December 2009 L&M Newsletter

We are joining together to wish each of you and your families a joyful and warm holiday season. And then we are all off to a new year! We hope that the new year will be good to each of you in every way. We count our blessings each day. And they are:

Travis and Chris.... still living in Zumbrota and both are working in the cities (St Paul and Eden Prairie) Their little daughter, Jaycie, will turn 2 years the end of February. She is growing so fast and giving them lots of love and fun in their days.

Lucas and Nikki... they are living on Off Lake still and running their cabins and doing the hunting in the falls. Hunter is 12 already and in grade 7. He plays hockey of course, living in Canada you play hockey. So that keeps them running to town a few days each week and on the weekends. The girls, Madeline and Matraca, are 9 years and in grade 4. They are just little princesses.

Shane is still our right hand in operating L&M. Yes, still single and enjoying life just the way it is. You will read about how he spends the off months from the office in the paragraphs below.

Larry and I are still hanging in there working the job as we have now going on 24 years. Times have changed this industry as it has most jobs.

Hopefully we will see a lot of you this season.

Hunting
December every year comes up on us too fast. Which in our household means, the hunting season is drawing to a close. Our 2009 hunting season in Montana this fall was a great time just as each season is. The summer of 2009 never really stopped, the wild weather we had this summer really just continued into our fall season to also make things interesting during the hunts. Our main focus is to have a good time and do the best we can on our own all unguided hunts.

Our season really began when Lucas brought his son, Hunter, out to Montana for antelope opener. Many of you remember Lucas and Hunter from before they started their own business. They came out a couple of days before the season opener as it was Hunters 12th birthday. Plus it give us a couple of days to let him shoot grandma's 243 at the targets and to drive around looking at the country side. Opening day of season found it to be cold and chilly. Snow was in the forecast, normally this time of year is very mild. So we all wore our coats and drove to the ranch we planned to hunt, which is only about 5 minute drive from the house here. We found some antelope here and there, but all seemed to be off limits as they were on neighboring ranch lands. At about mid morning, we decide to go for a walk into some hills we traditionally have seen antelope at in previous years. Didn't take too long to find a small herd of antelope, but they moved off into another area before we could get into position. A little while longer, Lucas spotted a lone buck antelope right over the ridge. We all ducked down while Lucas helped Hunter get into shooting position. Boom.. Hunter is a natural at shooting and did a excellent job on a clean harvest. After lots of pictures of Hunters first big game animal, we started to skin and quarter his trophy out as we were a couple of miles back in the ranch where they do not allow any driving to take place. As soon as we started back towards the truck, the clouds lowered and started to spit some snow. Our visibility was low and we thought the rest of th e after noon would be a bust towards hunting. The luck be had, we walked right on the same ridge that a group of antelope decided to walked up also. Lucas shot his antelope there, too, while carrying Hunters antelope out. Later that day, I also shot my antelope as it cleared up and Larry shot his the next morning. It was a great hunt having the first and only grandson join us on his first big game hunt. One we will all remember.

Our annual (5th year to this location) elk hunting trip was a great time again, but no killing elk on this trip... Normally we harvest 1-2 elk on this trip, but weather played a nasty roll on us. Wolves moved into where we hunted the first time, and when we did find elk to make a play on, they zigged when we zagged. We spent 9 nights on the mountain, just Larry and I, facing severe winds, mountain fog, and crunchy snow much of the trip, even though we still managed to find some elk to keep us preoccupied. We had 3 chances at the elk that presented a chance to make a move on. First one, which was a slam dunk. Shot at a good 300 class 6 point with a nice 5 point. We like hunting over in this other drainage a couple miles away from camp and the shortcut with how the stateline runs takes you on the border of Montana and Idaho on this walk. Yup. We ran into these elk while they stood in Idaho (our licenses are not valid for Idaho) and when they ran into the Montana side, they were way too far away to get a shot at. Another good chance, We located a bull with some cows with about 30 minutes of light left that day. After making a hard push before darkness came, we made it up to the area just as the last elk was walking into the dark timber. We assume the bull was just ahead of her going into the timber, we had no light left to work the area out to get a shot. The 3rd chance at a bull, I'm still scratching my head over. We located 2 nice bulls in these ridges in a big burned area from about 2 miles away. We made it all the way undetected to about 300 yards making our approach. We could just make their outline out through a patch of trees, but crunchy snow made us not able to approach any closer using this angle for a shot. When we reproached from a new angle, we thought this would work, they were gone... As luck had it, the cards just didn't work out, we ended up seeing over 80 elk total during the trip. I like to compare this trip to our outpost trips we offer. This outfitter uses his horses to pack our things up the mountain. He provides the tent and stove.. And says See ya till I pick ya up end of the trip.

