate. Here’s a method to cook squirrel that will be tasty in a favorite stew or soup recipe. • • • •
4 squirrels quartered 2 Tbsp Canola Oil 2-3 Tbsp Season-All Chicken broth to cover
1. Coat the squirrel with canola oil. 2. Sprinkle the squirrel with Season-All until covered. 3. Refrigerate the seasoned meat for at least one hour. 4. Put the meat in a slow cooker and cover with chicken broth. 5. Cook 4-6 hours until tender 6. Remove the meat and de-bone to be added to your favorite stew, gravy or soup. If desired, add dumplings to the cooker with the meat for squirrel and dumplings.
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877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 49
BY HANK SHAW
Photos by Holly A. Heyser and Hank Shaw
Tacos Dorados (Taquitos) What are tacos dorados? A corn (sometimes flour) tortilla filled with something spare, usually shredded chicken, rolled tightly and fried in oil until crispy. You normally serve them with a salsa on top, sometimes sour cream, cheese or other good stuff. The key to a taquito is to keep the filling limited, but make it tasty. So simple shredded chicken is nice, but it’s better if you mix that meat in a sauce first. And it has to be fairly dry, so the filling doesn’t blow out the tortilla when you roll it. What to fill your tacos dorados with? I used shredded pheasant breast, but any meat will do. Chicken is customary, but shredded turkey breast, rabbit, beef, venison, pork or whatever all would be nice. Picadillo or some other ground meat is another popular choice. Now, to frying. Most tacos dorados recipes will tell you to secure the rolled up taquitos with a toothpick, but this isn’t really necessary. What is necessary is for you to roll them fairly tightly, and then set them seam side down as you make more. Then, carefully pick them up with a spatula, seam side down, and place them in hot oil, again, seam side down.
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The taco dorado will then set firmly that way, and won’t unroll when you turn it over in the hot oil. Keep them hot on a rack set over a cookie sheet in a warm oven as you fry them. Prep: 20 mins • Cook Time: 20 mins • Total: 40 mins I use corn tortillas here, but I have seen this done with flour, too. Use any salsa you like on top, but mostly you will see a smooth guacamole or the pico de gallo you see in the picture. Ingredients • • • • • • •
3 cups shredded chicken, pheasant, turkey, etc. 1/2 cup salsa negra, hot sauce or other smooth sauce 16 6-inch corn tortillas 1 1/2 cups corn oil or other neutral vegetable oil Salsa, for garnish Sour cream, for garnish (optional) Cotija or shredded cheese, for garnish (optional)
Instructions 1. Mix the shredded meat with the salsa or hot sauce, breaking up any large pieces. You need to roll a delicate tortilla around this, and you want no big lumpy bits. 2. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium
CAMPHOUSE KITCHEN heat for about 4 minutes. Using tongs, dip the tortillas in the hot oil for a few seconds to soften them. Set them in a tray or plate. 3. Put a tablespoon or two of the shredded meat in a thin rectangle on the first third of a tortilla. Wrap it up tightly, but gently, as the tortillas are tender at this point. Slide the taquito, seam side down, aside. Repeat with the remaining taquitos. 4. Heat the oil to at least 325F, and ideally 350F. Using a thin spatula, slip the end of the spatula under the seam of a taquito and carefully place it in the hot oil, seam side down. Press on the top of the taquito for 10 seconds to hold it. Repeat with a few more taquitos. You will need to do this in batches so you can flip them. 5. Set a cooling rack on a baking sheet and put that in the oven, setting the oven to “keep warm.” After 1 to 2 minutes, turn your taquitos over and fry them on the other side for another 1 to 2 minutes. Move them to the rack in the oven and repeat with the remaining taquitos. 6. Serve with the salsa, cheese, sour cream or whatever makes you happy.
Buttermilk Fried Rabbit If you are using wild cottontails, I highly recommend you brine your rabbits before frying. A simple brine of 1/4 cup kosher salt to 4 cups water will do -- the rabbit is going to get plenty of seasoning later. Submerge your bunny in this brine about 8 hours. This process keeps them moist. Domesticated rabbits don’t really need this, but if you want to brine them, do so for no more than 4 hours. Prep: 4 hours • Cook Time: 25 mins • Total: 4 hrs 25 mins Ingredients • • • • • • • • •
2 to 4 cottontails, cut into serving pieces 2 cups buttermilk 2 tablespoons Italian seasoning, or mix together 1 1/2 teaspoons oregano, 1 1/2 teaspoons thyme and 1 tablespoon dried parsley 1 tablespoon paprika 1 tablespoon garlic powder 2 teaspoons cayenne, or to taste 1 1/2 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 2 cups vegetable oil
Instructions 1. Mix the buttermilk with the all the spices except the salt and flour. Coat the rabbit with the mixture and set in a covered container overnight, or at least 4 hours. 2. When you are ready to fry, pour the oil into a large pan -- a big cast iron frying pan is ideal -- to a depth of about an inch. The general idea is you want the oil to come halfway up the side of the rabbit. Set the heat to medium-high. 3. Meanwhile, take the rabbit out of the buttermilk and let it drain in a colander. Don’t shake off the buttermilk or anything, just leave it there.
4. Let the oil heat until it is about 325°F; this is the point where a sprinkle of flour will immediately sizzle. When the oil is hot, pour the flour and salt into a plastic bag and shake to combine. Put a few pieces of rabbit into the bag and shake to get it coated in flour. 5. Set the coated rabbit pieces in one layer in the hot oil so they don’t touch. Fry for about 8 to 12 minutes. Fry gently -- you want a steady sizzle. Turn the rabbit pieces and fry for another 10 minutes or so, until they are golden brown. The forelegs will come out first, followed by the loin, and the hind legs will come out last. You will probably need to fry in batches, so just leave the uncooked rabbit pieces in the colander until you are ready to flour them up and fry them. Don’t let floured pieces sit. 6. When the rabbit is ready, rest them on a rack set over a paper towel to drain away any excess oil. If you are cooking in batches, set this in a warm oven. 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 51
Camphouse Kitchen
Goose Stew with Barley and Mushrooms This is a hearty stew inspired by similar Russian stews I’ve come across over the years. I imagine it to be something eaten in Siberia, or on Wrangel Island, where many of California’s snow geese spend their summers. I used snow geese in this recipe, but the dish would work with all sorts of meats. I also used wild yellowfoot mushrooms, which can be hard to find. Any fresh mushroom will do. Don’t have celery root? Use potatoes. No barley? Rye or wheat berries would also work, although rye takes a long time to cook. No duck fat? Use lard or butter. No duck stock? Use beef stock. Prep: 20 mins • Cook Time: 3 hours • Total: 3 hrs 20 mins Ingredients • • • • • • • • •
8 goose legs, about 2-3 pounds 3 tablespoons duck fat, lard or butter 1 large onion, sliced, about 3 cups 1 pound yellowfoot chanterelles or other mushrooms 7 cups duck stock or beef stock 2 teaspoons marjoram 1 cup barley 1 cup sliced carrots 1 celery root, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
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• • •
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill S salt and black pepper to taste 1 tablespoon sour cream per person
Instructions 1. Heat the duck fat in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat and brown the goose legs well. Salt them as they cook. Remove the goose legs as they brown and set aside. 2. Once the goose legs are all browned, add the onions and mushrooms and turn the heat to high. Stir to combine. Sauté until the onion begins to brown, about 6-8 minutes. Add the marjoram and return the goose legs to the pot, then pour over the duck stock. Bring to a simmer and cook until the goose legs are tender, anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours. 3. When the goose legs are tender, remove them, let them cool a bit, and pull all the meat off the bone. Return it to the pot. Add the barley, carrots and celery root. Stir well and cook until the barley and celery root are cooked, about 30 minutes. Add salt to taste. 4. Serve garnished with dill and black pepper, and give everyone a dollop of sour cream on their bowls when you come to the table. This stew keeps well in the fridge for a week, and it freezes well.
