Comments for AMOutDoors

Comment on Deer Season Slowing Coming to an End by CEO

CEO — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:33:13 +0000

Well another season has offically come and gone. The rifle season is still open for the Southern two tiers of counties but its not something that we participate in. Looking back now it was definately a tough season. I’m very thankful that the buck I harvested decided to make an apearance when he did and I am very thankful that I spent the range time that I did this year to make that shot even a possibility! With that deer it definately puts a positive spin on the year for me. He’ll end up on the Wall with my new Longest Shot Trophy and it will be admired for years to come. Dad had a great late season as well. He was able to harvest a doe in the year 2012 and that makes 50 consecutive years of harvesting at least one deer! Those are some pretty big shoes to fill for me and I doubt I will ever be able to reach that milestone, however, I am at 17 years consecutive myself so I’m trying! hahaha. With all the hunting done I have some projects around the house to get done and then it will be time to start the video. I think we’ll have a pretty decent video. I have updated the program and with my new computer and with that editing has been a breeze. But before I can start I have to get all of dad’s video transfered to my machine which I am sure will be this coming weekend while dad and I work on my projects and also work on redoing Dad’s basement and making it a Man Cave again! So I’m sure it will be awhile before too many updates hit the website but maybe we’ll sneak out for some ice fishing soon.

Comment on Hickory Grove Fishing Tourney by CEO

CEO — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:24:25 +0000

A Lot happened this weekend! The tournament, tree stand work, trailcameras, and a Successful youth hunt with Garrett Levenhagen. So, I’m a little behind on my posts. So here’s the results of the Tournament. Biggest Bass – 18.5″, Biggest Bluegill – 9″, Biggest Crappie – 11″ and no Catfish were caught. As for team AMOutDoors… we struggled mightly for the first 2 hrs before we were able to thru the skunk out of the boat. Once we got the 1st 13″ bass landed things picked up a little for me. It wasn’t though till dad talked me into throwing the frog that success happened. Thats right the frog. Water temps were solid at 62.1-62.9 degrees and yet I landed 7 bass on the frog. Biggest was 18″. Yep 18″ a mere 1/2″ short of tying the winning fish. I did land 2 other legal keeps and the rest were short. The fish even with the cold water were right up on the shore like they’ve been all summer. When I skipped the frog up to the shore under some kind of cover that’s when I’d get bit. So, all in all the tourney was great. There ended up being 16 boats and our new Conservation Officer seemed pretty excited to continue the fishing tournament scene! Hope there are more as I do love fishing Hickory

Comment on Last WNF – 9-21-11 by CEO

CEO — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:18:26 +0000

Well last night fishing was fairly tough. Water temp was around 65 degrees everywhere we went. The crankbait did get bit a couple times early but both fish I hooked with it threw the bait. I did throw a frog for a bit and had one blow up but no hook set. About 1/2 way thru the night I switched over to a suspending white jerkbait and was immediately rewarded with a fish! We were in the bay along the tubes and I ended up catching all my fish there. Should have ended the night in double digits (nothing really over 10-12″) but they were eating that jerkbait. Brad ended up catching 3 on his mini crankbait and Bert landed the biggest of the night at 15.5″ on his dark colored hula grub. So now bring on the Tourney. Sounds like there are very few teams this weekend. My bet is someone who catches an 18″ bass will win the 100 bucks and a 8″ bluegill will probably win that. The crappie i’m not too sure on but woudln’t be surprised if an 11″ is caught. I will post our Tourney plan tomorrow at some point and we’ll see how my predictions go. But for a rough start to the night I’d say we ended up pretty well.

Comment on WNF – 8-10-11 by CEO

CEO — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:20:24 +0000

Hickory ended up being the location for the night. Drop shotting definately was good but only for really short bass. Brad was able to scrounge up one bass at 14″, Bert swung for the fences and struck out, and I did the best if you can call it that with 7 bass but all were pretty short and all came on the drop shot. The TriCounty Club really didn’t play into much affect for the night however, we did get immediately cut off by two yahoos fishing the tournament and I thought that was super rude. I have sent a message to the club leader with the name and boat of this team.