Lucky horseshoes? Larry has one. He drew another good special tag this year.. being a Mt. Goat in Montana. The season for goats is open from Sept till the end of Nov. We planned on going later in the season to wait for the goats to hair up, even though getting snow on the ground for these types of trips can ruin the odds as they live in some of the roughest country side to climb in. Snow and ice can make its way too dangerous to climb. Early in Nov, the snow came by the foot in Montana giving us the "OH NO" thought. Luckily the mountain ranges to the south of the goat area picked up nearly 4 feet of snow the. The area his goat tag was in, had only about 1 foot. After the storm, mild temps help melt off 99% of the snow and we decided we should get into the area and start hunting before another storm rolls in. The first morning we checked a lot of rock slides, rock outcroppings and didn't see a goat. So we kept working on, glassing different areas with no luck. That is until we worked up this steep ridge to glass into a rugged canyon we heard there could be goats in. Instantly, found a herd of 9 goats, another group of 5 goats. All within 1,000 yards of our location. So we backed off and made a flanking maneuver up and around the corner to get around the group of 5 goats and reproached and worked within 100 yards. Found 1 nice billy, The rest where nanny's and a kid. We sat watching them for a while, it was actually very interesting watching them. We had never seen a goat make there bed before. They lay on rocks, but if they find some dirt on these steep hillsides, they dig, like a dog would, to make a little bench to lay on. The dirt just flies. After a while of watching the goats, we backed off in search of more goats. We hunted a few days and the total goat count ended in 32 goats seen. We tried to harvest a good billy in one location but he would never move off the rock where we wanted him to. Larry could have shot him on the rock where he was 20 times over but the odds of retrieving him off those ledges where not in good odds. We felt we would not be able to climb to where the goat was hanging out. So we found another group of goats that had 2 billy's, 2 nanny's and 1 kid in a area we could retrieve him. Larry got set up for a severe downward angle shot with strong winds sweeping across the ridge.. After 2 well placed shots both hitting the mark, the goat slide down the steep rocks about 100 yards before making a full stop. From our location, it took us 2 hours to get off the ledges we were on to the spot the goat went d own. After pictures taken, the work of packing the goat off the mountain started towards our tent. Another great hunt for us.

Speaking of Lucky. Mary also has a lucky horeshoe. She drew a special hunt area in Montana for elk.the Missouri River Breaks area which is only a couple of hours drive north of the house. So Larry, Mary, and I all headed to the breaks, planning on just 3 days up there. Our main focus was the elk, but we all had deer tags that were valid in this hunt area. In prior years we have seen some big elk and good deer in this area. Game plan, Mary never killed a branch bull before so any branch bull we could find would try to get her a shot on. Weather again, actually was too nice. Extreme winds the first day with temps above 50. The next days the wind dropped but held warm temps. Its tough hunting when its so warm, nice to enjoy but the animals are not out feeding very long in the m orning and evenings. We did see elk every day. The 2nd day we saw over 30 elk but never got it right, being in the right place at the right time. To end the day we decided we should cross over, back a ridge, to get a better view. As soon as we got there, Mary pointed out looking back right where we came from. There's elk. Some cows and 3 bulls. Little frustrating to see the elk come out right were we were just a 1/2 hour ago with not enough day light to go back. Esp when a nice 6 point bull was in that group. Next day we decided to start our day on a big vantage point, overlooking lots of area. Instantly, we found elk in the same area we saw them the day before, so off we go towards them. As we got closer we took a closer inspection. The elk we had seen must have dropped into some timber or in a fold we could not see, but did find a big bull all alone further in. Good thing, was were we expected the herd of elk to be was going to be right on track towards the big bull. After ab out a mile walk towards this general direction, we came a across a branch bull. Larry tried to get Mary set up for a shot but before she could shot, the bull walked down over a small knoll out of sight. So we all took off running towards the ridge ahead of us, trying to cut them off and there he was. about 300 yards out... Now or never, I got Mary set up on the shooting sticks and while doing so, I hit on the cow call hard. The elk where starting to run away and this made him stop for a couple of seconds. Just enough time to get a shot off. Boom.. We could tell the bull was hit and he stopped after running a few yards. Boom again.. The bull took off again, right into the thick timber. We all thought the bull was hit twice with the "smack" sound of the bullets, but we didn't actually see him go down. Mary thought she saw him go down just as he went into the trees but not 100%. So we played it safe and not to get in a hurry, just in case he was wounded. We sat around for li ttle bit in case he was wounded, to let him stiffin' up. After about a hour , we worked our way down to where the bull went into the timber. Mary was right, she did see him go down. 2 excellent placed shots right behind the shoulder. Pictures where taken, and the work began. From the nearest road was about 2 1/2 miles in, so Larry and I each loaded a front shoulder, a back strap, tenderloin, and some trimmings into our pack and we headed out. We left the hind quarters hanging in a tree for the 2nd trip packing out. It happened, we never did see the big bull we saw earlier in the day because we found this other bull first. But we accomplished our goal in finding Mary this branch bull.