Camphouse Kitchen
Pan Fried Trout with Peas Pan-fried trout dredged in flour and fried in butter with a little lemon. Few things are better. I start with a butterflied, deboned trout, fry it only on one side and serve it with peas, parsley and a lemon-butter sauce. If you don’t have a butterflied trout handy, fillets or whole fish work fine. I just like the troutas-schnitzel look of a flattened, boneless fish. Prep: 15 mins • Cook Time:10 mins • Total: 25 mins Ingredients • • • • • • • • •
4 frying pan sized trout butterflied, fillets or whole Salt About 3/4 cup flour 1/4 cup unsalted butter 1 1/2 cups peas, fresh or thawed 1 cup chicken stock Grated zest and juice of a lemon 3 tablespoons minced parsley Black pepper to taste
Instructions 1. Rinse the trout in cold water and pat it dry with paper towels. Salt it lightly on both sides, and then dredge it in flour. 2. Heat the butter in a large frying pan over mediumhigh heat. If you think you can get all the trout into the pan at once, you are good to go. If not, get individual plates ready and set your oven to 200°F. 3. When the butter is hot, lay the trout down skin side down in the hot butter. Fry for 2 minutes, then use a large spoon to baste the skin side of the trout with butter. This helps seal the crust. Keep basting with the spoon for a minute or two, depending on how thick the trout is. In the trout above I only basted it for about 90 seconds. When the skin side of the trout is golden brown, use a spatula (or two) to gently remove the trout and flip it skin side up onto a plate. If you need to fry more trout, put the plate in the oven. 4. When all the trout have been cooked, add the remaining ingredients to the pan and turn the heat to high. Boil furiously until the sauce reduces by half, and then pour it over the trout. Serve at once with bread, rice or potatoes.
877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 53
Selecting The Best Speckled Trout Rigs For Fall Fishing BY RICHARD RUTLAND
Sometimes the bigger specks want a jig and soft plastic worked slowly and in deeper water.
For fall fishing I like to use three types of artificial lures. We will start from the bottom of the water column and work our way to the top. JIGS I catch a ton of fish on jigs in the fall, I think mainly due to all the shrimp in our system at this time of year. Each year in the late summer to early fall all the white shrimp in Mobile Bay migrate into the Upper Mobile Bay, Mobile-Tensaw Delta and tidal rivers. The trout and redfish are usually right behind them following this bio-mass of shrimp. I have become very partial to a newer lure that Pure Flats LLC has been making called the Lil Slick. My favorite three colors at the moment are Cool Beans, Limon, and Pink Passion. Another line of lures that I have been using a lot is the new line of Fish Bites soft plastics called Fight Club. They are scent infused lures that I think trigger bites sometimes when fish are a little finicky. I like to use a braided main line of about 20-30 pound test line attached to a 3-5 foot section of 20 lb fluorocarbon leader with an improved albright knot. As for the jig head I exclusively use a 1/8, 1/4, or 3/8 ounce 4/0 hook size Hogie lead jighead. I do not think the color of the jig head matters. I have been using the plain lead colored heads for half a lifetime with very 54 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
favorable results. I like the Hogie jig heads because they have a very strong sharp wide gap hook and also they have a screw lock to hold the Lil Slick up against the lead head. On a traditional style jighead they usually have a point that sticks out on the hook to hold up the plastic and after catching a few fish the plastic will want to slide down and fall off the hook. The screw lock holds it in place very securely. I am also very adamant about using a loop knot to attach the jig to my 20lbs fluorocarbon. I like the non-slip loop knot developed by the late Lefty Kreh. An on-line search will turn up several videos and instructions on how to tie this knot. The reasoning behind using a loop knot is that the lure is much more free while in the water and presents a much more natural appearance during retrieval. Something else I do is add a small amount of scent to the lure using a product called Pro-Cure. I add a small smear on the lure body about every couple hours. Lastly, is working the bait to catch a fish. When it comes to working a jig I like to “think like a shrimp�. Watching shrimp in the bait tanks or in the water around the boat, I noticed they are very quick when trying to evade predators followed by a slow falling or swimming pattern. I like to use very quick twitches with my rod tip and allow a nice slow fall following the twitches of the rod. The trick to being a good jig fisherman is to be ready
FISHING OUTLOOK on the fall of the lure by keeping your line tight and to stay in constant contact with the bottom. Sometimes the bite is very pronounced and sometimes it’s very subtle and it’s up to you to be ready to set the hook.
pinch a small hole with my fingernail to give the hook plenty of room to more in and out of the lure. I then push the point of the hook through and catch it with my finger. The important thing is to make sure the hook has plenty of freedom through the lure.
Most times I twitch twice in a very pronounced upward motion off the bottom and hold my rod tip high waiting on a bite. It’s also a good idea to change up your cadence from time to time to see if the fish want something different.
I fish the lure with the hook exposed out of the topside but you can also tuck the point into the plastic to make it weedless for fishing around grass, rocks or oyster shells. The Slick is a big profile lure and it is a lot of plastic, so having that freedom allows the gap of the hook to grab plenty of meat inside the fish’s mouth. I also apply a small amount of Pro-Cure.
TWITCHBAITS Working up to the middle of the water column, I am an addict to The Slick Lure which is the big brother to the Lil Slick Lure. This is more of a big fish shallow water bait, but I also use it in deep water lure when fish are suspended way above the bottom. I think it mostly imitates a mullet pattern but could also look like a menhaden in certain cases.
I almost exclusively use a bait casting rod with this lure with 30 lb braided Spiderwire Stealth Smooth with a 4-to-6 foot section of 20 lb fluorocarbon leader. Again, I use an improved albright knot to attach my braid to fluorocarbon leader and a non-slip loop knot to attach to the hook.
