Dedicated Outdoorsmen

Just an Update

2010-06-22T02:27:00.000-07:00

Well,
It has been some time now since i have last been active. I have not had the time to get out on the water or venture out and about. 2010 will be a quiet year for me, as work has seemed to pick up considerably.
Alot of my hunting draws have been put on the back burner for the hunting season, I have 999'd almost all of my draws, except for my Mule Deer and White Tail. I am hoping to at least have some days in november to get out and aquire some jerky and sausage.

I will keep you all posted as time goes by!

-Tyler

Southern Alberta Northerns

2010-02-23T14:52:00.000-08:00

I have come to realize that local high pressured water can hold big fish, but that they are very hard to come by. So if you want to catch big fish on a daily basis and have opportunities at fish of a lifetime, you have to go to lakes that hold BIG fish.

The day started with a bang! We arrived on the ice at 7:10am and by 7:40 the first flag sprung to the sky. It was a nice Northern, who managed to take Brandons bait, and my bait. Thinking we had a double header we both began fighting the same fish. After 10mins of struggles, the monster beneath the ice got away.
It wasnt but 30mins later tha Brandons flag lept to the sky, This was another huge northern! After about 15mins of a fight, we had em half way out of the hole, when the line snapped, and our arms were soaked trying to bring him out of the hole. Brandon was left without a fish, and a sliced thumb!
Our flags were rising almost every 20 minutes and we were catching decent 4-6lb fish. At around noon it died down. Where did all the fish go!? For 2 and a half hours nothing happened.

At 2:30pm my flag rose and i made a mad dash across the ice and set the hook. This was another nice pike and i wasnt about to let him get away. After taking pictures we quickly took some measurement and a final weigh in. 22.8lbs, 43" in length and a 21.5" girth! Wow, what a fish.

It took no more than 30 seconds to get its witts about as he muscled his way back down the hole, free as can be.

Fishing was once again slow after the big catch, with only a few flags rising, and missed hook sets. The sun was coming down quickly and we started to pack up when Dads flag took a trip! His northern weghed in at 16.8lbs. Another very nice fish!

The day ended with alot of smiles and the descision to come back tomorrow.
Sunday was again, another great day on the ice, I managed to pull out 3 Northerns weighing in at 11.8, 11.12, and 11.15lbs... All which were released back beneath the ice. I cant stress how important it is to be delicate when handling these big fish. They are what makes fishing trophy lakes, and it is important to release them for others to enjoy.

I noticed in the 2 days of fishing that 8-15ft was the key depth, and to leave your bait about 2ft from the bottom. Every once in a while, or when you clean your holes, pick up your tip up and give it a shake or 2 and set it back down. This will bring attention to your bait and seemed to be successful.
We were usuing medium sized hearing with a treble through the body and a trailor hook through the tail.
Its also important to fish near some kind of structure. In our case, we were fishing near some standing fresh water cabbage. Pike seem to really like this vegitation as a bedding and ambushing territory.

Here are some pictures of our weekend catch and one 19.8lber caught in the same location in 2009.

2010 MH Wild Elk Federation Elk Calling Compitition

2010-02-02T10:29:00.000-08:00

Well, The MHFGA Sportsmans Day was once again, a great success! Each year more and more people are walking through the front doors of the Cypress Center here in Medicine Hat. Cody Robbins from Live 2 Hunt made an appearance along with many other local and urban vendors!

January 30th was a proud day for me as i managed to pull off a 3rd place win in the 2010 Wild Elk Federation Elk calling compition. It was a pretty cool experience as i had to have a tie breaking bugle off with a fellow Medicine Hat Fish and Game member. A special thanks for the judges who included Scott Johnson ( President of the MHFGA ) The President of the Wild Sheep Federation and Cody Robbins from Hunt 2 Live. This was a great experience and im looking forward to competing in March at the Edmonton Sport and Boat Show.

The Flint Energy Iron Buck compition was a nother great success with more combatants in its second year, and more vendors arrived than last years event. 2009 brought 750 people through the doors of the Cypress Center, and in 2010 more than 1,000 people attended. Special Thanks to everyone for participating!

The Sportsman Day event isnt just a place to go to hang out with your buddies and tell others of your Outdoor advetures, although its is a great time to do so. It is now becoming a place you can go to compete in events you love, interact with other outdoorsmen and most of all, support all the organizations that make your passion a possibility!
With organizations coming from all over than place to bring awareness to you.
Thanks to everyone for coming and i look forward to seing you at next years event!

To become a MHFG Member, please contact the Membership Chairman Stuart Heather @ stuart_heather@hotmail.com or (403) 528-0088

Also to view the Newspaper write up in the Elk Calling Compition please click the link below!
http://www.medicinehatnews.com/story/call-wild

Advancing Your Gear

2010-01-17T20:33:00.000-08:00

I am pretty confident in saying that 80% of Ice-fishermen enjoy Tip-up action!

I am definately in that percentage group, and im going to talk about products you can find at your local Canadian Tire or Wal-Mart.

Canadian Tire and Wal-mart... We all know that they dont have the greatest selection of ice-fishing gear out on the market. But rest assured that you can advance your low end gear.

I have spend most of my tip-up fishing using custom made tip-ups that my father created years ago. Over time, we made them better adding free spooling reels and a flaging system. But it came to my attention that our system still was not what i wanted it to be. I was loosing alot of fish, and alot of bait.

