Winter Walleyes!!January 5, 2010    Posted by Kyle Wickenhauser. Posted In : Fishing WMO in NodakOctober 21, 2009
The middle of October only means one thing for me. North Dakota. Every year I head out to the waterfowl mecca of ND to chase ducks and geese, with mainly thoughts of greenheads committing into the decoy spread. It seems that every year I find myself in a different area in North Dakota. This year brought me to the area of Fargo. When people think of Fargo they usually think NDSU and a bigger city for the area. Well, that is what I also picture, but I also envision flocks of ducks and geese in the background. Why Fargo this year? Well that is where my good friend Ben Brettingen lives and goes to school. This summer we planned on getting together over Minnesota's MEA Break. No school Thursday or Friday means 2 extra days of hunting! Yes!!
Wednesday afternoon a friend and fellow coworker Travis Genz met up with me in Brainerd so we could travel out to Fargo together and save a little gas. We arrived Wednesday evening and got ourselves settled in and ready for the weekend. We discussed where we would be hunting the following morning with Josh and Ben and decided to get a good night sleep. Thursday morning we arose out of bed to about an inch of snow on the ground. Not bad at all we thought, until we got just outside of Fargo where the snow cover was much thicker. There was a good 6 inches of snow on the ground, and just as much slush on the road. What was supposed to be a one hour drive took a little (Ok, a lot) of extra time due to the road conditions. We finally arrived at the slough about 25 minutes after shooting time and we immediately started to break ice on the pond. We opened up a little hole and placed some GHG Pro-Grade Wigeon and some LS Mallards and waited for the ducks to come. Well... They never showed up. Ben had a test at 11:00, so we packed up early and did a little bit of scouting before Ben had to be back. While scouting we found an area that was filled with mallards and gadwalls. We decided that this is where we needed to be this afternoon. Around 2:00 P.M. Josh, Travis, and I loaded up the truck and headed out to the spot. As we pulled up the birds were flying everywhere and we knew that we were in for an exciting hunt. We got the decoys set up and immediately had ducks coming into the spread. The first bird on the water was a Gadwall, followed by 16 Northern Shovelers. Yes, spoonies. Ha! The day was finished off with a single Mallard that wanted in the decoys. Not a bad start to the trip! This was Travis' first time hunting in North Dakota, and he was ecstatic! He could not believe the amount of birds in one small area.  The next morning we decided to hunt a field just outside Fargo that was holding a couple hundred geese the night before. I apologize for no pictures of the field or hunt because of the extremely muddy and wet conditions of this field. We were unable to drive in it due to the standing water and deep mud so we carried everything in from the road. The first flocks of geese in the morning didn't pay attention to us at all and kept on flying. We finally coaxed a group of big honkers into the decoys and with our very poor shooting, we dropped 3 out of the flock. The next flock came in and again, we couldn't hit the side of a house if we were standing in it. We only killed one goose out of that group. Ouch. As we were getting ready to pack up, a single duck buzzed right in front of us. One shot later we had a drake Redhead in the bag. What was a redhead doing in a field?? I do not know. We started making trips back to the trailer and a mallard flew a little to close to me, and unfortunately for her, she didn't fly out of the field. We scouted hard that night and found a field of dreams. As we pulled up we saw a decent amount of birds flying around, but when the whole group of birds lifted off the ground, not one of us was prepared for what we saw. There was over 2000 ducks using this field. Score!! We saw other groups scouting this field, so we knew we had to get there early. Saturday morning, or should I say late Friday night (01:00 A.M.) we arrived at the field so we could be the first ones. Ben, Nick, Josh, Travis, and myself piled into Bens truck and uncomfortably slept there that night. We got into the field and set up around 6:00 A.M. and we were the only group out there. For now... As shooting time grew closer another group showed up and set up at the opposite end of the field. No big deal because they didn't bug us one bit. BUT, about 30 minutes after legal shooting time began a 3rd group arrived. They set up their 4 Mojo's and ZERO decoys about 150 yards away from us and shot at literally everything they saw. Birds at 100+ yards were being shot at. The sad part was that every single duck around wanted in where they were set up. They would all lock up and as soon as they cupped their wings, they would get shot at. Their grand total for the 4 boxes of shells they shot was one, yes one mallard that they sailed a distance off and never was looked for. We packed out of there with about 12 ducks and opted to hunt somewhere else the rest of the morning. Our group ended the day with over 20 ducks, so it was a successful day. With about 11 hunters in our 2 groups we ended the weekend with close to 80 ducks and 4 geese. Very successful in our books!  North Dakota is always a fun place to hunt. The sheer amount of birds around is almost ridiculous. If I could hunt there more, I would do it in a heartbeat! A big thank you goes out to Ben, Josh, Nick, Blake, and Alex for letting us stay at your house. We couldn't have done any of this without you guys. Posted by Eric Wolf. Posted In : Hunting Inaugural George Wahl Memorial Muskie TournamentOctober 7, 2009
This past Saturday was one to remember as Kyle Wickenhauser and myself fished in the first ever George Wahl Memorial Tournament. The tournament had taken place in the metro area consisting of 12 different lakes. This tournament wasn't about the prizes, it was about helping out our local lakes and stocking them with more of or favorite fish: the elusive muskie. With 200 contestants fishing the event it wasn't going to be an easy one, but Wicky and I had confidence.