As for rigging up this bait I only use an Owner Beast 4/0 1/8 ounce weighted hook. The packs come with an unweighted 4/0 hook and it good for me in only super shallow situations of one and a half feet of water or less.
I build all my own custom Cold Stick rods and look for blanks that are medium power and fast to extra fast actions in 7 to 7 ½ foot lengths in 7’. When I load up the rod I like the top one third of the rod to bend.
The first consideration in rigging the bait on the hook is to remember that it is very important for the lure action to be perfect in the water. The Beast hook has a screw lock in on the eye of the hook which I poke in the nose of the Slick Lure and twist the bait all the way tight to the eye of the hook. There is a slot on the bottom and it needs to be facing the weight on the hook. Next, which is most important, I lay the hook across the lure to see how the hook wants to go through the lure, and I pinch that point through the slot on the bottom and on the top of the lure. I like to
I like these setups because you need a tip that is soft enough to twitch the lure properly yet with enough backbone in the blank to be able to drive the hook into the fishes mouth. It took me a little while to become accustomed to fishing the Slick Lure to be successful at it only because it was unlike anything I had fished int he past. When in the water the lure is always moving and it doesn’t exactly stop and suspend. It glides towards the rod tip at all times unless you let it hit the bottom.
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Selecting The Best Speckled Trout Rigs For Fall Fishing
I had to really concentrate and make myself slow down my retrieval to start having success. So the trick for me was to find a happy medium between working the bait with the rod tip and letting the lure glide towards me. I like to make as long of a cast as I can, let the slack settle in the water and then reel up tight. I like to start with my rod tip low and make two very pronounced twitches in an upward motion then slowly keep the tip of the rod coming at you. The first two twitches make the bait dance side to side like a wounded mullet and slow movement of the tip towards me keeps the line tight to feel a bite. The second part of keeping the tip slowly coming at me is the most important part. The lure tends to be very “light” on the tip and can be very hard to detect a bite, because the lure is coming at me at all times. The bite almost always comes after the two twitches as I am slowly picking up the tip. NOW FOR THE HOOKSET AND FIGHTING THE FISH. Because the Slick Lure is such a big profile lure and a large mass of plastic, I really like to come out of my shoes on the hookset. I feel like I almost scare some of my clients when I set the hook. This is why I feel like using braided line is important as well so there is no stretch to overcome in setting the hook. I like to feel like I am really driving the point of the hook into the fish’s jaw or cheek and then let the hook do the rest. Once the hook is set I like to back off pressure and focus on keeping the line tight with very consistent and moderate pressure. With any fish on the line I like to focus on the bend in the rod and keep the same amount of bend throughout the blank the entire fight. TOPWATER Topwater! One of my favorites. Topwater lures are great low light condition lures which means for me, early mornings, late
afternoons and all day on cloudy conditions. A lot of the biggest trout that I have caught on artificial lures have been on topwater lures. Topwater is a great search bait because it allows me to cover a huge area of water very quickly. Also, on some days, trout will only hit a topwater and nothing else. For rigging the topwater lures I like to use a medium-light power blank with a fast tip. Most all topwater lures are rigged with treble hooks which are likely to pull out of the fish’s mouth during the fight. This is why I like a medium light blank to catch and fight the fish so the hook doesn’t pull out as frequently. I like 20 lb braided line with a 15-20 lb fluorocarbon leader attached with an improved albright and a non-slip loop knot. For topwater lures I have several go to lures depending on the conditions that I like to use. When fishing big fish or choppy conditions my go-to is the tried and true Zara Super Spook. One thing with this lure is that you need a more limber rod to throw it because she is a beast of a lure. I also like to remove the center hook from the lure because of its nature to hang up on the rear hook and I like to add another split ring to the front and rear hook. This adds a little more length so that the hook hangs down and more freedom in the lure for when you hook a fish. Pink and bone colors are my favorites but I think the big profile and action is what really draws in the big bites. Next is the good ole Rapala Skitter Walk for calmer conditions and sometimes a more subtle approach. My favorite colors are hot pink and gold mullet. On all my topwater lures I really like to change the “stock” hooks out with Owner replacement hooks
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Slicks require proper rigging with hooks and knots for maximum effectiveness.
in the #4 or #6 sizes. It seems like a lot of fish tend to pull off the hook when on the line and every little edge you can get counts in my opinion. They make several different styles to choose from. I like to break these lures out when I have calm to moderate chop on the water or if the fish are being a little weary to committing to the lure. My second favorite topwater is the newer Rapala Skitter V. It’s a taste smaller than the original Skitter Walk and has a sharp V shape on the bottom which gives it some killer side to side action when walking the dog. My favorite colors are hot pink and hot olive. This lure is almost impossible to work in a large amount of chop so it is a calm water bait for me. As for working a topwater lure it is somewhat of a learning curve because there are a million things you can do to trigger a bite. First is learning to “Walk The Dog”. This is simple twitching of the rod tip while constantly slowly reeling all in one motion. I like to create a cadence of twitching the lure side to side all the way back to the boat. This can take practice in order to become efficient at mastering the technique. Something I try to do while figuring out how the fish want the lure is to change up my cadence. Sometimes the fish want a very subtle twitch while other times I really have to twitch the lure more aggressively to make the lure throw some water each twitch to get a bite. I make sure to focus on my retrieve on each cast and take note on what I was doing to recreate the scenario again and again to keep getting blowups.
Selecting The Best Speckled Trout Rigs For Fall Fishing
to get a lot of bites doing this technique I start to work in more pauses and I will be surprised how effective it can be. Number one thing to focus on is paying attention when you get bites to tell you how to work the lure. Speed it up, slow it down, pause it, aggressive twitching and subtle twitching will sometimes tell you everything you need to know about how to work the lure. In closing, with all of these lure choices and techniques that I want to add is “Every Cast EveryTime”. As a young boy I read an article in Florida Sportsman magazine that really struck me and changed my casting ability. It was a short editorial article and the author went on about how fishing is really about how much water can you cover in a day whether it was in the boat or casting your lure. The author made a short example with throwing lures of when you and a buddy go fishing in a day and you both make 500 casts in a day. If I throw it just 10 feet further than my buddy all day long that equals about 5000 feet of more water covered than your buddy. That’s almost one mile more water that I covered than my buddy. Since I read this article, I have been throwing my lure as far as my body and tackle limits me to the point of getting tendonitis in my elbow. I think this is for sure one thing that I do that gives me more success on the water than others most days.
