WALLEYES FOREVER

E-NEWSLETTER

 

From www.WalleyesForever.com

 

No. 5:  1-18-07

 

 

Keep your ice fishing both fun and safe

as you head out on frozen Montana waters

 

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks

The safest ice anglers are those who are particular about their ice and who fish on water bodies they are familiar with. Dressing to help prevent frostbite and hypothermia is essential, as is a basic knowledge of ice safety and ice rescue.

The old timers seem to be the most respectful of the ice. They urge their fellow anglers to know the water body they plan to fish; or to make certain they go with someone who knows that water and how ice tends to form and change there.

Other safety reminders:

  • Wear a warm hat that covers your ears. In cold weather, 75 to 80 percent of heat loss from the body occurs from an uncovered head.
  • Wear mittens that are warmer than gloves and reduce the chance of finger frostbite.
  • Check out ice conditions before you go. Ask other anglers or local sources and take into account changes in the weather during the past 24 hours.
  • Before you head from home, tell someone where you plan to fish and when you plan to return.
  • Carry a pair of long spikes on a heavy string around your neck. That way, if you break through the ice, you can use the spikes to grip the ice and pull yourself out of the water.
  • Blue ice is usually hard. Watch out for opaque, gray, dark or porous spots in the ice that could be weak, soft areas. Ice also tends to thin more quickly at the shorelines.
  • Watch for pressure ridges. These are areas of open water or thin ice where the ice has cracked and heaved due to expansion from freezing.
  • Test the ice ahead of you with an ice spud bar or an auger.
  • Take basic ice safety and rescue training and know the basics about hypothermia before venturing out on ice, especially if you plan to fish with youngsters.
  • Don’t leave children unsupervised on the ice.
  • Don’t forget that lakes and ponds do not freeze at the same thickness all over.
  • Don’t forget that moving water—rivers, streams and springs—weaken ice by wearing it away from underneath. Avoid ice on rivers and streams, or where a river or stream enters a lake, pond or reservoir.
  • Don’t forget the most unsafe ice usually occurs early and late in the season, when the weather is warmer.

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Walleyes Forever to be at Billings Great Rockies Show

 

 

Walleyes Forever will have an exhibit booth at the Great Rockies Sports Show at MetraPark in Billings on Friday through Sunday, Jan. 19-21.  If you’d like to learn more about the newest fishing group in Montana, please stop by and visit with us. 

 

If you want to know a good fishing spot, just ask us.  If you’ve got a good fishing spot to share, that’s even better!!  The next best thing to being out fishing ourselves is to talk about it with someone who shares our passion for the sport.

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WF ice fishing fun day rescheduled at Petrolia

 

 

Walleyes Forever has rescheduled an Ice Fishing Family Fun Day for Sunday, Jan. 28, at Petrolia Reservoir, east of Winnett.   Everyone is welcome to come and enjoy a day out on the ice and perhaps learn a few new tricks for catching fish through the ice from WF members.

 

One of the goals of Walleyes Forever is to urge families to get into the outdoors more often.  Our original ice fishing date – Jan. 13 – was sub-zero cold.  Kids are the future of the sport of fishing, so we didn’t want to turn them into frosty kidsicles, hence the rescheduling.  Let’s hope for a better weather day to have a good time.

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Utah urging anglers to fish for ling

to trim illegal introduction into Flaming Gorge

 

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources

 

DUTCH JOHN — If you'd like to add another notch to your "fish species caught" list, head to Flaming Gorge Reservoir this winter.  Burbot (called ling by folks here in Montana) were illegally introduced into the Green River drainage in Wyoming. These fish have made their way into the Gorge.  Burbot compete with other fish, so it's unfortunate that they're in the reservoir, but they also provide great ice fishing. Burbot look somewhat like a cod, and they get active under the ice during the winter.  Right now is the best time of the year to catch them.

Where to fish

Most of the burbot in Flaming Gorge are in the upper end of the reservoir, in both the Blacks Fork and Green River arms. If you have a Utah fishing license and a $10 reciprocal stamp (the stamp is good for all of 2007), you can fish the Wyoming end of the reservoir, in addition to the Utah side.  The best areas to start fishing are near the Firehole boat ramp, the Lost Dog area, any rocky points in the Blacks Fork River arm, and points in the Confluence area.

Techniques

Burbot feed in low light conditions, so fishing from sundown until a few hours after dark is the most productive time to target them. Try fishing between 20 and 25 feet deep over rocks and near deeper water. Crayfish seem to be the burbots' main feed this time of year, so fish over the rocks. If you have a portable fish house, bring it, since nighttime temperatures tend to drop quite a bit on the ice. If you don't have a fish house, bring a portable heater, which will help keep you warm. And don't forget to bring a headlamp or a lantern, so you can see what you're doing. If you can only fish during the day, try fishing deeper (50 to 60 feet down) in the old river channel.  

Lures

When choosing lures, look for spoons and jigs that have some type of glow on them. A glowing lure seems to attract burbot so they'll get close enough to smell the sucker meat or shiner meat that you should tip your lure with. The jigging spoon or jig should be big enough to get to the bottom fairly quickly, but not so big that the fish can't get their mouths over it. Try two- or thdree-inch tube jigs, or jigging spoons that are one to two inches long.  Fish within a few inches of the bottom, and watch your rod tip carefully as most of the bites are pretty light. Charge up the glow on your lure, with a flashlight or a headlamp, every five to 10 minutes.  If you catch a burbot, don't be afraid of its appearance. Burbot have teeth that are similar to a catfish or bass, so they won't bite, but they're quite slimy, so you may want to handle them with waterproof gloves.

