A Look Back At The 2007 Season. Thank You Everybody!

Once again we find ourselves itching like crazy to hit that frozen ice that is starting to take form across much of the state.  While I am excited along with the rest of you, I want to take a little time out to look back at the great months that I shared with so many of you throughout the open water season.  There were so many huge fish caught, and great laughs shared that I don't really know where to start.  I have taken hundreds of pictures yet again this season, and as I look through them, I remember each and every one of them like it was yesterday.  For me, it is always great to be in the outdoor world, however as I look at all of those pictures, I kinda chuckle at the friends I have made and the memories that won't ever be taken from me.  After all, isn't that what it's about. 

The early season started with numerous trips to area lakes and rivers and some days it seemed that we could fill bath tubs full of walleyes.  Other days were not as spectacular, but they always gave us some laughs and taught me a few more details about what I was doing wrong.  As the season progressed, I found a new style of fishing which left me sitting on a river in the middle of the night chasing prehistoric Flathead Catfish.  That was sweet too!  I had some trips up to the big pond that always seemed to coincide with a hurricane, and still we landed a few dandies. 

As the summer progressed I shared an uncountable number of days on the water with great people from all over the country.  For the most part, we landed that trophy of a lifetime nearly every time on the water.  Some days the muskies seemed to come into the boat like it was their job.  The largest number in my boat for one day this season was 8 fish, and streaks of boating fish each time were carried through more than one week at times.  Each time on the water I continued to learn a new thing or two to help keep the fish coming in the boat, and the results were great.  I had this "musky mojo" thing at an all time high, and the rewards were sweet.  People of every age landed fish with me this season, and each one of them were great in their own way.  The greatest reward for me being a guide is that I get to see that smile on a persons face when they land that fish of a lifetime, and it keeps me coming back day after day. 

As the season progressed into late fall, I found myself fishing much further into the year than I had ever done before. I can't even explain how great those rewards were, as I found myself in newspaper articles and chatter throughout the state for catching some "freak of nature" giant fish on the big pond.  I learned a lot in spring, summer and fall that will surely keep me progressing as a fisherman and your fishing guide.  I would like to thank each and every one of you that helped to make it such a great year, but I don't think I have enough space on this website to do so.  You know who you are, and I thank you.

It's a sad day that I will be putting the boat and the gear away, however it would be weird to see a guy jigging over the side of his boat through an ice hole, so I have no choice.  The stories are in no way going to slow down, and Trophy Encounters will continue to be a place to ask questions and hear some of the latest and greatest from not only myself, but by all the others that are telling me their stories to share.  I hope to have something new on this site every day to check out, so make sure you look at this page, and the page called "Its Their Story" to keep on finding new information.

It has been a great run yet again, and I look forward to seeing all of you again on the water in the very near future.  Now its time to get the other equipment ready.  Who wants to go Ice Feeeeshin???  Thanks again everybody, and as always, Keep On Livin That Dream!

It's Their Story.....A New Trophy Encounters Feature

With each and every story that I write I find great rewards in sharing my experiences with all of you who choose to read them.  The amount of interest that everybody takes in checking to see what is new with Trophy Encounters has been beyond my expectations.  While I have enjoyed many fun, interesting, and awesome experiences in the great outdoors, there are many other people that also are experiencing greatness that go unheard.  With this new Trophy Encounters page labeled "It's Their Story" (located on the left hand side bar), I hope to share with all of you what others are accomplishing on their journeys as well as a little bit of information about that person that many of us know nothing about.  At this time, I hope to start sharing many stories of other individual accomplishments, and hope that each and every one of you contact me to have your stories told.  This should be another fun page for all of you to get to know each other, and your cooperation will only make it more enjoyable to read.  Just like my fishing update, this will be a blog journal setup which allows me to just keep on writing stories and to allow us all to look back years down the road at all the great stories that have been told.  I hope you all enjoy reading these articles as well as my own stories and we can continue "Livin The Dream Together!"

Toby's First Hunt....Awww Aint He Cute!

