Winter and the Five Senses

A wonderful day on the river can stroke your five senses

Cultivating my five senses is easy during the winter months. Hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching are what enables sportsmen to fully enjoy the entire package of being in the wintry outdoors.

Winter ice fishing turns me on but there isn’t much safe ice yet except on a few small lakes and ponds, and so I have to forgo watching the lowering of my rod tip as a pug-nosed bluegill sucks my bait down. Though I may not see that sight right now, or at least until we get more ice, there are countless other things for me and you to watch.

Saw a mature bald eagle soaring on the thermals yesterday, gliding first one way and then another, and their vision doesn’t miss a thing. Stand still next to a tree, and they will drift through the sky, but if they spot a human, they will head elsewhere.

Your five senses, when used on an outdoor trip, improves the outing

Well, that’s not always true. An adult bald eagle made his living on the ice of Green Lake at Interlochen several years ago. This bold eagle would swoop down and grab a perch off the ice with an angler only 20 yards away.

Seeing a cold lemon-colored sunrise with frost sparkles in the air and the glint of weak light off ice- or snow-coated branches provides a kaleidoscope of colors. Ever notice how much sharper your vision seems on a very cold day?

Hearing is another of the senses I rely heavily on because my vision is so poor. Put me in a room filled with people talking, and I can’t hear a thing, but put me in a tree stand and I can hear a mouse or chipmunk run through dry leaves 50 yards away.

Many times I’ve heard black bear or deer approach from behind long before I saw them, and it offers ample time to slowly prepare for a shot. The clamor of Canada geese in flight can be heard for long distances, and like a fog horn in pea-soup fog, it is a lonely and haunting sound. It’s a fact that a black bear can be as stealthy as a hunting house cat, but I’ve heard every bear I’ve shot long before I saw the animal.

Is there anything than smells better to an ardent hunter than the crisp and nose-tingling odor of wood smoke on the wind as we make our way home to the wood stove of a hunting camp. A close second is the smell of fresh-brewed coffee or the crackling sizzle of bacon frying. The latter tantalizes the ears and the nose and triggers the need to taste.

We’re short right now of prowling skunks on the snow, but I can smell foxes at a good distance if downwind of the animal. I also can smell changes in the wind, and that is something some people question. The smell of an approaching rain is something many people have come to recognize, but the air takes on a faint change as a new snow storms begins to build nearby.

Think each day about what you can hear, see, smell, taste, & touch

Walk into a grouse cover near an abandoned apple orchard or a wild grape arbor, and if you are downwind from either one, the winter odor is unmistakable. That smell is one that ruffed grouse seek out, and I’ve seen a pair of grouse lately near a winter frozen grape arbor. The birds are still hustling their vittles based on their autumn feeding frenzies of tart grapes.

Taste is normally associated with eating but years ago before there was a problem of beaver fever there were a few springs and tiny inland ponds that had the sweetest tasting water in the world. To dip and sip from those ponds or springs now is not only foolhardy, but a bout of beaver fever would always be a constant reminder of how our world has changed over 50 years.

Taste is an enjoyable sensation, and for me, pan frying a brace of lovely and winter-caught bluegills or perch is something I gladly apply a stamp of approval to, and it’s something I do often during the winter. I gut and gill them, pan-fry them, and pick them up like an ear of corn and slowly strip the  flesh from the rib bones. It is a tempting treat that will be long remembered.

Touching the knobby bases of a buck’s antlers at the tail end of the archery season always provides me with a sense of wonder. How and why can antlers turn out in so many different ways is just one part of God’s handiwork. All antlers seem as individual as finger prints.

These five senses bring an added bonus to the day – Try it!

The magic of the outdoors is best enjoyed when outside. Learn to test your five senses on a daily basis. Listen hard for the jackhammer rattle of a pileated woodpecker; watch for the slow and cautious approach of a nice buck; listen to the clarion call of geese as they circle and look for open water or grain still laying in a farm field; taste the delightful flavor of a cup of good coffee on a bitter cold day on the ice as the cold and wind tries to suck the warmth from your body; and never forget to reverently touch the buck, bluegill, perch or walleye while fishing or the soft fur of a cottontail taken ahead of a brace of yodeling beagles trailing a hot bunny track.

