December 2010 L&M Newsletter

Hello to All!

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Holiday and that you are all ready for a wonderful Christmas Holiday coming up, being blessed with friends and family.

Our last newsletter came out in August. Since then all of our outposts have been locked up and winterized. The airplanes are sitting in Sioux Lookout, going through the normal winter- time maintenance schedules. Now with winter and snow in our minds (and yards & driveways for a lot of you who are reading this), it's time to be thinking ahead to next spring and our 2011 fishing season. I would like to thank each and every one of you who came with L & M Fly Ins last year, thank you for your business. We hope you had enjoyed your stay while under our care. If it was not for you, we would not be able to do our jobs and have what we have.

The past few seasons our email newsletters have been a success by the comments we receive from our customers. In fact, one of the more favorite readings of the year by the readers say our annual hunting newsletter is their favorite. It's that time of year again. The fall season is turning into winter which means the hunting season is coming to a close.

We invite you to read about our Montana hunting season. Some of the hunting took place in the mountains and the other times we hunted the prairies of Montana. The outlook was good for both deer and elk as the numbers around the state have done well and faired OK from last winter. However, the antelope numbers were way down according to the Fish and Game in the region we go hunting in due to a hard winter/spring last year.

We started off hunting antelope on a couple of ranches and state lands within close driving distance of the house. Like any other hunt, we wake real early in the morning so we are out in the field by first light. To start the hunt right away started out wet. Hard rains moved in the night prior to opening day made for a muddy mess as the rains continued through opening day. We didn't let this fact keep us inside. We made the best of the situation and put on our rain gear to go hunting. We found plenty of mud but not many antelope. We figured most where hunkered down in some protected areas staying out away from the weather. Soon as the weather cleared up, we started to see antelope out and about. My antelope we spotted long ways off and we made our stalk close r through the mud. Shaving the distance the first time proved to have failed as they spotted us first, but we saw the direction they took off towards. We took off in that direction, a few ridges later, we relocated them and made another stalk in closer. We found a nice buck about 300 yards out within the group of antelope, got ready, safety off, just going to putting pressure on the trigger a ranch cow comes charging in towards the antelope. In turn he takes off running out of sight. Back to the drawing board to relocate them, Short while later, I was able to seal the deal after doing yet another stalk on this antelope. Larry's antelope we spotted from a high ridge with about 1 hour daylight and a mile to cover for the shot. Fortunately, everything went as planned. We picked out the spot to make the shot from and headed that way. When we arrived they were right where we figured they would be and he was able to make a good shot.

The next hunt was our annual elk hunting trip in the mountains. This year will mark our 6th year hunting this same area/mountain. We had the packer take us and our gear in by horseback. He dropped us off for the week. Hunting was great. Extremely hard rains the day prior that turned into a freezing rain the night before we showed up. That made things interesting, as well. The north slopes where all slick with ice in the high elevations, which we found out very quickly, as soon as we started to hunt, we were slipping and sliding ourselves. Early in the hunt we were glassing from the "birds- eye" view high on a ridge, searching the entire area around us for elk. No elk in the higher elevations that we could see. We saw everything down low in the drainages where the freezing rains never froze, just rain instead. We figured the elk didn't like walking on the ice either. So we concentrated the first half of the trip in lower elevations. First morning afterwards, we spotted a bull running down the drainage below us that obviously was spooked by another hunter. We were able to intercept his path after a short run where I was able to take a long shot that connected. We hunted for a couple more days with no luck finding a bull. We saw cows everyday though. Then one morning, we spotted a large group of elk about 2 miles away that were out feeding in an old burn area. We watched them to see what they would do in terms of where they would bed down for the day. We found that most of the elk crossed over into Idaho and out of sight, which made them "off limits" to our Montana tags. However, we noticed a couple of elk split off from the main group and those elk stayed on the Montana side of the mountain. We lost sight of them, too, but had a good idea where they were going to bed down. We made a long hike into the area. Sure enough, a bull stands up from his bed within shooting distance. Larry was able to make his shot count on a great public lands' bull.

Our deer hunting in Montana would take place around the house. We hunt anywhere within sight of the house to an hour drive away, depending on where we pick to hunt for the day. Mary found herself hunting with us again this deer season, along with Travis and a couple of his friends who stayed in the bunkhouse we have here.

Mary was the first to strike. She's on a great roll. Over the last 5 years, she has shot just 5 shots total, with 5 deer being harvested. Her first day out with us was a snowy day. We didn't see a lot of deer. Only a few, but one great buck and he didn't get big by being dumb. He never let us get a shot on him before he was over the property fence. And that made him off- limits on a ranch we did not have permission to hunt. The 2nd day we decided to hunt the same place where she shot her deer last year on a piece of state lands. Sure enough, within 100 yards of where it all happened last year, it happened again this year. A nice 4 point buck for her this year. Travis and his friends all connected on nice deer around the area that week, as well. Larry and I would hun t later into the season looking over a lot of different bucks. Weather turned colder and had some snow, too, which made for some good hunting conditions. Just before Thanksgiving, I was able to find a nice deer and Larry found a nice wide deer the worth taking just the day before the season closed.

