Ditto on the Viper, I love mine and have found it much easier to set up than other models.

I’m also on board with shooting does with fawns as long as the little ones are fairly well grown. There is also a school of thought that if you kill a doe with fawns, those fawns are more likely to remain in that same area through adulthood, rather than drifting into different areas for breeding purposes as they are supposedly genetically programmed to do.

Between duck hunting and bow-hunting I usually get the talk about the 3rd week in October. This year however, even despite hunting for something for roughly 23 of the 27 days in October, I have managed to avoid the talk. The price however, was steep! I went to the Hannah Montanna concert last weekend with the wife and kids!!! (Actually, it was pretty entertaining, and the kids loved it) Hopefully now I won’t get the talk until after the rut!
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Between duck hunting and bow-hunting I usually get the talk about the 3rd week in October. This year however, even despite hunting for something for roughly 23 of the 27 days in October, I have managed to avoid the talk. The price however, was steep! I went to the Hannah Montanna concert last weekend with the wife and kids!!! (Actually, it was pretty entertaining, and the kids loved it) Hopefully now I won’t get the talk until after the rut!
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I had one of my best evening stands ever last Tuesday! After shooting a limit of ducks in the moning (mallards, wigeon, gads), I made it to my stand by about 2 PM. Not much going on until about 4 when suddenly the switch went on. Over the next 2 hours there was non-stop activity! I saw 6 different bucks and at least 15-20 does and fawns. 3 of the bucks were yearlings (2 little sixes and a fork) and kept running the does around my stand. All of them were grunting up a storm and numerous times they did some sparring right in front of me! It really didn’t seem like they were truly chasing, just really active. Just before dark 2 decent bucks came through within about 15 yds. One was about a 120″ 8 and the other was a really wide 9 but looked like a 2.5 year old by body size and mass. Just before I climbed down I saw the big boy walking the field edge. For sure looked like a shooter, but I didn’t get a great look at him. All in all it was a really neat night to be sitting in a tree! I’ll be out all week trying for a crack at the big guy.
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I had one of my best evening stands ever last Tuesday! After shooting a limit of ducks in the moning (mallards, wigeon, gads), I made it to my stand by about 2 PM. Not much going on until about 4 when suddenly the switch went on. Over the next 2 hours there was non-stop activity! I saw 6 different bucks and at least 15-20 does and fawns. 3 of the bucks were yearlings (2 little sixes and a fork) and kept running the does around my stand. All of them were grunting up a storm and numerous times they did some sparring right in front of me! It really didn’t seem like they were truly chasing, just really active. Just before dark 2 decent bucks came through within about 15 yds. One was about a 120″ 8 and the other was a really wide 9 but looked like a 2.5 year old by body size and mass. Just before I climbed down I saw the big boy walking the field edge. For sure looked like a shooter, but I didn’t get a great look at him. All in all it was a really neat night to be sitting in a tree! I’ll be out all week trying for a crack at the big guy.
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Muzzy Zero Effect for me. It’s simple in design and does not seem prone to mechanical malfunction, though it’s a bit tricky to tune. I used the QAD rest for one season and loved it… right up to the point that it cost me a late season P&Y buck! I had a gravy 18 yd shot and when I released I never saw my arrow. I found it laying on the ground sideways about 15 yds from where I was sitting. Turned out that the spring on the rest had frozen and it was not dropping all the way down That was enough for me to move on to the Muzzy, though I’ve heard that they have since made improvements on the QAD rest.

Muzzy Zero Effect for me. It’s simple in design and does not seem prone to mechanical malfunction, though it’s a bit tricky to tune. I used the QAD rest for one season and loved it… right up to the point that it cost me a late season P&Y buck! I had a gravy 18 yd shot and when I released I never saw my arrow. I found it laying on the ground sideways about 15 yds from where I was sitting. Turned out that the spring on the rest had frozen and it was not dropping all the way down That was enough for me to move on to the Muzzy, though I’ve heard that they have since made improvements on the QAD rest.

Extreme with a Purple Haze light. The pins are much more sturdy than my old Trophy Ridge and the light system is unmatched.

Extreme with a Purple Haze light. The pins are much more sturdy than my old Trophy Ridge and the light system is unmatched.

Any merit to the argument that fluoro does not hold up well in cold water?