My soution to this issue came to me when walking through the fishing section at Wal-Mart here in Medicine Hat. South Bend has a windless tip-up with a flag system on it which caught my attention. I purchased 2 of these tip-ups and thought i would give it a whirl. I added a few extra things, such as South Bend Bells that i attatched to the flag, and also HT Polar Tip-Up line rated to 50lbs and red in color.

Thats it... That is all the modification i needed to do to these tip-ups.

Their are a couple of good advantages to this set up. First; You can leave it in your hole all day without the spool freezing over. Its a free spooling system, so when a fish grabs your bait, the flag releases. This is where the bells come in handy, you dont have to be staring your tip-up down all day, when you hear the bell, you know you've got a bite! Second; The red line is great because red is the first color that loses transperancy in the water, which means the fish will have a hard time being distracted from your line attatched to the bait.

Again, that is it. A simple system for tip-up fishing.

To finish it all off i picked up the HT Rod locker system bag to keep my tip-ups tangle free and easy to carry and store.

Since i have switched to this system of tip-up fishing, my results have greatly improved, and i can assure you that yours will too!

Sonar Love

2010-01-05T15:53:00.000-08:00

For alot of Ice-Fishermen out there, getting out on the ice is just something done to kill time, and get some fresh air. If you are like me however, it is much more than that! Dont get me wrong, a bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work!

If you want to become a more successfull Ice-Fishermen i suggest you start looking at purchasing some kind of Sonar Unit (Flasher). There are many companies such as; Vexilar, Hummingbird, Marccum, Lowrance, and Showdown. All of them are alike in many ways and each have its advantages, and disadvantages.
I chose to purchace the Vexilar FL-8.

Let me tell you this, since the day i aquired it, my fishing success, intesity, and enjoyment has tripled!

With a flasher at my hole, i can see exactly what depth i am fishing, the density of the bottom, I can distinguish baitfish, or a walleye belly to the bottom.

It doesnt stop there folks! by using a flasher, you can also learn to understand fish and their behaviors. You can see if the fish in the area are interested in your bait, or could care less if it was a medium rare t-bone fresh off the grill!

let me warn you though... Once you use one, fishing isnt the same without it! I dont think i could step onto the ice without my Vexilar. And the same goes with my brother and his Showdown.

If you want to step your snag rate up on the ice, my suggestion to you is... Pick up any one of these great investments! I promise you will enjoy ice-fishing alot more!

WMU 116-09

2010-01-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

Well, The 2009 Hunting season has come to a close with its ups and downs. Some hunting plans for Moose were cancled, and the bow season was also a no go this season.

Needless to say, I had 10 days booked for hunting from Nov 13th through to the 22nd. Which in Southern Alberta means i have 5 days of solid, written in stone hunting, and 5 tags to fill. Antlered Whitetail, Antlered Muledeer and 3 doe tags )

This would be a great task, but it was one I was looking forward to completing.

And with rifle optic complications it was definately a task!

Good ol' Friday the 13th didnt hold back on its reputation of evil. Late in the evening i noticed while tring to focus my cross hairs on a Mulie Doe at 200yrds, that my scope was blurred, and out of focus. I soon realized that my scope had seen its last days and was no longer ethicly usable. So this forced me to head head to Wal-Mart ASAP and purchase a new scope. Needless to say, that day was spent at the rifle range to sight in my new scope.

On the 14th, I must admitt. I was flustered, and not confident. I missed 3 differant Mulie Does and fired 9 times. I was sure that my hunting season was not meant to be.

My third day in the prairie was on the 18th.

I decided to put as stock on once again another Mulie Doe, this time... I put the hammer down. Its amazing what a good shot placement and perfect conditions can do to your confidence!

The rest of that day was spend glassing the hills for a good size Mulie Buck. It was proving once again to be a task at hand. Late in the evening with approx 30mins of legal shooting time my opportunity came at a Nice Whitetail Buck. I only had time to get one shell in my gun, or he would have been running full tilt, tail up and gone. I put my cross hairs on em, and let er fly. Today, was my day! My dad and I had no idea he was this calibar of deer until we walked up to him, 120yrds away.

The most shocking thing about him, was that he was very far away from typical Whitetail territory, needless to say i am happy and blessed with the kill!

Another day would pass, and opportunities were there to take a decent deer, but not what i was looking for. On the 20th though, i knew i only had one more full day to fill 3 tags, and was willing to take the first decent animals that presented a good shot... And there it was, 100yrds away, on a side hill was a heavy antlered 4x4, with 3 does. I quickly got set up with my bi-pod fully extended, and waiting for the animal to turn broadside. My first shot, appeared to be a miss, although it sounded like a definate hit. He moved 15yrds and stopped. I shot again, dropping him at the top of the hill in his tracks. Once again, i was impressed to see the deer was bigger than i had thought him to be.

I did not fill my other 2 doe tags, as the meat was not needed. Though i did had many opportunities on the last day. During my hunts, my brother tagged 2 Mulie Does, and my dad also tagged 2 Mulie Does, 1 Whitetail Doe, and a very nice 3x3 Mulie.

The season was set to be a failure in the books, and ended up being quite a success.

I am blessed to have taken the animals i did, and will remember the 2009 Hunting season for a long time to come!