A small favor...

Head on over to the all new "365 Fish" forum!




It's a new forum dedicated to..  you guessed it FISHING!  Doesn't matter if you're a shark fisherman from portugal or a spring creek trout fisherman from the driftless of wisconsin, everyone is welcome!

It's off to a good start and should be a great source on any species that swims!
The more people who join and share their knowledge the better.
Drop in a line and get hooked at 365 Fish!

#3 and it's another one for the wall!

I did it again! I lucked out and took another mature whitetail buck!

I had 3 buck tags (earn-a-buck) and i filled all three!

I decided to hunt only one sit this weekend, as last weekend I shot a very nice buck that "made" my season. I started to get all my gear on and realized i somehow lost my release for my bow, i looked around but never found it. I figured I could shoot "fingers" good enough from bowfishing that I felt comfortable to about 20 or 25 yards. I started the walk out to my stand at about 1:20pm. I was hunting a food plot and as i reached the field i notice two does were feeding. I sat down and waited for them to clear the field before climbing into my stand. After getting into my stand at about 2:30pm i caught movement to my right, in the brush on the edge of the food plot and a small spike appeared. He casually walked past and then it wasn't until about 3:50 that i saw the next deer. It was off in the woods to my left about 120 yards. I grunted and snort-wheezed to try to lure the deer closer. I could tell that it had antlers but it disappeared into thick sumacs before i got a good look. I was hoping he was going to come out to my left near two large trees at the far edge of the food plot, but after 15 minutes i figure he must have just continued on his way through the woods. Then i hear a small crunch of a leaf behind me to my left. I turn around to see a very nice buck walking right towards me. I grab my bow and get ready, he stops at a scrape about 15 yards from my stand and freshens it up a bit, but then it seemed like he caught wind of me. I was shaking like a leaf at this point and i knew that if he presented me with a shot I was going to take it. After about 5 minutes, that seemed like an hour, he started to walk off to my right and i drew back and let the arrow fly when he stopped at 21 yards. The arrow hit back very far, and I immediately regretted trying to shoot fingers. It looked to be a gut shot so I got down from the stand, checked the time, it was 4:06pm, and went to inspect my arrow. I couldn't find my arrow, but the blood trail looked better than expected, a decent amount and very bright red. I waited about 30 minutes, and started tracking with an arrow nocked in case he jumped up. I would take a step or two, stop, listen, scan for movement, repeat. After about 100 yards of tracking a deer took off from about 40 yards to my right, i was scared i had just jumped the wounded buck, I kept following the trail and it kept going straight, not towards the deer I just jumped. Another 40 yards of tracking and the blood seems to start to run out. I take a few more steps and then stop, listen, scan for movement and then I see him. He expired about 175 yards from where I shot him. The shot was even worse than i had thought, and I got incredibly lucky and must have cut an artery.
I learned a good lesson today, don't shoot without a release without practice. Even though I found him today I'll never try that again, and I already put an extra release in my glove box of my car.

He's 16" inside, the G2's are about 11" each, and G3's about 9"
I really like tall relatively narrow racks, and this buck fits that perfectly!

Tall 8 point

more pictures soon

1st Harbor fishing trip!

Today I woke up nice and early to head over to Kenosha to try my hand at harbor fishing.  The alarm went off at 4am and within 20 minutes i was on my way!  I was planning on meeting a few people over there, both of which have some experience in the harbors so I was eager to learn how to fish for the monster brown trout that are in the harbors right now.
It's a bit of a drive to Kenosha from madison, about 2hrs 20min, so I got there at about 6:45am.  I saw Damien and his father and pulled in near where they were fishing.  I open the door to get out and get my stuff ready and as I'm opening the door Damien hooks up!  Talk about perfect timing!  He ended up bringing in a nice fat brown trout!  Huge for my standards, but an average lake michigan fish.  We continue to fish, primarily using spawn sacs and within 45 minutes of getting there I hook my first Lake Michigan brown!  After a good fight Damien netted the fish, another "average" brown, which was my personal best brown trout, and first lake michigan brown trout!  After that we missed a few more hits, but not a whole lot of action for an hour or so.  I decided to try out a few different crank baits, but for some reason wasn't expecting any hits.  I kept casting though, and kept switching up my retrieves and all of a sudden it felt like i hit a stump!  Fish on!  I ended up catching my 2nd Lake Michigan brown, which happens to be my new personal best brown trout!  Several more misses on spawn sacs over the next few hours then Damien hooks up again and brings in another brown.  A little while after he caught his, I had a take close to shore on the spawn,  i set the hook only to miss the fish.  I quickly threw the bait right back in where I just missed the fish and I saw my spawn slowly sinking, then it disappears and in it's place is a nice trout!  I set the hook and ended up landing my 3rd harbor fish ever! another healthy brown!  I had to get back to madison and ended up leaving at about 1pm.  I had a ton of fun fishing the harbor and I know I'll definitely be back soon!  Thanks again Damien for showing me the ropes and hooking me up with some spawn sacs!

