Lets Go!!

What a way to start off the ice fishing season!  Dan Precht caught this 29" walleye on our first night on the ice.  As you see it is dead, this was Dans personal best walleye so he decided to keep it and get it mounted for lasting memories.  Congratulations on a great fish Dan! 

 I have also been fortuante enough to get in on some great action.  This was a fat 26" fish.  After a couple quick photos I got her back in the lake to fight again.  The walleye action has been red hot.  I don't ever remember catching this many fish in just one week.  Hopefully the action will keep up and I will have more stories and pictures very soon.  Most of our fish have been coming on a Northland Buckshot spoon tipped with a minnow head.  The bite has been primarily at sun down with a few fish coming in the middle of the night.  We have great ice where we have been going, as you see I have my wheel houses out! 

Here We Go

I apologize to everyone for the down time.  Needless to say I am back!  The posts will be coming fast and furious so stay tuned and hang on. 

Ice fishing is well under way and has been the best December I ever remember.  I have caught over 100 walleyes in the first week.  I will be posting pictures of some recent dandies later today.   You are not going to want to miss this.  I am headed out right now to move a few houses and will be fishing again tonight. 

Now is the time to get out, the ice is great and the fishing is even better.  Don't wait until christmas to book your trip the dates are starting to fill up.    

So Many Deer So little Time

Many of you know that when I am not fishing in the fall I spend much of my free time in a tree stand with a bow chasing whitetails.  All these pictures were taken last week on two different trail cams on the Wisc farm I am hunting.  There are some real gems on the farm.  I am headed back to the farm this week and hope to harvest one of these wall hangers. 

The bucks are starting to pre-rut pretty hard.  I was able to rattle in 3 different bucks while I was in stand.  Two of them gave me good looks, but since I knew there were bigger bucks, I passed on shooting either of them to allow them another year to grow.  They will be real wall hangers if they can grow for one more year.  The 3rd buck I did see was a wall hanger, unfortuanetly I only had 2 seconds to react and make the decision to harvest the buck.  By the time I could see how big it was and realized it was a true shooter it was to late.  It had walked through the one shooting lane I had at about 30 yards.  I hope in the coming weeks this buck will give me another look.  

The duck contest has come to an end and I am going to be posting the winner and the prize info here.  I appreciate all the participation and guesses.  It was totally crazy.  So here is the story behind the picture. 

When we were hunting in Canada we came across 3 locals that were hunting a point not far from us and when I stopped to talk to them I saw all the ducks in the bottom of there boat.  When we were loading our truck to leave they showed up at our landing and started unloading there boat and I watched and counted as the ducks just kept coming.  After a little discussion they stated that they were "harvesters" so they had no limit.  They shoot the ducks and then donate them to food shelters and locals.  It was amazing.  To think we can shoot one bluebill in MN and yet less than 9 hours away they can shoot as many as they want?  53 to be exact!  I was speechless.  Leaves me wondering.......      

   

Ducks, Ducks, and More Ducks

What a choice trip!  I am talking about my recent trip to Manitoba Canada to hunt ducks.  When my good friend Jay asked me if I would like to go to Canada to his duck camp to hunt ducks I almost came unglued.  I was so excited about the opportunity I wanted to leave right then and there.  Well I patiently waited and it was well worth the wait.  This past weekend I finally got to experience a duck flurry!  They were every where.  

This was what part of our spread looked like as the sun came up over the marsh.

This was Jay, Boomer, and I after a morning of shooting many bluebills and gadwalls.

This was the first evening on the Marsh.  When we arrived we wasted no time getting the action started.  The birds came fast and furious. 

Jay with a mitt full.  As you can see the weather was rather nice.  It was 60 and sunny while we were there. 

Scott (with his dog viper), Jay (his dog boomer in front), Keith (with is dog alexi), and myself after a great hunt.  We had to quit shooting after 25 minutes because we didn't want to have our limit and be done.  Hundreds of birds in every direction. 

How about this picture?  Can you guess how many ducks are in the bottom of this boat?  Email your guess to matt@fishwithmatt.com and the person that is the closest will get a great prize.  All I can say is I have never seen so many bluebills in my life.  I will tell the whole story about this picture after I give out the prize.  You have until the end of next week to get me your guess.