Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Birth of a deer camp

I do know what you mean.

maybe we'll meet up some day. It would be my privilege.

click here, scroll down to non res section. maybe you'll see what you need here.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/licenses/hunting/index.html?type=hunting

Dober,

There were some changes made to the regulations for residents but little has been put out for non resident tags.

The guru in the know is Lou Cornicelli the MN DNR big game coordinator.

I will PM ya his email drop him a line as anything he says is gold.

bd

IIRC, Non Res can buy OTC just like the homeboys.

GE

Gav esq, big drift says your boy cought some sort of water beast? got any pictures?

Dave,
Welcome back.Those were really great pictures.I am so pleased that your kids had this great experience.They will speak of this one for many years.I would hope that this will be one of many such trips.

Stan

I hope so too Stan, I really do. Would love nothing more than to make a tradition of it for as long as these fine young people care to take part, then to watch them all lead there own groups & families on there own trips, sharing what they have learned with the next generation.

Always good to hear from you Stan, always a treat.

hope you are feeling well?

Dave

check it out everybody, the wood spirit that Rooster7 Jim & his wife "Special K" gave us for the deer camp. We'll have him out there at the shack as soon as we get a chance. This guy is the coolest!!!



thanks again guys!!!

Dave

Mark,

I'm pretty sure you can get the tags now. It is an automated system, so you may be able to do it over the internet.

Any idea where you're going? The season should start right in the middle of the rut this year. It starts later into Nov. which from past seasons is awsome hunting from my experience. Last year it started on the 2nd or somthing like that, a little earily if you ask me but I still go.

If you need help on a hunting area, I or any of the other MN boys I'm sure will be more than happy to help.

Tom

Dave,

The taxidermist 'eh? Good for him. I have not yet got a mounter northern. What did that ol girl weigh by the time you got it to the taxidermist? It looks like she has a pretty big belly. I got a 40"er when I was 17, but it weighed like 11 pounds or somthing. It had a HUGE head and a skinny body, kind of a weird looking dude if you ask me. I want a 20 pounder for the wall. Kind of lofty for a northern, but if I'm going to put it on the wall it's going to be big.

I caught a 30" and a 32" walleye 10 minutes apart last July, but it was durring a tournament so I had to release them at the end of the day. Otherwise the 32" would be on my wall "smilin' like heck" at me every morning when I got up.

It sounds like "the boy" is becoming quite an outdoorsman, and it looks like he has a pretty good teacher too.

Is it too early to get excited about deer season? For some reason I've been fired up for the last week or so for gun season. I got the barrel sawed off on my .358, and bought some shells and now I'm getting antsy. Earlier than normal but I like it. The count is on...123 day unless I miss one or two.

grunt grunt, rattle rattle.

Atta boy, get that deer hunting talk going. It aint just you, I've been thinking about it already myself.

As far as "The boy's" teacher, He had a good teacher in his dad & now he does a lot of self teaching. If he picks up any tricks from me I'd be kind of surprised.

We're sure the fish was over 20 lbs. I've cought other 40+ inchers that weren't as heavy as this one. Just look how thick it is all the way from the head to the tail compaired to the 43 incher we ate in 2004.


here's the 2004 fish, 43" but not as thick in the body.


here's last weeks fish, 41.5" & heavy.


look how that kid has changed in 4 years!! Funny!

I forgot to tell about the handshake after we got his fish on the stringer & he was heading down to the water to rinse the slime off his hands. I stopped him before he had a chance to rinse his hands & extended my hand for handshake & called it the "slimy five!!"

I have a feeling the slimy five will become a celibration ritual with big fish, deer gutting, elk gutting, stuff like that.

"gimme some slime brudda!"

strings of northern slime hanging off the fingers like shoe strings.

It should also work just fine with deer blood & unidentifiable guttish "oodlers".




Dave

I was going to guess 20# but did not want to embarass myself. It is a good looking fish too. Nice color, good markings, nice white belly.

20 pounds is a lot of fish. Durring a walleye tourney this spring I caught a 45 1/2" Musky that weighed a hair under 20# and that was a big fish. If the season was open I probably would have kept the fish for several reasons. The main one being it was my biggest fish ever, but it was good company, good times and tough fishing. Just one of those days, ya know.

Deer are starting to move around here now. The horns are starting to show their size and even a little mass now. I don't think that I'm going to bow hunt this year so I'll be spending a lot of time in the MN camp. The funds this year just don't allow for all the hunting.

I was going to skip MN this year, but when I thought about it I just couldn't do. And with the start of the season on the 8th, "just when I want to leave,they just keep suckin' me back in". That week is the best to hunt deer in my experience, it seems bucks are around every corner. The last time it started that late I saw 3 bucks and one doe by 9AM on Sunday. It was a good weekend.

