I recall clearly many days where an “ah-ha!” moment changed the way I did things forever.  One such moment happened on December 26, 2000, and it altered the way I fished through the ice permanently.
The converted trailer shack that my buddy Holmes, his cousin Adam and I were fishing out of on the day after Christmas had taken on a distinct chill, and I held my hand out over the flickering propane heater, which sputtered and spit the last fumes from the twenty-pound cylinder on the outside of the house.  Being back from Florida for my final holiday break of undergrad, I still was not used to the North Dakota winters which I had fled from in 1997, and I nervously asked how we planned on keeping warm the rest of the day.

“We’ll have to go back into town and refill the tank,” said my buddy, obviously annoyed.
His cousin nodded, and agreed to drive. I volunteered to stay behind just in case a school of fish decided to cruise by our spot on the channel edge, though I was doubtful.  I watched the duo pull away from the ice house in Adam’s Chevy, opened a set of handwarmers and clicked the bail on my borrowed ice rod.  The Northland Buckshot Rattlespoon zipped down the hole off to one side and disappeared from view in the twenty feet of dingy water below me.  I looked to my left at the whirring disk of green, red and yellow on the Vexilar FL-8 fish finder hanging in the next hole over while I jigged my lure about four feet off the bottom.
With each twitch of my rod, I saw a yellow flash on the monitor of the sonar device.  I would rip the lure up and down and the color would change from yellow to red to green and back to yellow, or when I’d move it just slightly, it would flicker between a light green bar and a thicker yellow bar.  It was like a video game of sorts, and as my brain made the connection, I smiled with the onset of that “ah-ha!” moment.
I would open the bail and the lure would drop into the solid red bottom and the line would go limp.  I’d slowly pull the spoon up and it would creep up warily from the edge of the sonar’s viewing area.
“This is pretty neat,” I said aloud as I banged the spoon on the bottom, ripped it up and let it fall; and then reeled it up a few feet in the water column.
I glanced at my watch, looked out the window and sat down as I jiggled the fishing rod some more.  I again turned my attention to the whir of the FL-8 fish finder and saw something that looked out of place.  A large red blob had materialized on the circular screen, just below my offering.  I jigged the rod to make sure that the object wasn’t my spoon, and as I did, the red bar rose up toward it and paused about a foot below the yellow mark on the screen.  I then ripped the spoon upward and the red mark exploded after it and I felt the fish whollop my offering.

The drag on the reel began to scream, the ice rod was doubled over pointing straight down the hole and the fight was on.  I went from watching the Vexilar, to looking down the hole, to loosening my drag.  Occasionally, the red mark would zoom through the screen and then quickly disappear.  Each time, the line was higher up on the sonar’s display.
Finally, I saw the fish – a large pike – swim under the hole.  My adrenaline surged and I cranked on the reel, attempting to steer its head toward the surface.  Finally, the gaping, tooth-filled maw angled just right and I put the last few turns on the reel.  I reached down and grabbed the northern behind the head and hoisted it out of the water.  It was a five-pound pike, my first ever through the ice.
My friends rumbled up in the pickup shortly thereafter with a tank full of propane.  I stepped outside the metal shack and held the fish up for them to see.
“That Vexilar is really cool,” I said to Adam, as I explained how I saw, triggered and caught the fish with the help of his sonar unit.
The next year, graduated and relocated back to North Dakota, my parents bought me one for Christmas, and that old FL-8 still ranks as one of the best gifts anyone has ever given me.  A few years ago, I upgraded to an FL-20 fish finder, and passed the old unit on to my brother who still uses it to this day.
I’ve often said that a sonar device is only slightly more important than an auger when ice fishing, and I wouldn’t leave home without one.  Today, there are more brands, models and options to fit any angler’s needs and budget than just the FL-8 fish finder, which was the only unit available at the turn of the century.  If you fish with any of them, you’ve probably had that “ah-ha!” moment on ice, seen what was once unviewable and learned how fish react to your presentations.  As a result, you probably agree with me that your chosen sonar is the most important piece of ice fishing equipment.  If you haven’t yet fished with one, it’s time to see what you’re missing and experience an epiphany of your own…in our outdoors.

