Our Outdoors: Not a Wrap
Our Outdoors: Not a WrapBy Nick Simonson With a hit like a freight train, my rod doubled over on the lift of the firetiger Jigging Rapala and the walleye that showed up as an arc on the screen of the sonar a second before was suddenly a real-life connection at the other end. While the fifteen-inch fish wasn’t all that big, he certainly behaved like a contender with the hard take and some decent combat for a walleye his size. I smiled as I released him back into the water – still warm for the mid-September morning at just a […]
Our Outdoors: The Stick is the Carrot, For Now
Our Outdoors: The Stick is the Carrot, For NowBy Nick Simonson Summer bookended the season with a Labor Day weekend of epic proportions as stable weather and warm temperatures produced a three-day September holiday unlike any other in recent memory. While lazily fly-rodding bluegills just after sunrise from the dock at the cabin, I listened to the distant thunder of shotgun blasts beyond the hills on the west side of the lake. Even in the heavy morning air which already felt more like a July day (and was hotter than some of them we experienced in that month) hunters were […]
Our Outdoors: A Skins Game
Our Outdoors: A Skins GameBy Nick Simonson About this time of year I start to get really primed for what’s to come. Sure the cool mornings and warm afternoons behind a good dog while under a clear blue sky surrounded by the beiges and golds of rolling grassy hillsides are a moment in time to be held in memory forever. But what really gets me geared up for hunting my favorite upland game is the sad state of affairs at my fly tying desk by this point in the year. By now, following a long winter of tackle crafting in […]
Our Outdoors: Stronger Suggestions
Our Outdoors: Stronger SuggestionsBy Nick Simonson There comes a day in every August where the shift to fall is heavily hinted at. Some years, it’s the chill in the night breeze as the boat comes up the launch after a humid evening of walleye fishing that implies autumn is on the way. In others, it seems as if the foliage on the trees and sumac is turning just the slightest hint of red and yellow along the post-weekend drive back home from the lake. This year, the dark brown and crunchy cottonwood leaves beneath my feet on the running trail […]
Our Outdoors: Five Tips to Finish Out
Our Outdoors: Five Tips to Finish OutBy Nick Simonson Late summer brings with it fast fishing, but it can provide challenging conditions as well. Gearing up for the home stretch of the season and the start of fall, which produces some of the biggest and fastest bites of the year, requires anglers to rethink some strategies, remain persistent on others and focus on the weather and moon factors that influence fishing this time of year. What follows are some tips to get the most out of the last couple months of openwater angling, before hunting seasons take over the calendar.1. […]
Our Outdoors: Developing a Pattern
Our Outdoors: Developing a PatternBy Nick Simonson With the first hunting seasons right around the corner, and a busy summer still in full swing headed for a collision course with autumn and all it brings, it’s tough to cram in all the things you want to do and have to do to get ready for those cool weather adventures in the outdoors. However, it’s easy to make the technical preparedness required ahead of the cool-weather shotgun seasons more fun, and in the process figure out just how your particular firearm is setting up for opening day for your favorite upland […]
Our Outdoors: Sensational Slime
Our Outdoors: Sensational Slime By Nick Simonson While unhooking my second pike of the morning, the two-pound fish slipped quickly out of my wet hand and back into the water with a splash. All that was left as evidence that I had even caught it was a chewed-up plastic tail and a small coating of slime ringing my hand between my thumb and forefinger. I righted the curly-tailed grub on my jig and wiped my hand on the back of my jeans and fired off another cast. As I worked the offering through the weeds and landed a few more […]
Our Outdoors: Feeling Froggy
Our Outdoors: Feeling FroggyBy Nick SimonsonThe midsummer migration has begun. With more and more regularity, I’m seeing young-of-the-year salamanders, toads and frogs making their movements between their rearing grounds, which are usually small oxbows along the waters I fish, or seasonal pools such as the retention and stock ponds around our neighborhood. In the morning under the lengthening light of the streetlamps ahead of dawn, these soft-skinned creatures look to wrap their nocturnal forays into the great big world around their birthwaters with a shady place to hide and avoid the summer heat.For many, this journey ends in a relocation […]
Our Outdoors: Make It Move
Our Outdoors: Make It MoveBy Nick Simonson Save for the always aggressive northern pike, a straight retrieve on a lure rarely sets off a fish. Even trolling a crankbait or reeling one in, a little jarring motion or the banging of rocks, timber or other obstruction in the substrate gives off a wild vibe that triggers a reaction from following fish. The name of a “jig” along suggests what you’re supposed to do with it – make it dance! Especially as summer settles in across the region and fish feed in earnest heading toward the cooler water season (I know, […]
