SWMN Hunt Archives - Hunt Southwest Minnesota

Our Outdoors: Not a Wrap

Our Outdoors: Not a Wrap
By Nick Simonson

A Rap, but not a Wrap. The author ended the traditional summer fishing season with a few walleyes caught on Jigging Raps. However good fishing across the region will continue for a variety of species as fall triggers seasonal feeding binges. Simonson Photo.

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 hair under 70 degrees on the surface – and thought of how we had plied the same waters in the same space at the beginning of the openwater season, when things weren’t so warm.
The quick outing was a nice bookend to another summer of ups and downs, challenges and diversions, sunrises and sunsets, and a menagerie of memories on the water chasing after my various favorite species. At this point in the year, however, I am quick to close the chapter and think of the ones just opened and those to come in the next few days as my focus shifts to hunting. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that some of the best angling of the year, and the best I’ve had in my life, comes in the next few weeks on the calendar.
Now into October, smallmouth bass feed heavily and aggressively and on those just-right autumn afternoons it’s possible to get on a bronzeback frenzy where they take just about any bait offered. From fast moving spinnerbaits and jerkbaits to follow-ups with soft plastic creatures and tubes, it’s not unusual to find them staging for their winter stasis, filling up on whatever happens to be edible in the area.
Walleyes too will have the feedbag on, and bigger baits such as larger plastic swimbaits, Husky Jerks, or similarly large-profiled minnow imitators, especially around the full moon, will catch their super sensitive eyes. From schools of hungry eaters all the way up into those trophy-caliber fish, fall can produce some of the most exciting walleye fishing of the year, right until ice up.
With the onset of autumn, muskies too will become more aggressive as the water cools, the pressure on lakes from both anglers and recreational boats subsides, and the urge to consume all they can for the coming lean months kicks in. Anglers floating large suckers and varying their casted baits can key in on what weather-driven mood the fish are in each day and just how hungry they are as the season takes hold across the region until the first fingers of ice sneak out across the surface of those well-known muskie lakes.
Finally, stocked trout make their return in earnest from the depths of those deeper bodies of water where they’re able to survive the heat of summer. Hungry and much more comfortable in their cooling climes, rainbows, browns, and other species of trout stashed in the various lakes and deeper reservoirs of the region provide a unique autumn experience and aggressively pursue cast spinners, spoons and jigs on standard tackle and larger streamers launched at them with the fly rod. They’re often significantly bigger and stronger than they were when they came out of the truck last spring, providing an added element of attraction in fall.
Summer may be wrapping up with the start of football, the approach of the equinox and school just beginning, but the excitement of the open water season doesn’t have to end. While it’s hard not to turn one’s gaze to the shotgun safe or the bow case when considering what to do next with the changing of the season, it’s important not to forget about those fishing rods either and some of the best opportunities that come at the end of the line this time of year…in our outdoors.

Our Outdoors: The Stick is the Carrot, For Now

Our Outdoors: The Stick is the Carrot, For Now
By Nick Simonson

Stick To It. For one last glorious summer weekend, the stick was the carrot. New rewards are just ahead, however as hunting seasons approach. Simonson Photo.

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 at it, and it sounded like their early management take season for Canada geese was continuing with at least some level of success.
While it will be a couple of weeks until my dog hits the field for upland birds, he too was on the hunt and aggressively in pursuit of something to retrieve. Whether it was a chewed up tennis ball, the headless foam duck bumper, or the reliable stick that avoided a late-night trip into the firepit, alongside me in the shallows, he would drop the small branch and let out a series of barks alerting me it was time to release the landed panfish and launch something for him to swim out into the late summer shallows off to my right away from the dock where my school of fish sat and grab once again.
It wasn’t long before my brother’s chocolate lab joined in on the fun, bringing his own well-gnawed stick to the party. Shortly thereafter my wife’s German shepherd came along and began her half-hearted chase after the two water dogs as far as she felt comfortable, corralling them and barking out her commands as she nipped at the latter’s hind end as he raced off at an angle and bounded until forced to swim in the deeper stretches between our family’s dock and the neighbor’s. In session after session over the three day stretch, the competition between the trio of animals grew and grew, and while my larger lab hinted that he was tired later in the day as he’d lay down to pin the stick to the sand and tear off the last remaining bark, he’d never show it when the other dogs would approach and he’d rise up and offer a series of barks for me to once again toss the gnarled wood back out into the lake.
A reward all its own, the weekend’s stick could easily be replaced by a downed dove, a sniffed out sharptail, or a retrieved rooster pheasant in the coming weeks. While it certainly doesn’t have the scent trail of any of our favorite upland birds, it’s metaphoric nature and a small symbol of success for my lab’s efforts mirrors that of why we do what we do ahead of the season to get ready for all that fall brings. The training that goes into getting ready for our autumn hunts, whether it consists of our hikes in the hills or our walks around the block or the simple act of tossing a stick out into the pontoon-produced waves lapping at the shore, keeps the spirit alive and our bodies ready for the adventures to come in the next few weeks.
Thus, with summer’s unofficial end in the books and about a hundred bluegills brought to hand in the late-season warmth and probably a thousand stick retrieves accounted for at the meeting point between the slightly green water and sunbaked brown sand, we are ready. As the pages flip on the season and cooler air arrives and with it trips to favorite marked map squares, and the adventures to new parcels waiting just around the corner, the time for conditioning is over and the rewards will change from a simple stick to the laughing of a covey of grouse, the cackling of a rooster pheasant, and the sound of thundering wing beats becoming the new carrot we pursue…in our outdoors.