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Now when I do get a “blowup” on the lure, most folks want to set the hook because it is very visually stimulating and that is the wrong thing to do. I like to keep my rod tip high when retrieving the lure and let the fish’s strike pull my rod tip down and hook himself. Just because I get a blowup and do not hook the fish doesn’t mean it will not come back and strike again. When I get a blowup and I do not hook the fish I will kill the movement of the lure for about 3-to-5 seconds. Next I will twitch the lure 1-to-2 times and kill the lure again. Sometimes this will trigger a bite because the fish thinks it has wounded the lure and come back in for the kill. Another trick I use is to work in several pauses during my cast. I will just stop the lure about 3- to-4 times during a cast for about 3-to-5 seconds and then start my retrieval again. If I start
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October Kayak Fishing; Long Weekend Vacations
Catching fish that we’re not used to can be a whole lot of fun.
Remember that old Ray Charles songHit the Road, Jack? That’s really a pretty good idea for us kayak anglers. Our plastic paddle and pedal boats are easy to load and transport, and for us kayak folks, traveling fairly long distances for a fishing trip in new waters is not as big a production as it is for the big boat people.
BY ED MASHBURN Photos by Ed Mashburn
And even if we have to balance school schedules, work schedules, family schedules of all kinds, most of us get three and four-day weekends from time to time which lend themselves to some short, intense, really fun kayak fishing trips. So, let’s consider some long weekend trips that are possible for kayak anglers in our area. LOCATION...LOOK AT THE MAP With a large-scale road map spread
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before us, it soon becomes apparent that no matter where we kayak anglers might live, there are great fishing possibilities for us that don’t require a major long-distance trip. Many of these shorter long-weekend trips can provide us with something totally different from our usual fishing trips. For instance, if we live in the midSouth, we can make a run down to the Gulf Coast in just a few hour’s drive. We can try our hand at some big, mean saltwater fish, as in reds, specks, flounder, and many other saltwater hard-pullers. If we live on the coast, we can be up in the Smokies in a day’s drive, and if we don’t want to go that far, we can be at a place like the Sipsey Fork in north Alabama in even less time. Both of these areas can provide coastal kayak anglers with some wonderful
PADDLE FISHING freshwater cold water rainbow trout fishing, and some wonderful scenery, too. And for those of us with family members who don’t want to fish, most of these places we can visit in a long weekend have lots of parks, shopping, and other non-fishing stuff to do. HOW FAR CAN YOU GO? Now, this is the question that road-tripping kayak anglers have to answer before final plans are made. A long-weekend road trip might turn out to be a major disappointment if driving is all that happens. We don’t need to get too ambitious for a three day road trip. For instance, I have driven from my home in coastal Alabama to the Everglades and it is a very long day’s drive. I know that I will be totally exhausted when I arrive, and I won’t feel much like fishing the dark tarpon and snook filled Everglades waters the next day. Then it will be time to turn right around and make the long, hard drive back home. When planning a long weekend trip, try to be realistic about how much road can be covered. I don’t like to drive much more than six hours if I plan on fishing once I reach my destination. I figure I can average perhaps sixty miles in every hour of driving, allowing for rest stops and gas refills and all of the other things that slow down a trip. This means that in a normal day’s driving for a kayak road trip, I might be able to cover 360 miles or so. But just think about all of the places that I can reach in a 360 mile range! So, on most long weekend trips, we need to plan on driving a day, or most of the day, and then getting in a short evening of fishing at our destination and then a full day’s fishing the next day. This allows a full day to travel back home and get things squared away for work, school, and regular life. Of course, if a three day weekend trip can possibly be stretched a day or two longer, all sorts of possibilities arise. And of course, if the long weekend trip can be made during the week and not on the weekend, fishing conditions and crowds on the water are almost always much better. As a rule, I don’t like freeway driving, but to be honest, if we start from anywhere near the Gulf Coast there is no better way to get from here to there on a long weekend trip than good old I-10, If driving from up north, I-65 is good to get a kayak angler from north Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky down to the coast. I will admit that I enjoy driving the older, slower coasthugging roads when I’m traveling, but if time is a consideration, and it almost always is on long weekend trips, then the older, slower, two-lane roads with better scenery can really eat up a lot of time that might be spent paddling and fishing. You’ll have to decide what’s more important, the fishing time on the water or the pleasure of a journey at a slower pace. EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS Depending on where a kayak angler calls home, long weekend road trips can offer some real changes of fishing.
For instance, a kayaker who lives in Memphis can be west in the Ozarks and the world-class cold-water trout fishing there in less than a day. That same Memphis angler could be on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and chasing redfish in about the same time. Those of us kayak anglers lucky enough to live on the Gulf Coast have lots of options for long weekend kayak road trips. In a few hours’ drive west, we can be in Louisiana and the marshes where the redfish and specks are thick and hungry. We can also drive east and be in the clear, spring-fed, bassfilled coastal rivers of Panhandle Florida in the same few hours’ time. If we coastal kayak anglers want to see hills, a few hours’ travel puts us and our kayaks in north Alabama where we can chase big bass on Lake Guntersville- which is a wonderful kayak fishing lake, by the way. We can also be on the cold waters of Sipsey Fork below Smith Lake Dam and going light-tackle fishing for rainbow trout. Another point to keep in mind about long-weekend kayak fishing road trips is that these trips are not limited to summertime only. I have taken some truly wonderful kayak fishing road trips which didn’t take a long time to reach and return from during winter. And another advantage to us road-tripping kayak anglers who can visit other places on long weekends, we tend to learn new skills and fishing techniques at these places strange to us that we can sometimes use to our great advantage when we get back home on our more familiar kayak fishing waters.
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877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 59
Pier & Shore Fishing Outlook
October is prime time for bull redfish from the gulf piers.
Resident species like redfish, black drum and bluefish try to take advantage of seasonal movements of young-of-the-year baitfish moving along the coast.
BY DAVID THORNTON Photos by David Thornton
OCTOBER FALLS IN LINE WITH GOOD FISHING Our weather this month is transitional and often confrontational between the heat of summer trying to hang on, and the inexorable cooling breezes of fall. October is also a month of high probabilities of tropical weather. Such was the impact felt in the eastern part of the Emerald Coast last October when hurricane “Michael” roared ashore with catastrophic winds, waves and storm surge. Many lives were lost, and much infrastructure damaged, especially in the Mexico Beach area. Even historic Cape San Blas was scarred when Michael’s Category 5 winds and storm surge breached a cut
60 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
from Lighthouse Bayou into the Gulf of Mexico the length of a football field. Then for weeks following most of the Panhandle was assaulted with moderate to severe red tide outbreaks. Still nature is even more resilient than man, and the area is slowly returning to its former beauty and appeal. Hopefully the whole region will be spared from tropical activity this year! When the weather is ‘good’ in October, it usually means the fishing is too. Typically the water temperature slips into the upper 70s by the end of the month. This factor, along with fewer daylight hours triggers a feeding spree among the denizens of the surf zone and beyond. Migratory jacks and mackerel are ‘fattening up’ for their journey southward ahead of the upcoming cooler weather. And resident species like redfish, black drum and bluefish
FISHING OUTLOOK try to take advantage of seasonal movements of young-ofthe-year baitfish moving along the coast. This puts pier and shore anglers in a fine position to take advantage of these ‘feeding frenzies’ in pursuit of their favorite target species.