Before talking about how the day went I would like to mention that this event was a special one of its own. George Wahl is one of the biggest names around when it comes to the word muskie and bucktails. George started the famous Eagle Tail, which is one of the most famous muskie catching lures known to man. George was a real class act and will be greatly missed by many in the fishing world. Furthermore, the weather the past week has just been crazy to say the least with winds gusting up to 40mph for two days straight, rain for multiple days, and the temperature dramatically dropping. Wicky and I had thought for a minute that the muskie gods were shining down on us but instead we looked at it as a challenge for us. Wicky and I thought if God brings us to it, he will lead us through it. At 5:30 the alarm had went off and I was out of bed in a flash I was anticipating the day despite the nasty weather we were having. I met Wicky at the access at 6:45, just enough time to get our last minute gear ready and get on the water by 7. Wicky and I had complete confidence that we would turn over a fish on our first spot. You could say we were thinking it was going to be, almost as easy as taking candy from a baby. To our surprise spot one was a big fat goose egg!! One funny thing is that we fished our number one spot that day, 4 times, and we worked it really good with not even seeing a single fish! I guess you could say we had patience and persistence! After fishing multiple spots and not even seeing a fish, muskie depression finally started to settle in. It was around noon when we decided to take a break and eat some lunch and talk about what we needed to do to get on fish. The difficult part was we didn't really know; we had worked several spots really really good and not a single muskie had showed its face. We worked shallow, deep, and everywhere in between. We tried different sizes, colors, various presentations and nothing. We just decided that the fish didn't want to cooperate, after all it is muskie fishing. At this point we were both ready to start pulling our hair out!! After lunch our game plan was to just keep working our top areas and see what would happen. It was around 2 pm at this point and I looked at Wicky, and said, we have one hour before we have to go in. Wicky looked disappointed, as was I about not boating a fish yet. I took Wicky to the “Honey Hole” where I have boated multiple fish this year and even lost a few. We had fished this spot earlier in the morning with no success but I had confidence there was fish there, but they weren't biting. After fishing the spot for awhile I was beginning to have my doubts. Wicky had decided to take a break and was going through his lures while trying to decide what he should try next. Within a spit second I had a fish hit about ½ way in and yelled I got one!! I saw it boil up to the surface and was even more excited when I noticed a muskie!! Wicky was so puzzled when I yelled I got one; he thought I was completely making it up, considering how the day was going until that point. The fish went immediately under the boat and as Wicky grabbed the net the fish was already out from under the boat. Wicky made a quick scoop up with the net and I think he was just as excited as I was. We got a quick measure on it and she surpassed 45 inches.  That was the only fish that day we boated. I knew it wasn't going to place top 5, but we had a chance at top 10. Both of us were hoping for 2 fish that day, as thats what we thought was needed to really place high. After getting to Thorne Bros for the registration I had noticed a lot of the registration cards were from low 40's fish so I knew we had a chance. After all the announcements and feed was over; it came down to the very end and we walked away with 8th place. We were both extremely happy for taking 8th in the first ever George Wahl Memorial Tournament. This was our first tournament ever but Wicky and I can honestly say its not going to be our last! For more information regarding the tournament and George Wahl please visit the following link http://www.twincitiesmuskiesinc.org/tourny/gw/ Posted by Kyle Stender. Posted In : Fishing | Categories |
Winter Walleyes!!January 5, 2010WMO in NodakOctober 21, 2009Inaugural George Wahl Memorial Muskie TournamentOctober 7, 2009 | Categories |