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By Nick Simonson

For the past few weekends, I have been exploring a small impoundment about twenty minutes from home.  Rumor had it that big bluegills roamed the basin out from the public access, but all my efforts had produced over the past month was a plethora of puny perch.  At the urging of my buddy Randy, we headed back for one more try on the small reservoir, based on a tip a fellow gave us on our way off the ice at the end of our last trip.
We ventured off from the point and I fired up the auger and began punching holes out in a line from shore.  After the thirtieth hole I clicked the auger off, tied a tiny jig on my spring bobber rod and began to explore the basin before us.  With my friend fishing shallow, I walked out to the farthest hole in the line with plans of working my way back toward shore.
As soon as I dropped the transducer in the hole, three lines flickered against the black backdrop of my sonar.  I dropped the jig and watched it spiral out of view into the murky waters of the forty-acre lake formed by the damming of a small creek some thirty years ago.  The lines rose up to meet the jig and I readied for the inevitable – undoubtedly they would be the same six-inch perch I had encountered before.  The spring bobber on my rod bounced and I set the hook with a snap of my wrist.
The blank bent in a solid arc and I knew right away the fish on the other end was not one of the tiny perch I had worked so hard to get away from.  The line spun around the hole as the whirling fight of the fish pulled it tight against the edge of the ice and then popped it loose and over to the other side of the hole.  The upside-down tornado whirled closer and closer to the surface as the line between the rod and hook shortened.  Like the moon sliding in front of the sun, the circular body of a big bluegill eclipsed the diameter of the hole and I felt my eyes go wide.
With many other anglers in the shallows where my friend was fishing, I gave a quick but muted whistle to my buddy and held the hand-sized panfish up for him to see and motioned him to join me out over the deeper water.  In a few minutes we were in the thick of a bluegill bonanza.  Our backs turned to the rising south wind; we raised the red lines off of the bottom and got them to bite with a subtle shake of a small plastic tail or a lightly-hooked spike.  Time and again, quality sized bluegills came to hand, but as the wind rose, the fish became more stubborn.
We switched ice fishing rigs to pull a few more from fourteen feet; bounced to a hole just on the break to land another out of twelve feet; and varied our baits to trigger other fish we encountered at various depths in between.  Even when we were forced by the wind to set up the shack and settle for a more stationary – but comfortable – position, the fish directly under us could be fooled by keeping our baits moving and modified from time-to-time when things slowed down.  The entire afternoon we landed forty ‘gills.  In that time, we hooked only one perch.
If it wasn’t for my friend’s continued press to give the lake one more try; the bluegills might have just been a hopeful thought for next season.  But by persevering, trying new areas and varying our presentations, we found success where we once found only frustration, and had we given up the stories of the big bluegills would have remained just that.  I’ve learned in the past few seasons – whether hunting or fishing – that sometimes perseverance is all it takes to have a breakthrough like the one I experienced this weekend, and help make those stories a reality…in our outdoors.

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This year, it seemed that every pheasant was a trophy.  Whether it was those early birds on opening weekend with half-colored feathers, or that lone rooster coming late in the season, each one provided a welcome warm meal and a new crop of pheasant feathers for fly fishing.  With one season behind us, another one begins – the fly tying season.  And I’ve been hard at it already, tying up new patterns with feathers from my favorite bird, beyond the nymphs and soft hackles that are so common.  Here are just a few for you to try.
The Copper Sawyer