Reds like the same ambush areas as flounder, and are especially fond of following schools of mullet. So it pays to observe how bait schools are acting in your area and follow them. ‘PIER’SISTANCE PAYS OFF THIS MONTH Pier anglers can stock up on young scaled sardines (“LYs”), ‘finger mullet’ and other small baitfish to tempt a variety of predatory species before and as they migrate along the coast. Small “red ribbon rigs” or sabiki rigs made with tiny (#10) gold hooks can quickly catch the angler an ample supply for hours of fishing fun. The small baitfish can be hooked in a variety of locations to vary their presentation. And the hook type and size varies depending upon location and target species. Mostly though these anglers are after spanish mackerel near or exceeding three pounds. Often called “axe handles”, the larger spanish mackerel make for great sport on light spinning tackle. Not to mention they are fine table fare as well, especially when grilled. But you never know what will eat these 3-inch long baitfish, so dealing with by-catch is just part of the game. Jacks (like ladyfish and large blue runners), bluefish, Little tunny (“bonita”), small king mackerel and even remora are common, and sometimes unwelcome catches. Some anglers may use silver spoons or small plugs that imitate the small LYs in hopes of avoiding so much by-catch. But nothing is certain in the wonderful world of pier fishing. Inside the longshore sandbar, anglers might target roaming schools of pompano with jigs or set rigs. Or even target schools of Gulf and Northern kingfish (“whiting” and “ground mullet”) with light tackle. A small #6 kahle hook is ideal size for these scrappy fish, when baited with a thumbnail-sized piece of shrimp and piece of orange colored Fishbites. Six pound class spinning tackle is ideal to target these smaller species, and even the spanish mackerel as long as the angler has a hoop landing net nearby.
the larger fish species, use half a crab or a chunk of FRESH mullet, ladyfish, or even a medium sized live pinfish or croaker. Look for sandbar drop-offs where the water is at least four feet deep. And try to place your bait rig along the drop-off near the top or bottom of it. This is the zone feeding bottom oriented fish are going to spend the majority of their time when searching for food. As always, the calmer and clearer (and shallower) the water is, the lighter your tackle should be (especially terminal tackle). That means line, leader, weight, hook, swivel; everything! Whiting often feed very close to the beach this month, and can easily be caught on even ultralite spinning tackle. A one pound whiting (14” or longer) puts up a great fight on 2# or 4# tackle. Often they run 20 or 30 yards down the beach. Those beach sandbar drop-offs are good locations to jig for flounder too. Flounder are ambush feeders and usually orient on the slope or near the bottom of a slope where they can observe any prey items wandering above them. They often strike quickly and settle to the bottom to swallow their meal. Bull minnows or 3-inch long finger mullet are traditional baits to target flounder on a Carolina rig. But they often fall for a well presented grub on a weighted jighead that ‘bounces’ up from the bottom and falls back down. Usually the strike comes near the end of the fall, so it is important to monitor your line for any tell-tale ‘ticks’ that would indicate a bite. Casting spoons and plugs from shore this month will still garner bluefish, ladyfish and other jacks (like the numerous juvenile jack crevelle), and perhaps even the occasional spanish mackerel. Along the Alabama coast you can add the possibility of some speckled trout in the surf. Though most of those have moved into the bays and are poised at the river mouths. Still, almost anything is possible when throwing lures along the beach this month. Especially with slot-sized redfish while wadefishing along the gulf beaches. Reds like the same ambush areas as flounder, and are especially fond of following schools of mullet. So it pays to observe how bait schools are acting in your area and follow them. So no matter what species or venue tickles your ‘fall fancy’, be sure to check the weather, slather on the sunscreen, and tackle up. Because October offers many options for the from shore anglers as they venture forth to enjoy their great days outdoors.
A SHORE ENOUGH GOOD TIME October anglers fishing from shore still have ample opportunities to target pompano, whiting, ground mullet, bluefish and ladyfish as well as redfish and black drum. Both of the latter species are available in the jumbo size as well as slot-size. All these species can be caught on light tackle from the beach or wade fishing in the still warm waters of the gulf. Shrimp and Fishbites are a proven combo on the lighter pre-packaged pompano rigs or even homemade single-drop hook or Fishfinder rigs. To target 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 61
Gulf Coast Fishing Outlook
Large black drum will be on the prowl near shell reefs this month. BY MIKE THOMPSON Photos by Mike Thompson
Coastal anglers finally get some relief from inferno style temperatures of summer. The days are getting shorter and waters are slowly cooling. All of this adds up to improved fishing and enjoyment on the water. Let’s look at a few places to try. ALABAMA Leaves are turning color and the days are shorter. All signs heading
into a long awaited fall. Some of the best white trout angling of the year can occur if you find the right spots in Mobile Bay. Big yellow mouth whites will be on many of the rigs in Lower Mobile Bay. Fresh cut bait gets the bite started when fished on the bottom. Once the feeding frenzy starts, you can switch over to plastic grubs. White, chartreuse or smoke are all good color options. Paired with a 3/8ths ounce head
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you can stay in touch with the fish on bottom. Nice whites will also be around wooden channel markers, Middle Bay Light and the old Navy homeport. Speckled trout will be moving northward, towards the Mobile Delta. You can find schools of trout by following seagulls swooping on shrimp, fleeing from hungry fish below. Obviously live shrimp are
FISHING OUTLOOK best, but a smoke colored shrimp imitation catches plenty of fish too. Tied a couple of feet below a popping cork, like a Fairhope Rattle, this set-up can be deadly. The clicking sound of the cork can sound similar to a shrimp making the snapping sound as it tries to escape a predator. Specks will also be pushing up and around the pilings on the Eastern Shore. MirrOlure Glad Shads will take their fair share of trout around the pilings in four-to-six-foot of water. Otherwise you might try Texas Sea Shad, in the red and white color to connect with Eastern Shore trout this month. Out on the offshore waters the bite for king mackerel, tuna and Wahoo should be good this month, according to Angelo DePaola of the Coastal Connection. “All the rigs within 20-miles should be holding lots of king mackerel. By using live hardtails or live pogies, you can count on hot action,” DePaola explained. “You can also expect to catch a few amberjack and a few straggler cobia still in the area and possibly a wahoo while targeting the kings.” DePaola also notes that some really good colored water will push in during October. “You can expect the Ram Powell, Petronius and Horn Mountain rigs to all be a potential hotspot for yellowfin tuna. Use live hardtails, cigar minnows or ly’s on 50-100 pound fluorocarbon leaders. Watch your moon charts and concentrate on morning and afternoon bites,” DePaola said. DePaola pointed out that white marlin and sailfish should be available in October, if water conditions are right, around the areas of the Nipple and Elbow. “Try trolling ballyhoo behind lures or just naked ballyhoo to entice the sailfish and white marlin,” DePaola said. MISSISSIPPI October is a great month to target plenty of species in Mississippi State waters, Lots of folks enjoy a morning of trolling to connect with waiting fish off Mississippi coastal waters. Captain Jim McClellen, of Happy Hooker Charters in Biloxi, likes to keep it simple for his customers.
