skiinglady

My husband and I had a pair of swans land just outside our decoy spread Saturday morning. They hung out for maybe 20 or 30 minutes all the while making a soft honking/bugling sound. It was cool to experience for about 5 minutes until I started to wonder if the swans were scaring the ducks away. While the swans were hanging out we had a flock of mallards work us but they set down in the next opening 100 yards over in the rice. My husband stood up and waved his arms to try to get the swans to leave. The dog was even growling at them. They finally left when I shot at (and dropped) a lone mallard that skirted the edge of the decoys. So, did the flock of mallards get scared off by the swans??? Anyone have any experience with swans messing up your hunt? BTW - I've heard that swans and geese are mortal enemies. These swans came right in even though I was calling on my goose call and had 4 flocked floater geese in the spread. Swans aint afraid of geese as best I can tell. Maybe geese are afraid of swans.

My buck field dressed at 144#. We got 72# of meat from it. My husband's buck weighed 162# which produced 86# of meat. Our son's button buck weighed 72# and produced 29# of meat. Right around 50% yield on all 3 on them. We do our own butchering and are very, very picky. We keep bone-in neck roasts and ribs. Everything else is 99% lean, red meat.

Just wondering. Is it legal to shoot a rooster in the ditch of a road that runs through a game farm? Of course I would have the necessary stamps, etc.

Hit me!

Anybody doing an "introduce the kids to ice fishing" day again this year? My Girl Scout troop loved it the last couple of years. They are asking to do it again this year. Anyone know of anything in the works?

Hi Tom, Thanks for putting together another great intro to fishing. I brought along a mom and daughter whom neither had ever caught a fish. The mom was sheepish about it when she told me she had lived in MN all her life and never caught one fish. Guess what? They each caught the first fish of their lifetime on Saturday. Rock on! Thanks for the prizes. I'll be sure to mention it to the vendors the next time I'm in their stores. Jane

Hi Tom, I'll be bringing 5 girls and 1 other mom with me tomorrow. The girls are in a basketball tournament so we will have to leave at 2:00. Any chance you could do some prize drawings while we are there? The girls are psyched because some of them won stuff last year and now the other ones want in on the action. Oh yeah, one girl in my troop caught about 20 fish last year so now the other ones want to beat her record.

I'm psyched and so is my Girl Scout troop! They had a blast last year and have asked me about 100 times when I will take them out ice fishing again. I hope the weather is as nice as it was last year, too. BTW - If you haven't done so already, make sure to order some girl scout cookies in the next couple of weeks. Sales are down this year. Tom, I'll give you a head count when the date gets closer. I'll probably bring about a half dozen kids with me. See you all on the 21st. Skiinglady aka Jane (Yes, that was me with the big deer and my dad and daughter in that photo/article in the Outdoor News)

Here's another interesting tidbit for your consideration. The usual and customary way to determine the Ordinary High Water (OHW) line is where the cattails turn to grass. If you are standing in cattails, and you got there legally, you are standing in public water if some of the adjacent water is large enough to float a canoe.

Thanks Tunrevir. The story actually ran in Wednesday's Pioneer Press. Chris Niskanen's column. I don't know how to link to it here but if you go to Twincities.com and then the outdoors section you will find it. Also, someone from the Outdoor News called me yesterday asking for pix so they could put Niskanen's column in their paper. Don't forget to ask your daughters if they would like to try hunting, too!

My deer weighed 213 field dressed. It has a 17.5 inch spread and 26 inch main beam. It would score 150ish if it was perfect. It's not perfect because it busted off the next tine out from the brow tine (G2?)on the left antler. They tell me that 150 for an 8 pointer is almost unheard of. I watched it for 30 minutes before I had a good shot. I almost felt bad when I squeezed the trigger because he was such a magnificent animal.

Thanks! I sent it to you around 8 PM Wed night.

Okay, I get it. No photo shows up when you open this. How come it shows up just fine for me? I'll try again later. How do I take this thread down?

I'll take you morel hunting if you'll take me laker fishing. This is a legit offer. I'm not a weirdo although my kids think I'm kinda weird for liking ice fishing so much.

