An Outdoorsman's Journal

Outdoor Marathon

Hello Friends,

   This week's column is a bit different than most in that I participated in 3 different types of outdoor sports over a 28-hour period in Marquette, Columbia and Dane Counties. First, I hunted pheasant, then ice fished for walleye and finished the adventure with a goose hunt. To top it all off, with my only rest being in The GMC Hotel, and I had that head cold that seems to be in the air these days.

   Friday, December 17th
   High 11, low 0

   I was due for a pheasant hunt and so was my golden retriever Red, my health was not good but I wanted to stay home for the holidays so this plan was going to take place as long as I had a heartbeat.
   Here was the plan, drive to Pine Island which is on a beautiful and vast tract of land on both sides of interstate 90/94 near Portage. I grew up hunting Pine Island for pheasants and geese and was very excited for this hunt.
     I have to admit that it was very cold with a solid 15 mph wind as I got out of my truck and I began my hike with high hopes of flushing a rooster. Some bad news came my way when after a half hour of walking in 8 inches of snow I had yet to see a bird or a track. After a bit I had an idea, I would head to Mud Lake which is another reliably good place to hunt pheasant that are released by the state game farm at Poynette and if you hit it right, quality hunts are there to be had.
   When I was growing up in Poynette my family had a multigenerational duck blind on Mud Lake and my father the late Robert Walters was 100% addicted to hunting pheasant and ducks. All we had until I was 13 was a flat bottomed john boat and we were allowed to skip a lot of school and row dad out to the blind. As crazy as this sounds, we could even store our shotguns in our lockers, there was a smoking area for kids which the girls always ignored as they smoked in the bathroom and if you were 18, or looked it, you could go down to the local pub and have a beer and a burger for lunch.
   Today, I made the mistake of wearing knee boots that have leaks, broke through some ice, got a wet foot, did not see a bird and then drove to Lake Puckaway which is located in both Marquette and Green Lake Counties to slay some walleye. I would be meeting my friend Seth Steinhauer at a public hunting ground parking lot in Dane County at 5:00 am the next morning so I was pretty excited to make some fillets.
   When I arrived on the southwest corner of the lake and despite failing health was very excited to catch a big fish. Puckaway is where the state record northern pike was caught and it stands at 38-pounds. Some bad luck struck again when I talked to some serious walleye anglers and everyone told me that they had not caught a fish yet this winter.
   Long story short, I had one flag, it was after dark and turned out to be a 20-inch gator. I was the last one off the ice and none of my 7 neighbors had had a flag when I headed south at midnight.

   Saturday, December 18th
   High 34, low 17

   Today would be the 2nd opener of Wisconsin's, Canada Goose Season. Red and I would be on a go for it expedition with 35-year-old Seth Steinhauer who is a hardcore outdoorsman and a person of the earth like me and also very tied in with our huge group of friends.
   First we had to trek what seemed like 20 miles, Seth was pulling a loaded kayak, I was over dressed, under slept and not healthy. Flower who is 7 and Arrow who is 13 are Seth's pups and this mother/daughter pair of Chesapeake's will teach any none believer what a tough dog is.
   After our trek, we had about 1.5 hours before legal shooting and we just shot the breeze. When night became day we could see that our decoy spread of 6 Canada's was in the wrong spot we did a quick run, actually, Seth ran, I waddled, like Seth, my chest waders leaked and I was using trash bags as inner liners. My longies were kind of stuck in the wrong spot and running was not happening. This was about a 400-yard move, and we used a cattail marsh to hide in and were about 30-yards apart. Two geese were going to pass close to Seth but ended up just out of range. We could hear another coming directly at me but did not see it due to the cattails. Folks it's a good thing I was ducked down because the goose missed by inches and you had to see it to believe it.
   I did a quick 180, fired 2 shots and it looked like the big bird was tickled as it did a 180 and vanished with our trusty pups in chase.
   Long story short, we had no idea where it was and an hour later went looking. Flower did a beyond incredible retrieve, it was the only bird that was fired at and that was one heck of a way to spend 28 hours in the outdoors!

   Sunset