The season has to come to an end each fall. We love every day, even just being out in nature away from the stress of the world.

We hope each and every one of you, especially those who enjoy hunting yourselves, enjoys reading our summary of hunts in Montana this year. For those who hunted this year, we hope you had a good time in the great outdoors, as well.

All is well with the Adams family. Travis and Chris still both work in the Twin Cities. Travis is still in aircraft maintenance in Eden Prairie and Chris is at the dental office in St Paul. Little Jaycie will turn 3 in February. She changes so much each time we see her. What a joy she is to spend time with. There is always something new with her.

Lucas and Nikki are in the resort business with year round fishing and fall hunting. Hunter became a teenager early October. He is playing hockey again this year and loves the traditional hockey sport. Can't believe he is taller than grandma already. Madeline and Matraca are 10 years old. Never a dull moment with those two. Just can't get enough of having them around making memories together.

We are blessed getting to have all of us together this Christmas season. Best time of the year when we can all be together. We wish the same for all of our guest and friends, spending time with family and friends.

Things to talk about:

Couples special. We have heard some questioning about our pricing. Our "couples" special for Otatakan and Austin lakes, people have wondered why are we offering just the couples special in those lakes. Is there something wrong with those lakes? NOTHING is wrong with those lakes, the cabins are set up just a bit more like home. So I will take a minute and explain in case some of you have wondered, but don't ask. Here's our reasoning and the answer to the question. Marketing. Otatakan has a flush toilet. I hear it time and time again from our clients who come fishing each year. They say, only if you had a cabin with a flush toilet I would be able to talk my wife into coming on a trip like this. They say the wife wouldn't consider coming with out an indoor privy. Otatakan is a lake that the vast majority of women want to go to for this reason. Austin lake. The cabin is very nice with many extra comforts of home, because of the electricity powered by the large generator, w hich many women like.(and lots of the guys, too.) Even though it does not have a flush toilet, it has many other extra's that women like. As, we the outfitter, we want to make sure when the husbands and wives are not fishing they are enjoying the facilities too. Because we want our clients to enjoy there trips and come back in the future. Not saying our other cabins are not nice, but Otatakan and Austin we feel women would like the most in order to get the most out of their trip. The fishing is good in these lakes as well, just as our fishing reports will back up which are posted on our web site. Fishing overall last year was good, in all the lakes.

For all of our rates and specials, the link to our web site rates page is:
http://www.lmflyin.com/rates.html

Pricing starts at 900.00 per person.

Fishing lic forms

http://www.lmflyin.com/license_request.html

During the "cabin fever" days of winter, you may feel and think about your upcoming fishing trips. Feel free to be filling out the fishing license form via our web site, if you are scheduled for a fishing trip this next season. You might as well have that done and the forms sent into us ahead of time. We will hold the information until you arrive and have your paperwork filled out and ready for you to sign.

http://www.boatus.org/onlinecourse/default.asp

Any state will work, doesn't matter to us.
Take the free and easy online boaters safety course.

Last newsletter in August. We talked about a new lake we are offering this year, Meen lake. We are pleased to announce we have completed much of the remodel work to this cabin before we locked up in September. We figured we will complete it all in about 1-2 days in the spring. small jobs yet to have it ready for its grand opening this spring. Pictures are on the web site of what we have done. It looks very good. One thing you will notice in the pictures, the beds have no mattress's. Don't worry, we have those ordered and will fly in new spring - mattress's this spring before opening. Speaking of mattress's. Last year we put all new ones in Otatakan and Austin lakes. This spring we will be replacing Dobie and Wright with all new ones as well. Fishtrap and Fawcett had new ones recently so all of the lakes will have nice comfortable mattresses for the tired fishermen after a long day of catching a bunch of fish. Some other items we completed last season.We added a 2nd fridge to Fishtrap lake. New BBQ grills were added to Dobie and Fawcett in the fall of last year. We added storm doors to most of the cabin entrance doors as well, just to mention a few things we completed last season.

This holiday season will also mark the first year we are completely going to email newsletters for our holiday letter. Vast majority of the people have email, so we figure this is the best way to communicate with you this season So in saying to all of our past and present clients (and friends), if you are reading this please make sure everyone in your group and family knows we are going to the email newsletters. If by chance someone did not get this letter, we do apologize ahead of time. Please have them contact us with their email address and we'll be pleased to add them to our contact lists.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Larry, Mary, and Shane Adams

L & M Fly-In Outposts