Last Updated: Thursday, October 2, 2008 9:49 AM CDT
Outdoors : An outdoor wilderness experience on the Turtle-Flambeau flowage
Mark Walters - Columnist
(An Outdoorsman’s Journal) - Hello friends.
My father, the late Robert Walters started taking me to the Turtle-Flambeau flowage back in 1970. We would rent a boat from Tutt’s Resort and fish out of it along with a 12-foot jon boat that my dad would tow behind the rental boat.
Back then life was simple. Dad and two of my brothers, Tom and Mike, would camp on an island for the opener of Wisconsin’s inland fishing season and truly enjoy life for about five days.
Thursday, Sept. 18
High 77, Low 52
The pups and I (Brownie and Ice) arrived yesterday and launched my boat and canoe at Murray’s landing which is located on the eastern end of the flowage. The Flambeau which consists of about 36,000 acres is managed by the state, is located in Iron County and is as close to a wilderness experience as you’re going to get on a piece of property of this size in Wisconsin.
My goals on this trip were catch a musky (stop laughing), shoot a deer with a bow and arrow (I said stop laughing) and whack some geese on the last two days of this five-day adventure.
Yesterday, I had enough daylight to find a really good-looking deer trail to hunt that crosses a large marsh. For the last half of an hour of daylight I threw casts for musky and watched flock after flock of geese land in stand of wild rice that has settled into the water, but is attracting hundreds of ducks and Canadian geese.
That wild rice just happens to be located right next to my camp and the very noisy geese made sleeping at night quite difficult.
Today, I made what I think was about a twenty mile round trip boat ride to visit my friends, Rod and Mary Ann Brown, who own Lake View Resort.
The Browns and I have been good friends for twenty years and it was kind of a bummer when after a very interesting ride (lots of stumps and rocks) my friends were not home.
Rod Brown has not had the best of health lately and I wish him a good, solid recovery.
On my way back to camp, I had a talk with Jim Cox and Jim Zarzycki who are a couple of DNR fisheries technicians for Ashland and Iron County.
These fellas are a couple of solid outdoorsmen and I felt pretty lucky when they let me hop aboard their jon boat to watch them pull in their gill nets as they were trying to catch some lake sturgeon and attach a micro chip on each one for research on each fish that may be caught again in the future.
During the one run of the nets that I was with them, the only fish caught (and released) was a 45-inch musky that was extremely over weight and had me thinking I wanted to catch it with a rod and reel.
Friday, Sept. 19
High 77, Low 54
The nights are so warm that I leave the door open on my tent and wake frequently and listen to the geese. Approaching geese wake me by their honking and then the air whistling through their wings. I can hear their feet hit the water and am well aware that they are feeding on wild rice that is actually underwater.
This morning, I got up before sunrise and came up with a plan for how I would hunt them on the following days Exterior Zone opener. I would use my canoe as a layout blind and anchor it in the downed rice and cover myself, and the pups with camo material.
Later in the day, I went musky fishing and truly was contemplating why I have such horrible results, as far actually catching musky.
I had just tied on a Suick, made a cast and was pulling it out of the water when a musky hit it, a foot out of the water. I was just as surprised that a musky would actually hit a lure I was throwing, as I was aware that I was going to have to have my act together to land a very feisty fish, that was close to the motor, and had no desire to be caught.
The stars must have been lined up just right, because I caught that musky, that measured 40-inches, released it and went back to camp for an afternoon bow hunt.
Love the Flambeau!
Sunset
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