The first fish of the day! you can see the eggs pouring out of her.

My first harbor trout!

My 2nd harbor trout and new personal best

Damien's 2nd fish of the day

the 5th brown of the day! my 3rd Lake Michigan trout!

The Big Buck

So November 4th is my birthday (the big 18, I know I'm old...)  and it's also usually prime time whitetail deer rut!  I woke up bright and early on saturday to get in stand for an almost birthday hunt.  I sat for a good hour until i finally saw a deer.  A small spike with only one side of his rack, he ended up walking within 3 yards of my stand.  He walked off having no idea i was there!  In three years maybe he'll be big enough!  then at 8:00 am I caught movement about 80 yards to my right.  I turned and immediately saw that the deer had antlers and i started to get my hopes up thinking that maybe this is one of the big bucks we have picture of from our trail cameras.   As he came closer I didn't really recognize him, but I did see that he was probably a shooter!   As he came closer i figured that he was about 21" inside spread but not very tall, but being that wide I figure he would score pretty well and i knew i wanted to shoot him!

He came out of the brush at about 19 yards and walked on the way past my stand broadside and i took the shot at 18 yards.  I got a complete pass thru and had a very good shot!  He ran about 20 yards and i watched him drop.

After getting him back to the house I grabbed the measuring tape and the inside spread was 23 7/8" which is almost 3 inches bigger than I had thought!!!  After doing a rough score on him I got 151 1/2" and a typical score of 140!  Which makes him qualify for Pope & Young record books.
He is the 2nd Pope & Young I've shot and is my biggest buck so far!

Now for some trib fishing!  Hopefully I can keep the luck that I've been having and catch a few nice lake run trout!

1st and 2nd salmon trips

Well I finally made it over to the Lake michigan tributaries!  First trip was two weekends ago and my dad an I ended up meeting a few guys (Blake, Neal, and Paul)  over in Milwaukee.  The kings were in real thick we all caught fish.  Neal actually got a nice little steelhead too!  A little better report of the weekend can be found over on the Illinois Wisconsin blog.  I'm having trouble downloading pictures from the weekend, but Blake has a few.

This past weekend (10/16) I met up with Neal and Blake in Sheboygan on the Sheboygan River.  There wasn't quite as much of a crowd compared to milwaukee, but there was no shortage of fish!  The coho's were in and a few late run kings were in as well.  I ended up catching 3 fair hooked coho's, my first three on a fly rod!

My father and his first fair hooked king of the day!

A nice red coho!

My first coho on a fly!

Blake Hamilton and a nice sheboygan river king!

Check out this Forum!

Blake from over at the Illinois Wisconsin Fishing Blog actually started a forum!  So far it's just getting started, but it's already got some great information on anything fishing in wisconsin or illinois.

Check it out and sign up!  It's only going to get better!
http://www.illinoiswisconsinfishing.com/forum/index.php

The end

After a long, successful summer of trout fishing, I had to get out one last time before it closed. It was nice and sunny so I hopped in my car and headed out to Black Earth Creek, since it's so close to home. In the short drive out i experienced bluebird skies, complete downpours, a rainbow, and then a light mist for the rest of the day, with some rain showers mixed in. Keep in mind this was just a 15 minute drive, and i only fished for about an hour and a half! 

Fishing was slow, and i threw everything i had at them. Eventually i decided to put on a big, bass/northern streamer, about 4ish inches in length. I casted that around for quite a while and then rolled a nice fish, probably about 18 inches. I switched to a small black wooly bugger and casted to where the fish missed my streamer. I had about given up when i saw a rise. I casted towards where the fish rose, but was about 5 feet short. I started to strip in the bugger, and had a hard hit! I set the hook and a nice fish shot out of the water. After about a minute, and 4 more big jumps a nice brown came to hand. I thought it was a rainbow based on how it was fighting, but a fat 16 inch brown is nothing to complain about. 

A great way to end the season, now hopefully i can get out to the tribs pretty soon!