Our five senses add a special bonus to every outdoor trip, and it becomes especially true on a winter day when bright sunlight glistens off newly fallen snow. These senses magnify the outdoor pleasures if we just remember to use them at every opportunity.

A proper winter day means more than fish or game. Drink deeply of your five senses, and we find a new thrill in giving our five senses a good workout.

Collecting old outdoor objects heightens my outdoor pleasures

Another of my favorite collectibles are my Michigan turkey patches

Everyone collects something. Writers collect information, baseball fans collect cards of their favorite players, and hockey fans collect sweaters of favorite players or signed hockey-pucks or sticks.

My mother collected old Mason canning jars and hid change in old pill bottles. I go through enough pill bottles, but have precious little change to save. Besides, I prefer what little money I have to be in my pocket.

People have been known to collect string, wire and tin foil. Most of my collecting was related in one way or another to fishing, hunting or trapping for the past 55 years. I even have an old bear trap my Atlantic salmon guide used years ago to trap bear in New Brunswick.

My items of collection are different from those of most people

The world of fishing and hunting is rife with things to collect. My late brother collected old Michigan-made fishing lures and black-white postcards, especially those with fish on them. I helped him locate lures and he helped me track down old fishing and hunting books. It worked out well for both of us.

A buddy collects old double-barrel shotguns while another friend collects only Belgian-made Browning rifles and shotguns. Still another collects duck decoys from some of the old master carvers, another collects bamboo fly rods, and many others collect the bear, deer and turkey patches.

One man collects miniature fishing and hunting books. These tiny books can be as small as two inches high. There aren’t very many of such books around, and most of them are very scarce.

Although most of my older traps have disappeared, there are still some No. 1 and 1 1/2 long-spring and jump traps used for muskrats, coons, mink and fox. I still have a few of the old metal stretchers we used to dry our muskrat hides prior to the sale.

I have a small collection of very low-numbered fishing and hunting licenses as well as some metal seals for deer, bear, moose, wolf and wolverine. Something makes folks like me collect such things. I have a number of old fishing and hunting digests dating back into the 1940s and before.

Mom did her thing with Mason jars and tinfoil. Dad loved western novels, and especially those published in the 1940s and 1950s.  He also had a bunch of the Dell map-back novels, and many are scarce and desirable to old paperback novel collectors, often for their covers.

My guess is we feel closer to our chosen pastimes of fishing and hunting when we are engaged in collecting some of the memorabilia that accompanies our passions. I also have a small knife collection, including an old Marble Arms Company Boy Scout knife.

Books, knives, old, used shotshells & other objects of interest

Are any of these items worth great sums of money? No, they aren’t. I used to reload shotgun shells, and somewhere along the way had the chance to pick up some Winchester-Western 12-gauge AA plastic shotshell cases. Some people are looking for them because they were a great shotshell for reloaders, but one wonders what I’ll do with them.

It’s obvious to most people who read these daily blogs that I collect fishing and hunting books. Why, you ask? Because it’s difficult for us to determine where we are going if we don’t know where we’ve been. The books give me a wonderful idea of what has gone before, and besides, I’m a hopeless romantic when it comes to old fishing and hunting gear.

Over many years my hat collection has grown. There is a story behind every hat, and I still remember most of the stories. Some involve fishing and hunting while other relate more to friends who enjoy the same things that wind my clock. The collection numbers about 400, and each has a story to tell.

I have an old Marble compass and match-safe I’ve carried while hunting since I bought my first hunting license in 1952. In my pocket is a Case jack-knife that is older than I am, and I well remember always having a pocket knife on my person from the 4th grade on.

