Montana
UNTING &
May 2015
News
Montana Trout Bite Is On! FIND MAY WALLEYES
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Find May Walleyes Fast
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M
ay is prime time for walleye fishing as post-spawn fish begin replenishing their reserves after the rigors of reproduction. With so much water to cover in search of the next hot bite, however, it pays to have a game plan for finding and catching the ’eyes of spring. Fortunately, walleyes follow predictable patterns, and few fishermen know the drill like veteran guide Jon Thelen. He blends an understanding of seasonal trends, baitfish biology and walleye behavior with a suite of foolproof fishing tactics to put fish in the boat all month long. His hit list includes top fisheries including Lake of the Woods, Mille Lacs and Devils Lake, but his strategies hold water on lakes across the Walleye Belt. “Throughout the Upper Midwest, walleyes spawn in late April and early May,” he says. “For a short period right after the spawn, large female walleyes become pretty dormant. They slide out into slightly deeper water and are harder to catch.” Male walleyes, in contrast, hang around the shallows a bit longer and remain far more active. You can often find them in 15 feet of water or less. Thelen focuses on breaklines in the neighborhood of spawning areas such as wind- or current-washed rubble, sand and gravel.
“Wherever you find the first decent break off a spawning area, you’ll find fish,” he said. “And unlike female walleyes, the males are aggressive and ready to feed. With shallow, active fish, the action can get pretty crazy for awhile.”
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Weather is a factor throughout the season, and May is no exception. Cold fronts and barometric pressure changes shut down
not to target the tip of the seasonal fish migration spear.
walleyes, with large fish being more affected than smaller ones, according to Thelen. “Walleyes will be tighter to structure and less active, so you need to slow down your presentation and camp right over any fish you mark on sonar. Many times you have to put the bait right in front of their nose to get them to bite.” “A short leader or floating rig can cut down on snags, too,” Thelen adds. As for sinker weight, he commonly pulls a 3/8-ounce sinker in deep water, but downsizes to a ¼-ounce weight to get the rig away from the boat when plying shallow structure.
“The very first fish to arrive in a new area typically don’t bite right away,” he says. “I’m not sure whether they need to adjust to their new surroundings or don’t feed until additional waves of walleyes spark increased activity, but whatever the reason, those first fish are hard to catch.”
with leeches typically coming on strong in June. Both the Original and X-Treme rigs offer minnow, leech and nightcrawler hook choices. Whichever bait you choose, Thelen advocates fishing it with a slow hand.
All too soon, however, factors such as boat traffic, fishing pressure and the outbound migration of baitfish cause the males to move into deeper water. They start migrating out to the second and third breaklines, or the first offshore structure such as a rockpile, gravel bar or mud flat. Thelen follows, using his sonar and GPS chartplotter to scan promising structure for signs of baitfish, along with the larger returns that indicate predators. While shadowing the migration is key, he cautions
As a result, Thelen looks for biters a bit behind the pilot fish. The second and third breaklines off spawning areas can be great in late May, he says. For example, if the first major drop-off runs from
9 to 12 feet of water, the second break may taper sharply from 15 to 20 feet, while the third dips from 25 to 30 feet. Exact depths vary from lake to lake, but Thelen maintains that finding a distinct edge that offers baitfish holding and hiding areas is key to locating walleyes. “It’s actually a matter of finding the forage,” he notes. “If there’s nothing to eat, it doesn’t matter how good the structure looks, you won’t find any walleyes on it.” In flowing water, Thelen follows similar protocol—searching for forage-rich areas adjacent to spawning grounds. Keep in mind you typically have strong flows and high water this time of year.
Minnows are Thelen’s favorite tipping throughout May,
“Until water temperatures hit the mid-60s, work your baits slow and methodically,” he says, noting that speeds of .3 to .5 mph are ideal. Wherever walleyes are concentrated, vertical jigging can be another effective option. A Lindy Jig tipped with a minnow can be deadly. Thelen likes natural jig colors in the clear waters so common in early season. “Silvers, golds and reds are top picks,” he says. “But blues and purples can be deadly, too. And if you’re on a perch-laden fishery, chartreuse can be a game-changer.” Jig-strokes are tempered by water temperature. In cold water a slow drag, lift, drop presentation most times far outfishes aggressive jigging.
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5
You also need to make sure the open area has the ingredients a spring bear desires: green grass. Grazing on green grass provides the push needed for spring bears to rid themselves of a natural plug that stops their bowel movement while they are in hibernation. It’s also one of the most abundant food sources and helps carry bears over as they search for carrion, or as other foods materialize from spring’s warmth. You’ll find the first green grass on south-facing slopes since the snow melts there first and stimulates grass growth.
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Later in the spring as snow melts and other food sources begin to surface, look at areas with high prey densities such as nursery areas where moose, elk and deer congregate to birth. Cattle ranchers also note higher bear concentrations as calves are born and bears move in to clean up the afterbirth left by a large herd of cows.
Finally, check out slide areas where unsuspecting critters may have succumb to snow slides over the course of the winter and are now ripe for the pickings by bears indifferent to the smell.
SPOT AND STALK A BLACK BEAR THIS SPRING
By Mark Kayser
A
re you looking to expand your spring hunting opportunities beyond feathered, strutting targets? Think spring bears and you can do it without hours of preparation by simply using a spot, and stalk mindset. Spot and stalk bear hunting is ideal for weekend warrior pursuits. You simply spot a bear from afar and stalk into shooting range. If you’re interested, here’s how to make it a reality. PRIME REAL ESTATE Spot and stalk hunting isn’t for every Montana landscape. You may need to wander outside your backyard to find the prime spotting real estate, but you won’t likely wander far. First, research areas of high bear density. Looking for a needle in a haystack is fine if you have the time, but I’d much rather look for a needle in a sewing basket full of them. Game
and fish agencies track bear densities with precision to protect the vital resource of large predators. Use the insight of the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department to put you on a bear path.
As you might surmise, open terrain offers the best chance of locating a wandering bear. Parks, meadows, open slopes and rock slides all provide viewing opportunities to catch a bear moving in the open. The larger the area the better. If you spot a bear in a small opening and take too long maneuvering into shooting range, the bear may be gone before you get there. 6 - Hunting & Fishing News
OPTOMETRIST CLEAR
There are very few Montana hunts where you can get by on bargain-bin optics. Black bear spot and stalk hunts require good glass. In addition to the fact you’ll have to scan acres of habitat
to find a bear, you will also need to determine bear species, possibly sex it and field-judge the bear to make sure it is a mature animal. Scrutiny like this requires quality optics including both a binocular and a spotting scope. Since you’ll likely be packing both, you can back off the power on your binocular. Eight or seven power is sufficient and allows you two great advantages when looking for a bear. First, the lower power makes for a lighter overall package meaning less weight to pack and less weight to support when glassing long hours. Next, the image will be steadier than you’ll encounter trying to balance a 10- or 12-power binocular. You don’t need to break the bank when shopping for a binocular. Look to models like the Nikon Monarch 7 for an economical, quality view. An objective size of 42mm is perfect for gathering light that your eye can utilize in most shooting light conditions. Most midrange models are waterproof and fogproof, but check to make sure. As for a spotting scope, follow a similar rule. Look at middle of the road models, again checking for multicoated lens and moisture-proof packaging. You’ll also have the option of objective sizes and for weight stick to those with a 65mm opening or less. You can purchase spotting scopes in fixed or variable models. For my money, go with a variable like the Nikon Prostaff 5 16-48x60mm. Like a riflescope, you can power up for long-range shots or power down in low light or close situations. Once you have the conundrum of optics settled, begin studying bears. In Montana it’s illegal to harvest a sow with cubs, but that’s usually easily determined since most young cubs will be by mama’s side. The real challenge is judging a mature bear, especially if you want a big boar. Although there’s nothing wrong with shooting a sow without cubs, many units have quotas and too many harvested sows shuts down the season faster.
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Here’s a crash course in field-judging bears. If the bear looks dumpy and out of shape, not sleek, he may be a shooter. If the bear has a pumpkin head with short, stubby ears that are wide apart on his head, he may be a shooter. Lastly, if the bear appears to have bulging front shoulders and short undersized legs for its body, it may be a shooter. Look at a lot of photos and observe bears whenever possible to hone your skills. CARRY A BIG STICK Although there are no guarantees you’ll encounter giant bears every spring, be prepared. Carry enough gun. Not only are you hunting bears, which are notoriously hardy, you may be forced to take a long shot across a canyon to secure your spot and stalk bear. When you
begin adding distance to the shot equation the foot pounds of energy of a bullet drops exponentially along with the path of the bullet. Look at anything in the .30 caliber range that
retains more than 1,000 foot pounds of energy upon long-range impact. Hornady’s Superformance lineup offers plenty of options matched with solid bullet choices like the SST. You want to hit a bear hard not only because they are hardy, but because their thick hair acts like a sponge restricting the amount of tracking blood that hits the forest floor. Spot and stalk bear hunting is challenging due to the fact that large predators traditionally have low densities, they live in difficult terrain and can have expansive home territories. Try a spot and stalk black bear hunt. It will put a whole new perspective on this popular Western tactic and open up a new springtime pursuit for you. To keep up with Mark Kayser visit him on FaceBook looking under Mark Kayser, Public Figure: (https://www.facebook.com/pages/ Mark-Kayser/119789001392664?ref=ts&fref=ts)
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Tackling A New Body Of Water By Babe Winkelman www.winkelman.com Babe Winkelman with 41” pike
W hen learning to fish a new body of water, it can definitely seem like a daunting task. But do not let the task of learning a new lake deter
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huntingfishingnews@yahoo.com www.huntingfishingnews.net The entire contents is © 2015, all rights reserved. May not be reproduced without prior consent. The material and information printed is from various sources from which there can be no warranty or responsibility by Big Sky Outdoor News & Adventure, Inc. Nor does the printed material necessarily express the views of Big Sky Outdoor News & Adventure, Inc. All photo & editorial submissions become the property of Big Sky Outdoor News & Adventure, Inc. to use or not use at their discretion. Volume 12 Issue 3 cover photo: Jeff Strauss www.jeffstraussphotography.com
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you from giving it a try. If you’re anything like me and love exploring new lakes, you will see that this task has a learning curve making you a better angler. You may question yourself; where do I even begin? The simple answer would be do your homework and research before heading to the new body of water you intend to fish. By using both print and Internet material, you should be able to lay down a good foundation of what you should expect for your new fishing destination. Try to locate fishing reports, stocking information, present fish species, along with the population size of each. Giving a call to your local DNR officer can sometimes provide helpful insight. Overall, this information will help you determine if that particular body of water will produce the results you are hoping for. The next piece of the puzzle is utilizing lake maps to determine the areas of the lake that may be the most productive. By understanding the underwater composition of lake, you will know where the points, breaks, shallow, and deep water areas are upon arriving at the lake. This will make you much more efficient as you will be fishing the high percentage areas which should yield results. All maps are not created equal, so do not rely on just one map, as differing maps could use alternate surveying methods or are more up to date. In today’s age we are very fortunate to have fish locators with GPS mapping capabilities, allowing you to know your relative position in relation to various pieces of underwater structure. Although this piece of technology is not needed, it has proved to be a valuable asset to speeding up the learning curve on a new water way. When all of the research is complete and the fishing spots are picked out, the final piece of the puzzle is execution of your game plan to tackle the body of water. Get the boat in the water and familiarize yourself with the body of water; locating the areas you picked out from your research and areas you may have missed. Time of year also may influence the areas you begin your search for fish. As you fish a new body of water, rule out non-productive areas which will allow you to focus on the areas you have found to be productive. Presentation also can be a factor when learning a new body of water. Be willing to change up lures and presentation letting the fish tell you what they like. As you learn the lake and generate some success you will be able to better pattern fish in the particular body of water.
With all that was said, it takes time to master a lake and be successful. By doing research and mapping out areas, you will have a better start place when tackling a new lake. Do not get discouraged if at first you do not succeed and be willing to give the lake a second chance, because often you will learn something new from the lake. By taking on a new lake you will become a better and more well rounded angler. So pick out a new lake today, do some research, and give it a try! Good Fishing.
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High Water? No problem for savvy reservoir trout hunters.
I
n many natural lakes and reservoirs in the mountain region, lakes will be filling fast. This influx of water tends to bring oxygen, nutrients and food into the lakes, spurring feeding frenzies from an array of trout species. Springtime is the perfect season to find non-stop action on rainbows, lake trout, cutthroat, brooks and browns. Anglers who target areas where water is rushing in, are often the most successful.
Photo: www.jdrspecialtytackle.weebly.com
ANGLERS WHO TARGET AREAS WHERE WATER IS RUSHING IN, ARE OFTEN THE MOST SUCCESSFUL.
All trout species are drawn to moving water. They spawn in these areas, come to feed and also take refuge nearby. Remember that moving water is where rainbows and cutthroat spawn in the spring, meaning some of the population of fish will be either spawning or leaving the inlets after spawning. You’ll find large concentrations of trout in these areas. Also, browns and other trout will come to these inlets to feed on loose trout eggs that have ventured into the system.