In early October, McClellen looks for shrimp boats trawling. He then gets in behind the shrimper and matches his speed. ”We use our same Gator and Drone spoons behind the shrimp boats to have some fun with sharks. They will blast a spoon just as readily as they will the by-catch that is being shoveled overboard. We catch blacktips in the 50-180-pound range. Now that’s a pull!” McClellen said FLORIDA FOCUS October fishing is still done largely in warm waters around Apalachicola. The water being warm ensures that plenty of live bait will be around. October is a great month to target live shrimp with the cast nets, as the shrimp seem to invade the bay. Captain Bruce Williams of Williams Fish Adventures in Apalachiola starts out his October adventures by getting a live well full of shrimp and pogies. “I like to start early by targeting redfish in the shallow, marsh grass flats. I mainly fish a Carolina rig on the edges of the grass to hit prowling reds,” Williams explained. “If I’m looking for trout, I will concentrate on the deeper holes with pogies on the Carolina rig. If things cool off early in the month, we will target these same two species in the tributaries at the head of Apalachicola Bay.” A lot of William’s clients are looking for the makings of a fish fry. For those customers, Williams has a plan. “We will hit the oyster bars in four-to-twelve feet of water. There, you can load the cooler with silver (white) trout. The fish will clobber small pieces of cut croaker. The bonus of this is the large black drum that also roam these reefs,” Williams said. CONCLUSION The weather is finally about where we all want it to be. Cool in the mornings and mild by the evening. Fish are really starting to cooperate. What are you waiting for? Get out on the water and enjoy God’s goodness with a friend or family member See you on the water!
“Everyone loves the visual part of fishing. We move around, looking for, slicks, bait wads or birds. Once we locate the bait we start trolling around the bait with our spoons. We like to use Gator or Drone spoons to target the big redfish,” McClellen explained. “Simple chrome or bronze colors will fool the reds. Speed of trolling is not that important. You don’t have to troll very fast to get action on a school of reds.”
Important Contact Information
After a shot at reds, McClellen starts looking for king mackerel in October. The tactics are slightly different, but bowed up rods are still the result!
Angelo DePaola Coastal Connection- EXP Realty-Mobile Big Game Fishing 850-287-3440
“We pull our spoons with either lead or some sort of planers to get a little deeper. The kings seem to like silver/pink or solid silver colors. Some days they eat up chartreuse, so we have to experiment,” McClellen said.
Happy Hooker Charters Captain Jim McClellen-228-860-4044 Williams Fishing Adventures Captain Bruce Williams-850-559-1567
Fairhope Rattle Corks Fairhoperattle.com 877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 63
Regional Freshwater Fishing Outlook
Plastic worms will take a whole lot of October bass. BY ALEX GRANPERE Photos by Ed Mashburn
FLORIDA WATERS
SEMINOLE LAKE Professional angler Captain Pamela Martin Wells advises anglers that bass fishing in October on Seminole Lake is dependent upon the weather. Wells points out that at times the frog bite can be incredible. The Spro Frog and various spinner baits and crankbaits can work very well in both shad and bream patterns.
If the weather is still hot in October, flipping jigs and punching through the hydrilla can be quite effective. The topwater bass bite will be determined by the weather again. If it’s hot, then early and late will be the bet. If the weather and water has started to cool,
the topwater bite can be fantastic all day long. Hybrid bass will still be schooling, and anglers often get into the hard-pulling hybrids when they are searching for largemouths. Some really big bream can be caught at Seminole in October if anglers work the edges of weed beds for the bream that are roaming around looking for food. Try live bait, worms and crickets or small jigs. LAKE TALQUIN Jeff DuBree of Whippoorwill Lodge on Lake Talquin tells us that as the fall weather cools, the fishing will improve. The long hot summer is coming to an
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end, and the fish are starting to move. The bass start to move into shallow water and feed up for winter. Topwater frogs and swim baits worked over shallow points and up creeks will be effective. In October, DuBree says that crappie fishing gets exciting again. The big slabs start feeding in the main lake, and anglers can have good results trolling jigs of fishing live minnows over brush piles and old timber. Cat fishing will continue to be very good in October. The bream bite will start to wind down as the bigger bream move into the main lake. Try worms and crickets on the
FISHING OUTLOOK bottom in eight to ten feet of water.
ALABAMA WATERS
WEISS LAKE Long time Weiss Lake fishing guide Lee Pitts said that October is a great time for fishing on Weiss.
“Bass, crappie, everything is biting. Lake Weiss water is being drawn down to winter level in October, and this can make lots of good fishing places easier to find that have been hidden all summer. Flats, humps, and other solid stuff are exposed in winter lake levels. Shad will get up in the backs of creeks, and the bass will find them and devour them,” Pitts said. Bass anglers should look for any kind of shallow place with structure since the shad will be there and the bass won’t be far. Solid wood underwater stuff is the key. When wind moves bait over flats, look for rocks and rock piles where the bait will be gathered. Topwater lures in silver with orange or chartreuse accents work very well. “Anglers cannot fish too shallow. Stumps are good places to work, and sometimes bass in October will be feeding in less than a foot of water,” Pitts said. “Spinner baits can be good. Cast the spinner past the stump and retrieve it as close to structure as possible. The bass will hit as the spinner passes the stump.” Weiss October crappie should be very good. Jigs and minnows will both be good. Look for shad and the crappie will be close. MOBILE DELTA Captain Wayne Miller of Mobile-Tensaw Delta Guide Service says that anglers should start seeing cooler weather and cooler water temperatures moving from the lower 80s to the lower 70s as the month moves along. Miller recommends that bass anglers should find great fishing if they target the lower Delta. This is the time the Causeway waters are at their best.
shrimp go, the bass will be there.
mats start to break up.
“By far, October is the best month of the year for lower Delta fishing,” Miller added. LAKE EUFAULA Over on Lake Eufaula Captain Sam Williams at Hawks Fishing Guide Service advises catfish chasers to look at creek channels and main lake drop offs for good catfish action. Cut shad always works well here, and fishing with jugs can be a very effective way to fill an ice chest with cats.