Hey Cade,
glad to hear you’re feeling better! Hopefully we can hook up during the soft water season!!
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So what is the definition of a good knot for flouro Moss? I have been using a Palomar and have been pretty happy with it, but if there is a better flouro knot out there I’m open to suggestions. Also, anyone out there using Sun flouro? I’ve heard good things about it but have not yet tried it.
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MossBoss- yes, all of them.
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You are correct James. One of my fishing buddies works for the DNR and was one of the folks doing the tail clipping and has also been out gathering up dead bass. The fish that they are collecting were released into the Black river, purposefully upstream from the Copeland Harbor to facilitate picking them up when they died. These are NOT the fish from the holding pens. This argues that there is in fact a significant post release mortality rate even for fish returned to their natural environment, a fact which previous studies elsewhere have demonstrated. Whether this is secondary to the heat, LMB virus, or other factors is a matter of debate, and most likely is multi-factorial. The fact remains that of the roughly 3000 fish weighed during the tournament, about 600 of these have been found belly up. I suspect that this would extrapolate to anywhere between 30-40% mortality accounting for dead fish that are not found, possibly even much higher. That’s a big number, and I think should compell us to take a closer look at how and when these tournaments are held. Conversely, the argument could be and has been made that one or two thousand dead fish in a fishery such as the Miss has no significant impact on overall population.
Sorry, this is getting a bit long, but here is another issue. According to my DNR friend, many of the fish weighed on the last two days of the tournament had clipped fins- “retreads”, and it’s no secret that there was a disproportionate number of tournament boats up the Black on the last two days compared to the first two. As a tournament angler myself I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, catching a fish is catching a fish, and it’s not like they were out there scooping up dead ones to weigh in (i hope). On the other hand, it seems a bit ethically challenged to purposefully fish in an area that has just been loaded with essentially “pre-culled” fish. Your thoughts…

It’s even worse in the backwaters!! I had a PILE of LM going in a little bay that had temps in the low 60s on Tuesday. Yesterday we went back to those fish for the MSBC tourney and the temp was 48!!! I think it got so cold because the water is relatively clear. Needless to say, they were gone. Fortunately, even despite a blown lower unit 5 minutes into the day and the honey hole with no fish, we were able to scramble and put together a good enough limit to finish just out of the money
A big thanks to Randy and Dick for both the loaner boat and delivering it to us!!!!
Steve

Never saw you- I must be fishing the wrong places beacuse I only had 39+ fish yesterday
Wish I was out there today- same nice weather minus the glae force winds!
Steve

The channel on 8 was GNARLY yesterday with the SE wind. Even still, had the first really good day of fishing for the year- half and half SM and LM and all from backwater wood and rock. Black/ blue beaver and black/ blue chatterbaits ruled the day. BC- what kind of boat do you have? I didn’t see anyone I recognized yesterday.
Steve

For the sheer joy of the bite and the hookset I would say pitching cut banks with the Beav or a jig! You just can’t beat seeing the fish flash right when the bait hits the water and then feeling that big thump. My favorite for catching numbers is definitely a Brovarney swim jig- accounted for a good 75% of my fish the past few years.
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Black grape Producto 6 inch worms. I was introduced to these up on Gull Lake when I was a kid and they were my go to bait for many years. I came across a pack of them when we moved last year and started using them again… fish catching machines!!!
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My favorite duck recipe for the grill is really simple:

-Mix 4 parts Soy Sauce and 1 part cooking oil in a large bowl
-Take a bunch of breast fillets and poke holes in them with a fork (try to get as much of the fascia or silver skin off as you can)
-Drop the fillets in the Soy/ oil mixture and marinate for about 30 minutes
-Grill the fillets over HIGH heat- about 4 minutes per side for mallards, less for smaller ducks

The Soy Sauce gives them a bit of a salty flavor but does not overpower the meat. Done properly thay end up tasting about like a medium rare tenderloin

My favorite duck recipe for the grill is really simple:

-Mix 4 parts Soy Sauce and 1 part cooking oil in a large bowl
-Take a bunch of breast fillets and poke holes in them with a fork (try to get as much of the fascia or silver skin off as you can)
-Drop the fillets in the Soy/ oil mixture and marinate for about 30 minutes
-Grill the fillets over HIGH heat- about 4 minutes per side for mallards, less for smaller ducks

The Soy Sauce gives them a bit of a salty flavor but does not overpower the meat. Done properly thay end up tasting about like a medium rare tenderloin