Focus on the inlets and outlets in the spring - or any other time of the year. Bank action: Fortunately, you can bank fish around these inlets if you
do not have means to a boat. Be sure to avoid the fastest moving water, and also the water that is completely off-colored. When casting, hit the seam lines and the edge of the current. If you can create a perfect, uninhibited drift - continuous action is possible. When casting spoons and spinners, make the effort to retrieve them with the current, so it appears the spinner is being carried into the lake rather than the unnatural motion of swimming upriver. (continued next page) May 2015
9
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Reservoir Trout
(continued from page 9)
Top Gear for Reservoir Trout: Marabou Jig - One of the top lures for rainbows in large reservoirs of the Upper Missouri System. Kit’s Tackle Marabou Egg Sucking Leech www.kitstackle.com Crankbait - Rapala CountDown or FO9 Rapala trolled near the shorelines of Montana lakes and reservoirs. Top colors are rainbow trout and perch. Rapala CountDown www.rapala.com Spoons - Anglers tossing hardware with spinning gear will do well with a Krocodile spoon in Hammered Brass/Fire Stripe or a Panther Martin in a Holographic Rainbow pattern. Mepps Aglia Spinner #2 in gold is also a never-fail bet. Thomas Colorado Minnow spoon - the nickel and gold combo is most productive on bright days. JDR Specialty Tackle’s Forage Minnow will hammer the trout this spring. Match the color spoon with the forage. JDR Specialty Tackle Cutthroat Trout Forage Minnows www.jdrspecialtytackle.weebly.com
Fly fishermen can hook up on the big ones using a variety of egg patterns drifted, or an egg sucking leech near the bottom will draw strikes from rainbows as well as any brown trout positioned to feed on drifting rainbow eggs. Any angler fishing bait from the bank has the opportunity for some of the best trout fishing. Try a rig consisting of a sliding sinker and a snelled #4 baitholder hook tipped with a spawn sack. The spawn can be tied with salmon eggs or trout eggs. These tackle items will help you catch more fish this season.
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Hyalite Reservoir Clark Canyon Reservoir Holter Lake Georgetown Lake Hebgen Lake Canyon Ferry Reservoir Eureka Reservoir Ruby Reservoir Ennis Lake Quake Lake
Georgetown Lake photo courtesy bigskyfishing.com
Have fun and take someone new fishing this year! email us your trout fishing photos to:
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Fishing At Hell Creek
By Bernie Hildebrand www.fortpeckguide.com
B oat fishing starts for the year at Hell Creek with ice-out on Fort Peck Reservoir, which usually occurs between April 1 and April 15. That’s the time I like to fish for lake trout and also catch the occasional chinook salmon. The lake trout bite continues until the water temperature warms to the mid-50s. That’s usually about Memorial Day weekend. The lake trout average from 10 to 12 pounds depending on the year with several fish going into the teens. It’s rare to get one 20 or more pounds, but a few are caught each year.
The walleye bite starts in about mid-to-late May and gets better as the water warms. The bite usually starts to the west of Hell Creek and slowly works its way down the lake.
Northern pike grow big and strong near Hell Creek.
Miles City’s C.B. Schantz shows a Fort Peck 10-pounder.
Walleyes are feeding hard through June and July and good catches are recorded during this time throughout the Hell Creek area. Depending on the year, there are usually several strong age classes. If you fish the reservoir regularly, there is a good chance to take a 10-pounder. Many fish that size are taken every year.
Northern pike usually bite well all year, except most of the fish right now are in the older age classes. These fish are big, with 12 pounds being the small ones and some fish that are 40 or more inches long and approximately 20 pounds. A fish this size can put up a great fight. Chinook salmon fishing usually starts in August and continues into October, with the fish deep early and getting shallow as the reservoir cools. In August and September, downriggers must be used while in October, long line trolling is used. Ice-up can come anytime from December on, depending on the year. In some years, the whole lake doesn’t freeze over until sometime in January. 12 - Hunting & Fishing News
Fort Peck Walleyes
By Bernie Hildebrand www.fortpeckguide.com
W alleye fishermen on Fort Peck learn quickly to fish structure. The reservoir is made up of a mixture of long points, medium points and short points with bays big and small in between. The waters can run deep clear up to the bank near some points and are shallow flats near others.
A rule of thumb on Fort Peck is to cover plenty of water to locate walleyes first. Rather than holding in particular spots, Fort Peck walleyes are great travelers. They’re here one day and gone the next.
Don Childress and a 13.25 pounder.
Because of this, covering water becomes very important, especially during the months of June and July, the prime months for walleye fishing on the reservoir. The primary fishing strategies for the lake at this time of year are pulling crawler harnesses with spinners behind a bottom bouncer sinker or trolling crankbaits. These methods will allow you to cover more water as you fish. Then, when you locate feeding walleyes, you can key in on them and, if you choose, try other techniques like jigs or live bait rigs. The key thing to look for is patterns. Try to figure out what depth is holding the most walleyes. Try to key in on the spinner color they prefer. Pay attention to crankbait finish or trolling speed. When you figure out the pattern, look to duplicate it elsewhere on the lake where you find similar situations. When you start for the day, look to the wave-pounded shorelines and either stained water or mud-lines where waves have eroded the bank and created muddy water. Also, the depth the fish are holding at may vary by the day.
Trolling crankbaits with planer boards is extremely effective in testing a number of depths at the same time. They allow you to cut a wide swath through the water until you find the preferred depth for the fish. Good colors for spinners or crankbaits can vary by the day, but chartreuse is always a good choice as a starter as is blue-and-silver. Perch-finish, fire tiger finish and clown finishes also work well on crankbaits.
Fort Peck holds many great walleyes
For more information or to schedule a trip with Bernie visit www.fortpeckguide.com, phone him at 406-234-6342 or email him at Bernie@MidRivers.com May 2015 13
Sight-Fishing Smallies By Babe Winkelman
O
... f all the fish we have in North America, I like catching smallmouth bass the most. Pound-for-pound, they’re the fightin’-est freshwater fish there is. And nothing is more fun than sight-fishing smallies when they’re up on the beds in late spring/early summer. When to target bedded smallmouth…Smallmouth Bass typically live in clear, clean lakes and rivers with moderate current. When water temperatures warm in the late spring and early summer, to 60°-65°F, the bass move up into shallow flats and reefs with hard bottom and good clean sand and/or gravel. Areas that are protected from wind are key spawning areas, and if there are good-sized rocks thrown in that’s a huge plus. Clean pencil grass also makes a good spawning ground, since smallies usually prefer to build their nests adjacent to some piece of available cover. When the water hits that magic temperature, the males come in and prepare the nests for the egg-filled females. They “fan” the bottom and dust away the silt layer to expose the clean bottom. After the eggs are deposited and fertilized, the female bass move down to deeper water to recover while the males stay and guard the nest. This is when Mr. Smallmouth is easily caught. He can’t stand it when something comes near the nest and threatens his little prodigies. How to fish the nests…Job #1 is finding the nests. This is pretty simple, since they’re fairly easy to spot in clear water with a good pair of polarized sunglasses. When you find a nest, dished out like an under-water crater, look carefully to see if there’s a fish on it. Depending on the bottom color and composition, a smallmouth’s camouflage can make him difficult to spot. If you see a fish, ease up on him with an electric trolling motor and pitch your bait into the middle of the nest. Grub jigs, tubes, and other soft plastics work great. On certain lakes and under certain conditions, particular styles, sizes and colors seem to work best. As is the case with all types of fishing, experiment with different offerings to see what flips a smallmouth’s switch. One day I couldn’t get the fish to pick up baits off the bottom. But when I switched to a drop-shot rig and levitated the soft plastic a couple inches off the bottom, the bass attacked it. So remember to be versatile and try different things. Sometimes a smallmouth will attack the intruding bait on the drop. But more often he’ll get agitated and swim around the bait as it sits in the bed. Remember, this is all sight fishing we’re talking about. So when the bait is in the bed, watch that fish and key into his body language. He’ll get all uptight and swim around your bait. Sometimes you’ll even see him change into a darker color when he gets ornery. Then, when he really gets mad at it, he’ll nose-down on the bait with his tail up just before inhaling it. He’s not “eating” the bait. He’s simply picking it up to get it out of there. So after he inhales it, he’ll swim away to deposit it outside the bed somewhere. This is when you set the hook! A lot of sight-fishing novices tend to set the hook too soon, before the bass has his mouth closed down on the bait. Watch for it to disappear, then give it a second before setting the hook. Now, if the bass are absolutely tight-lipped and don’t get agitated when a bait drops into their beds, I switch to the secret weapon. Leeches. Smallies hate it when leeches hang out around their eggs. Just pinch a small splitshot sinker about four inches above a hook and let it take that leech into the strike zone. For equipment, I like a 7-foot medium-heavy St. Croix spinning rod with a fast tip, spooled up with 8-pound monofilament. It provides good shock absorption for big hooksets at close range to the fish. Smallies love to jump, and they’re very good at throwing the bait when they’re airborne. So when you fight them, keep a low rod tip and good line tension when you see them coming up for a tail-dance. After the bass has given you a good, fun fight, treat him carefully… get a quick picture… and ease him back into the water near his bed. He’ll return to it in good shape and continue guarding his eggs and fry. If you’re lucky, you can go back to the spot the next day and catch him again! So as summer approaches, spool up a spinning rod with fresh line and keep an eye on those water temperatures. When the time is right, get out and do some sight fishing for smallmouth bass… and you’ll have a smallmouth blast! Good Fishing! 14 - Hunting & Fishing News
PITCH COUNT FOR WALLEYES By Jason Mitchell
The author Jason Mitchell believes that experimenting with casting angles can often make pitching for early season walleyes much more productive.
Over the past few years, pitching
or casting to reach shallow walleyes has increased in popularity amongst walleye anglers tenfold.... When we look at effectively fishing less than ten feet of water, there are several ways to skin a cat. Drifting and trolling these locations are options. Often however early in the season, fish seem to bump away from the boat more...it can be tough to drive right over the top of fish early in the season and casting allows you to focus on a specific area with some precision. While casting or pitching can be very precise and even methodical where you can plant on a specific location, you can also cover water. The best of both worlds for shallow walleyes. Regardless however whether you are fishing blade baits, jigs, swim baits or crank baits on either moving water or still, there are some nuances that can definitely elevate your pitching game. Like many facets of fishing, speed and mojo is everything. As a guide, I often liked to have everybody in the boat using identical rods, reels and line so that any successful recipe was easier to repeat within the boat. If you and a partner spend a lot of time fishing together, use identical gear. Reason being, when he or she catches three fish in a row, you can watch their reel speed and match up identically....Matching up is much more difficult with different equipment so keep some consistency within the boat. Early in the season, slow methodical retrieves often shine and what often happens after catching a few fish is that inadvertently, we begin to reel faster because of excitement. Force yourself to be conscience of how fast or slow you are fishing and make mental notes so that you can tone back or pick up the tempo with some consistency to match up what is working. As important as reel speed can be when pitching or casting, there is a whole host of other variables like snaps, pauses, lifts and swings that can make a crankbait, jig, soft plastic or blade bait come to life. These subtleties can only be dialed in on the water with experimentation. What often goes unsaid however and can be as or more important is angle of the cast… how you approach a shallow location and work a lure across the location. Some anglers preach keeping the boat deep and casting in shallower but throwing perpendicular to the shoreline from deep to shallow is just one angle to present a bait. The advantage of this approach is that you cover different depths. If fish however are holding tight to a specific feature like a lip or cut along the profile of the shoreline or reef however, there are often better angles. One such angle is where you slide the front of the boat into the same depth as to where the fish are holding and instead of casting across the break from deep to shallow, casting along the break so that your bait follows the break. Essentially casting up ahead of the boat where the lure or bait works the same depth for the entire cast along a contour. What I have found is that regardless of where you fish, the angle you approach a spot and the distance of your casts are as important of variables as speed, color, lure, weight or what you do with the rod tip. When fish are tight to shallow structure and hugging the bottoms of lips and dips, a lure has to get to the fish and give them a chance to respond... Also, on days where the fish are cruising off the bottom and looking for something to eat, you can make a short cast at just about any angle near the fish and get bit. As conditions do get tougher, walleyes in particular will often follow a bait or lure a considerable distance at times before finally biting. If you are getting bumped right at the boat repeatedly, that is what is happening. In this situation, longer casts often get bit and one of my favorite tactics is to back off the spot and keep the boat over deeper water and try and pull the fish over the deeper water with a longer cast. Long casts just give following fish that many more chances to nip before you just run out of room at the end of a retrieve. ...This spring, move past the traditional logic of holding the boat deep and simply firing the bait up towards shallower water...