Humpies and Stimulators are some of my favorite dries, and big flashy streamers are fun to tie and neat to see in the water. Nymphs aren’t usually so flashy, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be. The Copper Sawyer is a good mix of the usual nymph features – brown and buggy – with a little added flash and weight thanks to some copper ultra wire; and best of all it is a simple two-material fly made with feathers from our favorite bird – AND it catches fish.
Materials
Hook: Nymph, Size 12-18
Thread: Brown 6/0
Tail, Body, Wingcase: Pheasant Tail Fibers
Abdomen: Copper Ultra Wire

Tie in 6-10 pheasant tail fibers so the tips hang one-third of the hook shank length beyond the bend, serving as the tail. Tie in a 3-inch strip of copper ultra wire (use Medium for size 12-14 hooks, and Small for hooks size 16 and smaller). Wrap the remaining fibers forward about 2/3 of the hook shank and tie off, advancing your thread to the hook eye. Then wrap the ultra wire forward, segmenting the thorax. When you reach the tie off point, use the ultra wire to form the abdomen by tightly wrapping it forward and then back over the first wraps to the tie off point, trimming the wire neatly. Fold the tied-off feather fibers over the wire abdomen forming a wingcase, tie them off and trim. Form a head with the thread, whip finish and cement.

Simple Streamer

This two-material fly is a short streamer that can be used for bluegills or crappies.  It wraps up quick and uses all-pheasant fibers to trigger fish.

Materials
Hook: Streamer, Size 8-12
Thread: Brown 6/0
Body: Gray Underfeather
Collar: Pheasant Rump Overfeather

You’ll need a streamer hook, a rump feather from a rooster and the gray underfeather beneath it. Simply tie in the underfeather and wrap it forward for the body.Then tie in a rump feather – a nice big blue-green one from the top of the rump – by the tip and turn it around a couple times behind the hook eye for a collar, trim it and tie off. Whip finish, cement, and you’re done!

Advanced Streamer
This bigger, badder version of the previous fly works great on smallmouth bass and aggressive trout.  It has more substance and style to send bigger predator fish into a frenzy – and except for two pieces of tinsel – it is all pheasant-powered!

Materials
Hook: 3X Long Streamer, Size 8-12
Thread: Brown (or Red) 6/0
Tail: Pheasant Marabou
Body: Gray Underfeather
Lateral Line: Tinsel of Your Choice
Collar: Two Pheasant Rump Overfeathers

With a streamer hook secured in your vise, select a full marabou-tipped middle layer rump feather from a rooster and strip the fibers from it. Tie the fibers in as the tail of the fly. Next, find a fairly long after feather with bushy gray marabou all along it and tie it in by the tip, just in front of the marabou tail. From there, wrap the gray feather forward, forming a nice thick body, giving the fly a minnow-like appearance. Trim and tie off about 1/4 of the hook shank behind the eye.

Now tie in a piece of tinsel on both sides, forming a colorful streak for some fish-attracting flair – you can use silver, gold, pearl, red, whatever – make the fly your own! This tinsel should reach the end of the marabou tail. Finally, select two bright colored rump feathers (the blue-green ones around the tail) and tie them by the tips over the tinsel. Advance your thread and wrap the feathers around the hook to form a collar on the fly. Trim off the excess, cover with thread, form a small head, whip finish, cut the thread and cement for posterity. You can add lead wraps or a bead head at the beginning for more weight.  Fill your fly box with an army of these flies built with pheasant feathers for fly fishing and you’ll be ready for some fast spring fishing…in our outdoors.

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I often think back fondly to my times while ice fishing tip ups growing up in North Dakota.  For those anglers who love to chase a waiving flag across the ice, there’s no better place than the Peace Garden State, where on hardwater, fishermen are allotted four lines with no restrictions as to what’s on the other end.  It could be a treble or it could be a single hook, it could be in pursuit of pike or trout or walleye.  Smelt, shiners, fatheads, whatever your bait of choice there are so many ways to fish with tip ups.  We fished them all and found ways to modify our tip ups for any situation.  Now, even in Minnesota where only two lines are allowed, I still like to keep a lookout for an orange flag waiving in the breeze.  What follows are some tips for not only the usual slimy suspects, but for fishing flags for any other species.