This past weekend was the normal ritual for many hunters across the state.  Eat a whole pile of turkey on Thursday, sit on the couch and watch a football game or two with a cold one in hand and try to figure out if the body will allow you to get off the couch in time to hunt in the morning.  The ladies head to the local shopping center the next day(some of them earilier than even us hunters rise from the wrapper) and the men head out in search of a rooster or two.  This year, Dingy and I continued with our now 2 year old ritual of heading out west in hopes of bagging a rooster or two.  The new companion on our trip is this cute little fella named Toby.  He just might be the best looking pup that I have ever laid my eyes on.  I have had the pleasure of seeing this peeing machine from its first couple of weeks of life and watching it grow the last 4 months.  I think I am in love with this dog, and Tim, if you don't look out, I just might take it home with me.  Our hopes on this adventure was to see if Toby would be able to understand what it means to "Hunt Em Up."   The day before we headed for the 2 hour hike out west, we stopped at a local spot of mine and had this future Pheasant huntin machine run around in search of some roosters just to see what he would do.  The result was totally awesome.  While he didn't understand exactly what had happened, he was running around through some brush for the heck of it, and a rooster got up right in front of him and I.  Officially I get to say that this gem of a pup jumped his first rooster in front of me and I was able to knock it down.  Only so special because of the unknowing puppy that was now playing with the feathers on the bird that he officially flushed.  I think it hit a soft spot in me, and now I am left wondering how long I can wait before I have my own puppy dog.  The picture of us is kinda blurry, but one that is very clear in my memory.  Thanks Dingy and Toby for that bird, it was maybe the coolest hunt of my life even if it only lasted for 20 minutes.

The hunt out west didn't treat us the best for some goofy reason.  We had a proven dog in Nelly (Nates Dog) and Toby fresh of his first hunt.  Nate, Dingy and myself met up with my cousin Nate out in Benson, and we hunted some of the best looking property that I have ever touched in MN before.  The birds were there, but they were skittish and just found every way imaginable to stay out of range.  Oh well, it was still a great hunt, and Toby spent most of his time eating every weed, stick, or cattail in sight.  The weather was perfect and we had the laughs that are always expected on a trip like that.  On the route back, Toby reminded us of the small bladder he has, and dribbled on not only me, but Nate and our sweatshirts that we gave him to use for a pillow.  Hahaha, still laughing about that darn dog. 

I want to give a shout out to Lynn Schulz and his hunting crew out in the Dakota's.  Lynn traveled all the way up from Arizona to spend some time with his family and a long overdue trip out to the prairie lands for some pheasant hunting with friends.  Hope it went great for you boys! 

Brrrrrrr!  That Ice will be here before we know it.  Stay tuned for a conclusion on another great season of open water fishing.  I will try to recap the greatness that we accomplished in our many trips across the state.  I also will send out as many thank you's as I can along with what is on tap for our quest of more Trophy Encounters.  Until Next Time Y'all, Keep on Livin The Dream!

Either we are on to somethin...Or...We are on somethin!

The title of this journal entry was the theme for the day yesterday on our qwest for the next state record.  As we pulled out of the boat harbor bundled to the max, we looked at each other shaking our heads yet again.  The only thing that Theo could say was, "either we are on to somethin, or we are on somethin."  I chuckled and said that we have to be on something to be doing this crazy adventure.  With the recent results of my last 3 trips to the big pond, our hopes were very high in not only landing a large muskie, but trying to break that magical 54 pound mark set 50 years ago.  I have to give my hats off to these boys (Todd and Theo) because they really gave it their all yesterday and they kept a positive attitude the entire time.  The conditions were brutal, which probably made Theo's new personal best all the more bitter sweet.  We had waves crashing over the side of the boat all morning, and the cold water and air temperatures caused everything in the boat to turn into a giant ice cube.  It really doesn't get any more hard core than what we did yesterday.  Knowing that we were after Sweet Mamma(the next state record that I have already nicknamed) our mojo was at an all time high when 10 minutes into the morning Theo got rocked by a fish.  It was a crazy few seconds of waiting to see what he was battling, and hoping that Sweet Mamma would come out from under the boat.  While it wasn't the next state record fish, it was a very nice and fat 45 incher and gave us quite a bit of excitement.  It was Theo's new personal best that he has now increased 3 times with me this season and a fish that any body would be happy to have. 