Stripers and hybrids will be schooling up both above and below Guntersville dam. Some great catfish will be caught in October at Guntersville by anglers who fish creek channels and main lake drop offs. SIPSEY FORK Randy Jackson of Riverside Fly Shop says that at the end of October, three last mayfly hatches of the year, mostly little yellow quill, will occur, and these flies are pretty small, so fly anglers will want to concentrate on smaller imitations. Caddis fly hatches will start, and there are always mixed midge hatches going on.
Cat fishing will continue to be very good in October.
Jackson reminds us that the weather determines what insect action will be going when anglers arrive at the river. Insect hatches so far this year have been sporadic because of the hot weather.
Crappie anglers should explore deep docks and bridge pilings on the main lake. In October, the schooled up crappie can be found at various depths, depending on the shad. Find the shad and the crappie will be close by. Williams recommends crappie anglers try open water trolling for October crappie at Eufaula
Anglers who use spinning gear will have good luck on the Sipsey Fork throwing small single-hook Roostertails on 4 lb line.
There should be a very good top water shallow water bite for most of October. Any kind of cover which produces shade such as lily pads and blowdown treetops can be very good. According to Williams, most of the bait will be up under the cover, and bass will be there also. If the mid-day is warm and sunny, anglers will want to fish ledges and brush piles in deeper water out in the main body of the lake.
“There’s a tremendous influx of bait, mostly shrimp, in October. They will go well up into the middle Delta. It’s a phenomenal time to bass fish in the lower Delta. Any lures that mimic shrimp will work,” Miller said.
LAKE GUNTERSVILLE A good idea for anglers at Lake Guntersville in October who want to find some truly great bass action is to find the thickest mats of weeds possible and work dark colored frogs over the weeds. Captain Jake Davis from Mid-South Bass Guide Service tells us that anglers using good top water frogs such as the Pro Z Baits frog in Scooby-Doo color pattern will catch some good bass. Punching through the thick weeds with a Missile Baits D-Bomb will also work well.
At this time, bass get so used to feeding on shrimp, so they are feeding on top. Small poppers, small buzz baits will work well. The Delta bass will be up on flats, out in the main rivers, up creeks. Wherever the
Crappie will start to get more active in October as they school up looking for smaller shad running in big schools in open water. Toward the end of the month, crappie will start moving into the creeks as the weed
Trout are still being stocked on the regular schedule, so there will be fish ready to bite for anglers. WILSON LAKE “October can be the best month of the whole year for trophy catfish on Wilson Lake,” says fishing guide Captain Brian Barton. Anglers should look for catfish food if they want to find catfish. Shad will school up in large bait balls in open water. The catfish will suspend under the bait balls. “Look for bait over channel ledges, humps, and bluff lines where cats will be hanging out. Cats can be as shallow as 10 feet in the upper sections of the lake to over 90 feet near the dam,” Barton added. ” I drop large pieces of fresh cat bait on a Carolina rig and suspend it at the depth I see fish on my electronics.” Anglers should remember that 69 lb or bigger cats are very possible at this time. Brian advises anglers going after the big cats to try a B’n M’ Silver Cat series rod paired with a Abu 6500 C3 reel. Braided line is preferred for this heavy duty fish. A 7/0 to 10/0 Daiichi circle hook completes the trophy cat rig. Anglers should try the upper parts of the lake, Hog Island and Town Creek flats. On the lower portion, which is best for bigger cats, around Shoal Creek and the
877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 65
Regional Freshwater Fishing Outlook
deep water bluff ledges can be productive.
Important Contact Information
In October, the cats will tend to be very aggressive on the feed, and by trolling slowly at .5 to .7 mph, cat hunters can cover a lot of water to find the best feeding fish.
Captain Brian Barton Brianbartonoutdoors.com Brianbartonoutdoors@aol.com 256-412-0969
Capt Sam Williams Hawks Fishing Guide Service Hawksfishingguideservice.com 334-365-5057
MILLER’S FERRY Joe Dunn of Dunn’s Sports in Thomasville tells us that anglers will want to spend some time looking in the main body of the lake. Crappie will be found by bottom bouncing both live minnows and jigs. Use a onae ounce sinker at the end of the line. Tie a hook or jig a foot or so above the sinker, and let the rig to the bottom. Lift and drop this rig off the bottom. Crappie may be as deep as 18 feet or deeper.
Capt Jake Davis Mid-South Bass Guide Service www.midsouthbassguide.com 615-613-2382
Jeff DuBree Whippoorwill Sportsman’s Lodge Lake Talquin 850-726-0153
Captain Pamela Martin Wells Bainbridge, Georgia 229-254-6863 www.pamartinwells.com
Randy Jackson 256-287-9582 Riverside Fly Shop 17027 Hwy 69N Jasper, Al Riversideflyshop.com
Bass anglers should look in the major sloughs as water temps cool as October moves along. Shad will go up creeks and sloughs, and the bass will follow. Crankbaits in shad patterns as well as spinner baits, and Rat’L’Traps worked in the bigger sloughs will produce good bass in the fall.
Joe Dunn Dunn’s Sports 334-636-0850 33356 Highway 43 Thomasville, Alabama Captain Lee Pitts leepittsoutdoors.com 256-390-4145
66 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
Captain Wayne Miller Mobile-Tensaw Delta Guide Service 251-455-7404
877.314.1237 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // OCTOBER 2019 67
MOON & FEED TIMES
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Pensacola Motorsports
TROPHY
James Pashayan caught this 42” red in Mobile Bay on a live finger mullet
ROOM
Jeremy McGee with a respectable largemouth bass
Logan Steele and his 34lb catfish
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©2018 Bombardier Recreational Products Inc. (BRP). All rights reserved. ®, ™ and the BRP logo are trademarks of BRP or its affiliates. Some models depicted may include optional equipment. Carefully read the operator’s guide and safety instructions. Observe applicable laws and regulations. Always wear appropriate protective clothing, including a personal flotation device and wetsuit bottoms. Riding and alcohol/drugs don’t mix. See your authorized BRP dealer for details.
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Jeb Ball, Andrew and Alexis Lyle showing off their snappers
PHOTO of the MONTH This 12’3” 54 pound Mobile-delta gator was caught by Corey Singleton, Brandon Thompson, Elliot Wallace, Kevin Blackburn
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Greg Roberts and friends with a whale of a yellow cat
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PENSACOLA MOTORSPORTS 618 N NEW WARRINGTON RD PENSACOLA FL, 325064245 850-456-6655
www.pensacolamotorsports.com ©2017 Yamaha Motor Corporation, U.S.A. All rights reserved. Follow instructional materials and obey all laws. Ride responsibly, wearing protective apparel. Always ride within your capabilities, allowing time and distance for maneuvers, and respect others around you. Don’t drink and ride. WaveRunner® is a Yamaha brand personal watercraft and not a generic term. FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT YAMAHABOATS.COM OR CALL 1.800.88.YAMAHA
KID'S CORNER
TROPHY ROOM
Alexa Langford, 10, killed a 4pt in Lillian, AL with a crossbow.