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ight-fishing for spring largemouths can be one of the most difficult ways to catch them, even though the fish are usually in very shallow water and clearly visible to anglers. That’s why fishermen like Yamaha pro James Niggemeyer have developed alternative techniques and that often do tempt these stubborn bass. “It takes years of experience to learn how to ‘read’ a bass you can see and determine if it is even going to bite,” explains Niggemeyer, a Bassmaster® Elite contender who perfected his shallow fishing strategies on Lake Fork, “so instead of spending a lot of time trying to coax one fish I can see, I look for dingy, off-colored water that holds bass I can’t see. “That sounds a little strange, perhaps, but it allows me to fish in a totally different style with different lures. Remember, most of the time we don’t see the bass we’re casting to the rest of the year, so I’m not doing anything unusual, and although the bass may be on beds and spawning, they’re not nearly as spooky in dirty water as they are in clear water.” Niggemeyer normally uses three different lures under these conditions, a spinnerbait, a swim jig, and a soft plastic stick worm. He concentrates in water depths of three feet or less, and the common denominator in using all three lures is fishing them very slowly. “I like to use the spinnerbait on days that are windy or rainy when the surface has a ripple so bass react more to noise and vibration,” explains the Yamaha pro. “I slow roll it just above the bottom and parallel to the shoreline, barely pumping my rod tip to create different vibrations. I usually use a 3/8 or ½-ounce model with a chartreuse/white skirt, and with Colorado and willow leaf blades. That gives me a fairly small profile lure but with both flash and vibration.” When days are calm and brighter, Niggemeyer changes to a swim jig, a lure that features a small blade just in front of the jig head that causes the lure to wobble. Again, he emphasizes, the key to success is using a very slow retrieve. “I cast as shallow as I can get the lure, then reel back steadily so the jig is just barely wobbling,” he continues. “It vibrates totally differently than a spinnerbait, and I like to fish it close to anything that creates an edge, be it a grassline, a log, some rocks, even a boat ramp. “Bass seem to feel an edge provides some security since nothing can come from that side to rob their nests and they don’t have to watch it as closely. That means the fish will see my swim jig coming in front of that edge and hopefully they’ll be more likely to strike it.” The Yamaha angler prefers a small ¼ or 3/8-ounce swim jig that he rigs with 25 to 30 pound braided line, primarily to have strength to control a larger bass and move it away from cover quickly. Niggemeyer’s third option for shallow bass he can’t see is a plastic stick worm, usually rigged weightless and fished on 16 to 20 pound fluorocarbon line. If he’s fishing fairly open water, the Yamaha pro may rig the lure wacky-style, in which the hook is inserted through the middle of the bait, but if he’s working in and around cover, he uses a traditional Texas-style rigging that keeps the lure weedless. “These worms shimmy and vibrate as they fall,” notes Niggemeyer, “so when I use them, I let them fall to the bottom, then just let them sit there motionless. After perhaps five to 10 seconds, I raise my rod tip and then drop it so the lure falls and shimmies down again. “I can easily envision a bass watching my bait fall and sitting on the bottom, as if trying to decide whether or not it should strike,” he laughs. “When I raise my rod and the worm starts vibrating on its way back down, the bass just can’t resist it. 16 - Hunting & Fishing News
Photo: IDF&G
Potlatch River Steelhead Idaho Fish and Game
T he Potlatch River is a smaller little known river that flows into
the Clearwater River about 15 miles upstream of Lewiston, Idaho. For those familiar with this river, images of raging dirty water in the spring and barely a trickle in the summer often come to mind. At first appearance, this is hardly a river that one would consider to support any type of a quality fishery. Years of habitat degradation from farming, logging, grazing and human development has taken its toll on this river. However, about 10 years ago the Idaho Department of Fish and Game began surveying this river and what we learned was truly a surprise. This river supported a thriving population of truly wild steelhead with almost no hatchery influence. Upon talking to some of the locals, they told stories of when their grandfathers caught steelhead in tributaries that are now dry. It became evident that this river had a lot of potential to produce more steelhead, and that is when it was decided to embark on a major habitat restoration program in this basin. To help direct where money is spent, we initiated a monitoring program to better understand where the steelhead occur, how many there are, and how they respond to the various habitat improvement projects. We are currently in our tenth field season of studying the steelhead population in the Potlatch River basin. Much of our monitoring occurs in the East Fork Potlatch River and Big Bear Creek, two of the major steelhead producing drainages in the Potlatch. Our monitoring program consists of three major components. We trap adult steelhead at a weir to estimate how many spawn. (continued on page 28) May 2015 17
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Pros And Cons Of Hunting Alone Originally published at
Photos and article By Ron Niziolek
www.gohunt.com
I
was completely caught off guard when the bull responded to my bugle. He was close! I had spent the last six hours walking a big loop and was back within a couple miles of my truck when I found this “elky” looking place. I finally had a response after 50 lonesome bugles that afternoon. I nocked an arrow and maneuvered silently around the toe of the slope. The stalk was on. I traveled 30 yards when I saw antler tips bobbing my way behind a screen of low pines. It was a decent-sized bull. I drew my Hoyt when he was at 30 yards, but at 25 yards, he stopped and scanned the forest. I mentally tried to will him into the open for a shot, and after a 20 second stalemate, he resumed walking toward where I last bugled. The 15-yard shot was Photo Ron Niziolek followed by a 60-yard run and a loud crash. Finally, after nine hard days of hunting, I was done. With 30 minutes of daylight left, I sat and admired him for a few minutes before getting to work, taking photos, skinning and bagging the quarters. It was 10 p.m. when I headed out with the first load. It was a long, but greatly satisfying night.
Advantages/Disadvantages There are a lot of advantages to hunting by yourself. The additional challenge and satisfaction, the ability to hunt how and where you want without any time or communication constraints, and the time to truly be alone for self reflection. Decisions can be made or changed on the fly and you will not ruin anyone’s hunt but your own, however, there can also be disadvantages, including the increased cost for fuel, no one to share the workload, loneliness and fear. Despite what many may say, it is much easier to get up and face a long cold walk in the dark with a hunting buddy than by yourself. Logistics and safety
The logistics of attempting a solo hunt might seem daunting, but with some careful planning, a safe and successful hunt is absolutely possible. You may want to consider a few extra days for a solo hunt. Travel may take longer and be more expensive on your own. One of the biggest factors to be aware of is the additional time it will take to pack an elk, or any large animal out of the woods by yourself. Safety is a major factor while solo hunting, but there are some key steps to make it safe. Before you head out, let your friends and family know where you are going and when to expect to hear from you. Speak with a biologist or warden over the phone and ask about cellphone service. If there is not any, or if it is limited, think about renting a satellite phone or using a Delorme Inreach or Spot personal locator beacon to send and receive messages. Backcountry safety with a (continued next page) Safety in the backcountry with a
SPOT messenger 18 - Hunting & Fishing News
Delorme InReach
Mental attitude A solo hunter must possess and maintain a positive attitude not just for the chance of a successful outcome, but to also to keep yourself in the field. Without a buddy along for company or encouragement, it can be easy to lose focus. A lack of focus may lead to sleeping in, not hunting in rough weather or worse — giving up and going home empty-handed. I can personally attest to this phenomenon. It happens to the best of us, so be ready to recognize those feelings and hunt hard for as long as you planned for.
Hunting methods: Stalking Hunting solo makes the
option of spot and stalking bulls or silently chasing bugles a perfect option. Loading an arrow getting ready This is where your predator instinct can really kick in. It is just you and the animal. for hunting elk You do not have anyone else to think of, communicate with or keep track of. It is an ideal scenario and one that has accounted for the majority of the bulls I have killed. You can spend hours in the morning stalking a herd without an opportunity or obligation to be anywhere else. Instead of heading back to camp, you can stay in close proximity, keep the wind right and possibly have a chance at an animal during the middle of the day. If not, you are certainly in a good location for the evening hunt.
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Large bull elk rub in September
Calling Plenty of solo hunters harvest animals by calling and there are a couple of steps that could increase your chance of success. Unlike working with a partner, when you are solo you will be doing it all. Once you hear a bull or get another animal to respond, pinpoint the location and quickly close the gap. This single step will get you more encounters than anything else. Too many times, people get distracted and call back and forth with a bull from a distance. Get close and throw out a cow call or two. If you get a response and the bull is within a couple hundred yards, cut him off with an Bugle tube for calling elk into archery range aggressive bugle. It is a good method to anger the bull and make him come in looking for a fight. If you feel he is committed, coming in and you have time, quickly move forward 20 to 30 yards. That way, if he holds up you may still be close enough, and if he commits, his attention will be focused past you. Ready for success Once that arrow hits home and the bull
is on the ground, a whole new challenge begins. You must mentally and physically be ready to take your own photographs, break down the bull for packing and then pack several hundred pounds of meat out of some rough country. This could happen late in the afternoon or evening after a long brutal day. Are you physically capable of doing the tasks necessary to get that elk to the truck? Physical and mental preparation cannot be stressed enough, but the satisfaction of going it alone and making it happen is a feeling like no other.
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Say Hello To Success: Where to chase the Fish this Month Brought to you by
ECHO LAKE
Fishing with Forrest Fawthrop Walleye/Trout Hunter Outfitters www.walleyehunteroutfitters.com
The anticipation is high for Western
anglers as we head into some of the best fishing hours of the year, as water temperatures gradually rise. The fish action will pick up, and by the middle of May, and heading into Memorial weekend, you’ll want to have made plans to be on the water. Springtime is the perfect time to find non-stop action for rainbows, browns, lake trout, northern pike, walleye and bass, and opportunities to catch them in the trophy category are high. For some of these species of fish they will be spawning or leaving the inlets after spawning, so you will find large concentrations of fish in these areas. This combination of higher water temps along with the spawning season will result in some of the highest catch rates of the year. Targeting aggressive fish isn’t rocket science, simply focus on areas where incoming water can be found, whether in a boat or from shore. Often times, these fish will be hanging along the edges of murky water and feeding on insects,
worms, baitfish and any other forage being pushed into the lake or stream. One of the best things about spring fishing is that the bite can last all day with all of the plentiful food sources available, and the evening bite can be fantastic as the weather heats up. Here is a look at a few top waters to target.
CLARK CANYON RESERVOIR
Generous stockings of rainbow trout into Clark Canyon Reservoir over the past few years have created some of the best lake action for trout in Montana. Trollers can catch some nice trout dragging your favorite lures such as Rapalas and Needlefish in brown trout colors. Other trolling options include Kastmasters or Walleye Worm harnesses. Jigging with a piece of worm can produce fish or a fly pattern, size 10 chironomid under a strike indicator will land fish as well.
You can target largemouth bass near Bad Rock Canyon in Echo Lake, and in late May, you can punch some toads here. Target shallow bays to find some action as the bass will be spawning this month. Blackie’s Bay is always good to hit for bass. Anglers walking the shoreline can find a few bass around the old marina, near the Causeway, but otherwise, you’ll need a boat to fish Echo Lake. Casting soft plastics, rubber tubes or spinnerbaits, fishing them slowly will bring good action. White with a silver blade is a good spinnerbait combo. There is also a very good chance of hooking up with a pretty big northern pike here.
CANYON FERRY RESERVOIR
Look to the north end of Canyon Ferry for some of the best rainbow trout fishing action in the Northwest. The good thing about this area is that shore access is quite available and anglers can get big rewards. Using bright colored jigs can be a great choice now. Our go to is Kit’s Tackle Egg Sucking Leech pattern, as the leeches are just starting to come out, and are looking for food. They are notorious for robbing trout eggs. In turn, these trout will hammer on the leeches. Jig aggressively for best results.
Egg Sucking Leech by Kit’s Tackle Available at Bob Ward’s www.kitstackle.com
(Shore anglers note:) During the month of May, almost 100% of the adult rainbow trout in Canyon Ferry will be within 20 yards of shore. If you are targeting walleye, the southern end of the lake is your best bet. Target the shallows as the females will be spawning through the end of May. It’s your chance to catch a trophy fish, and plenty of eater-sized walleye. For adult females, snap a photo and release them back safely for good sportsmanship, and to enhance the future of walleye fishing on the lake. Keep the smaller fish. They are always better table fare.
TALLY LAKE
Located between Kalispell and Whitefish, in the Flathead National Forest, this gem of a lake is relatively little known and used. It’s Montana’s deepest lake, at around 490 feet at its deepest point. It’s trophy country for mackinaw, as well as great fishing for kokanee, rainbow, cutthroat and brookies. Northern pike fishing can be excellent here as well. For Macks you’ll need to head for deep waters using downriggers and flatfish lures in a rainbow trout pattern. It’s deep and slow, as most mackinaw anglers know that catching a trophy mack is not an easy task, and that any fish over 40 inches would mean that fish would be around 35 years old. It’s commonly thought that there are fish over 50 years old in the lake. Wow!! For kokanee, troll the shore across from the launch to the east and along the lakes southwest shore. The bay between the boat launch and the Logan Creek Inlet is where to target the pike, as well as either outlet. Ditto for other trout species, with the Inlet being the prime area.
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STILLWATER RIVER
The Stillwater River flows south of Kalispell, and is well known for its northern pike that are in the system. Giant pike lurk in these waters, and it can be a lot of fun to try fly fishing using streamers, or you can use large spoons tossed near the many deep pools that are found along the river. Concentrate on the backwaters where the current is slow. That is where you’ll find the pike. Whitefish, cutthroat trout and brook trout are also fished for in the river. Duck Lake, Stillwater Lake and the Lower Stillwater also provide good fishing.
BIGHORN RIVER
The Bighorn River begins at Boysen Reservoir in Wyoming then flows downstream 150 miles into Bighorn Lake, and is one of the West’s premier trout streams. It is well known for it’s big brown trout that are colorful and feisty. Big rainbows also inhabit these waters. A fly fishing mix of nymphing and streamers will produce the big ones right now.
BIGHORN LAKE
You can lake fish in Bighorn Canyon for good walleye, crappie, and smallmouth bass. A great area to jig for walleye is near the steep banks that surround the lake, or with trolled crankbaits for suspended walleye. Smallmouth bass will hit on spinnerbaits tossed near weed edges. Small lures work well for crappie.
LAKE KOOCANUSA
In northwest Montana you can fish for over-sized rainbow trout and kokanee salmon. The fishing will really turn on in May, mainly because of the warming water temperatures, plus the black ant hatches that occur now. Anglers will have success trolling large flies, Apexes on the surface with planer boards or plugs on downriggers. Use a silver/blue lure combo as the rainbows will feed on the salmon. For salmon, use maggots or shoe peg corn.
FLATHEAD LAKE
Another big game fishing destination will be the Flathead area, and May is a good time to fish for a mixed bag here - crappie, perch, smallmouth bass, and northern pike can be caught in inlets and bays around the big lake. Big lake trout will also be ready to rumble on one of Montana’s biggest lakes. Campgrounds and motels are numerous here.
UPPER YELLOWSTONE RIVER
Before run-off in late May and June occurs, you’ll have the attention of big browns and rainbows that lurk in these pristine waters near the Gardiner area. Fish tight to the banks and look for these fish to hold up near larger eddies. Dark lures and flies will be most effective now. Flies like Black Wooly Buggers size 4 to 8 and beadhead Prince Nymphs in 8 to 12. Good lures include black bucktail jigs, 1/4 ounce Rooster Tails or 1/4 to 1/8 ounce black Panther Martins. Fish below tributary mouths. Top bets are the mouths of De Puy and Nelson’s Spring Creeks.
IDAHO STATE
Clearwater: Spring chinook by late May. Fishing should be in full-swing throughout the state of Idaho, and the Clearwater Region expects the spring salmon fishing to be another good one. In the lower section of the river, trolling plug-cut herring is a most effective way to stay hooked-up on these big salmon. The Cat Hole by Memorial Bridge is a common hot spot to fish. Further upstream, back trolling divers and eggs or divers and plugs is effective, red being the color for plugs. After these fish get closer to Orofino, divers and bait works best. The further you get upstream, the better they take eggs. For current catch rates and information, check out Jarrett’s Guide Service in Orofino, Idaho. He can guide your trip or help you with fishing information in the area.
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Entry forms will not be mailed out.