They do look beaver-esque, but I think these, and all the other imitators, lack the primary feature that makes the beave the fish catching machine that it is. If you look closely at the Sweet Beaver you can see that the ridges on the body are aligned such that they push water on the retrieve and I suspect create a little turbulent flow. I think this, in addition to the nearly perfect crawdad type profile, is what really draws the bites. I’ve fished most of the imitators (Culprit, Zoom, Yum, etc.), and while they definitely catch fish when they’re biting, the Beave outshines them all when the bite is tough… just ask the guys fishing 10 feet in front of me during the first two days of the Everstart
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JHall,
I can definitely sympathize with you. I had a similar experience with Jones-In on Saturday of the LaX Everstart. Some days are just like that. It makes it especially hard when you expect to catch fish and think you should be catching them!! I guess you just try to learn from the day, try to remember all the days YOU the fish while the other guy in the boat struggled, and move on
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Agreed D-Nort I love Power Pro for slop and for reeaallly long casts with a swim jig. I do however think heavy mono, or in my case co-polymer P-line, is the way to go for flippin the thick stuff. You get much more abrasion resistance and even more importantly the line slides over and around wood way better. I also agree with the no leader theory- one knot is better than two.
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P.S. Good job to those of you who finished well in the Wabasha BFL. That was a tough day!! My boater, Jim Caulum from Westby, was a great guy and fun to fish with, but man the bite was tough. He boated his last small keeper at about 12:30 PM and I had a few shorts but nothing in the livewell (slop fishing is NOT my strong suit). I was pretty fired up at this point though because he said he would take me anywhere I wanted to go. I had a spot that earlier in the week was LOADED with big smallies (17-20″) and generally doesn’t get much pressure because it is tough to get to. We headed over there and right away found fish busting right in the current break. Unfortunately these turned out to be LM and small ones at that!! The big smallies had totally disappeared. I caught a number of short smallies and LM on a c-rig and that was it… almost. Jim did end up with one really nice LM (3.5) that helped him out quite a bit and hopefully sealed the deal for a top 40 finish for him All in all it was a pretty lousy day of fishing for me but the company and the nice weather made it bearable

Thanks Slop. All in all it was a great tournament and learning experience for me! The last day was kind of a scramble as my pro (Randy Wieczorek) had pretty much exhausted the supply of slop fish he had been catching all tournament. We ended up fishing wood much of the day and he ended up with a small limit at 8lbs and I had 3 fish for 6 lbs. I was lucky to even have that as Randy is pretty darn good at hitting every little piece of cover. My fish came from waaaay back in the wood and their trips to the boat involved alot of flying over limbs and such. Most of my fish yesterday, including about 12 13.5 inchers came on a Sweet Beaver.
I also had a chance to meet Dan Brovarney yesterday and he seems like a great guy! When I told him about all the jigs I gave away to my pros on the first two days he gave me a bunch Thanks again Dan and thanks to everyone else at the weigh-in!! Special thanks to all my pros, especially Jones-In, for a great tournament!! Hopefully someday I’ll be able to fish like that!
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Jim’s jig is right!! I tried to get my plug in for Brovarney jigs as well but I didn’t get a chance- tomorrow I’ll do it for sure. My old standard Lite Brite 1/4 oz Brovarney jig accounted for every keeper I had on Thursday and one keeper on Friday in the only stretch of grass within trolling motor range of the take off (long story ) Both days I had limits before my boaters did and I actually ended up giving a bunch of my jigs to each of them!! Today however was an entirely different story! I stood 12 feet behind a man throwing a different Brovarney jig and watched him cull an entire limit before I even had a keeper That man can flat out FISH!!! I’m still feeling just a little nauseated that I was in the presence of that many big fish and I couldn’t put something together. I guess it just wasn’t my day. Jim was truly a pleasure to fish with though! He was great company and also gave me every opportunity to catch fish- I just couldn’t do it! Hopefully tomorrow will be a little better for me. I’ll let you guys know how it turns out.

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P.S That Blazer is REEEAAAALLY fun to ride in

No, but she showed her bass thumb to her mom! Thanks for all the nice responses guys. We’ve been reading them together and she’s really getting a kick out of being a “celebrity”.
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Oops, thought I could post pics this way but it looks like it didn’t work. I’ll e-mail them to Moss Boss again and see if he can help me out.
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Find any deep bank with over hanging cover (willows, buck brush, etc.) and let the fun begin!
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