Comment on Upper Pine Challenge 7-23-11 by CEO

CEO — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:19:47 +0000

Well, let me lay the ground work first on water and weather conditions. Friday night a heck of a storm blew thru the Eldora area. The water was super muddy and was higher than normal. The weather was completely different. The wind was blowing 10-15 and blowing right down the middle of the lake so boat control was very hard. There were storms to the south of the lake but we were in the sun the whole time fishing. Okay now that I’ve given the excuses here are the results. We did pretty darn good! We did catch a 4lber (Bert on a Yum Gonzo Grub) and we ended the 4hr fishing trip with a total of 7 legal keepers landed. Bert and I pretty much stuck to two lures the whole trip. Bert used a Texas rigged Gonzo Grub and I used my Frog. The shore was littered with blow downs and over hanging branches and looked like a froggers dream however we found the fish were pushed out away from the shore 10-20ft out. Whether that was from the weather or just the lack of fishing pressure that has pushed other lakes bass into those kind of areas I don’t 100% know. But we did catch just about an equal amount on each of the lures. I will say that Bert ended up with 5 of the 7 keepers. So the bigger fish definitely liked that Gonzo Grub. The only other thing noteworthy is the blowup/miss on my frog. This fish was big! The miss was a completely different sound than other blow ups and Bert and I caught a glimpse at the tail and it was over 5lbs. So all in all my optimism was right on the money and I think this could be my new favorite lake due to what appears to be low fishing pressure and a good population of bass. We are already in the planning stage of another trip up. I wonder when and if it will be as good because I can’t remember a time or a lake that produced over two daily limits of bass!

Comment on WNF – 7-6-11 by CEO

CEO — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:37:11 +0000

Well, Ada Hayden proved to be a good choice for the night. Between the three of us we landed close to 2 doz bass with the majority of those bass in the 15″-16.5″ range. My prediction of the Jerk-a-licious being the go to bait was not the ticket. Brad and his new MoneyCraw was definately the ticket. The bass seemed to be deep on the outside edge of the weeds. I personally picked up the trend early but did not switch due to a new double or nothing bet. Oh well Brad won fair and square and it was easy come, easy go with that soda I won back on May 31st.
Note: there are a few really weedy spots that seem to hold a lot of a bass and I was able to pick a few of the active ones off with a frog but I think if you took your time and picked those weed beds apart you could pull lots of quality fish out.

Comment on WNF – 6-22-11 by CEO

CEO — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 03:42:15 +0000

Well, the night went pretty good. I ended up with 7 fish total, 3 being legal keepers. I wasn’t on the lake 5 mins before I had landed two with one being 17.5″. After that I had to work to keep the boat in position with the wind. The fish, atleast the active ones, were tucked in those over hanging bushes. A frog was all I thru tonight and the casts had to be well placed and really tucked all the way to shore. The were no other boats on the lake and I only saw one guy fishing from shore but I never saw him catch anything. So all in all was a nice night minus the rain and wind.

Comment on WNF 6-8-11 by CEO

CEO — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 02:08:48 +0000

Things had definately changed tonight. Fishing was pretty good for fighting the 20+ winds that started up 40 mins into our nite. Fish were really hitting the jerkbait and the biggest bass tonight was only 15″. I did catch a channel cat on the jerkbait as well and dad started getting into the action late and unfortunately for him the front battery died. Mostlikely from having to run the trolling motor on 8-10 all nite with the high wind, so before we became stranded we called it a nite early. Meggs joined us early and did pretty good with a scrounger. Maybe she’ll join us more before she leave Iowa for who knows how long.

Comment on Anniversary Red Rock 6-7 by CEO

CEO — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 12:47:52 +0000

Well our anniversary has come and gone. What a great day though. We hit Jaarsma’s bakery where we stocked up on Dutch letters, cherry doughnut holes, and butterfly cookies. After that we did a drive thru on the campus to remember old times and then off to the lake. There were a few other boaters out but we had the 6 lane ramp to our selves. The NEW Merc ran like a dream and started first push of the button. We got plenty of sun in the 90+ degree heat and fished the cliffs for White Bass. Unfortunately, the lake is atleast 15 feet above pool and so fish were hard to find. After the lake we hit the Jersey Freeze in Monroe and had a wonderful dinner and spent the rest of the evening with my girls.

Comment on Wed Nite Fishing 6-1-11 by CEO

CEO — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:08:54 +0000

Only Bert and I fished Ada Hayden last night. Brad had to climb a turbine after hours. We got a later start and started fishing the small North pond first. We had very, very little luck there so we ended up shooting over to the bigger south pond. Of course every Kayak on that lake is the rudest person to ever be on the water and everyone fisherman that was on the lake was fighting over the 200 yard stretch of shoreline along the North side of that south pond. But we buzzed around all that and had a blast. About every 20 yards dad would atleast have a bass in not multiple. I had a slower night but I was using a larger jerk bait compared to his twister tail. We ended the night very well as the later it got the better the bite got. Dad caught the first Wiper that we are ever aware of and it put up a heck of a fight. Total we ended up with over 50 fish, 5 of which were bass over 16″, 1 green sunfish, 2 crappie, 1 bluegill and the 1 wiper. Great night wish Brad didn’t have to work cause it was a great night of fishing.