Enter online at www.mackdays.com
or pick up entries at local sporting good stores - or you can even enter when you check in your fish at the check in stations during Mack Days. It is easier if you enter before the event begins. Phone 406-883-2888 Ex. 7294 We remind you to follow all fishing regulations. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have a special $13 fishing permit for the south half on Flathead Lake that is available wherever fishing permits are sold.
www.wefishhere.net Spring chinook is underway. Photo courtesy Jarrett’s Guide Service Orofino, Idaho
Sponsored by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and sanctioned by Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks May 2015 21
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ig Spring Creek, one of the largest spring-fed streams in Montana, originates 9 miles southeast of Lewistown, near the state’s Big Springs Trout Hatchery. It runs northwesterly 30 miles, mainly between the Big Snowy and Judith mountains, and enters the Judith River west of Brooks, Montana. Enclosing the large spring at the head of the creek, giant willows and cottonwoods shade a park and wildlife viewing area. From the spring, cold, high-quality water flows over green mats of water plants and down between birches, willow, hawthorne, native shrubs and grasses. The creek continues its first 20 miles alongside hay and grazing fields and US 191, passing through Lewistown. Above the town, Big Spring Creek averages 38 feet wide, 18 inches deep, below to the mouth, 45 feet wide, 24 inches deep....Considered by anglers to
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Sighting Your Favorite Deer Gun By Glen Wunderlich www.ammoland.com
...While it may be true that wind can be present in hunting situations, you certainly don’t want to adjust aiming points relative to any substantial crosswinds, when they probably won’t be the same later. It’s best to select a calm day for testing; any adjustments necessary during a hunt should be made afield based on the conditions that day, instead. Crosswinds cause substantially greater deflection of a given projectile than do headwinds or tailwinds.... A six-inch target (www.tiny.cc/2z9dox) will provide a necessary margin for error for deer-sized targets, even though the actual kill zone is larger. Orange squares with the black outlines are good for scoped guns and plain black circles or squares are best for iron sights, red dot sights. Start with a clean, unloaded gun ensuring there is no oil or grease in the barrel by running a dry patch through it. Make sure everything is tight – especially scope bases, rings, and stock screws. Use a good, solid rest at the forend and butt stock. Sandbags work well, but it’s best to place your hand on the forend and rest it on the sandbag to simulate hunting conditions. Small bipods can make for a steady front rest when target shooting but may not produce the same results afield, unless you’ll be hunting with one. At 25 yards, shoot three shots and find the middle of the group. (If you are missing the paper completely, move in to about 10 feet. A single shot will usually be enough to let you know which direction to go.) Remember, at 25 yards to make adjustments at four times what you would at 100 yards. For most guns, you are ready to move the target to 100 yards, if you are dead on at 25 yards. Don’t change anything and shoot another 3-shot group at 100 yards, find the center of the group and adjust to your chosen elevation at 100 yards. Even with a conservative 6-inch kill zone target, “Point-Blank Range” can be maximized by having the bullet or slug impact somewhat high at 100 yards. The Point-Blank Range of any gun is the distance at which a hunter can hold right on the center of the kill zone and be able to hit within the vital zone. This means, if you set up your gun properly, you won’t have to guess whether to hold high or low on the deer, or how much. Just aim for the center of the vitals. Some hunters make the mistake of sighting in dead on at 100 yards, when longer shots are possible during a hunt. Here’s an example: A 30-06 with a 180-grain spire point bullet going 2700 Feet Per Second (FPS) at the muzzle, with a 100-yard zero puts the bullet 3 inches low at 175 yards. Using the 6-inch kill zone, 175 yards becomes your limit without ambiguous holdover, because the bullet will fall to the bottom of the vitals by aiming at the center of the kill zone. However, if the same cartridge is set for a 215 yard zero, the bullet reaches its peak of 3 inches high at 130 yards and is 3 inches low at 255 yards. As long as the deer is no farther than 255 yards, can aim dead center and take him out cleanly. Just by changing the zero, 80 additional yards are gained. Shotguns are relatively slow in comparison - even with the fastest modern sabot offerings. The best bet is to get to the range and test at various ranges with your gun and loads, because there are just too many variables to rely exclusively on charts. Whatever you choose to shoot, just make sure the bullet/slug never gets higher or lower than 3 inches when holding dead on. Once sighted in, shoot from various positions and with rests you may use in the field. As long as you can keep 9 out of 10 in the six-inch circle, you are shooting within ethical standards. If you are unable to do so, being ethical demands you to restrict your shots to a maximum range that allows you to do so. When finished, don’t clean the gun’s barrel, because a clean barrel may change your point of impact. Just unload the gun, wipe off the exterior using a light protectant, and store it safely and it will remain ready for hunting. May 2015 23
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24 - Hunting & Fishing News
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To Understand A Turkey, Walk A Mile In His Feet By Babe Winkelman www.winkelman.com
IHeyelped, he gobbled. I purred, he fanned. But there was a problem. did it 80 yards away, and for a long, long time. No matter what I tried,
that hung-up Tom just wouldn’t close the distance. What to do, what to do? Ever since I began hunting and fishing, I’ve tried to approach my quarry by understanding what makes them tick. I’ve tried to get inside their heads. Walk a mile in their shoes, so to speak. Or should I say walk a mile in their hooves, paws, feet, fins. Oh wait, that would be “swim a mile in their fins.” At any rate, what’s important here is for hunters (and anglers) to have a working knowledge of their prey and to use that (along with our superior cunning) against them. What I’ve learned is that there’s a 3-part common denominator for all creatures which serves as a foundation for outsmarting your adversary. The common denominator is that all living creatures are driven by these simple things: (1) To eat. (2) To not get eaten. (3) To breed. Understanding this makes it easier to appreciate how all living things relate to protective cover; how they develop predictable travel patterns between sleeping areas and food sources; and how their need to breed creates huge vulnerabilities in their desire to “not get eaten.” So, back to this hung-up Tom. To get him to close the distance, I had to do something. What I was doing wasn’t working well enough. So I instinctively studied the situation as it related to the 1,2,3 common denominator I just mentioned. Was the Tom on a food source he simply didn’t want to leave? Hmmmm, my answer was no. He was spending most of his time strutting out there at 80 yards. Occasionally he’d lay his feathers down to peck at a seed or bug, then gobble and go back to strutting. And frankly, the cover type between me and him was identical, so whatever he was eating could be eaten closer to me. So I checked off #1. Then I considered #2. Was there something about the set-up that had this Tom on edge? He seemed to like my calling, because he gobbled every time I called. It got him excited! I surmised that there was nothing about my ambush position that made him nervous, because he didn’t act goofy at all. I was in a hunting blind and I knew he hadn’t seen me. So I checked #2 off the list as well. Which left me with dwelling upon #3 - the need to breed. Obviously this Tom was full of love, so why hang up? Then I heard it: “yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp...” A real live hen was just beyond a slight dip in the landscape below the Tom. I couldn’t see her, and never knew she was there. So I quickly understood that he was “playing the field” to hens on either side of him. Smart bird... ups the odds of getting some action! Now, how could I compete with a living, breathing, sexy hen? I had my calls and plastic decoy, sure. But that’s no comparison to the real thing! Then I asked myself: “What if I could convince Mr. Tom that there’s a second hen here? And that she’s going away!” So inside the blind I put a diaphragm call in my mouth that had a wildly different sound than the box call I had been using. My plan was to begin calling with the box, which he was accustomed to, and then cut in over the top of that calling with the mouth call. He would hear TWO birds! Then I would continue calling as Hen #2, only I would gradually turn away from the Tom’s direction each time I called, and make it softer, so he’d think a hot hen was walking away and giving him the cold shoulder. Maybe, just maybe, he’d get so upset about being left at the alter that he’d come running. I set my plan in motion. 30 seconds later it was lights-out for Mr. Longbeard! Turkey hunting success takes a mix of skill and luck. It also requires psychology. Even though they’re very peculiar birds, if you understand how their minds work at a primal level, you can put your big brain to work outsmarting them. I hope that helps you next time a turkey hangs up on you. Good Hunting!
May 2015 25
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4th ANNUAL BABES N BULLETS WOMEN ONLY SHOOTING EVENT TO RAISE MONEY FOR TOUGH ENOUGH TO WEAR PINK OF MONTANA
ob Ward’s is proud to present the 4th Annual Babes N Bullets shooting event, a for women only event to be held June 20th at the Deer Creek Range in Missoula. Proceeds from the shooting event will again benefit Tough Enough to Wear Pink of Montana. Bob Ward’s has teamed up with the Holiday Inn Downtown, Culligan Water, Jaker’s, and several hunting and shooting sport brands to raise funds supporting breast cancer awareness. (http://www.toughpinkmontana.org/) The shoot will be held Saturday, June 20th at the Missoula Deer Creek Shooting Center. Sign in begins at 8:00am with the full day of fun from 9am – 4pm. Registration is open at Bob Ward’s in Missoula and online at www.bobwards.com. There is a $125.00 registration fee which includes: • All day shooting clinic • Snacks water/soda and lunch • A goody bag with lots of fun items • After party at Holiday Inn including appetizers, drinks, raffle, and auction (4:30pm – 7pm) Babes N Bullets is an opportunity for women of all skill levels to try their hand at shooting handguns, rifles, shotguns, archery, and pepper spray. Safety, proper technique, and fun are the main focus of this event. Here is a recap of past events from Tough Enough to Wear Pink of Montana’s website: “Many of the women had never held a gun, and some were pretty savvy with the hardware! The instructors were terrific - the perfect mix of experience, patience, and humor. The highlight of the day was shooting the .50 cal pistol. Who knows what the good folks at Bob Ward’s might bring this year.” Registration for the event is open now, and if last year is any indication, it will fill up fast. You can register in the Missoula Bob Ward’s store or online at www.bobwards.com. The $125 registration includes: Babes n’ Bullets shirt, shooting safety equipment, lunch, a full day of shooting, transportation to and from the range, and an after party. The after party is your opportunity to drink, nibble, win raffles, bid on auction items, swap stories, and pick out the gun you want to buy. Bob Ward’s experienced staff, vendors, and volunteers will assist everyone both at the shoot and the after party. Invite a guest to the after party for only $25 more. The guest does not have to be female. Bob Ward’s is Montana’s oldest and largest sporting goods retailer with stores in Missoula, Butte, Helena, Hamilton and Bozeman, and online at www.bobwards.com. In June, the company will celebrate its 98th anniversary. For more information, contact Ryan Corwin, Bob Ward’s Advertising Manager at rcorwin@bobwards.com or via phone at 406.728.3220. 26 - Hunting & Fishing News
In my life I’ve met some fine and
successful hunters. Most of them have accolades of huge trophies and wild adventures, but none that can match the dedication and pure love of the sport that my 94-year old Grandfather Pat McVay has. For the last 50 straight years, at the start of the Montana deer season, my grandfather has pitched his old canvas wall tent behind the earthen dike of a small reservoir overlooking the Missouri River Breaks. From a distance the camp looks like any other deer camp, but up close, the signs of a lifetime of deer hunting are plainly evident. Some of the rocks along the dike are strangely out of place for the area. They include fossils, large chunks of quartz and obsidian. Most are rounded by weather and each holds a story behind its placement, commemorating a successful hunt or adventure on the prairie. The old cottonwood tree that leans over the dike shows countless rope scars on the larger branches where literally hundreds of deer, elk and antelope have hung waiting a trip home in the truck. Even the campsite itself shows signs of Granddad’s history. The ridge pole of the old tent is always aligned with the North Star behind the center section of the dike, and pieces of oat straw, used as bedding in the early years, are still embedded in the prairie clay. Grandpa named the camp “The Prairie Dog Motel,” and it’s always been open to visitors or fellow hunters that may stop by during the hunt. Grandpa even hosts a tent party during the hunt that draws as many as 30 or 40 landowners, hunters and friends some 50 miles down a gravel road for a night of old-time fiddle and guitar music as well as a few drinks. Camp guests have traveled from as far as California, Wisconsin and even Texas just for the tent party. I often think how strange it must look to passersby seeing a wall tent in the middle of nowhere lit up by Coleman lanterns and ringing with the strum of guitars and continuous laughter. As I said, this past November marked the 50-year anniversary of The Prairie Dog Motel. While Grandpa is 94, he was still able to roll his sleeping bag out on a cot in the old tent. This year’s hunt was made even more special by the attendance of two of his great grandsons, both age 7. Each evening all four generations of our family got to share a space in the tent motel, and that was a rare gift to all of us. Let’s not forget the hunt. What would a deer camp be without deer? The same for us I suspect, but Grandpa always seems to find a buck. This year on the first evening of the hunt we found this nice 3-point bedded in a shallow coulee below a juniper. While I will never know what made that buck willingly give us the time we needed to get Grandpa a shot, he surely did and Grandpa notched another deer tag. He just smiled and patted his old Winchester Model 70 that he bought new in 1938. The old rifle has never let him down. This buck isn’t the largest Grandpa has ever taken, not by a long shot. Standing over the deer he calmly told my young son, “Some of the finest trophies a man ever takes may have the smallest horns.” Someday I hope my son will understand the meaning of those words. I don’t care how you shake it, from his leather boots to his old hunting cap, my grandfather is all man. As my son and I helped him tag and gut this buck, Grandpa told us that he shot his first deer in 1928, and over the 86 hunting seasons between that day and this, he’s never had a deer tag go unfilled....
Persistence Pays Off By Jim Zumbo www.jimzumbo.com
T here are still some hunters today who believe that does should never be targeted, no matter the circumstances.
