So, what do you think?  Kinda sharp, eh?  Well, Skinny Moose has a new owner.  Which means I have a new overlord boss, so to speak.  Part of the new transition has been a complete overhaul of the actual software, so it’s taking me a bit of time to get used to everything.  It’s also been happening over the past several days, thus the lack of action around here.  Now we are told to post away, but…

I’m getting on a plane in the morning for the Pacific Northwest.  I’ll try to squeeze in something while I’m there… We’ll see…  Until then, take a look around.  Check out the other SM blogs, they all got cleaned up too…

Ducks Unlimited sent me a little piece today talking about the 2011 duck numbers. The heart of the matter is right here:

A quick glance will tell you that most everything is up with blue wings being the most dramatic. Also note that the “ponds” section gives a good indication of why there are so many ducks… There’s a whole lot of water this year!

The whole thing can be read here.

The more things change, right?

This year makes something around 19 consecutive early June trips to Harrop Lake in northeast Manitoba. It also was the fourth or so ownership change. A couple of readers were nice enough to email me about their trip in late July last summer and warn me that things were not looking good for the old owner. Several weeks later we were told that Harrop had changed hands… again…

But the fishing was as good as any year I can remember, at least with respect to large walleye. In one day I caught or netted four walleye that would be among the 20 biggest we’ve ever caught:

This one was big fish for the week and earned me a few bucks.

One of the highlights was that the walleye were in a more aggressive feeding pattern that we sometimes find. On day two I caught maybe a dozen walleye that struck close enough (and shallow enough) to the boat that I could see them. 3 of the 4 big ones came on jerk baits, which is a whole lot more fun than jigging. Every year the pattern is slight different, but this year jerk baits worked better than I can remember. The wife and I caught about 75 walleye a day, of which I probably caught 30 or more casting.

The Wife and I didn’t come close on any big pike though. The first and last day it seemed like everyone had a fish around 40″ and we didn’t even raise anything approaching 30″. In terms of numbers of big northern caught, this might also be one of the best years I can remember, I just wasn’t a part of it…

Big northern for the week was this 46″ fish:

My records only go back 8 years but I suspect this fish was one of the 2 biggest we’ve ever caught.

So in short, it was a great trip. The new owners are doing some things great, and some things have changed. Perhaps by this time next year I’ll have a better take, but right now I like the general direction…

I get a surprising amount of google hits for “Harrop Lake”. I enjoy hearing about the experience others have had. If you’ve been, or are going, drop me a note at dukkillr@hotmail.com

Last year I told you about growing up a duck hunter in a bird hunting family. I mentioned that as a teen my Grandfather exposed me to deer hunting and, indirectly, to big game hunting. I shot a few decent Ozarks bucks during college and brought some of what I had learned home with me when I returned to Kansas. The Old Man started chasing deer with me during the rifle season, and then during the bow season. That’s been more than a decade now, but one thing has remained constant through out… I kill better deer!

It’s really not a matter of bragging, in fact I think it’s mostly luck, but coming into the 2010 season he had one buck on the wall that was even in the same class as several of my better ones. Generally speaking he was short on patience and long on effort. That produced a lot of opportunities at 110-130 bucks which produced a lot of filled tags.

But coming into the 2010 season he was claiming it would be different. I was skeptical. Then one day I was driving to the cabin at dusk when I got a call. He was obviously excited about a buck he’d just shot but he needed help getting it loaded. My daughter and I changed course and met him at the scene:

With good mass, good length, and double split brows, he gross in the low 140′s.

So The Old Man had punched his Missouri archery tag, and now it was on to Kansas. A few days later I was chasing Missouri deer when I got a call, again. He didn’t tell me what he had, just that he would meet me at my house mid-day:

Decent mass, good length, and great width, this one also grossed in the low 140s.

So he’d gone 60 some years without killing a no-doubt P&Y buck, and now he’d killed 2 in a week! Both DIY, fair chase, with good clean kills and simple tracking jobs. Just like in the books. And while that suddenly left him with a shortage of whitetail tags, he wasn’t complaining.

Once again, congrats, happy Father’s Day, and thanks.

I ran into a couple of bears on my recent Manitoba fishing trip. This guy let us get to 40 yards or so with only a little drama…

To give you some idea of how close I was, this is a picture from my cell phone. The wife and I have seen him around occasionally since last fall. Based on his size I would guess he’s just a really dark grey squirrel but I’m certainly no expert. We seem to have both grey and red in about equal numbers. Anyway, I thought it was interesting.

If you’ve been reading for a little while you may remember the piece I did on doing your own European style deer mounts. The extremely short version:
1) Clean extra tissue off the head, INCLUDING THE TONGUE, LOWER JAW, AND EYES
2) Put them in water
3) Dump the water when it stinks
4) Depending on the temperature of the water figure on 4-10 weeks

Well, doing elk is the exact same except for two small adjustments:
1) Use a bigger tub
2) After a week or so remember to pull the ivories

They should look like these two from the 2010 season:

For a more detailed breakdown of why I like the cold water method and how to do the other methods, click here.

I’ve been doing some fishing locally:

I’ve been taking my daughter along:

And I’ve even been taking my pregnant wife along (to keep my daughter in the boat):

But now the wife and I are headed to Manitoba on our yearly trip to Harrop Lake. I’ve got a few things that will publish while I’m gone, and I’ll have some pictures when I get back.

Thanks for the kind words on the bear video. My setup was a simple little Sony video camera and a slightly modified Gorillapod:

The modification was just a little bungee cord that could really add stability:

Bears really lend themselves to video. Generally when they come in you’ve got minutes, if not hours, before they leave. They also can’t see especially well so a little movement won’t bother them. For me the cameras help pass the time, and they also make for good conversation at dinner:

This was our second hunt with Garrett Brothers Outfitters and I couldn’t recommend them enough. If you’re thinking about a hunt with them feel free to drop me an email at dukkillr@hotmail.com and I’d be happy to expand on my thoughts.

Check back occasionally. I hope to get my hands on a few more of the kill videos. I promise I’ll post them as soon as I can.