Every boy in school carried a pocket knife when I was young, and no one was ever cut or stabbed by one, and having one in your pocket wasn’t grounds for being expelled from school. My knife helped me stay focused on what I think are important issues about the old days and life itself, and sadly, those days have ended and a knife — even though used to trim fingernails or sharpen a pencil — now results in an unfriendly chat with the police and probable expulsion from school.

Buying Dad two Derringers for Christmas when we were 12

I well remember years ago when our father was a member of the Special Police in Clio where we grew up. Brother George and I bought Dad a pair of pearl-handled .22 Derringers for Christmas one year. We were kids, but the local chief of police knew us, and OK’ed the buy. That wouldn’t happen now. The kids, and their unwitting father, would likely be arrested: the kids for buying firearms and Dad for letting it happen.

Some little nicknacks line my shelves. Old bottles of Citronella (an insect repellent), leader tins for storing fly-fishing leaders, an old bottle of Hoppe’s No. 9 that I open several times each year to savor an aroma as distinctive as a 12-point buck or a wedge of decoying mallards.

I bought a set of maps published by the Michigan DNR many years ago. There are hot-spots marked on those maps that showed the way to old fishing areas, some great grouse and woodcock coverts, and the neat thing is they show old trails and two-tracks that are no longer visible. Search those maps, and it’s easy (sometimes) to find an old lane that when followed will help us restore some great memories of yesteryear.

Some people have asked me: “What good is all of that old crap?” They only see the flotsam of one man’s life while I see this stuff as being pretty important to me and my fondest memories. Anything that can bring the old days back to life, if only for a few minutes, may be junk to some but it’s one man’s treasure for an old goat like me.

A walk in the woods for bunnies

Winter snow and cottontails are made for each other

The shotgun was just a prop. The real reason I carried it on a walk around my 20 acres was in case I kicked up a cottontail rabbit. I’ve done a good bit of judicious timber cutting, and many brush piles hold bunnies.

I stoked the twin tubes of my Winchester 12-gauge over-and-under with low-brass No. 6 shot, and whether a bunny bounced out of a brush-pile or not wasn’t the point.

The major attraction was an opportunity to be outdoors, firearm in hand, and going for a walk. Six inches of snow fell overnight, and it was just too nice and too pretty of a day to miss an opportunity by staying indoors.

A good day for a walk in the snowy woods, shotgun in hand

I donned a Hunter Orange hat and vest, tied up my boots, grabbed some sunglasses to prevent too much glare, and went for a hike.

The snow was fairly deep and it covered many fallen limbs, and that made me aware of potential hazards. If I didn’t watch where I was going, there was the possibility of tripping over an unseen object.

A shuffling step or two would be taken, and then a long pause. The brush-piles stood out in somber and stark relief to the whiteness of the woods, and I encountered two or three fresh bunny tracks. Was it three different cottontails or just one animal making a lot of tracks?

Just walk slow, stop often and it’s like still-hunting deer

I’d follow each one along, stopping often, looking ahead, and crossed the tracks of three deer (one had a big hoof-print), but it was accompanied by a deer with a small foot, and my suspicion was a doe and fawn. One other track was seen, and it was traveling alone. Buck or doe? No clue.

There were several fox squirrels moving about, and one offered a shot but it wasn’t taken. I watched the bushytail poke around on the ground only 30 yards away, and it offered an obvious easy shot but there are plenty of days left to hunt squirrels, but there was no interest today.

I noticed a weasel track nosing into one of the brush-piles, but it may have had a burrow to go down, because the white coat of the ermine wasn’t visible. Years ago, I trapped a few ermine and always respected the vicious little animal for its hunting ability.

Kicking brush piles can be a good hunting method

My intentions were to stay on level ground, and I didn’t want to risk traveling downhill to hunt through this much snow. Such downward hikes require climbing back up, which isn’t a bother, except it provides a greater opportunity of slipping or losing my balance.

Only one cottontail was seen and it was boosted from a brush-pile just before the ground fell away into a ravine. I came up with the shotgun but the bunny was 40 yards out, running hard and it quickly ducked into another pile of brush part-way down the hill.

