Weather Knowledge for Outdoor Podcasts

March 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Me with a fish

One of the benefits of having a background in meteorology is that weather has an effect on nearly everything outdoors. Including the Bassmaster Elite Series tournaments. I have been slightly obsessed with these tournaments for a long time. Like anything else watching the best of the best perform is awesome, especially when it is something you are interested in. It is incredible how much I learn every time I watch those guys fish.

Last year an online friend, Greg Huff (www.twitter.com/lazy_ike) asked me if I would contribute weather forecasts to his Fantasy Fishing podcast (yes, there is a such thing as Fantasy Fishing!). Guys pick the anglers they think will succeed, and points are awarded like other fantasy type games. I jumped at the chance and we have been getting together via skype for my contribution all last season and for the first few tournaments of this season.

Greg wrote a great little article for a bass fishing site that he contributes to about the success of my weather forecast for the Bassmaster Classic a few weeks ago. You can find the article and that bass fishing site in general here: http://www.bassutopia.com/2012/02/you-do-need-weatherman-to-see-which-way.html.

I am definitely open to doing a few more of these guest spots. There is nothing I like more than talking about the outdoors and weather! Feel free to shoot me an email or comment on this post and we can work to connect.

Filed Under: Fishing, Outdoor, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

New Site!!!

February 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Welcome to my new site. I am hoping to dedicate this site to my two biggest passions in life; the outdoors and weather. As a meteorologist I have a passion for weather and love the science behind it however, I have to admit that what I love most is how much my knowledge of weather helps me when I am out fishing and hunting.

This site will be committed to a couple of things. The first is that I hope to share my outdoor adventures in this space. I have already pre-populated the blog with a bunch of hunting and fishing posts from my other blog. From this point on each outdoor blog that I post will have plenty of weather details and how I modified my approach based on the weather. I also hope to share my basic weather knowledge and relate it to your time afield.  As many outdoorsman know the weather can literally make or break a hunting or fishing trip. I am hoping the knowledge I share here can help you make the most of your time outdoors.

 

Filed Under: Fishing, Hunting, Outdoor, Weather Tagged With: , , , , ,

Hunting Season Comes to an End

January 15, 2012 by 3 Comments

I ended my formal hunting season today by discharging my muzzleloader at a fence post (didn’t even look to see if I hit it). It was a frustrating way to end the season. I had high hopes this season for a little venison in the freezer but it didn’t happen. I had some close calls but for the most part this year the deer were pretty hard to find. As for excuses, I do think the strange weather (very warm and snow free) had something to do with it. Because it was so mild the deer could wait until well after dark to come out and eat, and the lack of snow meant plenty of food was available. In years past we have had TONS of snow for the muzzleloader season in January. Today for my last hunt of the year, I hunted without a coat for most of the day and had only a dusting of snow on the ground.

I also learned a lot about the challenges of hunting solo! Several times I tried to “walk” to locate deer. In the past I have hunted almost exclusively from a stand. I think I got the walking idea because I see so many deer while pheasant hunting (likewise when I was trying to quietly, sneakily deer hunt I had pheasants scaring the crap out of my every five minutes!). Unfortunately, after walking several of my best deer/pheasant spots and not seeing a thing, I finally saw a pack of deer on a farm today, they were of course sprinting away from me and gave me no chance. I need a hunting buddy for next year… a simple one man drive and one man block could have been very effective on a lot of spots!

The pheasant hunting season was OK. I had pretty good luck (including a limit) early in the year. But the bird numbers were down and it definitely showed! The birds were tough to find and you had to maximize your opportunities. I did get my first hungarian partridge which was pretty cool! I was also pretty excited about having a duck stamp this year as I always see a ton of ducks when pheasant hunting. I shot at plenty of high flying ducks but never connected, I had a golden opportunity to take a snow goose, but it was flying over very thin ice and I passed to keep my dog from retrieving it off the lake. Speaking of the dog, Dakota seems to get better every year and this year was no exception. She works hard, had some solid points, some great retrieves and was an excellent companion for me in the field.

All in all it was a good season. I am already thinking of next year and would like to do a little more planning to have a few more stands or blinds set up. I am also looking forward to potentially trying out some coyote hunting yet this winter and also turkey hunting this spring. While I love to hunt, fishing is my passion and I am hoping to explore some NE South Dakota lakes yet this ice fishing season.

While I didn’t connect on a deer for the freezer I did find a nice shed antler today for Elias.

Filed Under: Hunting, Outdoor, Uncategorized, Weather Tagged With: , , , , ,

Fishing Getaway

January 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I had some time to get away over the holidays and do some much needed ice fishing. Unfortunately, the results weren’t great and we didn’t catch much. I still had a great time on the ice and will be looking forward to my next trip north to do some ice fishing. Here is a little video that I put together on our trip spearing for northern pike.

 

Filed Under: Fishing, Outdoor, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Deer Hunting 2011

November 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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I spent some time deer hunting this weekend. It was our South Dakota deer opener on Saturday so I wasn’t alone in the fields of South Dakota. Though I can tell you after growing up hunting in Wisconsin this deer hunting is very different! I did hear shots but never actually saw another hunter in the field, this is a good thing! I hunted Saturday in wind driven snow, the area I was hunting picked up about 4 inches of snow on Saturday with winds 30-40 mph. It was pretty miserable and the deer really hunkered down. In fact I didn’t see a single deer after walking several miles worth of sloughs, and shelterbelts. Of course I had walked those same spots a week earlier pheasant hunting and saw 10 deer including 3 nice bucks! Such is hunting.

I was on the fence about hunting on Sunday but was glad I went. The picture you see above is from my deer blind. It is sitting on top of a stock dam, with a huge slough to my right and a chunk of CRP to my left. There is a tilled up bean field right in front of me and a picked corn field off to the right a little bit. I have gotten a couple of deer from this spot and really like it. The deer typically come out of the slough to eat late in the day. It was a gorgeous night, with light winds and temps in the 20s. I did see some deer on Sunday, the first one was in a shelterbelt about 200 yards away from me. It was a small buck, I actually popped out of my blind when I saw it and crept a little closer, I saw him bed down in the trees and went back to my blind. After sitting and not seeing anything for several hours I decided I would try to push that deer in the shelterbelt towards my grandfather who was on the end of it with about 10 minutes of shooting light left. Back to the hunt… I had been doing some calling through the evening with my grunt tube and tried an aggressive set of calling with some grunts and bleats as time was running out. After 10 minutes and with darkness moving in quickly I started climbing out of my blind, as I was out and started walking away suddenly a deer busted in the slough and started running away from me. It was a VERY nice buck! And he was 30 feet away from me when he busted. He ran across the slough to some land I don’t have permission to hunt and posed for me as I drolled over him in my scope. Needless to say I was pretty bummed, I am really not sure if he ever would have come out of the slough, but I have to think he was responding to my calling. The thing I can’t get over is how that big boy got so close to me without me hearing or seeing him. I have such respect for these animals and how crafty and cunning they are. I learn something new every time I go out and this time was definitely no exception.

Thankfully I still have 2 weeks and 2 weekends of hunting left to get that buck. I will be back that is for sure.

 

Filed Under: Hunting, Outdoor, Slider, Uncategorized, Weather Tagged With: , , , , ,
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