10.  Barrel Role.  I like to spool all of my tip-ups with old-school 50-pound-test Dacron – simply because it’s strong and easy to handle.  However, if fishing walleyes or trout, it is far too visible to connect to a hook.  I like to tie a barrel swivel at the end of the line and from there I can add leaders of superline or monofilament in varying lengths above a smaller hook or treble to match the species I’m pursuing.

9.  Another Notch.  The flag-holding T on the top of each tip-up usually has two sides, an all-smooth side and a notched side.  The notched side will hold the flag more securely, requiring a good tug to pop it loose, as opposed to the smooth side, which will allow the flag to trip easier.  In addition, these sides can be turned into, or against the wind to prevent a premature triggering of the flag.  Use this feature to assist on those gusty days.

8.  Cleanup.  When using tip-ups, make sure the area around the ice hole is clean.  Also, keep the surface of the water in the hole free of slush and ice; making sure to monitor that there isn’t a build-up of ice sealing off the hole.  This might require a regular round of inspections – particularly when it’s cold – to keep the areas ice free.  Clean holes will make playing and landing fish with a tip-up easier and more successful.

7.  Depth Charge.  When fishing for species that tend to roam the water column or at least parts of it – such as stocked trout, lake trout and pike – vary the depths at which your baits are set.  I found great success fishing for wintertime rainbows stocked in a lake near my home town by finding depths of 15-to-20-feet and setting a bunch of tip-up offerings from five feet below the ice to five feet above the bottom.  Check them with a sonar unit and mark the line at the surface with a rubber band when the presentation is where you want it.
6.  Sharpen Up.  Now, most of my tip-up fishing is for pike.  I like quick-strike rigs and just plain trebles, where legal.  The key for toothy critters is keeping these bigger hooks sharp.  Go through your collection of terminal tackle, whether fresh out of the package or not, and run a hook hone to make sure the point finds the mark when it’s time for the hook set.
5.  On Your Mark.  As stated above, a line marker will allow for a quick reset of a tip up after a fish has been landed.  I like to use a broken thin rubber band, but a piece of string or yarn will do the trick.  Once you have your presentation set where you want it to be, or where you find fish are striking, tie in your marker so you can get back to fishing sooner when you bring your hook to the surface.

4.  Traction Faction.  When there are a number of folks fishing tip-ups in a group, the more the merrier.  Be ready for fast-paced flag action on the ice, and be ready to sprint to the nearest tip-up when a pack of pike rolls through.  Especially at early ice, the spring from the shore or shack to the flag requires traction on the ice.  Have a set of cleats, such as Yaktrax, on your boots to help you stay standing (or sprinting) after those tip-ups that pop.
3.  Wrapped Up.  It is important to keep the line spooled neatly on tip-ups, and you should check for an evenly wrapped spool each time you bring the line up and put the line back down.  Bunched or tilted line freezes and tangles easier.  This can produce resistance when a fish swims off with your bait, causing unnatural pull which in turn may cause the fish to drop the offering.
2.  Neat Freak.  When a fish is on the other end, there’s a lot to think about – tension, playing out the line, how to land it and where the fish is located.  Keep your line out of the equation by setting each section as neatly as possible on the side of the hole each time you gain a little on your quarry.  This way, if the fish runs the line zips easily up through your hands and back down the hole.  Refer back to tip #8 to make sure the loose line plays back easily – with no ice or slush to snag on.

1.  Let It Spin.  When fishing for species you plan to keep, you can take things a little easier.  Especially when looking for pike, when a flag pops, hustle over to the tip-up and watch.  If the fish still has the bait and is swimming away, wait until the T mechanism stops twirling.  Pike instinctively strike a bait and then run with it a while before stopping, turning the bait and swallowing.  If you’re keeping fish, it’s best to set the hook after the tip up stops moving.