That attitude is centered on the notion that the more does, the more breeding animals, and therefore more bucks later on. That was the prevailing attitude when I was a teenager. It was considered a cardinal sin to shoot a doe. Biologists held town meetings to explain new wildlife management practices. Today we have a more enlightened attitude. Deer are managed according to the environment in which they live, which includes many factors. As we move from rural to urban areas, where deer herds are increasing so rapidly, many people, non-hunters included, see the need to reduce deer populations. In this picture, I’m posing with a doe I took a few days ago in an area that has a large whitetail herd.(editor’s note: article written Dec.’14). Deer are causing severe damage to ranches and farmlands. In this case, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department set aside some 2,000 whitetail doe-only tags in the unit. The tags are unlimited. You could buy all the tags you want until the quota was sold out. I took this doe with a Mossberg MVP model in .308 caliber topped with a Swarovski scope. It was my fourth animal with this rifle-- two black bears and another doe. I’d like to relate an incident on this hunt that addresses my blog title here on persistence. The incident is so common in the hunting woods, that I think it needs to be aired as an example of what might have happened had my hunting pal and I not taken the action we had. I was hunting with Bob Krumm, an old friend I hadn’t seen in 20 years. Bob is an outdoor writer for the Billings Gazette, Montana’s largest newspaper, and lives in northern Wyoming next to the Montana border. He invited me over to hunt the unlimited whitetail doe unit. I was eager to collect a couple deer, and become reacquainted with Bob and his wife. During the hunt, Bob shot at a doe. We were in an area with high, wet grass, no snow, with small brush-filled creek bottoms running throughout. I was about 300 yards away, heard his shot, and heard the distinctive thump of the bullet striking the deer, a sound that all experienced hunters know. Bob had rested his rifle on a big tractor tire lying flat on the ground. He was shooting prone, and the echo from the shot bounced around inside the tire and he didn’t hear the bullet strike. But, the deer’s reaction was typically that of a wounded whitetail. She immediately dropped her tail at the shot and kept it down as she quickly bounded out of sight. A deer that isn’t hit will almost always run off waving its tail in typical whitetail fashion. This wasn’t rocket science. As far as we were concerned, the deer was hit, pure and simple. I walked over to where Bob was looking for physical signs of a hit. Nothing. We got down on our hands and knees at the point of impact and crawled around, looking for the tiniest speck of blood, cut hair from the bullet, anything. Despite a long, thorough search, we found nothing. After Bob shot, the doe had bounded into a thick creek bottom, and he lost sight of it. It could be anywhere. At that point we realized that our only hope was to literally stumble into the dead deer. The grass was high enough that the doe could be lying a couple yards away unseen. We began the search, slowly slipping through the vegetation. Frankly, I had little confidence in finding the deer. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. But we persisted. For more than an hour we covered the landscape, looking for the downed deer or even a trace of blood. We were moving at a snails pace when I heard Bob whistle. I looked up and saw him 80 yards away, giving me the thumbs up sign. He’d found his deer, blindly blundering into it. Dark was coming on, so together we quickly dressed it so we could get the deer out in the daylight. No time for pictures of his doe. My point is this. If you’re an experienced deer hunter, you’ve been in this situation. Blood or other signs of a hit do not have to be present. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hit an animal in a vital area, watched it drop 50 or 100 yards away, and found not one drop of blood between the point of impact and the fallen animal when I investigated. I can also recall many scenarios where the exact predicament that Bob and I experienced had presented itself, where the stricken deer or elk or whatever ran into brush, and completely disappeared. Had we not persisted in the search as long as we did, the turn of events could have been far different. The winners would have been coyotes, ravens, and magpies. And Bob and I would have left the area, despondent with the knowledge that somewhere out there, a deer was badly wounded or dead. But the story had a happy ending. Bob and I each took two does, helping to reduce crop damage to the ranch, and adding quality meat to our freezers. I smiled all the way home.
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May 2015 27
Hunting & Conservation News Proudly Sponsored By
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Scientific Research Speaks Loudly: Hunting Is Conservation Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
A
new study published by the Journal of Wildlife Management indicates that hunting is among two recreational activities that inspire people to support conservation. The other is birdwatching. Perhaps the words of study co-author Ashley Dayer of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology best sum up the results, “There is hope for conservation in rural communities through both binoculars and bullets.” The research focused on the activity of those who live in rural, Upstate New York and took into account a wide range of characteristics such as age, beliefs about the environment, education, gender and political ideology. What resulted was a finding that hunters and birdwatchers
HUNTING & CONSERVATION NEWS Potlatch River Steelhead (continued from page 17)
We use two rotary screw traps...to catch juvenile steelhead to evaluate the number of smolts that migrate to the ocean each year. And we use PIT tag arrays to learn when adult and juvenile fish implanted with a small microchip enter or leave certain streams. By using at all this data, we can assess steelhead survival and how well the habitat restoration program is working. Adult steelhead travel over 500 miles from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in tributaries of the Potlatch River. Since 2008, we have estimated between 71-106 adult steelhead return annually to the East Fork Potlatch River to spawn. In 2014, we estimated 96 adults returned to the East Fork which is the 3rd highest return to date. In one of the strong run years, we believe around 1,000 adult steelhead entered the Potlatch River to spawn somewhere in the watershed. Juvenile steelhead leave the Potlatch River tributaries typically from March-June as they begin their journey to the Pacific Ocean. We monitor this outmigration and estimate the number of juveniles departing from Big Bear Creek and the East Fork Potlatch River drainages. In 2014, we estimated approximately 8,356 juvenile steelhead out-migrated from the Big Bear Creek drainage and 11,126 from the East Fork Potlatch River drainage. These estimates are typical and have ranged from 7,000-48,000 in the East Fork and 4,000-20,000 in Big Bear Creek.... We will continue to monitor and evaluate the steelhead population in the Potlatch watershed as habitat restoration efforts continue. The IDFG, Latah Soil and Water Conservation District, Natural Resource Conservation Service, US Forest Service, and Nez Perce Tribe have made significant efforts to improve habitat in this watershed. These efforts help insure this steelhead population will thrive for years to come and ultimately provide new fishing opportunities for anglers. - Jason Fortier, Senior Fish Technician, Clearwater Region
are 3-to-5 times more likely to engage in conservation behaviors.
“The differences between wildlife recreationists and non-recreationists were most pronounced among a distinctive set of activities,” lead study author Caren Cooper, assistant director of the Biodiversity Research Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, wrote in an independent blog. “Only birdwatchers and hunters carried out conservation activities that required a high level of commitment, such as habitat restoration, joining local (conservation) groups, engaging in advocacy for wildlife recreation and donating money to conservation.” “Managers often discuss direct and indirect links between wildlife recreation and conservation,” said study co-author Lincoln Larson, assistant professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management at Clemson University. “Our findings not only validate this connection, but reveal the unexpected strength of the conservation-recreation relationship.”
Ryan Hagerty/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Wikimedia
What really raised researchers’ eyebrows were the contributions of individuals who identified themselves as both hunters and birdwatchers. On average, this group was about eight times more likely than non-recreationists to engage in conservation. We set out to study two groups -- birdwatchers and hunters -- and didn’t anticipate the importance of those who do both, and wildlife managers probably didn’t either,” said Cooper. “We don’t even have a proper name for these conservation superstars other than hunter-birdwatchers.” 28 - Hunting & Fishing News
Wildlife agencies already fully recognize that hunters do their part in funding conservation. Hunters raised more than $7.2 billion to fund conservation efforts since the self-imposed implementation of a 1937 excise tax on hunting ammunition and equipment. They also generate nearly $800 million annually through the purchase of state hunting licenses and fees and donate an additional $440 million each year to conservation groups like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. “The next steps are to figure out how to tap birdwatchers to harness and apply their interest in conservation,” added Cooper. “Will it be through a conservation tax on binoculars, bird feeders and field guides? Will it be through more citizen science? Suggestions welcome!” Hunters will continue to do their part.
HUNTING & CONSERVATION NEWS 2015 Noxon Reservoir Walleye Study Plan Montana Walleyes Unlimited http://montanawalleyesunlimited.net
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In February 2013, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MFWP) released
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Additionally, MFWP will continue to conduct field work on Noxon Reservoir at different times of the year in order to answer several scientific questions and to monitor populations of all fish species, including walleye. In 2014, we conducted fisheries surveys on Noxon Reservoir, including electrofishing upper Noxon Reservoir during April and May. Sixty nine adult walleye were captured in 12 nights of sampling. This catch rate was lower than that observed during the previous two years of spring sampling. Thirty-five fish were released alive with PIT tags, and the rest were killed for PCB and dioxin sampling, collections of otoliths, or to estimate female fecundity (most often it was a combination of the three.)
Our annual fall gillnetting captured 47 walleye (two of which were PIT tagged in the spring). This was the second highest catch rate on record.
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In 2015, we will continue our annual fall gillnetting. Additionally, we plan to complete the following tasks specific to walleye:
• Continue to assess walleye capture techniques
• Identify age and size structure of walleye in Noxon Reservoir
• Estimate effective population size using genetics
• Analyze walleye for mercury (Hg) concentration
• Assess reproductive potential of Noxon Reservoir female walleye
• Assess angler exploitation of walleye within Noxon Reservoir
For the complete report visit http://montanawalleyesunlimited.net
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REGIONAL NEWS Rodgers Sentenced For His Role In ‘One Of The Worst Ever’ Lion Poaching Schemes
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Enter Super Hunt For Hunt Of A Lifetime
unter Clint Irving bought two Super Hunt tickets on the last day they were available in 2014. A few months later, he was posing for photographs with the massive bull elk he took after his name was drawn. Super Hunt winners literally have the opportunity for a once in a lifetime hunt, because they can participate in any open hunt in Idaho for the species they draw. This includes general hunts and controlled hunts. Winners of the Super Hunt Combo are able to hunt four species - deer, elk, pronghorn and moose - in any open hunt. The deadline for the first Super Hunt drawing is May 31. Super Hunt entries are $6 each. Super Hunt Combo entries are $20 each. No license is needed to enter a Super Hunt drawing. For the first Super Hunt drawing, tags for eight elk, eight deer, eight pronghorn and one moose will be drawn. One Super Hunt Combo will also be drawn. Winners will be notified by June 10. Money raised by the drawings provides hunters and anglers access to public and private lands through the Access YES! Program. So far this year, 87 properties have been enrolled in Access YES!, providing access to 380,349 private acres and 486,375 public acres for sportsmen.
(L to R) Nicholaus Rodgers, Christopher Loncarich, Andie Loncarich, unidentified hunter and Caitlin Loncarich with a mountain lion killed in Utah without a license, then illegally checked in Colorado. Photo: Mike Porras, CDNR
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icholaus J. Rodgers, 32, of Medford, Oregon, one of a group of outfitters from Mack, Colorado involved in an extensive lion and bobcat poaching scheme in western Colorado and eastern Utah, received his sentence in U.S. District Court in Denver on Wednesday. He must serve 36 months of probation, six months of home confinement, 50 hours of community service and pay $5,000 in fines. In August, 2014, Rodgers pleaded guilty to violating several counts the federal Lacey Act which prohibits the interstate transportation and sale of any wildlife taken in an illegal manner. Rodgers, along with his accomplices, were the subjects of a three-year joint investigation by Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, beginning in 2007.... According to indictments handed down in January, 2014, Rodgers and his employer, outfitter Christopher W. Loncarich, 56, of Mack, daughters Caitlin and Andie Loncarich and assistant guide Marvin Ellis, conspired to capture and cage lions and bobcats. They would hold the captured cats in leg traps, or would wound them by shooting them in the foot or stomach. Their goal was to make the cats easier for their clients to kill during excursions along the rugged Book Cliff Mountains in western Colorado and eastern Utah. In once instance, the group collared a lion with a radio transmitter, recaptured it a year later, kept it in captivity for a week at Loncarich’s residence in Mack, then maimed it before releasing it near an out-of-state client.... Investigators say that several of the cats killed in Utah were taken without licenses and then illegally transported to Colorado where the group falsified documents to obtain the required seals for the hides. The outfitter’s clients then transported the illegally taken cats back to their home states in further violation of the Lacey Act. According to investigators, Loncarich charged 18 clients between $3,500 and $7,500 for each lion hunt and between $700 and $1,500 for each bobcat hunt, sharing his earnings with his assistants. More than 30 cats were killed in this manner, say investigators.... 30 - Hunting & Fishing News
Entries submitted after the May 31 deadline will automatically be entered in the second drawing which takes place August 10. Two elk, two deer, two pronghorn and one moose tag will be drawn. One Super Hunt Combo will also be drawn. Winners will be notified by August 15. For more information on Idaho’s Super Hunts, go to: http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/public/hunt/
Greg Puffe 2014 Elk Super Hunt Winner Photo: Teri Mattulat
REGIONAL NEWS GFP Commission Authorizes First Mountain Goat Season Since 2006 T
© Bill O’neill | Dreamstime.com
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he South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks (GFP) Commission proposed to re-open the mountain goat hunting season at their March meeting. This proposal includes two available licenses and would mark the first time in nine years that the state has had a mountain goat hunting season....and include the portions of Pennington and Custer counties west of Highway 79; excluding Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Jewel Cave National Monument and the fenced portions of Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park. Update 4/2/15: The season will offer two any mountain goat licenses and the season will run from Sept. 1 - Dec. 31, 2015. - See more at: http://gfp.sd.gov/news/news/ april/2.aspx#sthash.lUYbYb8x.dpuf
New State Record Fish...
leven-year-old Austin Stoll heard the six-pound line scorching off his reel. Nearby, his dad Chris Stoll heard it too, and both knew Austin had a big fish to battle. By the time the battle was over March 9, Austin pulled up what is now certified as a new state record tullibee (also known as a cisco) weighing 5 pounds, 13 ounces, besting the previous record by 2 ounces that stood for almost 13 years. He caught the fish in Sybil Lake in Otter Tail County... To certify the tullibee as a record, they took it to be weighed on a certified scale at Essentia Health in Pelican Rapids after trying a local hardware store that was closed. Two impartial observers witnessed the weighing, and Austin and his dad brought the fish to be identified by two fisheries experts at the DNR Fergus Falls fisheries office. They also had the application stamped by a notary public. “Austin’s fish is one of 62 state records, which are measured by weight,” Kurre said. “Many of these records are attainable at any time of the year because fishing seasons remain open for panfish and other species. In fact, the past several records have all been species that rarely grace the covers of glossy magazines.” The five most recent records prior to Austin’s tullibee were golden redhorse in 2014, and the following fish in 2012: bowfin (dogfish), burbot (eelpout), river carpsucker and shovelnose sturgeon. Anglers who wait to go fishing until the May 9 opener can dream about reeling in the record walleye. That claim to fame is a 17-pound, 8-ounce giant pulled from the Seagull River at Saganaga Lake in Cook County in 1979....