Allison Grace Thierry with a giant crappie
Conner Hadley and Cam Joiner caught a 15 lb catfish on a noodle in Bay Minette Creek
Caden Kelley with his catch.
Carter Townley, 8, of Silverhill, AL with his largest Speckled Trout to date. 27� 5.4lbs
Bently Cole Howard, 9, fishing at Dead Lake Marina Creola , Al
1
1
ST
ST
Fish
Amy Boyington’s grandson Cole caught his first fish
Bird
Tucker Marler, 11 from Kinston Alabama first bird, 2 beards
Give us your best shot!
Send your submission to info@greatdaysoutdoors.com. Submitting a photo does not guarantee that it will be published. We cannot give any guarantees on when a photo will be published. Please include: child's full name, age, mailing address, and any details, like if it's a first time, when and where animal was caught/killed, how much it weighed. If it's a buck, include points.
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FISHING TIP
Fall Pensacola and Perdido Bay Bonanza BY: CAPTAIN JOHNATHAN WILLIS
GulfBayCharters.com
With warm temperatures the fishing has been fantastic! Schools of trout are being found along grass flats and around piers and other structures in 3-5 feet of water, and flounder are becoming ever more common as this warm weather rolls in! Also, with this weather and water temps rising we will start to see this wonderful bull redfish run we have annually as more and more redfish make their way down the beach and into Pensacola Bay and Perdido Bay. At this time of year we will find large amounts of bait with crashing birds which often contain the big red fish or jack crevalle. When searching for trout and slot redfish a Mattix soft plastic and a quarter ounce jig head is always a good starting point when fan casting to cover ground. When (if) you run into a big schools of redfish and jack crevalle, which we start to see around the end of this month, a 1 ½ ounce Spro buck tail jig with a 18 inch long forty pound monofilament
leader will do the trick, along with a Hoagie two ounce swim bait using dark colors with low sun light and brighter colors as the sun begins to shine! Once the sun is up, the shallow sand bars just off the beach are a fantastic place to sight fish big red fish, pompano, jack crevalle, skipjack and loads of other fish as they move down the beaches. As usual we wish you the best from Gulf Bay Charters!
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A GREAT DAY OUTDOORS
Pondering Deer Stuff I’m still trying to figure out why we call it deer hunting. This implies that I’m out searching for them. What I do is more like deer waiting.
BY JIM MIZE
Given the importance of accuracy to hunters, I should begin by clarifying my position towards pondering deer stuff. What I actually do is ponder stuff about deer, not actual deer stuff. Accuracy seems to me the real issue in pondering, sitting as I do for hours on end in a deer stand, spending so much of my time not actually shooting deer. For a bunch who invests so much time and money to be accurate, hunters aren’t very when it comes to deer hunting. For instance, why do we call it a stand if we sit? I rarely see anyone stand on their stands and never hear anyone refer to their deer seat. While we’re on stands, it occurred to me that although self-climbing portable stands are portable, though some only marginally more so than a La-Z-Boy recliner and far less comfortable, they are not selfclimbing. I’m the one doing the climbing, not them. In fact, I can see some real problems with self-climbing stands. What if it takes off without you? How would you ever get up there and get it back? Do these things have a safety on them somewhere that I haven’t found yet? Of course, I might pay extra for one that actually is self-climbing, even if I did need a backup stand to go get it. As you can see, I spend a lot of time pondering these things. But that’s just the beginning.
The closest I come to hunting is when I scout, which again, makes little sense since I use no scouts in the process. There may be a merit badge for this and I could be depriving them of the opportunity. I should probably check it out. The other thing that makes no sense about scouting is that we spend three days to find a spot two miles from the road in the roughest terrain we can find in hopes of shooting a 200 lb. deer knowing we then have to drag it out. Think about it. The deer wasn’t here to begin with or we’d have scared it away. So it came from someplace else, probably a f lat spot near the truck. So why don’t we instead scout for this someplace else spot that’s not so much work? Maybe if I used real scouts I could find it. Another topic I ponder is the deer’s senses. Take their sight, for example; they’re color-blind. We know this. So why don’t we buy camo in some colors other than green, brown, and black? The deer don’t care. How about red, pink, yellow, and international orange, maybe all on one shirt? Come to think of it, I’ve got some old leisure suits from my disco days that might work just fine. Hearing is another good sense to think about. Take rattling. I’m not sure I understand this yet. Here I am, sitting way up in a stand, not standing mind you but sitting, rattling two antlers together to attract a buck. Don’t you think it could seem just a tad fishy that another buck might be thirty feet off the ground banging his antlers? Maybe bucks aren’t responding because they’re territorial. Maybe they’re coming in to see how that other deer got thirty feet up in a tree. Perhaps they wonder if he jumped a ride on a self-climbing stand. And this whole sense of smell has got
78 OCTOBER 2019 // GreatDaysOutdoors.com // 877.314.1237
me really stumped. The concoctions that we sprinkle on our clothes and around the stands where we sit quite frankly stink. Does anyone truly believe that a good whiff of this stuff is a pleasant experience for a deer? I know if it was people stuff, I wouldn’t. So maybe the reason deer respond is that they’re mad and want to see who is sprinkling this stuff all over their woods. Some manufacturers tout their scents as being the strongest on the market, like that’s a good thing. It makes you wonder if deer can hold their breath. The makers of these scents may be catching on, however, since now they’re also making cover scents that smell like nothing. What should we call these . . . nonsense? While we’re on scents, it amazes me that hunters spend so much effort on deer lure then carry their lunches into the stands where they sit. Does it really make sense to eat a ham sandwich in the woods? Do you think a deer might get a clue when it figures out what happened to that pig? As you see, pondering can take some bizarre turns. Lastly, when we’re lucky enough to shoot a deer, why do we call it cleaning when we make such a mess? Or dressing, when we’re taking the hide off? I’ve reached two conclusions from all this pondering. First, for a bunch that depends so much on accuracy, we’re not you know. And second, looking over the thoughts that go through my head when I ponder, I may be getting up just a little too early.. JIM MIZE has written many of his ponderings in award-winning books of humor available at www.acreektricklesthroughit.com.
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Fish some of the richest fishing grounds in the world along the Alabama Gulf Coast. And with so much to do onshore, the fun and adventure never end.
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IMPORTING UNPROCESSED DEER COULD SPREAD CWD IN ALABAMA LEARN MORE AT OUTDOORALABAMA.COM/CWD
GAME CHECK IS MANDATORY FOR EVERY DEER HUNTER All hunters are required to report their deer harvest using Game Check, which will help the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources effectively manage wildlife for generations.
Check your harvest at OutdoorAlabama.com/GameCheck or by using the official ADCNR mobile app Outdoor AL Search OUTDOOR AL on your app store!