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A trophy musky represents a beginning of a fishing addiction
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The changing of the calendar on the wall brings with it a flood of memories and prepares me for opportunities that lay ahead in the coming seasons. Unlike the perennial goals of losing weight or eating better, my resolutions focus on raising the bar and undertaking new challenges on the water and in the field.
The over fifty crowd
Going through my fishing life list this year, I found it was time to upgrade one of the bigger species in my database. In August, I caught and released my first 40-inch class muskie. The explosive strike on the 10-inch Bull Dawg lure the instant it splashed down on the surface made the water froth and gyrate like someone had just turned on a washing machine. The feel of a firm hookset rocked my arms and the ensuing battle spun the little 14-foot boat I was fishing from in two complete circles before the fight was over.
Is it any wonder that this year’s goal is to hook and land a fifty-inch fish? The raw power of the forty-incher was amazing, but the imagined power of a fish near thirty pounds is what I am preparing to deal with this year.
Rod trip
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Traditional bow hunting is a great step up from rile hunting in terms of challenge
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I have worked on my fly fishing skills for several years since my mentor taught me to cast on the calm gymnasium floor at the University of North Dakota. A trip to visit him the following summer further strengthened those abilities while chasing hungry grayling and brown trout in the mountain streams of Norway. A few nice smallmouth from my home water on Clouser minnows, a monster carp on a woolly bugger and a plethora of panfish on PTNs highlight last year’s action and show improvement in both my casting and catching skills.
In the coming year, I hope to add more species to my fly rod list and resolve to land a brook trout, a pink salmon and a steelhead on fishing trips to the tributaries of Lake Superior. The research on these waters has already begun, as has the fly tying bonanza. Piles of eggs, pink wooly worms and stonefly imitators are beginning to build up on my desk in preparation for the pursuit of these cold-water fish in 2008.
Ruffed up
Though a pheasant fanatic, I am amped to try my hand and my aim next fall in pursuit of ruffed grouse. I am anxious to see how my yellow lab, Gunnar, adjusts to woodland hunting after three seasons of chasing pheasants and sharptails across the prairie. These birds, comparable in size to a pheasant, will provide a challenge in the tight quarters of the pine and poplar forests of northern Minnesota.
Put a bow on it
Perhaps the greatest challenge I face this year in my outdoors resolutions comes from taking buck fever by the antlers and wrestling it to the ground. As if the development of a food plot plan, and the subsequent planting of that plot is not enough of a challenge; I have decided to pursue bow hunting over these areas to fully maximize the experience.
Partly inspired by the excitement felt during this year’s rifle hunt, in which I killed my biggest buck yet, and also egged on by the idea that I am incomplete as an outdoorsman without knowledge of this pursuit, I have decided to give it a go. My goal is simple – but I already recognize that it will require many hours and days of practice - to become proficient with the bow and harvest a whitetail deer with it this fall.
Without goals, we fall short in all our endeavors, no matter how leisurely we might treat them. Each season should bring a new set of challenges, and as a result the guarantee of personal growth, through the failures and successes, and more importantly, the lessons learned…in our outdoors.