To end our hunting season in Montana, was Thanksgiving week. Travis brought out some of his friends to go deer hunting. They stayed in the newly remodeled bunkhouse. (More news to come in our next newsletter about the bunkhouse, we are making final plans on how we will be running this next season) They had a good week of hunting. Larry and I hunted for ourselves during this time, too, for deer. We hunted hard, covering lots of miles the first 3 days and only saw 1 good buck. We tried to make a play on him but before we could get into position ,he moved across a back corner fence-line into a neighboring ranch that didn't allow hunting. The 4th day we found a good buck that was worth a closer look but was off property about mile away. But he was working closer. So we kept our eyes on this buck and luckily enough he did cross over on the ranch we were hunting. We started to make our sneak towards him. About 30 minutes later found myself peeking over a ridge looking at 2 does where we thought he should be. Where's the buck? He should be here. Kept patient and finally he worked out from behind a group of trees less than a 100 yards a way. The buck didn't fair too well after that point. Now time to work on Larry's deer. We got permission to hunt on this other property, it gets a lot of hunting pressure (so our thought would be.) We needed to get to the furthest corner of the ranch in the rough areas. Normally not many people would make the effort to walk into these kinds of places, so we decided on this SW corner of this ranch to hunt during this day. Which was about 3 miles off the road. Ended up being a good choice. As soon as we got in the back corner, we started to see deer. Didn't see a thing during our walk all the way back in. We came across a buck and doe less than 100 yards away maybe 24-25 inches wide, but Larry passed on him. Crappy forks and not heavy. So off we go working this area a little further, and another buck. Small. Another buck. Small. Crested a ridge, there goes, running at full speed, what appeared to be a nice 4 point. Never did get a good look at him as he never did stand still. When he took off running, we had guessed he might have ran into this steep canyon. We checked all the little folds in this area. With the exception of 1. We figured we would check this last spot and started heading back towards the truck. There he goes.running. This was Thanksgiving day, needless to say, 3 miles in, we have a deer down, and wanted to be back for Thanksgiving dinner on time. We put a rush on our duties, pictures, quartered the deer, loaded our packs, and double timed it out. We made it back for dinner in time. Thanksgiving dinner was great, with Travis and his friends all. Travis and his friends all did well hunting as well.

Mary still didn't have a deer and we talked her into going the last weekend of season. The first afternoon turned into a bust, saw only a couple of deer. Next morning the place we planned to hunt backfired. As we pulled to the spot to turn into the ranch, another truck pulled in just ahead of us. So we opted to go to this other area close, that is a state section. We walked in about ½ mile and found a doe in front of us. There's a BIG BUCK just above her about 500 yards out and on the move towards the back boundry of this spot. Off we went, parrelling him on the other side of the grove of trees. We couldn't see him, but figured he would work this draw up towards the back corner. After a rushed few minutes, we came up the back fence line so we had to make our way across the draw of trees. Mary spots a deer up the ridge, about where the big one should be. Deer is looking back at what we thought was us. She said it was a buck so we all assumed that he was the big one and didn't take a look. Told her to shot it. She shot, one shot.. got him.. We all stood up and took 2 steps. OH, we all saw the big buck on his feet and less than 100 yards away just looking at us. Guess this is what Mary's deer was looking at when she shot. Needless to say, it was a exciting hunt, that's why its called hunting. Mary ended up getting a buck not near the big one. She's happy with the deer and so are we, its all about the good times and time spend doing things like this.

I hope you have all enjoyed our stories as much as we enjoy sharing them with you. Of course, Now we do what we do... waiting for the next hunting season to arrive??

Sportshows
We plan on only attending 3 shows this winter/spring season.

Pheasant Fest in Des Moines at the Iowa Events Center. Feb 26-28. Booth #820

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel March 10-14. Booth #709

Minneapolis NorthWest Show at the Convention Center. March 25-28. 1600 Isle

Odds and Ends
All of our repeat customers should be receiving postcards in the mail this next week or next. To help L & M maintain up- to- date files, if you should receive 2 postcards with different addresses, please let L & M know so we can correct our files. If that happens, let us know name and address of the postcard that needs to be deleted or corrected on account of misspelling or incorrect address. LM@LMflyin.com

BOATER SAFETY will be a required item for your trips coming to Canada in 2010. Yes, it's another item we are not exactly thrilled about, but the good old government is making this a law. We can issue a crash coarse checklist when you arrive and take care of it but it takes extra time to factor in during your check -in. Everyone who plans on being the driver of a boat in Canada NEEDS to have a boaters license. Check out the Minnesota DNR.... looks like a no charge service. Do not delay, get your license today....BEAT THE SPRING SUMMER rush!! This is just one example, any coarse will work. You can take the course in your home state or other state and that is legal and sufficient to have the card to prove to Canada you have already taken the course. That way you are legal to operate the boat and we do not have to give you the crash coarse checklist when you arrive. Just remember to bring the card or whatever they issue that you have completed the coarse, as that will be a required document you need to carry in the boat with you during your fishing trip.

http://www.boat-ed.com/ia/index.htm
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/safety/boatwater/testpacket.html
http://canada/boatersafety.gov

Again, we want wish all you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. God Bless

Larry, Mary, and Shane Adams