The situation appeared to be one where some caution was required, and on further reflection, my brain questioned the sanity of risking a downhill traverse to the brush. Perhaps I’d get a shot, but another brush-pile lay only 20 yards from where the rabbit took cover.

It appeared to be a rather foolish temptation, and it didn’t take long to reject the idea. One rabbit wouldn’t feed my wife and I, and later in the season, it would be tempting to take the trail of that cottontail again.

Better to do it later than now. My cap was tipped to the rabbit, and I retraced my steps, kicked around two or three other piles of brush without rousting another cottontail, and my hike ended with simply some great exercise.

The shotgun was nothing more than an excuse for taking a hike. But, with a shotgun in hand, I was hunting and having a good time and on a cold winter day, it was the best excuse I had for spending time outdoors.

Fly fishing the steelhead streams 45 years ago

Tres Amigos (L-R) George Richey, John McKenzie & Dave Richey

Those people who just got started steelhead fishing in the last few years missed out on the finest fishing ever seen back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Good numbers of steelhead were being planted all around the state, and the Betsie and Platte rivers offered great sport that was certainly was as good as it gets.

There was some natural steelhead reproduction 35 years ago, and the DNR was planting fish as well. The number of anglers who knew how to catch steelhead were few, and the numbers of fish were very high.

My guiding career began in 1967, and brother George joined me in guiding fly fishermen to salmon, steelhead and broad-shouldered brown trout. John McKenzie became the third of Tres Amigos, and we cut a wide swath through runs of spring and fall spawning salmonids.

We fly-fished, and taught our clients how to cast & catch fish

Snagging was rampant  in those days, and we fished with No. 4, 6 and 8 single-hook flies, and it may sound like bragging but it’s not: we were good anglers and guides, and there was no need to snag fish. We could fair-hook fish on a regular basis. The sheer numbers of fish meant if we spooked fish in one spot, a short distance away would be willing fish.

The steelhead runs were huge in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and I can remember days on the Little Manistee River when we could hook 30 steelhead in a day. Not all fish were landed, but George and John tied flies while I handled the bookings for three guides.

We were a busy bunch, and were on the river every day. We knew where the salmon, steelhead or browns would be from day to day, and we seldom had much competition. We came and went, and sometimes Tres Amigos were all on the same stream, and at times we would be spread out across three different rivers. We’d compare notes at night, and decide who would fish where the next day.

John, 13 years younger than George and I, was a good-looking guy. I often paired him with husband-and-wife teams or father-and-daughters, and his great talent — besides catching fish — was being able to teach people how to fish. He was patient, and clients easily learned from him.

We three were a well-oiled team that worked together

George and I were older, and by nature, seemed to attract the older anglers or the chief person who brought a crew up fishing. We treated everyone the same; we’d fish from sunup to sundown every day if clients wanted it, and clean fish at night and be up early the next day.

Guiding fishermen was a way of life for Tres Amigos, and we were very good at what we did. We could spot fish, coax anglers into putting the fly in exactly the right spot so it would be scratching gravel when it passed the fish. Often the fish would take, and we’d have a big fight on our hands.

One thing captivated we three guides: putting people into big fish for the first time. The smiles that crossed their faces when they fought a 15-pound steelhead for the first time; got hooked into a 30-pound chinook salmon; or was trying to land a big hook-jawed male brown trout weighing 12 to 18 pounds. It’s been many years since those faces broke out into a smile, but I vividly remember most of them.

There wasn’t anything we wouldn’t do for each other. John was known to tie flies by hand on the river bank when we ran out. George was always there to coax anxious anglers into following a big fish downstream, and I was the guy that made it all work with the precision of a Swiss watch. All of us had a job to do, and we greeted each peach-colored dawn with a smile on our face and a jump in our step.

Each day was a new adventure for us and our guided clients

For 10 years we were Tres Amigos — three friends — who made a living in the best possible way — being outdoors, on the river, and with a client holding tight to a big fish jumping in the river.