With these tips and some you’ll undoubtedly pick up on the ice with a little experience, you’ll find your ice fishing tip ups success will increase.  And it won’t be long until the repeated and resounding shouts of “FLAAAAAG!!!” will echo across the hardwater surface of your favorite lake…in our outdoors.

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The noise in the pines behind me grew until it sounded like a rushing spring waterfall on the North Shore.  I had been on the ice just long enough to set up my hub-style ice fishing shelter, drop my Vexilar transducer and land my first fish of the new year when the fabric around me began to shake violently.  Suddenly with a pop and a flash of white, I was rolling across my newly drilled holes as the heater, sonar and bucket chair toppled around me.  I looked up and watched the alternating red-and-black-and-red-and-black of my shack rumble across the frozen lake, propelled by a wind gust of at least forty miles an hour which had sprung up from the only moderate breezes I had experienced to that point.
Bewildered, I got to my feet and my legs began churning in a chase after my shelter, which had collapsed into a heap resembling a broken kite.  Despite being deflated, it still managed to hop up into the air two more times, extending my early-morning sprint across the snow-covered surface of the lake.  Finally, I set my boot down on the side of the shelter, caught my breath, and did what everyone else would do.  I looked around to see if anyone had witnessed the embarrassing event (not likely, considering it was 8:00 a.m. on New Year’s Day) and was relieved to see most of the houses around the lake were still dark and no one else was ambitious – or foolhardy – enough to be out on the ice.
Growing up on the plains of North Dakota, and ice fishing the lakes and sloughs of that region taught me how to cope with gusty winds.  It’s a fact of life in the upper Midwest that winter brings not only cold and snowy conditions, but also with them some very powerful winds. One way for anglers to deal with it is with a large, comfortable permanent shack, but I’ve never been one to settle in one spot on the ice, and with my desire for mobility comes the sacrifice of stability.  But there are a good number of things a person can do to secure a portable shelter in the wind and enjoy a fixed position on the ice when active fish are located.

Once I had recovered my shelter and folded it back up, I went back to my original position, righted my equipment and cleared the snow away from my fishing area.  I then set about piling up the slush into one big mound at the side of my six-by-six-foot square and popped my shack back into shape.  This time, I angled the shelter so that the wall did not face into the wind, but instead led with one of the corners, thus reducing the drag the shelter’s shape caused with each gust.  Next, I took four ice anchors and their four-foot tethers and secured them firmly in the ice and tied them tightly to the house on the loops at each side to provide added security.  Finally, I transported the slush from my large pile and packed it down on the fabric flaps at the base of the shack to add weight and form a heavy base to keep the shack in place.  With my efforts to secure the house completed, I settled in and hoped for the best.

With the wind continuing to rise around my shelter and near whiteout conditions on the other side of the lake as a result, I was secure in my spot by taking these few extra steps to combat the changing conditions.  While I would have preferred my usual flip-over sled-style shack, which is easier to secure with the same methods and has the added advantage of my body weight working to keep it stable, I was still able to enjoy a couple of hours of fishing for bluegills, crappies and a rogue largemouth bass that came up under the cover of my pop-up shelter while the winds whipped around me.  By being prepared for whatever winter throws at us, we can still remain mobile, find fish and have a successful trip – with just a few extra steps – regardless of the gusts that challenge us…in our outdoors.