Our Outdoors: A Skins Game

Our Outdoors: A Skins Game
By Nick Simonson

Cooler nights and shorter days signal the approach of hunting seasons for partridge, grouse and of course, pheasants. The rewards go beyond memories in the field, however, as these birds provide materials for upcoming fishing projects and success on the water.

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 which jigs, flies, spinners and other offerings have been tied up and assembled, and a spring and summer of fill-in patterns that suddenly become hot for trout, bluegills, crappies and other species, the materials are looking a bit sparse.

At the edges of each pheasant skin the best of the fluffy marabou has been stripped away, leaving gaps so wide a can of Ron Popeil’s hair-in-a-can couldn’t fill them in. Likewise, the hallmark tail feathers, especially those long ones with the lavender trim from last year’s late-season birds look like a busted comb with a bunch of teeth missing. Maybe it’s middle age, but somehow this addressing of my short supply of tying feathers just turned into a subconscious manifestation regarding my hairline.

Nevertheless, before October’s premier hunting season arrives, other birds provide a bevy of tying materials that I’m starting to realize I’m running low on. All of the choice breast feathers from a mature Hungarian partridge taken a few seasons back have been plucked and applied to soft hackles and nymphs. They are, after all, the ideal necking on those patterns with their light-and-dark barring that resembles the segmented legs and frilly appendages of a variety of underwater insects.

Flies from tiny nymphs up to large streamers, like the Twisted Pheasant, can all be crafted with the bounty of feathers obtained as a result of fall hunts in the uplands and elsewhere.

Sharptailed grouse and ruffies both provide a quick fix of marabou, with the former always producing some baitfish-inspired patterns utilizing the underfluff which runs anywhere from a shade of spottail shiner to the depths of a fathead chub in dark spawning colors. Typically good for a few dozen crappie jigs, the first mature sharpie of the year is always a good save for the workbench and a spring of on-the-water success. The latter grouse too provides marabou that can be used in a pinch, but the coveted feathers of the tail fan produce the body of the breadcrust nymph, one of trout fishing’s neatest caddisfly larvae imitators.

These are just the birds I pursue with the limited time I have. Friends and fellow hunters have been known to drop by with a duck skin or a few wings from their hunts for inclusion in my offerings and some spillover patterns for their own fly and tackle boxes. Once in a while, a bag of turkey feathers even finds its way into my freezer for preservation and use in the coming winter. The bounty of fall extends far beyond the harvest in the garden and the farm fields as the calendar rolls along and bird seasons open up.

It’s just one of the many ways that nature brings things full circle. The thrill of the hunt produces incredible opportunities and memorable moments. The reward of wild game pursued behind hard-working flushers and pointers doesn’t end with the cleaning of the bounty on the tailgate either. For a few extra moments required to save a skin for future use is worth it, as dozens, if not hundreds of fish-catching flies and lures can come to be from the part of the bird that doesn’t find its way into the pan or the crockpot. This season consider saving a set of feathers for your off-season efforts, or think about venturing into all that is possible in the nice of fly tying, jig crafting or lure making with those birds you harvest yourself. You’ll find that the hope of harvesting a brightly colored rooster or a thick-feathered sharptail only adds to the upcoming upland excitement…in our outdoors.

Our Outdoors: Stronger Suggestions

Our Outdoors: Stronger Suggestions
By 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 and the cold steel rain the following morning with temperatures not much above 65 for the day were the sign. After this, beyond the boxes checked on the calendar, fall will bring its stronger suggestions and it is best to get ready for what’s to come.
Long walks through the hills for sharptails from slightly after dawn until the mid-morning air and the exertion up and down the grassy slopes will combine to make things just hot enough to break a sweat under my long-sleeved tee and hunting vest and be a confirmation that the season has arrived. So too will the still sunrises on stand overlooking the clover field tucked in the turns of the small river where does and fawns cautiously make their way past my perch. In that instance, fall will increase my heart rate while doing almost nothing at all, as the surge of endorphins from seeing a buck – whether it’s 10 or 100 yards away – will turn my legs to jelly and send shudders of adrenaline through my torso, radiating out through my shoulders and arms, making the idea of drawing back and holding seem like a challenge.
Between the first days of the archery season and the advancement of autumn across the region, the trip to the stand will turn from a quiet, easy one to a winding and wary one as those leaves from the tall cottonwood, elm and oak trees around the creek bottom carpet the ground, creating land mines of loudness avoided with each footstep along the trail. With the later sunrise, the glow of my headlamp will likely provide the ghostly illumination needed to make my way out to the position with as little noise as possible before the hunting day begins.
Whether the season is unusually cool or above average when it comes to temperature, other treks will suggest the onset of autumn. Strolls through the winding logging trails of the north woods for the hopeful shot at a flushing ruffed grouse in late September, as the cracking of timber and rattling of brush beneath the bounds of my lab signal a hot trail, remain a solid indication of the season settling in. Then pheasant opener will arrive in early October, providing three weeks or so before things trend seriously colder and the deer firearms opener comes in November. With it often comes the suggestion of chilly conditions, snow, and the next phase of the calendar; or as it was in the case of last season, nearly a winter’s worth of the white stuff in the first week and an early start to that long slog through the cold.
You may have felt it in the past few days, noticing certain birds grouping up, small grains coming down, or a change in the weather or the way the stars in the sky have shifted in your early morning walks with the dog. The subtle signs that fall is on the way are all around us, and those more tangible ones will follow quickly behind them. Whatever memories of autumns and hunting seasons from the past further cement this shift, and whatever hopes of adventure fueled by preparation, skill, and a little luck propel your excitement for the season to come, it’s time to get ready for fall…in our outdoors.