WisconsinDorkTrip

Managed to get a few bluegills to bite in some frigid water.

The third (and most likely final) time out ice fishing this year I found some success with crappies. The weather's been awful for ice this year.

Here's some footage from Ash and I bird hunting last fall that never made it to another video. He's still ruff around the edges, but he'll keep getting better with practice.

This was from opening morning of rifle season. I took the shot about an hour after shooting light. I left a lot of footage of after the shot because you can see the doe and other buck stayed in the area for awhile after I shot. At the end, you can see them cross the creek in the bottom right corner. The buck ended up getting shot about ten minutes later.

Here's some footage from a hunt in October. Once again, I was paying too much attention to Ash to remember to reload. The last drake was incredibly stupid and couldn't figure out what happened to his buddy or what that black thing was swimming in the water, so he didn't live long, either.

Here's the footage from my buck this season. A doe came in first, hit my ground scent, and kind of freaked out. But thankfully she didn't blow, she just kinda left the trail and circled back towards where she came from. The buck came shortly after her, grunting and looking for her. I didn't cut the time in between the doe and buck showing up so you could see how fast these things can happen. The recovery on this buck was a story in and of itself, but through the kindness of someone who allowed access to the land he went on, and through perseverance his flesh is now enjoying the cool temperatures of my freezer. As you can tell from the slow motion footage, my shot was about 3 inches too low. I think I pulled off my anchor point, but it happened so fast I don't know for sure.

Overall, fishing this summer was lousy. There wasn't much rain, and water levels were low all over. So, it's been a long time since you've seen a video! This is what I've been doing this fall: trying to turn Ash into a duck dog. A lot of this footage is probably pretty dark, and I'm also probably getting frustrated. Ash has been chasing birds off before I can shoot, I had a gun jam, and my shooting has been pretty lousy. Good thing I've done a lot of water swatting! Ash is a great retriever when he sees the birds, but he's still pretty ruff around the edges. There have been some frustrations, but even with those, it's been a pretty fun experience for both of us.

This is a dark one, but trout don't like lights at night. John and I each caught a nice brown while fly fishing during the hex hatch.

This girl was trying to get across the stream right after I changed the battery in my GoPro and turned it on. I tried to get my phone out so I could get some zoomed in footage, but she was too far away by the time the laggy thing was ready.

Well, my powers of observation must be failing me. The big one that I said was 13" or 14" turned out to be a skinny 16.5 on the Rod Rule. It was a slow morning, but that fish made up for it. Low water has fish skittish, and the bigger ones seem to be tucked up into the banks.

John pierces some lips with a jighead and plastic.