Hunting with Mike

Well I’m going to try this post again.  My daughter Meghan’s computer does not respond the same as mine, and the first blog I did vanished into cyberspace!

My wife and I left from Ann Arbor yesterday around 1:00 p.m. and arrived at Union Station about 5:30 p.m.  We were about a half hour behind schedule, but it was a nice train ride over here.  We saw a couple great looking Tom turkeys, deer, muskrats, sandhill cranes, ducks, geese, and pheasants.  That is quite an array of the wild bounty Michigan has to offer.  It was actually cheaper for us to take the train than drive, and of course a lot less hectic.

Once we arrived in Chicago, we had to wait a few minutes for Meghan, who was tied up in traffic!  She lives an hour away from downtown, but getting to her place took almost two hours.  Highway 94 is under construction, and only two lanes are open, which makes 30 mph seem like your speeding.  About an hour after arriving, we received a phone call from the local fire department advising us to” take cover!”  A tornado had been spotted in our area, as bad weather rolled through all evening.  Meghan and Mark don’t have a basement, and trying to get my wife, daughter, grandson, and my “chubby” little self into a small hall closet, just wasn’t going to work.  If needed, I was going under the stairs, with the furnace and water heater for company.  

Mark is over in Baldwin Michigan riding dirt bikes with some of his college friends, or maybe they are “mudding!”  Mark will be on his way home today, and has to watch out for the “nasty” weather moving across Michigan.  

I haven’t figured out how to post any pictures yet, but I’m working on it.  I’ll tell ya this “Thank God I’m a country boy!”  You couldn’t pay me enough money to live in the big city, and put up with this traffic on a daily basis.  Just give me a small close knit community, or a little cabin on the back 40, and I’m a happy camper.  There’s enough glitz and glamour in Gods creation to last me a lifetime, and I never get tired of the beauty and complexity of the natural world.

Mike 

These pictures tell the story, so I shouldn’t have to be very long winded on this blog. Darryl called late last night, and wanted to try for another mess of fish, and did we get into them! Besides the four largemouths, we caught crappie, rock bass, sunfish, bluegill, and I even caught a huge sheephead. (threw it back) Not only those fish, but Darryl caught this “master angler” catfish on a purple rubber worm. We also released him, after snapping a couple pictures. Darryl had one bass on that probably was in the five pound range, but he did a acrobatic jump, and spit the worm back in Darryl’s face!

My brother Randy showed up with his grandson Jackson, and we let him “reel” in a couple, including a big bass! He liked playing with the fish in the bucket, until one splashed his face pretty good. He ran to grandpa, but was right back at it in about 10 seconds.

When I got home my two granddaughters were waiting for me, and they wanted to “help” me clean fish! Ava and Addison never saw fished cleaned before, and they were quite inquisitive about the whole process. They helped with buckets and garden hoses, but wanted nothing to do with “touching” the fish! It took me about 3 hours from start to finish, and my poor old back is killing me right now, but do I have a nice mess of fish in my freezer. Looks like I’ll have to have a fish-fry once we get back from Chicago.

Well what do you know? Little brother Darryl asked me to go fishing, and I wasn’t babysitting, or working on “honey-do’s,” so I said yes. We kept these three nice bass, and ten sunfish/bluegills for my freezer. A purple rubber worm seemed to be the favorite today, but we actually caught fish on a number of different lures. A small spider looking fly was the “hot” panfish setup!

We didn’t have any live bait, but will next time we try it. We could of cleaned up on “big” bluegill, and crappie, if we would of had minnows and worms. We did catch one sheephead and some smaller fish that we threw back.

The only “fly” in the ointment was the “flies” biting my ankles. I just could not keep those hungry, bloodsucking, insects off me, even though I had spray on! My legs were literally bleeding, and whenever I was fast enough to “smash” one I felt a sense of revenge.

Just got a call from little brother, and were going again in the morning, so I will stop by the tackle shop for the necessary supplies, including a different insect spray! Blog at ya later.

Mike

This is a picture of my friend, for many years, Paul Hopkins.  I believe this was the only time we ever fished together, but it was a memorable trip indeed.  Our mutual friend, and fishing mentor, professor Gary Wilson, took about five of us rookies over to the St. Joseph pier on Lake Michigan.

Our idea was to fish all night long, but we didn’t plan on the weather being so cold, windy, and rainy.  The parking lot to the pier was locked sometime during the evening, so we were spending the night, like it or not!  Most people with any sense had long vacated the pier, as the waves were getting rather large.  We had a few fish on, but we were having a hard time landing anything.  Gary had made it sound like we were going to limit out in just a few hours, but everyone knows that is quite often not the case.

Anyway somewhere around midnight Paul hooks this “dandy Coho”(at least I think thats what it was)in the above picture.  He hooked it on the north side of the pier, and fought it all the way around the lighthouse to the south side of the pier.  It seemed to take forever, and Paul was about as excited as Paul gets!   More than once we thought he lost the fish, but with the help of his buddies we finally landed it, just as his line broke.  Come to find out, the line on his reel was rotted, which makes landing a 20-some pound fish even more remarkable.

Paul is the “praise” leader of a small “home church” that meets on a semi regular basis, and he sure knows how to led you into pure worship.  Paul is an engineer for Chrysler, and is married to one of the famous Jenkins redheads.  They have three daughters and a son, and I am so grateful that my wife and I can call them our friends.

I know Paul reads my blogs on a regular basis, so I hope he’s surprised when he sees his youthful “mug” staring back at him.  Your the best Paul!  30 some years later, and I still have never caught one that big!

Mike

Well here is “Mr. Wonderful” again.  Don’t this guy get tired of being “successful?”  Of course I should thank him, as he keeps me in material I can “post!”  Thats brother Darryl, as you probably already know.  Most readers have probably seen his face enough, by now, that they recognize him immediately.  In case your not familiar, he’s the turkey on the left!

Wouldn’t you know it, Darryl puts in for the third turkey hunting period, which is statewide (your choice of area) and puts this great bird down, here in Monroe.  Now my county is not know as a turkey “mecca”, and you’d be hard pressed to find more than a handful of hunters who would even consider Monroe as their “hot spot!”  Darryl did try up around Gaylord for a few days, but came home empty handed on that trip.  His son-in-law Scott had been seeing some birds, on his way into work, so he stopped and got Darryl permission to hunt.

Off Darryl goes the next morning, and by 7:00 a.m. he’s headed home.  He set up in a fence row, and called this “lonesome” Tom off his roost to within 25 yards of his position.  The bird went about 23 pounds, had an 11 inch beard, and almost 1 inch spurs.  What makes this bird even more special, is that it has a “red” beard!  I have seen a lot of turkey’s, but never one with a “red” beard.  In fact I never heard of one before!  Leave it to Darryl to come up with rare and unusual!

His wife Cathy also had a permit, but I haven’t heard how she ended up doing.  I know they were trying for another Monroe county bird Darryl had spotted on one of his jaunts.  Congratulations again little brother.

Mike