Our day went on with 3 more muskies grabbing the bait, but only to leave us wondering about what we almost battled.  How they can grab a lure full of hooks and let it go is beyond me, but they seem to do it with frequency.  We shared laughs, stories and more laughs throughout the day, and never had a dull moment on the water.  We didn't land Sweet Mamma, but were pretty confident that she saw our lures more than one time.  I truly had a great experience on the water with those boys, and will always remember the last few trips as my being completely crazy for even attempting that water.  I know that one of these days that lake will reward somebody with their efforts, and who knows, it may just be in my boat!  I put a few other pictures up to describe the type of fun we had and depics the elements that we were dealing with.  I think my favorite is the one of the Tullibee that I snagged and having Theo (Darth Vader) in the background all bundled up posing with me for the picture.  Rock on Boys!

I want to give a special thanks to everybody who has given me such great recognition for the fish I have been fortunate enough to catch lately.  It means a lot to hear from you all, and I appreciate every congratulation you send my way.  If you would like to see another story of the near state record that I boated a few days back, you can find it in the Brainerd Sunday paper.  I feel honored to be given the entire page of the outdoor section and it is a pretty neat read for me to see, not to mention a pretty neat accomplishment for a fisherman like me.  You can also check it out online by going to Brainerd Dispatch.com and clicking on the sports section, followed by the outdoor section on the left hand side of the website.  Thanks again everybody, it has been a great run to this point.  Until Next time, Keep on Living The Dream!

Awesome...Here We Go Again!!!

I simply cannot explain how sweet it is to hold a fish of such sheer size and power, and to do it back to back times is simply awesome!  I don't know if the muskie gods feel like they owe me some kind of favor, but I am almost speechless when I get to look at the pictures of the last two fish that I have been so blessed to catch.  Yesterday I was summoned once again to try to catch the next state record up on the big pond, and we nearly had identical results as the time before.  It was exactly a week ago plus one hour between landing the two largest fish of my life.  Although yesterdays fish does not quite match up to the last beast that was in my boat, It was still absolutely monsterous.  The only thing missing from this girl was a few inches of fat on the belly, otherwise she too would have been flirting with that state record fish that we were in search of.  She measured in at another whopping 54 inches in length and had a girth that we determined to be either 24.5 or 25.5 inches.  The reason we don't have the exact, is because the tape that we used to do the girth measurements broke on us, and we were lining up different numbers and trying to do the measurements instead of just wrapping a tape around and seeing the exact girth.  It is such a fast paced and intense mess that it is hard to take your time and measure everything how you would like.  The whole time, my hurry was to get the fish on its way, and we didn't take any unnecessary time.  The only thing that I am going by, is that I just heald a 26.5 inch belly, and I don't think I was quite there with this one.  Although this hog was huge, it just puts into perspective how large the last fish truly was, and makes me think that I am going to have a better plan of attack just in case the next one is the next state record.  I certainly don't want to have any doubts in my mind once that fish is swimming away, if I truly did break that 50 year old record. 

Either way, it was an awesome fish, and yet another fish of a lifetime.  I am not quite sure why they keep grabbing my bait, because I don't want to be a game hog, but it is an exciting experience for everybody in da boat when it happens.  I sure hope the next one grabs my guests bait.  I guess it pays to knock the ice build-up off the rod and keep on chugging, because the rewards are unexplainable.  Yesterday was brutal on the water, and we were dealing with more 3-4 footers and a temp that couldn't find its way above the freezing mark for most of the day.  We looked at each other more than once and said "we are nuts," but then we just kept on going.  What a fish is all I have to say, and thank you god for allowing such a rush of adrenaline.  Until next time Y'all, Keep on Livin That Muskie Dream!