We often went without eating, found ourselves upside down in the river current trying to net a client’s fish for them, and we looked out for each other. We also paid attention to our clients, catered to their every wish that was ethical and legal, and we coaxed more out of our client’s skill levels that they knew they had.

We put people into fall-spawning rainbows that had tiny tails, fat waists, and 23-inch fish that weighed 13 pounds. The browns, especially the big males, were a golden-bronze with big spots; the steelhead were mint-silver and high jumping; the chinook salmon were tackle busters of the first degree, and some mighty battles would cover a half-mile of river. The coho salmon were seldom finicky about a fly: put it to them at their level, and they would hit.

It was a magical 10 years, and now brother George is gone. John McKenzie and I occasionally talk on the phone, and I miss him. We took a trip down memory lane about years ago. We were there for the finest salmon and trout fishing this state has ever seen, and pride ourselves on being the first fly fishing guides on the river.

And that, my friends, is something we’ll never forget.

Common sense and intuition work if you pay attention

Really solid ice is needed to support angler and shanty

When it comes to the old cliche like “treading water,” it means much the same as “spinning your wheels.” And frankly, that’s about where I’m at while waiting for lake ice to form a solid mantle on area lakes.

It’s been a long and frustrating wait. But now, a few reports are coming in. One came from a good friend of mine who travels widely across the state, and he is telling me that many smaller lakes in northern counties now have two to five inches of ice.

Is the ice safe? He tells me that it is marginal, even on lakes with five inches. Strong winds have broken up some ice a couple of days ago, and it has frozen again. Broken ice that re-freezes isn’t nearly as safe as a solid layer.

Don’t fish alone on ice, and pay attention to instincts

And then there are the springs to watch out for. Springs can weaken ice directly above where the water bubbles out of the lake bottom, and it can cause wide variations in ice thicknesses in the area.

Inlets and outlets of lakes can cause serious ice problems as well. The moving water tends to eat away at the bottom of the ice, weakening it occasionally faster than cold weather can freeze it.

There are other problems. Wooden docks, old wood pilings and posts, and other woody debris sticking through the ice surface can seriously weaken the nearby ice.

A serious problem with late-forming ice is that if the ice has been broken apart, and then freezes again, it freezes at an uneven rate. One spot can have the strength of regular ice, and 10 yards away is a spot that has very brittle and poor ice.

Weak spots may appear safe, especially if they have a certain amount of snow on top. Too much snow insulates the ice, and it doesn’t freeze evenly or properly. A skiff of snow can hide weakened ice, and a misstep by an angler can send him crashing through.

Ice doesn’t freeze evenly and can be treacherous.

I’m seriously wanting to go ice fishing. However, I am antsy about going out on early ice. I want safe ice under my feet, and I’ve been known to pass up ice fishing all winter if the ice is unstable. Years ago, I would accept such risks.

Now days, there may be a tinge of yellow running up my back. If any part of me gets that certain feeling, a hunch, an intuition, a queasy feeling in my guts, that things may not be right, I stay off the ice. I met a friend who told me the ice was safe, and I had a strong gut feeling about the ice conditions. My instincts told me to stay on shore.

I told him that perhaps I would join him later. He got 10 feet from shore, and went through into chest-deep water. No danger of drowning, but he was spitting and sputtering from the cold water as he broke ice back to shore.

He wanted to know why I didn’t follow him

He was soaked through, and was heading for his car. He paused while unlocking his car door and asked a pointed question.

“Why didn’t you walk out onto the ice with me?” he asked. “Why did you stand up on shore?”

I told him that my instincts, gut feelings, whatever one wants to call them, have taken care of me over the years, and I’ve learned to rely on them. They told me to stay on shore, which I did, and I told him that is why you are cold and wet and I am not.

Gut instincts. Many people have never cultivated or listened to their inner feelings. It’s why some people become victims. Me, I don’t care to become a winter statistic as a result of stupidity. It also answers the question of why I don’t ride snowmobiles.