How to cook 'em

Burbot have white, flaky flesh, and they're great to eat.  One way to cook them is to bread and fry them. You can also boil them lightly for four minutes, and then dip them in butter, which gives them a taste that's similar to lobster.  It's fairly easy to clean burbot. Just cut the skin behind the head and peel it off with pliers. Then fillet the meat off around the rib cage and down the tail, and you'll be left with boneless fillets.

You'll Be Helping the Fishery

The burbot limit at Flaming Gorge is 25 burbot. Biologists want to reduce the population of these illegally introduced fish, so you must keep all the burbot you catch, up to your 25 fish limit.  If you're looking for a different type of ice fishing adventure this winter, head to Flaming Gorge. In addition to harvesting a bunch of tasty burbot, you'll be helping the fishery.  For more information, call the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources' Flaming Gorge Field Office at (435) 885-3164.

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Oregon Food Bank gets stocked with salmon fillets

 

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife

A special holiday dinner with Oregon salmon as the centerpiece was a reality for many people needing assistance from the Oregon Food Bank this year, thanks to donations by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

ODFW has donated the equivalent of 146,000 servings of salmon to the Oregon Food Bank this fall. The salmon is delivered as frozen fillets ready for cooking.

The Oregon Food Bank will distribute the fillets to every county in Oregon through a statewide network of 20 regional food banks and hundreds of hunger-relief agencies. The relief agencies will give the fillets to people in need.

Since 2001, ODFW has donated 301,000 pounds of salmon to the Oregon Food Bank, which equates to about 1.2 million 4-ounce servings of fish. The donated chinook salmon, coho salmon and steelhead are hatchery-reared fish that have returned to Oregon's hatcheries from the ocean to complete their life cycle. In the past several years, ODFW has had many more fish return than necessary to produce the next generation of hatchery fish.

The fish donated are processed in accordance with federal food handling guidelines by American/Canadian Fisheries, Inc., a company based in Bellingham, Washington. American/Canadian provides all the staff and equipment at no charge to ODFW and the food bank in exchange for the opportunity to market by-products of the filleting process in international markets.

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Some tips for foiling off-season boat theft

 

 

BoatUS Magazine

 

Boat owners are a trusting lot and while one would not think of leaving the house with all the doors and windows open, boats are often left wide open and unsecured, equipped with all sorts of small and valuable accessories that can easily end up on eBay.

Boats are also so easily transportable, they’re particularly susceptible to theft. Each year, insurance claims for theft losses cost the industry and consumers millions. While some boat thefts are the work of sophisticated rings that target a specific type of boat, others are isolated crimes of opportunity by petty thieves taking small, but valuable, equipment.

Not surprisingly, Florida is the number one state for boat theft with 1,478 boats reported stolen in 2005 and 1,233 stolen in 2006, through Sept. 30, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

 

To help stem the tide of boat thefts, marine police in Florida have offered their own set of tips.

 

Here are some of them:

 

• Engrave all valuables including electronic equipment, outboard engines, radios, loose gear, etc. with the owner's name, home port, state driver's license or identification number, and the boat's hull identification number.

 

• Remove all portable valuables from your vessel, thereby eliminating possible targets of the thief. Don’t leave radios, binoculars, cameras or laptops on board.

• Maintain an inventory list ashore that includes all boat gear with the name, model, serial number, manufacturer, and description of each item. Digital images or photos of your gear could also go into this file.

• Never leave keys aboard a boat, even in a "hidden place." Any seasoned burglar knows all the spots to look.

• Don’t leave ownership papers on board the boat.

 

To read the rest of this fine report by Elaine Dickinson and get more tips from from BoatUS Magazine, go to: www.boatus.com/news/burglars_0107.htm

 

 

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2007 Montana fishing banquet dates

 

March 31: Walleyes Forever Banquet, Elks Club, Billings, contact Linda Granholm at 652-2605 for ticket info.

 

February 24: Montana PikeMasters Banquet, Elks Club, Billings, contact Joe Stenglein for ticket info.

 

February 24: Upper Yellowstone WU Chapter Banquet, Park County Fairgrounds, Livingston, contact Darren Raney for ticket info.

 

Feb. 24: Great Falls WU Chapter Banquet, Great Falls Convention Center, Call John Miller at 965-2259 for ticket info.

 

March 10: Gallatin/Madison WU Chapter Banquet, MSU SUB Ballroom, Bozeman, contact Sherry Hoekema at 586-7425 or Marvin Hansen at 388-9780 for ticket info.

 

 

To add your fishing banquet date to the list, just e-mail us at walleyes@walleyesforever.com

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And, finally……..

 

The Young Gunslinger and the Old Prospector

 
An old prospector walks his tired old mule into a western town one day. He'd been out in the desert for about six months without a drop of whiskey.  He walked up to the first saloon he came to and tied his old mule to the hitch rail.

 

As he stood there brushing some of the dust from his face and clothes, a young gunslinger walked out of the saloon with a gun in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. The gunslinger looked at the old man and laughed, saying, "Hey old man, have you ever danced?"

The old man looked up at the gunslinger and said,  "No, I never did dance. I just never wanted to."
 
A crowd had gathered by then and the gunslinger said, "Well, you old fool, you're gonna' dance now," and started shooting at the old man's feet.
 
The old prospector was hopping around and everybody was laughing.  When the young gunslinger fired his last bullet, he holstered his gun and turned around to go back into the saloon.

The old prospector reached up on his mule, drew out a shotgun, and pulled both hammers back making a double clicking sound.  The gunslinger heard the sound and everything got quiet.  The crowd watched as the gunslinger slowly turned around looking down both barrels of the shotgun.

 

The old prospector asked, "Did you ever kiss a mule square on the butt?"

The gunslinger swallowed hard and said, "No…………  But I've always wanted to……..."

The moral of the story: Don’t mess with old guys – they don’t just dance around.

 


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