We went back to the same spot and had another good day. Got there about 5:00PM and had the first fish on the ice by 5:02PM. (We drill our holes with a 5" hand auger!) One of the Girl Scouts I brought with me caught her first fish EVER! Another one was just fascinated by the Marcum. 10,000 questions! My 8 year old son caught 15 "keepers" = 7 inch bluegills. I had to talk him into going fishing with us. Now he wants to know when we can go again. I love getting kids turned on to fishing! We fished for 1.5 hours and brought home enough for a meal or two. Even caught a couple of 8 to 9" crappies. One girl caught a 9" golden shiner! How has that thing escaped the jaws of a northern for long enough to grow that big?!? Thanks for all the offers to help. The 'secret' spot did the trick! Next time I'll send out the SOS earlier in the week. Jane

Shoot! I had a feeling I might be too late to get some info from those guys for today. Oh well. I can find the fish myself, too. Perch, Bass, and Rock, thanks for the input.

Hey guys, I've got another group of girl scouts who heard about how much fun we had fishing on Feb 23rd (Baby FMer GTG)and they want to give ice fishing a try. Catch and release. Should I take them back to the same spot we fished that day? Got any other suggestions? What presentations? Bait? Color? Depth? Shoot me a PM at janebean@msn.com if you have a suggestion that you don't want to broadcast. Heading out tomorrow around 3 until sunset or so. Thanks for the help! Jane

The Baby FMer Get Together Rocked! I brought 5 eleven year olds from my Girl Scout troop, another mom and her 4 year old daughter and 18 month old son. They all caught fish and had a blast. Thanks to Tom and Rob and everyone else who set this up. Good work. Thanks also to Frankie's for the free stuff. Hey Tom, who am I supposed to talk to at Thorn Bros. about repairing my favorite rod tip? Wouldn't you know it? My best, fastest ice rod couldn't hold up in the hands of a 4 year old. Oh well, it's just material stuff. Not nearly as important as turning kids on to fishing. Thanks again to everyone who worked on this. I would say it was a huge success. Speaking of huge, how big was that bass?

Great idea! Thanks for pulling this together. What lake do you plan to fish? What time? Or, what is the link to the info for the Jan 19th event? I can just read all the info there if I can get to the site. Thanks!

I've been fishing crappies with a borrowed LX5 and the only drawback I have found is the size of the transducer puck. That thing takes up a lot of room in a 5" hole. If anyone wants to sell me their LX3-tc so they can upgrade to the lx5, shoot me a PM.

Quote: By the way whats wrong with the Clearwater? I had a classic and Pro and they worked very nice. Are you getting interference from all the other flashers out there? Ferny Yup! I can't use my Zercom if I go out with anyone else using anything within about 30 feet. And sometimes it just doesn't seem to be working correctly. My husband is an electrical engineer and he says that 10 years is about the useful life for the integrated circuits in most electronic gadgets. I think the old Zercom may be on its last legs. Hey, if Santa wants to bring me a new flasher, I want to help him pick the right one. I have a great husband!

Thanks for all the input. I guess I'll have to read the owner's manual and see if I messed something up with the LX5 before I throw in the towel on it. I was hole hopping and it seemed to work fine in one hole but not another. I think you guys are on to something, either with the steep break or more likely the zoom idea. Probably operator error. What is the advantage of the dual cones? Since I fish almost exclusively in less than 25 feet of water, do I need both? Which cone is better for shallow water? I'm thinking the wide one but that's mostly a guess. My only experience with a vexilar was that it marked fish very well but it lit up like a Christmas tree when all I had down the hole was a tiny jig and a wax worm. And it made a lot of noise. I'm used to a Zercom which makes ablsolutely no noise whatsoever.

I'm thinking about upgrading from my 10 year old Zercom - which I love but has it's limitations - to a Vexilar or a Marcum. I tried out a friend's Marcum LX5 yesterday. It seemed to do the trick but then for some reason it stopped showing me the bottom 2 feet of the water column. I don't know if I somehow poked the wrong buttons or if it was malfunctioning. I can't imagine why it would be designed to do that. Anyway, my question is: What would you recommend for a good, reliable flasher? I fish maybe 10 times in the winter, mostly for sunnies and crappies. I like to have stuff that works well.

How is the flavor of the trout taken from the DNR stocked ponds(Cenaiko/Courthouse?) My experience with trout stocked in lakes in Wisconsin is that they taste muddy. Is that the case with these fish, too?