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2015 Halibut Seasons Provide More Fishing Options In Columbia River Area
nglers can expect halibut fishing seasons this year to be similar to 2014 for the Puget Sound and coastal waters, with some additional fishing opportunities in the Columbia River area. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) sets halibut seasons using catch quotas adopted by the International Pacific Halibut Commission. The recreational catch quota for all of Washington’s areas is 214,110 pounds, the same as last year. WDFW has revised the season structure for the Columbia River fishery to encourage anglers to fish for halibut there, said Heather Reed, WDFW coastal policy coordinator. The season for that area will run continuously instead of being divided between an early and late season. “We continue to look for ways to increase fishing opportunity in the Columbia River area, where the catch has been below the quota in recent years,” Reed said. Anglers will again be allowed to retain all bottomfish while having halibut onboard their boats in the nearshore section of the Columbia River fishery (Marine Area 1), which opens May 4 on a Monday-through-Wednesday schedule. Additional changes will allow anglers to retain flatfish – in addition to sablefish and Pacific cod – with halibut on board during the all-depth fishery that opens May 1 on a Thursday- through-Sunday schedule. “In addition to some great halibut fishing, anglers can look forward to more opportunities to target bottomfish in Westport, Neah Bay and La Push,” Reed said. For the first time since 2008, anglers will be allowed to fish for lingcod in the Westport area (south of 46 58’ N. Lat. and seaward of 30 fathoms) on Fridays and Saturdays, from July 1 through Aug. 31. In addition, anglers fishing in the deep waters off the north coast in Marine areas 3 and 4, west of the Bonilla-Tatoosh line, will have more days to retain bottomfish, including lingcod. Starting this year, the 20 fathom (120 ft.) depth restriction will be in place May 9 through Labor Day, rather than May 1 through Sept. 30. WDFW considers management measures for coastal sport bottomfish fisheries every two years through the Pacific Fishery Management Council process. Regulations approved by the council include depth restrictions and area closures designed to reduce encounters with yelloweye and canary rockfish in coastal waters. Anglers are also prohibited from retaining those species – and bocaccio rockfish – in parts of Puget Sound. Anglers are strongly encouraged to use a descending device to release these rockfish species, as well as other rockfish that anglers don’t intend to retain. Information about descending devices can be found on WDFW’s webpage at http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/bottomfish/rockfish/mortality.html In all marine areas open to halibut fishing, there is a one-fish daily catch limit and no minimum size restriction. Anglers may possess a maximum of two fish in any form and must record their catch on a WDFW catch record card. Changes to the effective date of the WDFW Sport Fishing Pamphlet will mean that the most up-to-date information on recreational halibut and bottomfish seasons and regulations will be found on the WDFW website http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/creel/halibut/. For the detailed 2015 Puget Sound halibut seasons visit http://wdfw.wa.gov/news/mar2715c/ May 2015 31
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grandfather and father had shot him in 1952 when my dad was a senior in high school. Being a dumb kid I asked my granddad if we could have them at our house when he died . Boy did I get in trouble for that one, but he said we should take them now. I was so excited it was the biggest rack I had ever seen. We were very lucky to have them, back then a lot of them got left in the woods and my dad said if they would have had the cape the Elks Club would have owned them as money was tight back then. When I was older I had them scored a nice 7x7 that grossed 338. At a very young age I had become a certifiable Elkaholic and have been mystified and enthralled by these greatest of creatures ever since. I dreamed of someday harvesting a bull that would surpass this monster of my fathers, not realizing what a task this would be or how long it would take. It took many years just to hone my hunting skills and to study and learn the ways of the elk. One day a friend asked if I wanted to go bow hunting with him. I had never heard an elk bugle till that day. I was instantly hooked! Within a few days I had my own bow. Since then I have harvested many elk with several nice bulls in the 310-320 range. But the bull of my dreams was still a dream.
be the year! Because of my work schedule I have Wednesday and Thursday for my weekend. It’s nice as less hunters are out but I also end up hunting alone a lot. At least I can’t blame anyone for calling at the wrong time or getting busted in some way. So the first week I got out 2 full days and several evenings, saw lots of elk and one shooter bull. The next Wednesday I was up early and hiking to a nice well used elk trail in the dark to see what might happen when light came. I was surrounded with many bulls bugling and cows talking. Several cows came close but not close enough for me. I’m just not willing to take more than about a 40 yard shot. After about an hour, things quieted down, so I decided to walk to the top of the ridge where I had a climbing tree stand stashed. When I got there the elk on the back side were going nuts and seemed to be moving my way. Somehow I got the stand up the tree without spooking any. Not one came to where I could see them and they seemed like they were bedding there. So back down the tree to see if I could close the distance. Many times I got close and could see bodies, only to have them move off. I just kept following, as none were spooked. About 2:30 I laid down for a little nap and a couple of granola bars. I called a buddy in Washington telling him that these elk never stopped bugling all day. He told me to go get one. About 4:00 I caught up to a bunch, and a cow ran my way with a spike chasing her. Here came the herd bull to get her back; a very nice 6x6 in the 350 class, but he never stopped to give a shot. They then wandered onto some private land where I could not follow. It was getting late and I was a LONG way from my truck when two bulls began screaming at each other. (continued)
Should I leave and come back tomorrow? It was 4:30. I decided to give it another hour. A half hour later it sounded like I was standing right next to them. I came around a tree and there he was laying down bugling at the bull across the draw not 50 yards away. A look through the binocs and I knew this was the biggest bull I had ever seen, but there was something really weird with his left antler. Another one of my dreams and I had spent countless hours hunting whitetails was to harvest an animal with a drop tine! Never did I think I would see a drop over a foot long and several inches in diameter. At last I had found the maker of dreams, but could I seal the deal? He would have to get up and move before I could even hope for a shot, so I spent the few minutes range finding different trees and trying to calm myself. Suddenly he stood and started to walk towards me. Could I get any luckier? He stopped for a scratch on a tree then turned broadside and gave me the perfect shot between my 30 and 35 yard trees. My height was good but too far to the rear. I waited 45 minutes, then followed his trail till I found my arrow. Dark red liver for sure; got out my phone and called my friend Troy who said to get out of there and leave him overnight. Probably one of the hardest things I ever did. Thinking about it during the night, and I’m not a very religious person, it just seemed that a higher power was at work here, so many other things could of happened that day . I could have gotten a shot at a cow first thing or the elk could have quit bugling, I might of killed the big 6x6. Somehow this bull needed to be harvested and saved from his slow death over the winter. I also said quite a few prayers to let me find him in the morning. The next morning after about an hour of sleep Troy and I loaded up the mules and headed down a forest service trail that my GPS said should come close to where we needed to be. Troy is better than any bloodhound, so I put him on the trail and just followed along tying ribbons to where he found blood. We had only gone a couple hundred yards when I saw some crows fly up. Sure enough, there laid the bull of my dreams. After many pictures we got him quartered and loaded on my old mule Roxy, who I’ve had since she was born 20 years ago. She had probably been dreaming she was retired as I’ve been training 3 new young mules, but I just couldn’t trust this bull to anyone but the old pro, so she agreed to pack one more out as long as I let her eat along the way. My daughter took the pictures I sent her and put him on her Facebook page and he just went viral. I started getting calls from people I didn’t even know telling me I had to get in touch with this or that person as this was a very well known bull that the locals had been collecting pictures and sheds of for years. They called him the “Big Dropper.” Got to say, they did a good job keeping him a secret, as I never knew he existed till 5 min. before I shot and I only live a dozen miles away. He is believed to be between 13-15 years old. We will know for sure when FWP gets the teeth aged. He would probably have not made it another winter, as at some point, probably at least a year ago, he had caught another bulls tine in his mouth resulting in a broken jaw, a big hole in the roof of his mouth into the sinuses and the loss of his right eye. His body was starting to show signs of malnutrition. But he was still bugling like he was the king of the mountain. About a week later one of the local experts arranged a meeting with most of the people that had sheds from this bull. We got some great pics of him with 4 sets and 3 single sheds from previous years. It was a great time hearing about this magnificent animal and what he had done and where he had been over the last decade or so. We even had a toast to the old guy with some jerky I had just made from him, although one lady just couldn’t bring herself to eat any of her buddy. To be able to harvest an animal of this magnitude and history in probably the last year of his life after hopefully passing on those great genes to many offspring, and the enjoyment he brought to so many people, and to top it off doing it with my bow is so much more than I could ever of dreamt. I just hope if I am dreaming I never wake up. What a great testament to Montana’s elk management program. I just pray we can keep the predators under control so they don’t destroy what took almost 3 decades to accomplish. That day I made a trip to my dad’s to tell him dreams do come true, sometimes it just takes 40 or so years. I had finally topped his 7x7 with an 8x13. He was thrilled and I know he wished that his Parkinson’s disease didn’t prevent him from being there with me. Of course, then he would probably have two monsters and I would still be chasing my dreams. May 2015 33
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For tickets on-line go to: www.friendsofnra.org or call Todd Harrison at 406-214-1343
TURKEY HUNTING: Season-Long Success By Josh Lantz with Eddie Salter
A portable blind excels at concealing movement and keeping hunters comfortable during unpredictable early season weather.
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vergreen, Alabama’s Eddie “The Turkey Man” Salter is one of the world’s most experienced turkey hunters. Over nearly 50 years of observation, Salter has refined his skill set through trial and error to learn what works in the turkey woods and why. Most of the time. “Old Tom Turkey plays by his own rules,” says the Plano-Synergy pro, who may hunt a dozen different states each spring. “Just because I can puff out my chest after fooling one doesn’t mean the next one’s going to come the same way,” he continues. Yes, the Turkey Man is quick to admit that no single strategy works 100% of the time. It’s what keeps him coming back to the field spring after spring, searching for the next unique experience or observation that will make him an even better hunter the next time out. Humility is an important trait in any hunter, and Salter maintains his through ample lessons from the birds he loves, as well as a sincere appreciation for the opportunity he’s been given to hunt turkeys for a living and to share his knowledge with others. I had the opportunity to shadow Salter and his cameraman, Mike Miller, on a challenging hunt...during filming for Salter’s popular Turkey Man television series last spring. 34 - Hunting & Fishing News
Two things quickly became apparent over the course of our two-day hunt. First, Salter never gives up. If there’s a tom in the neighborhood, he’ll work that bird ten different ways until he either puts it down or pushes it into the next county. Second, Salter – a two-time world champion – is the finest turkey caller I’ve heard.... “Calling is an important skill a turkey hunter needs to have,” says Salter, “but it’s more important to know when to make those sounds. Anyone can learn to call, but if you want to kill turkeys with regularity, you’ve got to listen to those hens and jakes and toms in the field and watch how they interact together,” he adds. “There’s no substitute for experience.” While every turkey-hunting situation is different, the Turkey Man has strong views on how hunters can, and should, adjust their strategies throughout the spring season. Early Season Most turkey hunters believe the opening days of the spring turkey-hunting season offer the best chances at taking a bird. This is probably true in most cases. Turkeys that haven’t been hunted in months can up the odds for success, but an abundance of weather-related variables can easily turn what should be prime turkey killing days into disappointing outings that often leave less-experienced hunters scratching their heads. If opening day arrives on the heels of typical spring weather, hunters can expect toms to be fired up for breeding yet frustrated by hens that aren’t quite ready. These are great conditions for the turkey hunter, as toms will be close to the hens and establishing dominance. These are birds that can be expected to respond favorably to effective calling – especially the less-dominant toms. “You’re mostly hunting satellite toms in the early season,” says Salter, who often hunts from a portable ground blind during this period.... Turkeys are often less vocal now, too. “Silent birds can be on top of you before you know it during the early season,” he says. “A good blind set up is going to conceal your movement when repositioning your gun towards the old tom that seemed to pop out of the ground right next to you like a mushroom,” he concludes. Of course, a ground blind also provides welcomed comfort and protection from early spring’s unpredictable weather. Most seasoned hunters agree that weather is the single largest variable in early season turkey hunting. “So many times in a cold early season, the birds don’t crank up when you want,” says Salter...“Go to areas with a lot of sign that you know birds are using and try to deer hunt them a bit,” he says. “Use a couple decoys and try a little calling, but don’t be surprised or concerned if they don’t gobble,” he advises.... When it comes to early season decoy strategies, Salter prefers a single Avian-X Breeder or Feeder Hen and a single Flextone Thunder Chicken Jake. “I don’t like big, fluffed up decoys or a lot of them,” says Salter, who appreciates the relaxed posture of the Avian-X hen’s head, and the feather-like fan that moves in the wind on the Thunder Chicken Jake. “Those small details help put birds at ease and can make a big difference whenever you hunt,” he says. Deciding how much or how little to call can only be learned through experience, and is a critical consideration during the early season. “When toms are sorting out their pecking order during the pre-breeding period, you can have great success with aggressive calling,” says Salter. But it’s important not to overdo it right out of the gate. “Guys have a tendency to keep hammering away, especially when turkeys aren’t gobbling, but that isn’t always what the birds want to hear,” adds Salter. Instead, Salter suggests starting with three or four little notes and building up gradually. “Wait a minute after those soft initial purrs or yelps, then apply a little more pressure,” he says. Salter will repeat this process a couple more times, getting louder and extending his sequence each time. “By the fourth time, I’m screaming 10 to 12 notes at them... feeding calls and throwing some cuts in, too,” says Salter, who often rustles leaves with his hand or a branch between calling sequences to simulate scratching and add realism. “Mix it up, and wait different periods of time between calling. Hens have a lot of personality, so put feeling into your own calling,” he suggests. Salter’s point about each hen being – and sounding – different, was proven on our...hunt last spring. We were set up on a ridge of oaks attempting to call in a stubborn tom from the next ridge over. Salter and Miller were each working slate and
mouth calls simultaneously, playing off of each other and the live birds in the area with the precision and artistry of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts jamming the bridge to Jessica in 1972. During a brief pause, the world’s worst turkey caller started yelping down slope from us and out of view. Out of cadence and more grunt than yelp, the calls sounded like someone working very hard to sound like a hen turkey, but failing miserably. The three of us, moderately amused, looked at each other with stunned faces. Thirty seconds later, a live hen turkey – completely normal by all other accounts – cleared the ridge and proceeded to continue with her unconventional and entertaining yelping. She busted us and ran away when someone began laughing. Late Season Conditions change in the late season, and hunters should adapt their set-ups and calling strategies accordingly. Breeding is winding down at this time, and many dominant hens will be nesting. But while these older gals are laying and sitting, a number of younger hens will still be out and about broadcasting their availability to suitors. Those are the birds hunters need to observe and mimic. The toms are listening. Are you? Salter says it’s usually a good idea to tone down your calling during the late season, but recognizes that hunters should continue to let the birds tell them what they want. “If they aren’t doing a lot of calling, I’ll stick with those softer purrs, clicks and yelps,” says Salter, who carries and uses a pack full of calls during this period. “I like to try a bunch of different calls later in the season… just for variety… to try and find that one he’ll key in on,” he adds. “If I can get a tom to answer, then I’ll stick with that one call he likes, but won’t be too aggressive.” Gobbler calls can also become effective hunting tools during the late season. Such a call can be used for shock gobbling birds on the roost, but also excels when used in conjunction with a mating yelp. It’s a deadly combination that can bring a jealous old tom running in to look for a fight. But gobbler calls can serve another purpose in the late season as well. Gobblers will switch gears at some point late in the season and look to buddy up again,” says Salter. “A call like Flextone’s Thunder Gobble is underutilized, especially late in the game when toms become more interested in each other’s company again,” he says. The physical hunting environment also changes throughout the season. An increasing amount of foliage on the ground and on the trees makes visibility – for both turkeys and hunters – more challenging as the season progresses. But the heavier vegetation can also be an asset. “We often need to cover more ground in the late season, and the increased cover makes mobility and concealment easier,” says Salter, who recommends leaving the ground blinds at home at this time of year. “I’ll work paths, trails and clearings where I can see more, but tuck into available cover using my turkey pack,” says Salter, referring to his Tenzing TP 14 Turkey Pack, which has a fold-down padded seat and unique spring-loaded legs to create a comfy backrest. “I can set-up anywhere with that pack in seconds and don’t need a tree or a log to lean against… It’s been a real game-changer, for me and a lot of other turkey hunters,” he continues. The late season provides another key advantage for the turkey hunter, the importance of which cannot be overlooked. There’s simply less competition from real hens. “If you find a tom that isn’t henned-up, he’ll likely be sucker for the proper calling and set-up,” says Salter, who tends to stick with his hen and jake decoy set-up throughout the late season. “Toms seem to make more mistakes during the late season,” he says, “and seeing that single jake with a hen is just something he’s not going to be able to brush off. He’s coming in; so let him make the mistake, not you. Watch what he likes, then keep doing it and you’ll get your bird.” The most successful turkey hunters avoid mistakes by watching, listening and adapting their strategies accordingly – throughout the course of a single hunt and over the changing conditions and circumstances of an entire season. Still, everyone makes mistakes. The key is racking up enough experience to realize errors right away and make immediate adjustments. Spend enough time in the woods and the birds will show you what they want....