I also don't know how many more years I'll be able to hunt on that land up there, the guy who owns it has had some trouble with his heart and some trouble with cancer this year. It doesn't sound good but things are so far. It would be tough to start over after 20 years, espically since my dad hasn't hunted since I was 15. I would have to start over somewhere. Deer hunting in Northern MN is in my blood though and won't leave without a fight.

My wife travels a ton with her new job and she has been altering her plans so I could hunt for nine years, so I may have to back off a little bit now. That is OK though because she doesn't say anything when I do go hunting and fishing. That is great because I fish A LOT from late March until late Sept. or early Oct. then hunting starts. It helps that the kids show interest now and want to go. It makes it a little eaiser on her.

Man Dave, the more I talk about deer hunting, the more I get fired up. It's going to be a long 4 months

ND:

Yeah, the Loonling was out last week on "Area Lake" with a friend and her dad. Legend has it he reeled it in himself while trolling. He was (is still) pretty psyched ... 44"




Ole Dad was wondering how he could ever compete ... however we took his new LH 700 Ute 7mm08 stuffed with Seafire Bluedot Downloads to a clear cut on the 4th and he spent the rest of the weekend gibbering about his deer rifle.

Crisis averted. :-)

GE

beautiful! Absolutely amazing!!

I read "Area Lake" but interpreted my own lake name in my mind.

I've been meaning to ask you about screen name. I could interpret that you are possibly a family law type? as in attorney for loony families?

or you are simply the head of a family of loons taking the title Esq for yourself? either way it's good stuff.

And a big, big congrats to your boy from Northern Dave, if I was there to see it he'd get the "slimy 5" handshake.




Dave

Screen Name ... a rifle loon that practices criminal defense and family law, that happened to live at an address of the same name in a prior lifetime.

Loonling ... well, if a baby duck is a duckling, and a baby goose is a gosling ...

I'll see if he wants to tag along at a git-er-dun-together sometime and you can slime him yo bad self.

GE

P.S. Not a bad pic for a 10 year old girl with a cell phone eh?

You're kidding? a phone cam took that picture?

Man, I need a new phone.

GE,

Awsome musky. What a cool looking fish. The fish looks bigger than the boy. It must be close. What was the weight on that big girl? Did you keep it?

The musky guys around here (WI) are starting to get a little loony themselves. They are all complaining that all the big 'skis are in MN lakes. I have seen two in WI this spring that made me not want to swim in the Chippewa Flowage ever again. They are still around, I think they just get pounded so much that they see baits ALL the time. All the muskies I've caught have been with a jig and a minnow or a crank bait intended for walleye.

Congrats to the Loonling from tzone. That is one heck of a fish, espically for a kid.

Tom

Lake vermillion in MN is becoming quite the Muskie lake.

never used to be but they have been stocking it agressively.

Dave

Those are some beautiful fish boys. I've got kiddo out on the dock pulling 4 lb snot rockets with an 8 wt fly rod and clouser minnows. Nothing like your monsters, but done with handicap.....

Thanks for sharing, as usual.

GD -
I'm really hoping, hoping, to get to Shooterville this weekend. The Bush Hog guy still needs to come through. No contract, no delivery I guess. Thought it was funny he didn't want a deposit. I'll PM if we're heading out.

Craig

Dave,

Did you notice you rounded 20,000 views? That's gotta be some sort of record. You deserve a trophy. Thanks.

Craig

I still don't get it Craig & to be honest the bigger it gets the more i think it could be time to close it up. It's got to be a burdon on the forum with it's size & all the pictures. It's got to be taking up too much space for a topic based around one deer camp. It holds awesome stories from so many menbers & cabin tips, stand tips... I guess the story itself & the ups & downs, struggle with loss of a loved one, the strengthening of family & frendship, new friendship.
it's got a lot of stuff in it I guess but it's just so much. Too much for one thread. I don't know what to do with it all though. I printed the whole thread some time back & put in a 3 ring binder with page holders & brought it out to the shack, but it's grown so much again since then. It's coming up on a year pretty soon. The thread isn't a year old but yet it never slid off the front page in deer hunting even before it was stickied & now it's over 20,000 views.

That's cool but i just think it's too big & I feel bad about this monster thread sticking out like a sore thumb in the deer hunting area.

What should I do? Anybody? any ideas?

Maybe I should PM Rick, I'm sure he's BDDT, probably can give some guidence or idea as to what is best. i never saw this thing getting this big but it's my fault for continuing to feed it. I worry that it's overstayed it's welcome, too big, too clumsy. I still hear from a few that post & state that they read the whole thing, that's just insane, I'd need a weekend to do that. I just feel bad about how big it's got.

know what I mean?

August 9th it will be one year old, what should I do?

Dave