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“Guys, where are we,” this initial inquiry by Dominic Monaghan’s character, Charlie, summed up the question that I and ten million other viewers tried to figure out for six seasons on the TV show Lost. The J. J. Abrams sci-fi series focused on a group of plane crash survivors marooned on a mystical island, which – spoiler alert – turned out to be just one man’s purgatory, but the opening interrogatory hung on until we figured it out in the final episode.
This weekend, I realized what Charlie must have felt like on his first day on the island as I cruised down the dirt path in the state park, jumping over roots, boinging off rocks and rumbling my way with my wife, Angie, and my dog Gunnar, toward the wooden bridge and the gravel parking lot across the half-frozen river. Wrapping up a short Sunday trail run in record time, and in record high temperatures, which saw the external readout on our car briefly reach 60 degrees, we had to wonder exactly where we were – and what month it was.
I ice fished in a fleece pullover on Friday afternoon, bird hunted in a sweatshirt on Saturday morning, and ran two-and-a-half miles up and down the river valley in a t-shirt on Sunday; enjoying the intermittent warmth of the afternoon sun, and on the dips to the stream edge, the cool breeze that wafted off of the surface ice of the flow. The sensations and situations were odd to say the least, as strange weather patterns brought a breath of late autumn (or is that early spring?) over the landscape. Even more bizarre was the lack of snow. Last year at this time, there were over 20 inches on the ground, on our way to nearly 90 inches for the season. But now, only the still-frozen spring-fed trickles leading to the river below gave any hint that we were on the edge of the winter solstice. It’s always hard to make accurate winter weather predictions, but this year has been an even bigger surprise.
It’s been said that if you don’t like the weather in this part of the world, just wait 10 minutes and it will change…and then you’ll hate it. But there are those rare occasions where you actually might like what comes in on the southwestern breezes and this weekend was one of them. Except for the anglers on Lake of the Woods near Springsteel where the ice broke up in a popular fishing location on Sunday, this season’s mild weather has been a welcome gift which has extended hunting seasons, lawn care practices and winterizing opportunities for outboard motors. But just as we do with the worst of what winter throws at us, we make the best of the good times we’re given and get out there and do what we love to do – fish, hunt, run, hike, walk and more. And we probably do it better when it’s above freezing.
Sure, a white Christmas always looks nicer, except for maybe when you’re trying to drive through it in order to get home for the holidays, a beige one isn’t so bad. This is especially true when we can all get together safely for a hospitable hunt or some comfortable early ice fishing with friends and family over the holidays. Consider an extra two weeks, or a month, or however long this slow start to winter lasts, as an early Christmas gift to make up for the lumps of coal we got last year. So enjoy it. The ice will get thicker, the days will get colder, and somewhere down the line you’ll be remembering this stretch of time and wonder just exactly where you were too; hopefully it was somewhere enjoyable…in our outdoors.

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While taking those first nervous steps onto the ice this weekend, I stared down into the weedy shallows with their vegetation frozen in place, the last respiration of openwater photosynthesis trapped in the tiny bubbles just inches from the surface of the frozen water. I traced my way along a small crack and as I approached the area where it intersected another fracture, both separations shuddered and the white lines darkened with a slight filling of water. Though nothing more beyond the pop and the slight flow occurred, it was an early-season reminder that no ice is safe ice and it made me remember some other ice fishing tips for another safe season of hardwater angling.
10. Carry basic survival tools with you. A knife, a lighter, a whistle and ice picks are the bare bones basics you’ll need in case of trouble. A small first aid kit, a GPS unit, duct tape and a Ziploc bag are great to have too. Much of what you need to survive can be packed in a tacklebox or in an Altoids tin. Use the Ziploc bag to keep it all waterproofed.
9. Be a “half-full” angler. Keep fuel levels on your truck, snowmobile and ATV at half or better when you’re headed to the lake. That way you’re guaranteed not to get stranded for lack of gasoline.
8. Keep it on the rocks, not on the ice. Save the celebration for after the outing. Alcohol impairs judgment, hinders mobility, results in faster body-heat loss and has been a contributing factor in many ice-related incidents in recent years.
7. Stay clear. A lesson passed on to me by a brother of mine, who will remain nameless, was learned the hard way. The drawstrings of his hooded sweatshirt became entangled in the gears of his power auger and the motor pulled his face flush with the housing. Thankfully he was able to hit the kill switch and cut himself free. Lesson learned – keep loose clothing and limbs away from motorized ice equipment – augers, ATVs, etc.
6. Layer up and pack an extra set of clothes. You can’t put on what you don’t bring with. Wear multiple layers of clothes and keep an extra set packed in your truck or sled, just in case a boot – or your whole body – breaks through.
5. Be thick-headed. Know what thicknesses of good, clear ice can support you. Three inches will hold a person. Seven inches will hold an ATV or snowmobile. 12 Inches will hold a small automobile and 16 inches of clear ice will generally hold a pickup. These are just guidelines, so adjust as needed based on ice conditions and formation in your area.
4. Watch the weather. Warming trends and liquid precipitation can have quick negative effects on ice quality. Monitor what’s coming and what has happened recently in the areas you plan to fish, as recent rains or prolonged temperatures above forty can weaken ice.
3. Know your water body. Have a good understanding – and a map – of areas on your fishing waters which are known to have questionable ice. Note areas of currents, springs, aerators, bridges, culverts or vegetation which make ice unstable and avoid traveling or fishing near them.
2. Let ‘em know before you go. Provide information to a non-angler back home as to what lake you’ll be on, what areas you’ll be fishing and when you’ll check in and return. Leave detailed directions on how to find you along with your contact information and that of the anglers you will be with.
1. No ice is safe ice. This is the number one for ice fishing tips. It’s not terra firma, there’s no safety net, and it just can’t be trusted. No matter what month of the hardwater season, no matter how cold it has been, no ice is 100 percent safe. Remember that with every step.
Follow these tips as you venture out this month on the first few inches of safe ice. Being cautious and prepared is the first step toward a successful outing, whether you pursue pike, perch or other pisces on the ice…in our outdoors.