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few years ago, Boone and Crockett compiled data from their record book entries and found that hunters are shooting more big animals with the .300 Mag. than with any other caliber.
Recipe Corner Kris Winkelman
www.winkelman.com
CRAB CRUSTED WALLEYE Preheat oven to 375 degrees Ingredients: Parmesan Bread Crumbs Red Pepper Yellow Pepper Green Onions Melted Butter Jalapeño Pepper (if desired) Flaked Crab (canned is okay)
Would you have guessed that? Because I have 200-pound whitetail deer on my mind most of the time, I would not have imagined the .300, until I started thinking about it. Many of the “book animals” are big and heavy—brown bears, moose, elk, muskox–and so some version of the .300 Mag. makes sense. Plus, the .300 is very popular out West among mule deer hunters. In their data B&C did not distinguish among specific variations of the .300 Mag.; trophies killed with the .300 Win. Mag, .300 WSM, .300 Wby. Mag. and .300 Remington Ultra Mag were all lumped together. Below, the most commonly used calibers by hunters across all the B&C categories over the 3-year span, and the percentages of game entries credited to each.
Lay walleye fillets in glass baking dish.
.300 Magnum: 18 percent .270: 12 percent .30-06: 11 percent 7mm Magnum: 11 percent .338 Magnum: 3 percent .30-30: 2 percent .308: 2 percent Other: 8 percent
Cover walleye fillets with breading mix.
BTW, the most popular deer calibers were:
Cover with mozzarella cheese.
Whitetail deer: .270 Mule deer: .300 Magnum, 7mm Magnum, .270 Blacktail deer: 30-06, 7mm Magnum, .300 Magnum I don’t have a ton of experience with the .300, though I have killed a couple moose and a few elk with rifles chambered for the .300 Win. Mag. That cartridge always performed well for me, but I thought the recoil was a little excessive. Any .300 shooters out there?
Mix above ingredients.
Bake 7 to 10 minutes depending on thickness of fish fillets. To watch the video of Kris preparing this dish, visit www.winkelman.com/videos/Kris-Kitchen/Kris-Kitchen--Crab-Crusted-Walleye_414 36 - Hunting & Fishing News
Bob Ward’s Sports & Outdoors New Gear Review
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Built on a foundation of four guiding principles, Solid broadheads provide devastation on delivery, laser like accuracy, are beyond razor sharp, and made of durable designs with superior materials. The main S30V stainless steel blade, Penetrator (bleeder blade) and ferrule are all designed to lock together. In fact, the Penetrator blade literally reinforces the main blade. This unique Lockdown design, coupled with premium materials, ensures extreme, unmatched broadhead durability.
Big Agnes mtnGLO Tents - Light up the Night Introducing the Big
Agnes mtnGLO™ Collection, a series of tents and accessories designed to light up your camp and backcountry experience. Illuminated with patent-pending mtnGLO™ Tent Light Technology featuring LED lights integrated into the tent body, this collection is a Shown: Tumble 2 mtnGLO source of not only convenient ambient light at the click of a button, but all the comfort and security that comes along with it. The LEDs are bright enough for you to sort gear, play cards, change clothes, or simply get up in the middle of the night without blinding your tent mate with a bright beam of light. Available in a variety of sizes.
Klymit - Ultralight Sleeping Pads
Get a good, warm, and comfortable night’s rest while enjoying the outdoors. Combining the comfort of the Static line with the weight savings and warmth from the Inertia series, the Inertia O Zone from Klymit sets a new standard. With an integrated 4-inch tall pillow, ample tossing room, and a loft pocket profile that fits every adventurer, you will find it difficult to find a reason not to switch to this pad. Other styles available.
Aspect Solar - Charge it Your Way When it comes to the most advanced solar
technology for your life, look no further than Aspect Solar. Perfect for all outdoor activities. Never worry about a dead smart phone, tablet or battery powered device ever again! Variety of options available. DUO-Flex Shown
See these and other fine products at one of the 5 Montana Bob Ward’s Sports & Outdoors stores or shop 24/7 at www.bobwards.com
Don’t Miss the
FIVE VALLEYS ARCHERY CLUB
Annual Bear Shoot June 20 & 21
Two days of nothing but shooting your bow.
This will be the BIGGEST ARCHERY EVENT OF THE YEAR. Come have fun with friends, family, and other Bowhunters.
FIVE VALLEYS ARCHERY CLUB BEAR SHOOT 2015 JUNE 20th & 21st
37th ANNUAL FAMILY FUN SHOOT
80 3-D TARGETS: 40 each day. Four separate loops of 20 targets. Shoot two different loops of 20 targets each day. These two shoots are at the same location for a weekend full of archery fun. Saturday afternoon - additional fun shoots to be announced on site. Trophies awarded to top 3 places in each flight on Sunday afternoon. Participation awards for all Cubs. You must shoot both days and be flighted on Sunday to be eligible for trophies. Shoot all of Green Course one day and all of Orange Course the other day to be eligible for trophies. Saturday’s top shooters in each division will be flighted and groups will leave at 8:00am on Sunday.
Primitive camping available on site. Bring your own firewood. Bear proof gear required. Contact: Paul Roush at FVAC@Live.com or visit Five Valleys Archery Club on Facebook Held at The Clearwater Junction, 45 miles East of Missoula on Hwy. 200. Concessions by Pards Tummy Teasers May 2015 37
Reliability EU7000is
7000 watts, 120/240V Fuel efficient - runs up to 18 hours on 5.1 gal of fuel Convenient electric start
LAWN MOWERS • TILLERS • TRIMMERS GENERATORS • PUMPS • SNOW BLOWERS
EU3000i Handi 3000 watts/120V Wheels and folding handle for true portability
WH15
WMP20
High pressure - ideal for sprinklers or nozzle
HHT35SLTA Excellent torque for demanding jobs
Designed for pumping industrial and agricultural chemicals
HHT25SLTA
Lightweight - 13 lbs. Easy starting, 4-stroke Honda engine
HRR216VKA
Self-propelled, variable speed Smart Drive 3 in 1 with Clip Director®,mulch, bag, discharge Twin Blade MicroCut System®
FG110
Less than 29 lbs. Optional attachments include aerator, edger, dethatcher and digging tines.
These are just a few of the models available.
Visit one of these Honda dealers today for your Honda product.
GLASGOW
PLENTYWOOD
Farm Equipment Sales, Inc. Farm Equipment Sales, Inc. 54275 Hwy. 2 East 804 East 1st Ave. (406) 228-2496 (406) 765-1531 fesmt.com fesmt.com
GREAT FALLS
North 40 Outfitters 4400 10th Ave. South (406) 761-7441 north40.com
HAVRE
CULBERTSON
Offer good on all new Honda HRS, HRR, & HRX Series purchased 3/1/15-5/31/15*
CIRCLE
Farm Equipment Sales, Inc. Farm Equipment Sales, Inc. 21 West 2nd St. Hwy. 200 East (406) 787-6201 (406) 485-2145 fesmt.com fesmt.com
KALISPELL
North 40 Outfitters Triple W Equipment 1753 US Hwy 2 NW 3145 Hwy. 93 So. (406) 265-9566 (406) 752-2828 north40.com triplewequipment.com
MISSOULA
Triple W Equipment 8571 Running W. Rd. (406) 549-4171 triplewequipment.com
*2015 Honda Lawn Mower Extended Warranty The Honda One Year Extended Warranty Offer is good on all Honda HRR, HRX, and HRS residential mowers, purchased March 1st through May 31st, 2015. To qualify, units must be: New non-commercial lawn mowers. Purchased during the promotional period. Sales registered within 30 days. Read the owner’s manual before operating Honda Power Equipment. Connection of a generator to house power requires a transfer device to avoid possible injury to power company personnel. Consult a qualified electrician. Not all dealers carry all products. Consult your local Yellow Pages. © 2015 American Honda Motor Co., Inc. www.powerequipment.honda.com 38 - Hunting & Fishing News
Meet
Raw Power EU1000i
EU2000i & EU2000i Companion EU3000is DOUBLE YOUR POWER • 3000 watts, 120V WITH PARALLEL • Fuel efficient - up to 20 hrs CAPABILITY on 3.4 gal of gas • Convenient electric start
• 1000 watts, 120V • Fuel efficient - up to 8.3 hrs on 0.6 gal of gas
Less than 29 lbs!
EB3000c
• 3000 watts, 120V • Lightweight - only 71 lbs. • Full GFCI Protection
EU2000i Camo
• 2000 watts, 120V • Fuel efficient up to 9.6 hrs. on 1 gal of gas • Ideal for TV/DVD, satellite,fridge, coffee pot and more • Inverter - stable power for computers
EM6500sx
• 6,500 watt, 120/240V • Provides 7,000 watts for 10 seconds to start larger equipment • Powers fridge, freezer, furnace, well pump, more
EG4000
• 4000 watts 120/240V • Honda exclusive Digital Auto Voltage Regulation
EB10000AH
• 10,000 watt, 120/240V • Honda commercial GX engine and heavy duty frame
EM5000sx
• 5000 watts max • Convenient electric start
These are just some of the models available.
Visit one of these Honda dealers today for your Honda product. BOZEMAN HELENA MISSOULA
Sportsman’s Warehouse 2214 Tschache (406) 586-0100 sportsmanswarehouse.com
BILLINGS
Billings Construction Supply 5514 King Avenue, East (406) 248-8355 billingsconstructionsupply.com
Sportsman’s Warehouse 2990 N. Sanders Street (406) 457-7200 sportsmanswarehouse.com
Sportsman’s Warehouse 2323 North Reserve St. (406) 523-9000 sportsmanswarehouse.com
HELENA
One Way Marine & Motor Sports, Inc. 3186 Hwy. 12 E. (406) 443-7373 onewaymarine.com
*Financing Details *The Honda Power Equipment Visa® credit card is issued by Wells Fargo Financial National Bank. Special terms apply to qualifying purchases charged with approved credit at participating merchants. The special terms APR will continue to apply until all qualifying purchases are paid in full. The monthly payment for this purchase will be the amount that will pay for the purchase in full in equal payments during the promotional (special terms) period. The APR for Purchases will apply to certain fees such as a late payment fee or if you use the card for other transactions. For newly opened accounts, the APR for Purchases is 27.99%. This APR may vary with the market based on the U.S. Prime Rate and is given as of 1/1/2015. If you are charged interest in any billing cycle, the minimum interest charge will be $1.00. If you use the card for cash advances, the cash advance fee is 5.00% of the amount of the cash advance, but not less than $10.00. Offer expires 5/31/2015. Read the owner’s manual before operating Honda Power Equipment. Connection of a generator to house power requires a transfer device to avoid possible injury to power company personnel. Consult a qualified electrician. Not all dealers carry all products. Consult your local Yellow Pages. © 2015 American Honda Motor Co., Inc. www.powerequipment.honda.com May 2015 39
40 - Hunting & Fishing News
Night Riding By Bob Humphrey
Yamaha Outdoors Tips
Hunters and fishermen know the importance of arriving early and leaving late. Most fish and game moves best at twilight, which requires those who seek them to be on location before the sun rises and until after it sets. If you get to your hunting or fishing spot via ATV, that also means riding in the dark. 1) Check Lights - Check all lights to make sure they’re in good working order before you head in. This is especially true for afternoon trips. You might not need them when riding in, but you certainly will on the way out. It wouldn’t hurt to carry a spare either. 2) Have a back-up - Most folks don’t carry spare bulbs, but you should at least have a good flashlight, or two. It will get you back to the trail-head, camp or home, where you can then see, a proper replacement. 3) Accessorize - Consider accessory lights, especially if there’s a chance for inclement weather or adverse conditions. The wide beam of a flood light highlights the foreground and trail edges. A Spot light provides a focused beam for distance. The amber lens and lower position of fog lights help cut through ambient moisture, reduce glare and better illuminate the trail. 4) Slow Down - Forget about posted speed limits or advisories; those are for daylight hours. You need to go slower, much slower. You could encounter obstacles, pedestrians or wildlife, all of which will be much harder to pick out in the darkness, and could result in injury to you or them, as well as damage to your machine. 5) Double Up on Safety - You should always wear proper safety equipment including helmet and eye protection when riding, even in daylight. But it becomes even more important riding in the dark. Branches can seemingly come out of nowhere and flying objects are harder to pick out. 6) Be Prepared - You could get lost or break down resulting in an unexpected overnight stay in the woods. Carry at least a rudimentary safety kit containing all the necessary equipment to keep you comfortable, safe and possibly alive if you have to overnight.