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It’s December, it’s cold, it’s tough going in the field. But somehow, as the season wears on, I find myself out there, still grinding away, searching for a last chance bird or deer with a never-give-up attitude I hoped I’d have at this time of year, way back in October as I was headed back from a successful North Dakota pheasant hunting opener.
And as we drove home from our weekend out west, my friends and I listened to the late game on Westwood One. Tim Tebow had been inserted as a last-ditch replacement on a struggling Denver Broncos team which was down by two touchdowns with 18 minutes left in the game. As a fellow Florida alumni, I had followed the second-year pro all through college as the Gators won two national titles and Tebow became the first sophomore to win the Heisman. That evening, Tebow rallied Denver, but failed to convert on a last second pass into the endzone. But even in defeat, the crowd at Mile High resounded through the radio as chants of “TE-BOW, TE-BOW” echoed over the airwaves.
I petitioned my friend, who I often rib for being a Cowboys fan, to cheer for the Broncos this season with Touchdown Timmy at the helm, as the Vikings, my lifelong NFL team of choice, were tanking horribly.
“At 1-4, they’re going to need all the help they can get, and it won’t be much different than cheering for Minnesota,” he joked, allowing my request.
Since then, Tebow has brought the Broncos from a lost season to the top of the AFC West, capped with a last-second win over my hapless Vikings. In that span, Tebow has helped engineer five fourth-quarter comeback wins, taking six of seven since becoming the starter, thanks mostly in part to his heart, grit and determination. He has proved that it’s never too late to find success, no matter how bad things look, and no matter what the critics might say.
Watching the game with me this weekend was my buddy Adam from Grand Rapids, Minn. who had joined me for a pheasant hunt, despite this season’s low numbers. It was his first time afield for wild birds, having only partaken in a game farm hunt. Despite my warnings, and promise of no apologies for what lie in store, he headed out with my lab, Gunnar, and me, knowing that bird populations were down.
Early in the day, we flushed birds at a distance and one rooster provided me with a through-the-brush shot which I missed. We trod on through WMAs and private acres, putting the occasional bird in the air, with most being hens at this late date in the season. The day wore on and as I carried my gun across my shoulders lamenting the low numbers, a rooster surprised us. Adam’s shot rang out as the bird launched up from a brushy drain edge, and he toppled it on the far side. Gunnar made the retrieve up and down the gully and back, and dropped the bird at my feet. I loaded it in Adam’s vest, patted him on the back, and congratulated him on his first wild bird.
“That’s all I was hoping for,” he replied.
With one in the bag, we soldiered on to another WMA and walked the hillsides. Gunnar got hot and veered away from me, toward Adam and onto the downward slope of the hill. Forty yards ahead another rooster cackled as it flushed in front of the dog, a long tail flapping in the north wind as its wingbeats carried it up over the dried brown rearing grass.
Adam chased the bird with his first shot and toppled it with a second at long range. Gunnar was on the rooster in moments and it wasn’t long until Adam held it up with pride. We finished the walk out and headed back to the truck, riding high on Adam’s success resulting from a never-give-up attitude he had kept that day, despite the odds against us.
After a slow morning hunt the following day, we packed it up and headed in for the football game, and watched as that same spirit carried Tim Tebow and his Broncos to yet another improbable victory. As the commentators summed up the QBs performance, they came back to the same theme, that no matter how late it is, no matter how far he has to go, he gets it done with an unbreakable spirit. A perfect description too, of the attitude required on this short and challenging days of the late season and my friend’s successful first pheasant hunt…in our outdoors.