See One Of These Yamaha Dealers Today.
Bozeman
Butte
Great Falls
Hamilton
Helena
Missoula
Blitz Motorsports Staack’s Motorsports Steve’s Sports Center 145 Rawhide Ridge Rd. 102 E. Galena St. 4700 9th Ave. South 406-522-7533 406-782-2623 406-727-8607 Al’s Cycle 619 Highway 93N. 406-363-3433
Townsend
Montana Motorsports Five Valley Yamaha & Marine 5900 Hwy. 93 S. 3654 US Hwy. 12 E. 406-251-5900 406-449-6595
Townsend Marine 7809 Hwy. 287 So. 406-266-5700
*0%-10% down payment required. Applies to purchases of new 2011-2015 Motorcycles, Scooters, ATVs & Side x Sides, made on a Yamaha Installment Financing loan account from 2/1/15 to 6/30/15. Offer is subject to credit approval by Synchrony Financial. Maximum contract length is 36 months. Minimum amount financed is $5,000. Fixed APR of 3.99%, 6.99%, 7.99% or 13.99% assigned based on credit approval criteria. Example: Monthly payments per $1,000 financed based on 36-month term are $29.52 at 3.99% rate and $34.17 at 13.99%. Standard down payment requirement is based on credit approval criteria. **Customer Cash offer good on select 2011-2015 models between 2/1/15 to 6/30/15. Offer good only in the U.S., excluding the state of Hawaii. Dealer remains responsible for complying with all local and state advertising regulations and laws. ATV models shown are recommended for use only by riders 16 years and older. Yamaha recommends that all ATV riders take an approved training course. For safety and training information, see your dealer or call the ATV Safety Institute at 1-800-887-2887. ATVs can be hazardous to operate. For your safety: Always avoid paved surfaces. Never ride on public roads. Always wear a helmet, eye protection and protective clothing. Never carry passengers. Never engage in stunt riding. Riding and alcohol/drugs don’t mix. Avoid excessive speed. And be particularly careful on difficult terrain. Professional riders depicted on closed courses. Shown with optional accessories. ©2015 Yamaha Motor Corporation, U.S.A. All rights reserved. • YamahaOutdoors.com 2/15 May 2015 41
Proven performance under the most demanding of conditions.
HSM Ammunition
is the choice, hands down. Pick up a box or more at your local sporting goods store.
Bear Load™
Loaded with 15 Brinell Hard-Cast Gas-Checked lead bullets, HSM’s ‘Bear Load’ ammunition is for those situations where you want the maximum penetration to stop game NOW! A portion of each sale of our Bear Load ammunition goes to support events for our Veterans.
WHATEVER YOUR SHOOTING NEEDS, WE’VE GOT YOU COVERED.
Bear Load • Dangerous Game • Rifle • Handgun • Lead Free • Reduced Ricochet • Firearms Reloading Components • Law Enforcement Ammunitions • Cowboy Action • Cleaning Supplies MANUFACTURED IN STEVENSVILLE www.thehuntingshack.com THE HUNTING SHACK, INC. Purveyors of the finest ammunition since 1968. 42 - Hunting & Fishing News
Quick Bear Tips: Get The Late Season Advantage By Hunting & Fishing News Pro Staff
T
- Call In A Montana Black Bear -
he recipe for successful black bear hunters in Montana is not that complicated: • Look for an area with a lot of fresh bear sign (scat). • Green grass is a must for bears to feed on right now. Focus on old logging roads that are open to sunlight for forage growth. The biggest mistake bear hunters make is failing to locate areas with good food supplies, and overlooking areas of dense cover where bears like to hide. • Use the wind to your advantage. They smell you - they are gone. You might as well pack it back to the truck. • Stay focused. When you least expect it, that’s when a bear will pop out. Don’t let your guard down while you are out in the field. • Hunt right until the end of the legal shooting time. The biggest bears will roam right at the edges of darkness. Use the best optics you can. It will really help you right at dark. Late May is the peak of the spring black bear hunt in the West, and spot and stalk hunting, or trying to call in a bruin will be your best methods to locate a bear in Montana in May.
SPOT & STALK
Easier said than done. You get the picture. First, look for the areas listed above. Find open areas up on the edges of cut timber and set-up. Early in the morning or late evenings usually work best. Glass and move until you find the bear you are looking for. If you have someone with you, and you can split up to scope out different ridges at the same time, do it.
CALLING AND DECOYING BEARS
When it works, calling brings in almost exclusively big, hungry boars. To succeed you will need to find an area with fresh sign indicating that a medium to large bear is in the area. Position yourself where you can see around you, as a bear can come in fast if he hears your distress call. Calling a bear in requires continuous calling rather than sporadic calling. A fawn decoy will also work now, as the fawning season is here, and may get the bear to charge in if he sees the decoy. Be ready, because things can happen very quickly using this method. Good luck this season. Note: Check all black bear hunting regulations before you set out to hunt this season.
TOP BOONE AND CROCKETT MONTANA BLACK BEAR SCORE LOCALITY YEAR TAKEN BY 21-08/16 Fergus Co. 2005 Pat Descheemaeker 21-05/16 Broadwater Co. 1992 Randy Stone 21-04/16 Carbon Co. 2003 Joseph Krenzer 21-03/16 Madison Co. 1974 Jerry Morgan 21-02/16 Gallatin Co. 1986 Steven Steele 21 Lincoln Co. 1994 Ian Chase-Dunn 21 Fergus Co. 1999 Ross Roe. Jr. 20-15/16 Bighorn Co. 1972 Sam Notafraid 20-15/16 Gallatin Co. 1978 Denny Biggs 20-15/16 Pondera Co. 1998 Emerson Calfrobe
Outlander™ L Starting at just $6,399
We’ve Got Your Ride
Can-Am ATVs, Side-by-Sides and Ski-Doo Snowmobiles See us today for yours!
406-443-7373
3186 Hwy. 12 East, Helena www.onewaymarine.com
Full Parts & Service Departments © 2015 Bombardier Recreational Products Inc. (BRP). All rights reserved. TM, ®, and the BRP logo are trademarks of Bombardier Recreational Products, Inc. or its affiliates. The $6,399 MSRP is only valid in the US. For other jurisdictions, see your local dealer. 5-Year Extended Warranty: The buyer of an eligible unit will receive the 6-month BRP Limited Warranty plus 54 months B.E.S.T. extended service contract subject to a $50 deductible on each repair. Exception for Florida residents who will receive the 60 months BRP Limited Warranty. See your participating BRP Can-Am dealer for all details and to receive a copy of the BRP Limited Warranty and B.E.S.T. contract. The promotion is subject to termination or change at any time without notice. In the USA, the products are distributed by BRP US Inc. BRP reserves the right, at any time, to discontinue or change specifications, prices, designs, features, models or equipment without incurring obligation. Some models depicted may include optional equipment. BRP highly recommends that all ATV drivers take a training course. For safety and training information, see your dealer or, in the USA, call the ATV Safety Institute at 1-800-887-2887. Read the Operator’s Guide and watch the Safety DVD before riding. ATVs can be hazardous to operate. For your safety: always wear a helmet, eye protection, and other protective clothing. Always remember that riding and alcohol/drugs don’t mix. Never ride on paved surfaces or public roads. Never carry passengers on any ATV not specifically designed by the manufacturer for such use. Never engage in stunt driving. Avoid excessive speeds and be particularly careful on difficult terrain. All Can-Am ATV adult models are Category G ATVs (General Use Models) intended for recreational and/or utility use by an operator age 16 or older. ATVs with engine sizes of greater than 90cc are recommended for use only by those age 16 and older, except for those designated as T14. Can-Am Outlander MAX ATVs: These ATVs are recommended for drivers aged 16 and older, and passengers aged 12 and older only. BRP urges you to “TREAD LIGHTLY” on public and private lands. Preserve your future riding opportunities by showing respect for the environment, local laws and the rights of others when you ride. Make sure that all laws, regulations, and BRP’s warnings/recommendations for ATV passengers are respected. Ride responsibly. 9100591 May 2015 43
Mule Deer: Populations Up Big In Eastern Montana
Mike Hanback www.mikehanback.com
Mule deer populations in Eastern Montana are showing signs of a strong
recovery based on post-hunting season surveys this winter. This is great news, since most of what you read and hear is how muley numbers are down and falling across much of the West.
From 2010 to 2012, a string of cold, snowy, brutal winters that lingered into spring cut mule deer numbers by as much as 55 percent in the region. But after surveys this winter, biologists estimate a near-record number of 91 fawns per 100 does in many areas.
Mike Hanback packing out with his Yeti cooler. 44 - Hunting & Fishing News
Bucks are also doing well, with an average of 37 bucks per 100 does compared to a long-term average of 32 per 100 in Eastern Montana. Biologists note that observations from hunter check stations last fall showed that many young bucks had great antler growth, a sign that the habitat and forage are in good shape, and that deer are finding plenty to eat. This is especially welcome news for me since Northeastern Montana, up around Glasgow, is one of my favorite places to hunt. I hunted this wild, raw country with my friend Kelly of Burke Ranch Outfitters last November, and saw a noticeable increase in the number of deer, confirming anecdotally that the muleys have made a big comeback. Kelly also has fantastic hunting for big elk in the Breaks. I shot a great old buck in a remote canyon at dark one night, and boned the meat and packed him out the next morning. It was one of my favorite hunts from last fall, invigorating spot-and-stalk, and you’ll see it on a new episode of BIG DEER TV this fall.
May 2015 45
46 - Hunting & Fishing News
GET UP TO With the purchase of 4 select Kumho tires!
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Valid 5/1/15 – 6/30/15. Visit KumhoUSA.com for rebate details. Receive a $120 prepaid rebate card when you purchase a set of four (4) Kumho Crugen Premium KL33 tires. Receive a $100 prepaid rebate card when you purchase a set of four (4) Kumho Ecsta 4X II tires.
Over 83% of vehicles on the road today need a wheel alignment • Protect your tires • Improve vehicle handling • Better fuel useage • Most cars and light trucks Must present this coupon to get this price. Expires 6/30/15. Cannot be used with other coupons. Visit us at www.tiresupplysc.com
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SEE YOUR LOCAL DEALER
Anaconda Lisac’s of Anaconda 406-563-6110 Billings Lisac’s of Billings 406-656-7502 Bozeman Eagle Tire Brake & Alignment 406-587-5414 Broadus Hi-Tech Auto Repair, Inc. 406-436-2378 Butte Lisac’s Tire 406-782-4294 Butte Lisac’s American Car Care 406-494-4450 Conrad Conrad Tire 406-278-3422 Darby Automotive Solutions, Inc. 406-821-3440 Ennis D&D Auto 406-682-4234 Glendive Berg’s Tire 406-377-5286 Great Falls Falls Tire Service 406-453-1418 Helena Eagle Tire Brake & Alignment 406-443-5910
Kalispell M&C Tire 406-752-9662 Missoula Big Sky Tire 406-251-5988 Phillipsburg Bob’s Quality Auto 406-859-2725 Ronan Arnie’s Gas & Tire Center 406-676-0400 Shelby Mark’s Tire & Alignment 406-434-5118 Stanford 4G’s Tire & Repair 406-566-2910 W.Yellowstone Jake’s Automotive & Tire 406-646-9500 Whitehall Full Circle Tire 406-287-5682 Williston, ND OK Tire Store 701-774-0233 Ashton, ID Tri-State Tire 208-652-3344 Rupert, ID Nick’s Quality Tire 208-436-3900 Victor, ID All American Tire & Brake 208-787-8473 May 2015 47
Outback. Built to take you to places you’ve never been.
Remember fun? The 2015 Subaru Outback ® brings it all back. Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive, with X-MODE™ has the capability to take you almost anywhere. At 33 mpg,* it’s the most fuel-efficient midsize crossover in America.ŧ It’s what your adventurous side has been waiting for. Love. It’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru.
PLACER MOTORS 406-442-2603 | 1-888-433-0119 See our full line of Subaru vehicles.
1515 EUCLID AVENUE, HELENA, MT. 59601
Subaru and Outback are registered trademarks. *EPA-estimated hwy fuel economy for 2015 Subaru Outback 2.5i models. Actual mileage may vary. ŧBased on EPA-estimated hwy fuel-economy for 2015 model vehicles within the IHS Automotive, Polk Non-Luxury Midsize CUV segment. Actual mileage may vary. 2015 Subaru Outback 3.6R Limited Shown.