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I feel like Sauron from the Lord of the Rings trilogy; with my all-seeing eye looking out over the land – well at least 100 square feet of it. With my new trail camera set up overlooking the entrance to a watering area about 50 yards from my favorite bow hunting stand, this season has provided me with a new view of the deer in my hunting area and it seems I have the ability to know what is going on even when I can’t get out there. While many of you are experienced trail-camera scouts, for those like me who are just getting into it, reviewing each week’s set of photos has been about as big of a rush as watching a deer come in live.
I purchased my trail camera shortly before the firearms deer season began, to get an idea of what was roaming the area when I wasn’t on stand. I settled on a Wildgame Innovations IR4, a four-megapixel camera with infrared capability which provides for clear photos both during the day and at night. It runs on eight AA batteries, but with a good number of rechargeable batteries I already had on hand, I was prepared for the power drain to come. The pictures are stored on a SD memory card, which is a prevalent storage device coming in 1, 2, 4, 8 and now 16 GB sizes, meaning that approximately 700 photos can be stored per gigabyte. I went with the 2GB card figuring that 1,400 photos would take some time to accumulate.
After the first week on the tree overlooking the waterhole entry path, my camera had taken 302 photos. While many of them were of wind-blown leaves and grasses moving in the target area, a sizeable number were of deer coming through, mostly at night. After three weeks, the camera had taken over 600 photos, and it began to reveal the patterns of the ungulates in the vicinity of my stand.
As anticipated, the does were the most active visitors to the camera’s viewing area, some coming up close and sniffing the lens and darting away, with others moving quickly in front of the lens. A few bucks showed themselves as well, and aside from one which was fairly blurry, most of the antlered deer were young ones with racks of six points or less. The number of male deer moving through was much higher than I anticipated, as there were two four pointers, a five pointer and a fairly wide and tall three-by-three along with a couple of spikes. The final picture of the month was the camera’s first capture of a daylight-hour buck with what appeared to be a large rack outside of his ears, but due to some last second furtive movements, his headgear was somewhat blurred.
In addition to the deer, I’ve seen turkeys, raccoons and an acrobatic squirrel moving through the now-familiar scene of saplings surrounding a crossroads of trails at the water’s edge. The camera has given me insight into these other creatures’ movements and what their daily patterns are like, and it’s good to know what else is going on. I watched the season’s first snow come, melt and go altogether as the post-frontal wind triggered a few shots on the sunny day after the initial storm. What I’ve learned thus far is pretty basic – that deer remain mostly nocturnal, but what I’ve observed has been nearly as enjoyable as an afternoon on stand. And thanks to this technology, I can keep an eye on what’s happening, even when I can’t get out there…in our outdoors.

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